How To Be As Prepared On The Inside As On The Outside, by A.K.

So, you have made your basement bomb-proof, installed solar panels, dug a well, and canned enough food to last ten years. You’ve engineered, on your own, a heating system that is not reliant on electricity, and you’ve rigged a longer-lasting septic system. You’ve stocked up on guns and ammo, bought night vision goggles, mapped all your exits, created an EMP-proof shelter for your electronics, stocked up on medicine and herbs, planted a garden, invested in silver, got a gas mask, and bought enough nutella and coffee for trading value.

But…are you ready?

Most prepers would reply, “More ready than that.” It may be so. That is, to say, in material needs. However, the question is: what are you preparing for? A short burst of chaos? A season of trials? A period of transition? Perhaps you’ve been preparing with the thought, just in case, while continuing to make plans for your future. Or, maybe there’s the thought in your mind that you are so well prepared that even if things go drastically bad, you’ll hardly even notice. There will be no ripples in your pond.

However, have you prepared your mind or more importantly your spirit? A season of change is upon us, and most people can feel the vibe in the air, like the static before a big storm. We all know it’s coming. It will rip through our comfortable lives and change the world we have become accustomed to; a world that has been shifting and moving through the ages but always seems to get itself upright in the end.

So, you’re ready, right?

There will inevitably come an age in human history where the world will not set itself upright again; everything will not “get better” but progressively slide downhill– all the way downhill. Are you prepared to live in a world like that? Will your water, food, and fire be enough reason for you to wake up every morning and keep going, when the chance of college, traveling, owning a home, having children or watching them grow, earning good money– everything you’ve been hoping for– have been swiped away for good?

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (Rom. 8:5-6)

Think about what category you would place yourself in; is it the carnal or the spiritual?

After the food dwindles and nothing gets better, the streets are unsafe, there’s no longer a movie theater or a bar, there is no more facebook or youtube, and after people you know have died and winters seem colder than you remember, will you still feel prepared to live this way for the rest of your life?

If you scoffed and said you have enough to even survive a zombie apocalypse, I have four words for you…

You are not ready.

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the power of heaven shall be shaken. (Luke 21:25-26)

What you are preparing for, physically, is not enough to carry you through, mentally and spiritually. Jesus said, men will quite literally die from fear of what is happening on the earth. As I look around, I see so much violence– ISIS, the threat of a world war, pandemics, government control, economic instability, and I can’t help but think we are already approaching the horizon where many people are scared of the future. So what do you have to hold onto that will supersede this material and flammable world? What will remain unchanged– strengthened even– when everything else has irreversibly been changed?

In such times of uncertainty, your spiritual state of being and what you have placed your faith in will ultimately determine how you will fare and whether you will survive. Jesus said:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

As I walk forward toward the horizon, I walk with my God– a God who has overcome the world so it cannot overcome me. A God who will part the sea for me to walk through. A God who will guide me through to green pastures. A God who gives me eternal life, even after this world has passed. He is a loving God, who lets me call Him Father.

I am prepared.

Scot’s Product Review: MRE Depot Foods

MRE Depot is one of a number of vendors that sell storage foods aimed at preppers. As the name implies, they sell MRE’s, but they also carry a number of other items of interest. While MRE’s are useful, and I think everyone should have some, the other items are, in my view, more important, as MRE’s alone are going to make for a boring diet. MRE Depot was kind enough to send six different items for me to review, and I added a seventh from my personal stores.

When I write about food, I need to give more than just my opinion. The taste panel I can conveniently herd together consists of my wife, my son, and my sister, along with myself. I figure a rundown of our tastes would be helpful. Some of this will be repetitive from past reviews, so you can skip ahead a bit if you have read those. On the other hand, if you didn’t, it might help you determine how valuable our comments are for your own needs. Please remember that everyone has different tastes, and you may love stuff we hate. That’s why I have tried a panel approach, though it is a limited panel.

I am probably the closest to a tasteless barbarian of the lot. I like a well-prepared tasty meal with fresh ingredients assembled by a talented cook, but I can get by on far less as long as mushrooms, raw tomatoes, and kimchi are out of sight. I can handle most MRE’s, but do get bored with them. Mountain House freeze-dried meals are generally satisfying as a baseline meal, though they sure don’t compare to my wife’s excellent cooking. As long as I have a good recipe, I can prepare a decent meal, though I panic over judging whether fish and meats are cooked enough, and having to improvise sends me screaming in terror from the kitchen.

