11 Disturbing Charts About The Chinese Economy
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“Waiting For Armageddon” – Say It Isn’t So? – B.C.
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Items from Mr. Econocobas:
Europe Tumbles As Banks Lose All 2014 Gains
The Wall Street “Escape Velocity” Scam: GDP Forecasts Fizzling For Fourth Straight Year
Time For Regime Change At The Eccles Building: Interest Rate Pegging Is Destroying Capitalism
The Office Of Refugee Resettlement – Facilitators For A ‘Manufactured Human Crisis’. – B.B.
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An example of just how “out of touch” with reality the average person is. Steven Spielberg Slammed Online For ‘Killing’ Triceratops. – T.P.
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Man Finds FBI Tracking Device on Car, Posts Photos Online, Gets Visit From FBI . – G.L.
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Poor ATF. Too many guns… not enough “capacity” to track them all… Report: Government Agency Doesn’t Have Capacity to Track Illegal Gun Sales
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Downloading Tor could have landed you on an NSA watch-list. – D.S.
“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” – James Madison
Today we present another entry for Round 53 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $11,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 53 ends on July 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.
I occasionally prowl prepper forums to read the opinions being expressed on various survival-related matters. Some people offer opinions that provide excellent insight into a particular problem or concern. Other people offer opinions that reveal profoundly weird or nonsensical views about issues. Of course, that situation certainly isn’t limited to the field of preparedness.
I recently saw a posting on a forum by someone who asked whether, in making his preparations for a possible societal collapse, he should acquire “pass out” guns to hand out to his neighbors who, though mildly interested in survival matters when he discussed it with them, were unwilling to buy firearms at this time. He also asked for suggestions about which guns he should buy for them, in case he ever found it necessary to arm them after “the balloon went up”.
Many of those who responded to his query said he should go ahead and buy the guns. Since this could involve the expenditure of considerable funds, surplus Moisin Nagant rifles, Mossberg shotguns, Maverick shotguns, Hi-Points automatic pistols, and various .22 LR firearms were recommended as being serviceable weapons that he might consider and which wouldn’t deplete his bank account too much.
Others who responded flatly with an objection stated that he should not give these people guns if they were not trained to use them. Others warned him that arming neighbors was a bad idea because these people were likely to turn on him with their new firearms.
In my opinion, if this is the world view of the people with these latter opinions and if it is based on their current circumstances, these people probably need to move to a new neighborhood, but, then again, that’s just me and my opinion.
My comments that follow here are intended to be applied to a “World Gone Feral” (WGF), where no help from local authorities can be expected in the foreseeable future and where everyone is simply on their own during a period of dramatic and prolonged social chaos. To be very clear, it is not about OPSEC violations and the wisdom of revealing your personal preparations to neighbors in advance of social chaos. It is not an in-depth discussion about choosing the best defensive tactics when defending a neighborhood. It is also not about charitable motivations or concerns about helping your neighbors in times of need. It is simply about how you and your family will be safer if you are surrounded by armed neighbors who are able to help you and your family make it intact through serious and prolonged societal chaos.
Jim Rawles nails it when he says that people will be safer post-TEOTWAWKI if they have others on which they can depend for support and who can help contribute to security needs. To suggest, as some do, that it is always best to go it alone is, in a word, suicide–or at least, it very well could be.
Be serious. You, your spouse, and your eight and five year old children can’t maintain adequate security 24 hours a day at your lakeside retreat, two bedroom walk-up apartment in the city, or suburban tri-level. While it may not “take a village” to be as safe as possible, you will likely need more than you, your spouse, and a couple of kids to provide a safe environment after “The End of The World as We Know It.”
I suppose that those who are able to construct a homestead so deep in the wilderness that no one could ever find them might make it on their own, if they have enough physical resources there, but it’s because their very remoteness is their primary (and passive) security measure. They do not believe that they need to take active security measures in providing for their safety because their sheer distance from other elements of society provides enough security. Yet, living so deep in the wilderness is not a realistic, or at least an acceptable, option for most people for all kinds of reasons. Some reasons people choose not to live in the wilderness is because they want to earn a decent income, have access to professional medical treatment, or be able to socialize their kids with other children, or simply because they are not willing to spend their whole lives waiting for society to collapse, so figuring out how to keep safe while in close contact with others is a problem that most of us need to address and figure out.
So let’s consider just how most of us, who live in more typical environments with others, might deal in the best way possible with our security needs when it really matters after the WGF.
First, about how many neighbors might need to be armed in order to provide a decent level of security, considering that conventional U.S. Army tactics provide for one defender to meet three attackers. A brigade defends against a division, for example. The reason for this is easy to understand. A unit on the defense that is dug in and ready finds it easier to defend ground against a much larger force that has to maneuver in front of it.
While this formula won’t work across the board in a WGF, due to the fact that the bad guys might be much better armed, and your neighbors may well have inferior skills and training, it is unlikely that you will need to meet the bad guys one-on-one.
Whether or not neighbors can “hit the broadside of a barn from inside the barn” with the weapons that they have newly acquired from your personal inventory, at worst, these neighbors will be able to serve as early warning devices for the neighborhood, much like watch dogs that bark but which aren’t inclined to actually attack intruders.
