Category: Traditional Skills/Fieldcraft

A Bug Out Bag Reality Check, by Stranger

I thought I would share some thoughts on my weekend bug out bag guerrilla camping trip. My purpose was to use my BOB in the manner in which I expected to have to use it in an emergency. My general plan has been to get away from people, camp with stealth, and wait for the dust to clear.  With this in mind I mostly want to put my gear through its paces and get my body used to the rigors of backpacking. I live in central Connecticut.  I am a man in my 40s and have a dropped foot in …


Letter Re: Self Sufficiency Christmas Gifts on a Budget

Just a note to Richard C. and others who are interested in creating books from public-domain sources. I think it’s a great idea to give knowledge as a gift, especially in the form of books. However, I’m not sure that Richard’s plan is an economical one. Most people have ink-jet printers, with high cost ink cartridges. Plus the added danger of the risk of fading and lack of water-fastness in most ink-jet inks might make the information unusable for the long term. Another option is using a laser printer, which will deliver a lower cost per page and will have …


Learning Traditional Skills, by R.I.P.

1

There is only one sure thing about plans: at some point they have a good chance of failing. Not necessarily because the plans were faulty, but because it is nearly impossible to plan for everything. The universe has a way of ensuring that we get to experience the widest range of possibilities. So what if, after all your preparing, storing food, water, fuel, fortress etc., etc, what if you suddenly do not have access to all of that? We don’t have to go through all the ways that this might happen, I’ll let your imagination work on that. So, could …


Cross-Training for TEOTWAWKI Preparedness, by Beau F.

I’ve been preparing for a number of years now and found a great way to prepare others in your group as well. I realized a long time ago that I could not survive alone. Now that I have a family, and close like minded friends, I realize that I don’t have to. A couple of years ago I really started stockpiling my “tactical” gear. I would buy a lot of ammo, good mags, the right tactical clothing, and so on. I started reading up on certain things that would be helpful in a TEOTWAWKI situation and would start to practice …


Letter Re: Self Sufficiency Christmas Gifts on a Budget

Dear Mr. Rawles, My mom gave me a copy of your novel “Patriots” a couple years ago for Christmas. I am married but because college debt and being unemployed for seven months before finding my next job my wife and I do not have much money, (BTW, after reading your book my wife and I saved every penny we could and are now debt free) I have been trying to stash away survival gear, beans, bullets and band-aids, and I have been looking for affordable survival books. In my search for inexpensive books I found out that I could download …


Letter Re: A Source for Free Firewood

Hello Jim, Firstly, I would like to thank you for your books and all the information you make available on your blog. The last three years have been very hard on my family and I, but have given us a needed shove to be prepared for what life can throw at us. The information we have gained from you and your site has been invaluable. I thought I would let you know of a free source for firewood. I work for a large pallet company. Every day we bring in many truck loads of broken pallets to be repaired. Pallets …


Our Preps are Portable, by Dan W.

Prepping has a distinct vein that runs through each choice my family has made to better prepare ourselves for the possibility of the social upheaval that seems to be inching nearer each and every day. Our preps are portable. They have to be, due to the uncertainty of where my family will be in the near future. Over the last six years my family has moved six times, as my jobs changed and the family grew. Due to this movement, the rising price of houses in our area, and being at the very beginning of my earning curve made buying …


Letter Re: Low Cost Merino Wool Clothing

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers: I would suggest as an alternative to buying wool clothing is to shop the fabric stores for Wool Fabric and practice your sewing skills. I have found 100% wool on clearance for as cheap as $1.99/yard with the average width of 54 inches In Shopping for wool fabrics, you will find a lot of blends. I recommend not purchasing anything with more than 30% mix of synthetic material (example: 70% wool/ 30% nylon). I also find that blends with natural materials to be completely acceptable (example: 50% wool/50% silk). As a note: synthetic materials and fire do …


Lighting a Fire Under Myself, by Matthew B.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” – Robert A. Heinlein Heinlein’s quote leaves me feeling about half an inch tall and roughly the length of a worker bee. I was raised to trust God, not government, and my education through …


Letter Re: Amish Populations Bugging Out

JWR- Regarding this recently posted link: Amish populations bugging out, gradually heading west, Southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon have been under “invasion” for a number of years, mainly by Amish Mennonites – an offshoot of the Old Order Amish. Unlike the other invaders from California and other urban high populations who bring with them all their problems, attitudes and sometimes rudeness, these are good quality people who bring with them many fine qualities, morals and values. They are respectful and genuine. Most are skilled carpenters or have similar “hands-on” skills. While they tend to keep to themselves as far as …


Long-Term Preparedness and the Eight Mechanical Arts, by J.D.

It’s one thing to prepare for an unexpected event that you can ride out in the course of a week or two; secure, defensible shelter that functions without the grid, a store of food and water, and stockpiles of essentials such as ammo and medical supplies may be more than enough to last until the disaster passes and social order is restored. But what about long-term survival in the face of TEOTWAWKI?  I’ve always found it instructive to study how we lived before 20th-century innovations such as electricity and refrigeration and potable water piped right into the kitchen. It wasn’t …


Shifting to Tangibles in an Age of Inflation

I’m often asked by my consulting clients why I put so much emphasis investing in tangibles rather than in traditional investments that are denominated in United States dollars. The problem with dollar-denominated investments is that they are vulnerable to inflation of the currency unit itself. The U.S. governments over-spending and deep indebtedness is bound to catch up with it someday. And when it does, inflation and economic ruin will be the result. But there is protection from inflation. If the majority of you assets are in tangibles and they are in your immediate possession, then you will be insulated from …


Letter Re: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Ike, by John in Texas

Jim, I really appreciate the people who share their lessons learned on SurvivalBlog.com, so I thought I would share my experiences and lessons learned from Hurricane Ike. Hurricane Ike hit Houston on Friday night September 13, 2008.  The hurricane was classified as a strong category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 110 MPH.  What was unusual about this hurricane was the large size of the storm.  Hurricane force winds extended 120 miles from the center.  Gas stations in our area ran out of gas the day before the storm (Thursday).  I waited in a very long line of cars only …


Advice on a One Man Git Kit, by J.S.I.

Growing up in a family which camped a lot, the family slang for what is now usually called the B.O.B. was “the Git Kit.”  As I am now an ossified old coot, I reserve the right to keep calling it just that. Something I have noticed in most written descriptions of BOBs/Git Kits is a generality of speech bordering on the uselessly vague.  No weights, no measures, no manufacturers, no clues!  It’s enough to give  Horace Kephart’s ghost a ripping case of hives. With that in mind, I dug into my gear with the goal of providing a more detailed, …


Letter Re: Learning from Living History Interpretors

Jim, D.R.W.’s essay titled “Learning from Living History Interpretors” describes a very clever and practical way to learn to do things as our ancestors did. He has hit on a great plan. In a TEOTWAWKI situation, we may not be starting from scratch–i.e. with only a rock and a sharp stick–but we will need to have skills that are foreign to almost all of us today. Those skills will restore a sense of community and division of labor. What better way to restore civilization, therefore, than to learn useful skills that will be beneficial to ourselves and others? Learning to …