My wife is on the gourmet end of the spectrum and an accomplished cook. She doesn’t need any stinking recipes to toss together a very pleasant meal from whatever she can scrounge from the kitchen. I suspect she could make something tasty from the sponge by the sink. She bores if she has the same thing too many times, which is probably about twice. She spent a fair amount of time as a French Canadian and also as an American gobbling up Maine lobsters and getting to eat in good restaurants that had chefs rather than cooks. She can spend hours watching cooking shows. MRE’s provoke threatening looks from her. She truly enjoys exotic foods from around the world, and there is little she won’t try.

My ten-year-old son likes Vietnamese and Chinese foods and will go for a number of dishes his peers panic over. He has had bouts of suspicion over some of the storage foods we have tried, as a couple of them weren’t so hot, but he seems to be getting over it. He makes some good observations on meals that surprise me with their sophistication. He does have some typical ten-year-old boy aversions to vegetables, but he likes meat in most every form. When he likes something, he will eat it for days without end. He trusts his mom’s cooking more than his dad’s and will even watch a cooking show with her.

My sister might be a cross between me and my wife. She will eat most anything but really likes quality food. She spent a lot of time living in Europe and was exposed to many cuisines. Although she is good in the kitchen, she doesn’t cook much herself, as my brother-in-law fancies himself a chef (and he is actually good at it).

Getting back to the food itself, all items except the bacon were in #2.5 cans. I like this size for my family, as we can use the food up before it goes bad or anyone gets sick of it. The bacon was in the #1 size can. While larger cans are more economical, food fatigue sometimes leads to things being thrown out. This is probably more of an issue when it is being eaten as part of rotation in normal times, rather than surviving when things have gone wrong. Your own mileage will vary according to the size and tastes of your family.

This is also repetitive from other reviews and can be skipped too, but I have decided to stop buying foods we won’t eat in normal times. It is my prayer that we never have to use this stuff in a crunch, but I have too much money tied up in it to throw it away or donate it. It has to be food we are willing to use when the time comes to rotate it. Additionally, having food that we would eat in normal times will be a huge comfort in bad ones.

Yoders Meats

The Yoders meat variety pack consists of 12 cans of meat totaling about 21 pounds of food. You get:

  • 2 Cans of Beef chunks, 14 servings of 170 calories each
  • 2 Cans Chicken chunks 14 servings of 80 calories each
  • 2 Cans Turkey chunk 14 servings of 70 calories each
  • 2 Cans Pork chunks 14 servings of 100 calories each
  • 2 Cans Hamburger 14 servings of 80 calories each
  • 2 Cans Pork Sausage 14 servings of 160 calories each

Each can has 28 Ounces in “U.S. Raised and Commercially Canned meats per can, fully cooked and ready to eat.” MRE Depot says to expect ten years of storage, and the case costs $110.00 plus shipping. All of the meats provide a fair number of calories from fat, which is something lacking from many storage kits. So if you have purchased one of those, something like this could be an excellent addition to those containers of wheat and rice as well as providing some variety in your meals.

One thing to note here is serving size. They use two ounces for a serving. Also look at the calorie count. My wife and I agreed that we would double or triple the servings, and if we were doing a lot of manual labor, would probably keep multiplying. This will vary from person to person, and these observations hold true for many other packaged food products. Think hard when you study servings and portions promised on any can.

The first thing we tried was the Pork Sausage, and it was a success. All of us liked it. It wasn’t as good as the patties our butcher made for us from the hogs we shot recently, but the stuff is tasty and enjoyable, as a breakfast side dish or for the main course for lunch or dinner. You could combine it with any number of foods. My wife thought of potatoes, and I thought of BBQ sauce and a bun. My son liked it and happily scarfed it down. My sister didn’t get to sample it, until after it had been in the fridge for four days and had, in my view, had lost some flavor, but she still approved. She didn’t like it as much as we did, but said she would have no trouble using it in rotation or in a crunch. It comes out of the can as sort of a loaf; the next time we try a can, I plan to see if it can be sliced and then fried as a patty. Frying might add some nice texture.

Next up were the Chicken Chunks. Again, it was approved by all, though we all felt it needed salt. My wife’s first reaction was “I can really make something with this!”, which was magic to my ears. Anytime she feels she can work with a food, it is a victory in my column. She gets a lot of pleasure from converting raw materials into a tasty meal, and when she approves of the ingredients I am home free. My son immediately hit it with soy sauce (I think he will drink the stuff as he does tabasco) and was well pleased. I added a bit of soy and some BBQ sauce (my universal solution to food, apparently) and was also happy. My wife sautéed potatoes and spinach, added some salt and was immediately pleased, both by her efforts and by the chicken. As usual, she made a nice meal out of things that I would have been lost with. My sister got to sample a taste of the chicken from the can and agreed it needed salt, but she said it was quite decent. The chicken itself seemed to be all white meat and was compressed into the can, which I think improved the texture. There was some broth which could have been made into a soup or ladled on to rice with good effect.

While the hamburger did not meet with quite as much favor as the chicken or pork sausage, my wife agreed that it would never go to waste. I thought it was fine but did need salt. My son became suspicious and refused to eat it as is, but suggested it would be good for a sloppy Joe. My wife then cooked some noodles and concocted a stroganoff-like sauce and combined it all into a very nice meal. My son stated that he refused to eat the hamburger by itself, but he devoured two huge servings and said it was good with the noodles and sauce. Ten-year-old boys, sigh. My sister was not around, so she didn’t get to try it, as the whole thing was consumed quickly, which means my family of three consumed the whole can along with a healthy portion of pasta. See my comments on serving size!

This report is probably starting to sound repetitive. We liked the Turkey Chunks too. They aren’t as pretty when they come from the can as the chicken. The can we sampled was mainly dark meat. My son was suspicious of the appearance, but when I used the recipe on the side of the can that called for some Worcestershire and soy sauce along with some cornstarch to thicken the broth, he gobbled up a good-sized serving and said he liked it. I did triple the amount of called for soy sauce, as he loves the stuff, and I felt it needed the saltiness. My sister liked it better straight from the can and said it would work fine in their home. She felt I had added too much soy to the broth, though. I liked it either way as did my wife.

Lest this continue to excess, the beef and pork chunks met with essentially the same reactions as the other meats. They tasted fine from the can, though bland, and my wife felt they made a “fabulous” base to work her magic on. She added BBQ sauce to the beef and made sandwiches we all enjoyed for lunch, and the pork got served with scalloped potatoes and a salad and also won culinary approval for dinner from all involved. My sister, alas, missed out on both.

Yoders Bacon

The Yoders Bacon doesn’t come in the variety case of meats but can be purchased separately at $170 for a case of 12 cans plus shipping. The bacon had what I consider the most accurate serving information. Each can has 9 ounces of bacon with 40-50 slices per can and says that there are three slices per serving at 60 calories per serving. I generally see bacon as a side dish; I’m pretty happy with the idea of three or so slices with breakfast, though I can almost always eat more of the stuff. We tried a can that has been stored for five years, and it was exactly how I remembered when we tried a can when the case first arrived. It is pre-cooked and could be eaten right out of the can, but cold bacon is a bit yucky to me. It reminds me of the pre-cooked stuff my wife sometimes buys for camping that we heat up in a pan and then devour. Neither the Yoders nor the grocery store pre-cooked bacon is as good as fresh, raw bacon sizzled to one’s taste for crispness in a frying pan, but it is still tasty and enjoyable, so there is no fear whatsoever that it won’t be eaten. A 10 year plus storage life is promised. We tried it microwaved but liked it better heated in a frying pan. I had been just getting it hot before eating it. However, my son made some and actually cooked it a bit further, and it was a lot better.

One thought that occurred to me is that cooking bacon produces great aromas, which could be a disadvantage in a survival situation. Far less is produced with this stuff since all you have to do is heat it and cook it a little, and that means you are less likely to draw the attention of those who may not be welcome for dinner. It’s one thing to invite guests’ it’s another to have unwelcome ones arrive.

Overall, we were quite pleased with all of the Yoder meats. I had already been keeping some of the bacon on hand and plan to add the other meats when the budget allows. It is bland out of the can, but that allows you to season it to your tastes, which is a good thing in my book. The primary caveat is that the servings are small, even if you aren’t doing much. If you are feeding a group of folks doing hard, manual labor, it isn’t going to go far. That said, the costs are pretty reasonable compared to what you can find in the grocery store, which will have a shorter shelf life and are usually in smaller containers.

– SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor, Scot Frank Erie

Recipe of the Week: Chicken Pot Pie Using Mostly Storage Foods, by E.S.

I don’t do much measuring when I cook, but I did my best to get pretty close measurements so I could share this. Pretty much any veggies would work in this.

Ingredients:

  • 2 poached or otherwise cooked chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 1/3 c. Augason Farms (or other) Cream of Chicken Soup Mix
  • 1 Tbs dehydrated onions
  • 3 c. water
  • 1 c. Pioneer Baking Mix (or Bisquick, or homemade version)
  • 1/2 c. milk
  • 1 egg
  • olive oil or butter
  • 1/2 of a 14.5oz. can chopped carrots
  • 3/4 of a 14.5oz can red potatoes (I use all but three of the small potatoes in the can)
  • 1/2 of a 15-oz can peas
  • 1 each small red, orange, and yellow peppers, sliced
  • 3 scallions, chopped

Directions:

  1. Bring water to a boil in a medium-sized sauce pan. Whisk in cream of chicken soup mix and dehydrated onion, reduce heat and let simmer 15 minutes.
  2. In a mixing bowl, mix the baking mix, the milk, and the egg. Set aside.
  3. Pre-heat oven to 400F.
  4. Heat a skillet over medium heat, add enough olive oil or butter, and sweat sliced bell peppers until they’re tender, about 5-8 minutes.
  5. Add the diced chicken, canned peas, carrots, and potatoes to the pan with the peppers and stir till everything is warmed through. (I deglazed the pan with a little white wine at this point.) Add the cream of chicken soup to the pan and stir to combine. (You will have leftover soup to use in something else.)
  6. Pour the chicken mixture into a greased stoneware, glass, or metal pie pan. Pour the biscuit batter over the top of the mixture in the dish.
  7. Bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

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Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlogreaders? Please send it via e-mail. Thanks!

Two Letters Re: Unified Crime Reporting

Hugh,

I work in law enforcement intelligence, and my team frequently creates policy papers, reports, and so forth that focus on crime trends. It is often tempting to use Unified Crime Reporting (UCR) statistics to make a point. Our policy is to only use that source if no other information is available, due to lack of reliability.

UCR data is collected from local, state, and federal law enforcement agency reporting. We find considerable variations in reporting standards, timing, and reliability. Different jurisdictions categorize crimes differently, and this variation causes serious doubts in the validity of UCR data.

Researchers and your readers should take studies using UCR data with a grain of salt. – ARM

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Hi guys,

The data from the UCR has a major skew resulting in the first of several downward movements resulting in changes to how crimes are defined and coded. In 1993, the DOJ changed the definitions of just about every crime, and the results begin showing in 1994. How can I know this? There are several ways; the easiest non-inside police circle secret squirrel way is to go to the UCR table tool, enter a state and all crimes, and look at the trend approaching 1994, then loom at the data for 1994. Do this for the same state for discrete crimes, such as murder, and you will see a huge decrease from 1993 to 1994.

Those stats are raw and not based on per capita. So with some analysis, the truth behind the data shows just about all crime rates are up for the last 30 years, not down. Run the per capita analysis and then glance at U.S. Census population figures for counties, and you see for yourself.

Here is an example. Texas is booming and has been for close to 20 years. Get the population for a county (Dallas County) and then take the same number of murders from the UCR for the same year, do some math to get a per capita (number of murders divided by 100,000, then multiplied up based on the population in increments of 10000). This takes 3-5 minutes per year per county. In every case you will see crime going up and up, and then as demonstrated in 1994 data, several hard corrections down, with no attributable reason.

I know the old saying “figures lie and liars figure”, but in this case some simple math will show anyone that crime rates are going up higher than per capita… except in gun rights friendly areas. – GJS

Odds ‘n Sods:

Google and other tech giants want an exemption from “Do not track” Using a search engine like DuckDuckGo, your own email server, and more will be needed if you want any hope of a level of privacy. This doesn’t even consider the NSA… – P.S.

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The Drone That Could Save You From Drowning. – P.S.

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Bring back thrift – G.G.

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U.N. sending thousands of Muslims to America. – T.P.

“The United States, with its commitment to accepting 70,000 displaced people a year, absorbs more refugees than all other countries combined. This number is understated, however, as once refugees get to the United States they are placed on a fast track to citizenship and are able to get their extended families to join them in the states under the government’s Refuge Family Reunification program.”

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From Mac Slavo at shtfplan.com: Billionaire Warns Of Massive Crash That Will Wipe Out America’s Colleges: “You’re Going To See A Repeat Of What We Saw In The Housing Market”. – B.B.

Not a surprise to anyone who has followed inflation.us in the past couple of years.

Notes for Sunday – December 28, 2014

Book Bomb Day is December 30, 2014: Tools for Survival: What You Need to Survive When You’re on Your Own

Now available for pre-ordering at Amazon.com, but I’d prefer that you wait for December 30th to order: Tools for Survival: What You Need to Survive When You’re on Your Own. This book is a guide to the selection, use, and care of tools. It will also be available as an e-book and audiobook. -JWR

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Today, we present another entry for Round 56 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $12,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course (a $1,195 value),
  2. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  3. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper with a hammer forged, chromlined barrel and a hard case to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR type rifle to have quick change barrel which can be assembled in less then one minute without the use of any tools and a compact carry capability in a hard case or 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  4. Gun Mag Warehouse is providing 30 DPMS AR-15 .223/5.56 30 Round Gray Mil Spec w/ Magpul Follower Magazines (a value of $448.95) and a Gun Mag Warehouse T-Shirt. An equivalent prize will be awarded for residents in states with magazine restrictions.
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear,
  7. A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value),
  8. A $300 gift certificate from Freeze Dry Guy,
  9. A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo,
  10. KellyKettleUSA.com is donating both an AquaBrick water filtration kit and a Stainless Medium Scout Kelly Kettle Complete Kit with a combined retail value of $304,
  11. TexasgiBrass.com is providing a $300 gift certificate, and
  12. Two cases of meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Second Prize:

  1. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  2. A FloJak EarthStraw “Code Red” 100-foot well pump system (a $500 value), courtesy of FloJak.com,
  3. Acorn Supplies is donating a Deluxe Food Storage Survival Kit with a retail value of $350,
  4. The Ark Instituteis donating a non-GMO, non-hybrid vegetable seed package–enough for two families of four, seed storage materials, a CD-ROM of Geri Guidetti’s book “Build Your Ark! How to Prepare for Self Reliance in Uncertain Times”, and two bottles of Potassium Iodate– a $325 retail value,
  5. $300 worth of ammo from Patriot Firearms and Munitions. (They also offer a 10% discount for all SurvivalBlog readers with coupon code SVB10P),
  6. A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials,
  7. Twenty Five books, of the winners choice, of any books published by PrepperPress.com (a $270 value),
  8. TexasgiBrass.com is providing a $150 gift certificate,
  9. Organized Prepper is providing a $500 gift certificate, and
  10. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
  3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security,
  5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances,
  6. APEX Gun Parts is donating a $250 purchase credit,
  7. Montie Gear is donating a Y-Shot Slingshot and a Locking Rifle Rack (a $379 value).

Round 56 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

The Importance of Bushcraft and Survival During TEOTWAWKI, by M.R.

You’ve all seen it. Hollywood makes films of a plane crash or shipwreck that cause only one or a few survivors to end up on a deserted island. He or she– the main character– frantically panics at first, maybe even screaming. Then a few months go by, the camera cuts back to him or her, and now this person is an advanced survivalist with a wide variety of skills and gear. They seamlessly kill and eat animals and make impractical but cool looking shelters. Then, he, for the sake of drama, is faced with some dire problem and has to overcome it with only his wits.

Of course, this is just for entertainment purposes and is nothing like REAL survival. Real survival is horrible. This is just the plain and simple truth. Hollywood wouldn’t make much money, if the whole time there was just some city boy struggling to recreate the bow drill that he’d seen on TV one time to get a fire going. They just wouldn’t make money if they showed some surfer girl from California frantically throwing sticks in a big pile to make “shelter”. Similarly, no profit would come from the sad outcome that most unprepared people face in a true survival situation. In real shipwrecks and plane crashes, even the people who initially survive the crash die a few days later from making common mistakes, such as drinking ocean water and pee, misidentifying poisonous plants and snakes, or something else. Survival, in all truthfulness, is never pretty or entertaining.

The truth is that even experienced survivalists, with their survival kits or gear, die sometimes when put through nature. Of course, with that being said, most of the time, basic knowledge and skills or gear can be a huge asset if you ever were lost in the wilderness or, for today’s purposes, the SHTF. So, let’s set up a scenario to get you thinking along the same lines as I am.

Let’s us say that you and your wife get back from work, and you sit down on the couch to watch football while your wife begins to prepare dinner. She kindly asks you to go pick the kids up from school. You unwillingly stand up and begin to leave. She says something like, “Don’t forget to talk to Matt’s teacher when you get there” or “Klay has been having trouble with his asthma recently, so bring him the inhaler from the pharmacy.” You hop in the car and dutifully drive to the pharmacy to pick the inhaler up and then drive to the high school to pick up your two oldest. After that, you go to the local kindergarten and get your youngest. You turn on the radio as you drive back to the house, but then, all of the sudden, the radio shuts off and the car slides to a stop. Sparks start shooting out of your radio, and then the engine catches fire. A semi truck slams into the car adjacent you. Your immediate instinct is to jump out of of the car, but the lock is jammed so you break the window and exit quickly. After you are out of harm’s way, you have time to ask what just happened.

You find out that ALL electricity, almost without exception, is gone. You, without any survival knowledge whatsoever, are forced to find your way home. You have stored food and other preps at home. However, none of it will matter, unless you make it home. In essence, you let your entire family down because you didn’t know what to do and how to survive off the land. The truth is that you could’ve made it home quickly and easily if you had had only some basic navigation skills and some basic hunting, fishing, and trapping know-how, but you didn’t know how. So all of your prepping was futile. One EMP hits, when you don’t have your preps close by, and you die almost instantly.

Obviously, there are various situations where you would need to get home when the SHTF, but what about when you need to get OUT of home. Yes, survivalism does play a key role in almost all realistic bug out plans. For another scenario, let’s consider that you and your family were already home when the SHTF, and you have been waiting out the riots in your house with your preps. You begin to fear that looting may spread into your neighborhood, and just as that thought crosses your mind, a Molotov cocktail flies through your window exploding on impact. You grab what you can and run out the back door with your family. Luckily, you make it into the woods, away from all of the crime and the chaos. Your kids are distraught because the house is burned down.

All you managed to grab was your bug out bag, a small 22. rifle, and some take down arrows. What you do with those can be the difference between life and death. A wise survivalist would know of several uses for each tool and exactly how to use them, but you are not a wise survivalist. On the contrary, you aren’t a survivalist at all. You have no clue what to do; you throw the arrows away and lighten your load by getting rid of some of the gear in your back pack. Unfortunately, you lightened your load a bit too much; a month later all of your kids are dead from starvation, and your wife is dead from exposure. You wish you hadn’t left those take down arrows because you could have used them for a handmade bow, which could have provided you with food without making as much noise as the rifle. You also wish that you hadn’t relied on your own primitive fire-starting skills so much that you had left your lighter at the house so that you could have kept your family warm and protected them with shelter. So, now that you know the why, it’s time to learn the what and how.

What is survivalism and how does it differ from prepping. Survivalism is the skill of Bushcraft, and it holds within its own category things like hunting, trapping, fishing, fire starting, shelter making, water purifying, and more. It differs from prepping, because it is more orientated on living off the land with little or no equipment, while prepping tends to focus on using your gear to keep your lifestyle as happy and healthy as possible during catastrophes. There is a lot of crossover between the two terms, and the reason for that is because they go hand in hand. Prepping can never be realistic unless you have survivalism to supplement it and vice versa. The point I’m trying to make is that you must have survivalism in order to prep. There is just no way around it.

So, now you know you must have, at the very least, some basic survival knowledge. Where do you start? Well, you can begin by reading some books and watching some YouTube videos. Remember, the Internet has almost everything on it. You just need to know where to look. I will supply you with some knowledge, nevertheless.

  • Never drink pee! It will dehydrate you more if you do so. The high ammonia and salt presence within the urine will in fact make you sick, despite what some may say. A good way of making urine or salt water potable is called distilling. One method of distilling, commonly used by survivalists, is to make a solar still. Use the Internet to help you figure out what that is and how to make one.
  • Do not guess whether plants or insects are edible…ever! Only make well-educated decisions. Making a mistake would almost definitely kill you. Various apps and field manuals have good guides to know exactly what you can and what you can not eat.
  • Never expend more energy on food than will be given back by whatever you eat! Don’t spend a lot of strenuous activity to get one coconut, so on and so forth.
  • If you have a non-digital watch, then you can find what direction is true north. Point the hour hand at the sun and bisect that with the 12 o’clock mark and the end result is none other than true North. That will massively help you with navigation, if you do not have a compass.
  • In order to start a fire, various methods could be used in a survival situation. Learn those methods. When the time comes, choose which one is best for your situation. Some possibilities are: bow drill, fire plow, fire drill, and flint and steel. In general, remember that friction creates heat, and heat creates fire! Therefore, make max friction. Books and TV shows are great for learning all of those different ways to start a fire also.
  • Oh, no! You are super thirsty, and the only water in sight is a murky swamp! You dare not drink from that, because various bacteria and poop may be in the water. You have no immediate means of purifying it, so what do you do? The answer is to move four feet away from the edge of the water and dig a hole approximately two feet deep. Remember that water seeks its own level, so naturally the water from the swamp should filter through all of the dirt and sand and end up forming a muddy puddle in the bottom of your dug hole. This process may take a while, but it will be much better than risking it on drinking swamp water. The water that collects may still look dirty, but no bacteria or sediment will have had time to develop, which means pure water!
  • Keep your knives sharp and well oiled, and in general, take good care of all of your survival gear so that when the time comes, they’ll take care of you.
  • Remember, also, that you need to put your skills into practice. Everything I’ve just listed are things that can be practiced, and thus, should be practiced.

In conclusion, I’ve shown you why survival is important to prepping, what survival is, how it differs from prepping, and how to become a basic survivalist. Never underestimate the importance of survivalism and keeping your survival knowledge sharpened. I hope that you learned a lot and were entertained. God bless you.

Letter Re: Armor Plate

The thing about armor plate on a vehicle is it’s really heavy. The point of a vehicle is that it moves. Also, the engine, transmission, and suspension are all built for the specific weight of the vehicle, not a couple thousand pounds of steel. If you add the weight of armor, you have to upgrade everything, or modify it to go slower with the existing system, without flipping over or disabling itself. Top Gear, a car show in the UK, actually tried this with SUVs a couple years ago. It did not work well.

DIV Bond Car Pt. 1 video

The Math:

3/8 inch steel plate weighs 15.32 pounds ref: http://www.turnersteelcoinc.com/html/plates.html A school bus is up to 46 feet long and 10 wide. If you ignore the roof but armor the floor and engine compartment, that’s around 46 long * 10 high * 3 sides + 10 * 10 * 2 (front and rear) = 1380 sq ft longways + 100 each front and rear ends = 1580 sq feet total, leaving the roof unarmored. At 15.32 lbs per square foot of 3/8 inch steel, that’s 24,205 pounds of steel.

That’s more than 12 tons. The bus itself weight between five and ten tons, depending on how it is made, so you’re looking at a vehicle weighing around 17 tons, before you put living quarters, water tanks, fuel, or sleeping accommodations inside, and it is now heavy enough to be of concern crossing certain bridges and overpasses and heavy enough to potentially cause landslides on unreinforced roads. Does any of that sound wise?

If you add lots of armor plate, you also change the point of balance, making the vehicle top heavy, so it has to go slower around corners. If you DO opt for heavy steel armor plate to cover a bus to its roof and underneath like an MRAP, that’s even worse.

Overweight vehicles are currently of interest to both the highway patrol and homeland security, both for taxes and potential threat, since they might be bombs rather than armor plate. While they won’t set off gamma ray detectors on the interstate system, thankfully, they will certainly require lots of stops at the commercial truck weigh stations, and they become interesting to the more paranoid law enforcement.

It is probably a better idea to have a conventional cheerful snow bird fiberglass RV that draws no attention, staying at the usual upscale RV parks and sporting the Good Sam equivalent bumper sticker broadcasting how harmless you are, possibly distracting with talk about how much fun it was to restore the RV from the rotting hulk it was when you bought it cheap at an estate sale auction. Look like a tourist couple, and hide a gun locker in the floor. An RV won’t draw attention and gets a free pass moving around, because you’re retired tourists seeing America, not hippie/trimmers carrying a hundred pounds of dope and begging for a DEA raid, which is what most people think when seeing a converted school bus. I’m just saying. Sincerely, – I.K.

Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.” John 4:50-53 (KJV)