If the need arises, even a volunteer “computer nerd” or a volunteer “soccer mom” posted on the neighborhood perimeter who have never held a gun, much less squeezed a trigger until this very day, can begin firing rounds and make the bad guys duck and cover for a couple of critical minutes. While doing so, they will alert others to the danger.
When this happens, they can give more capable members of the neighborhood “rapid reaction force” time to arrive and to deal with the threat. The bad guys may even be in a total state of confusion, while they attempt to figure out where the shooter is and how to advance safely on the shooter’s position. Hopefully, they will waste a precious couple of minutes trying to figure out whether this defender can shoot the wings off a mosquito at a hundred yards or whether they can even hit the inside of that barn. This time interval could be critical, and it could save lives on your side of the fight.
Can you possibly believe that it would be better for you and your family for the computer nerd or soccer mom to cower unarmed in a basement when the bad guys arrive, or for them to spot the bad guys and simply yell helplessly from the far side of the cul-de-sac and do nothing else?
If your paramount concern is you and your family’s security, from a purely pragmatic (not cynical) perspective, you and your family will likely be better off even if the computer nerd and soccer mom ultimately sacrifice themselves while providing this critical interval in which you and your rapid reaction force can properly deal with the threat. Also, just how well served will the computer nerd and the soccer mom and their families be if they sit quietly out of the fight and become “victims in progress,” all the while hoping against hope that the bad guys will just go away and someone else will make things better? As has been said in a different context, “’Hope and change’ is not a strategy.”
Try to think like a predator would think post-TEWOTWAWKI. Consider this scenario:
A leader and his buddies are cruising down the road in vehicles straight out of “Road Warrior.” They are decked out in full “battle rattle” and each of them is armed with an AR or AK, and each of them has several full magazines for their weapons. At the same time, they also have empty stomachs and almost empty fuel tanks for their vehicles. The situation is getting grim for them. (These same predators may have been a respected high school physical education teacher, a customer service rep, or a Sam’s Club cashier just three months earlier, but I’ll save the discussion of that transition for another article.)
The predators first pass a small subdivision where people are observed to be socializing or walking around in Ray-Bans, t-shirts, and flip-flops. A half-mile further down the road, they pass a subdivision where people are observed to be walking the perimeter and performing security functions at the entrances, while carrying shotguns and black rifles slung from their shoulders or carried at the ready position. Assume that this fellow and his predator buddies have gone to “the dark side” in the last three months, and that they are now desperate, and that conventional senses of morality have no effect on any decision they make in their effort to meet their needs. Assume, further, that they have decided to strike some new target that night. With those factors in mind, which of the two potential subdivisions described above poses the best risk–to-benefit ratio for this predator and his buddies?
This was not a trick question.
An armed neighborhood would give the clear impression to potential predators that your turf is not the “low hanging fruit” in the area. It will not serve you and your neighbors well to have an invisible but obvious “Kick Me” sign on your backs. While it may not be a serious issue in the first couple of weeks, sooner or later, appearing to be a soft target only invites trouble. After a societal collapse, as soft targets are hit one-by-one, if your neighborhood appears to be easy pickings, it is just a matter of time before the wolves get around to your part of the flock. In a feral world, predators almost always attack the old, the weak, and the young. In a post-TEOTWAWKI situation that is completely out of control, add to those traditional victim categories the unarmed.
I was a prosecutor for several years. I never, ever had a case involving purse snatching when the victim wasn’t an older woman or a small woman. Again, choosing such victims was simply part of a risk-to-benefit ratio that even the “perp” with the 80 IQ could calculate. Predators almost always do the math.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum.” This translates, “If you want peace, prepare for war”– Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus in De Re Militari. In addition, leaders, from the Emperor Hadrian to President Reagan, have used the phrase “Peace through strength”. I feel confident that ol’ Vegetius, Hadrian, and, God bless him, Ronnie, would also agree with my paraphrasing when I say, “If you want peace, appear to be prepared for war” and “Peace through the appearance of strength”.
Socialist radical Saul Alinsky, who is hardly a role model in this discussion, did express a sentiment that you should keep in mind, “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have”. Simply appearing to be strong surely won’t be the solution in every situation, but it’s certainly likely to help you in many situations, and it just may get you through a crisis with you, your family, and your neighbors safe and intact.
As an example of this, a couple of years ago, I read on this fine blog a posting by a former Los Angeles Police Department officer (or perhaps a senior LAPD officer now). He was a young patrolman with the LAPD during the 1992 Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles. He mentioned that while many store owners fled their stores and found them looted when they returned after order was restored, many Koreatown shopkeepers and merchants armed themselves and guarded their businesses so as to prevent looting. Just their appearance while armed and on rooftops and in front of their stores kept most potential looters at bay.
If you search, you can find videos of shots actually being fired by these store owners on YouTube during this riot, but this LAPD officer pointed out how successful most of these shopkeepers’ efforts were, and that, most of the time, gunshots weren’t necessary to keep the scum away. Of particular interest here is that he also said that it was a little known fact that some of these Koreans were actually armed with toy guns. The mere appearance of guns in their hands, however, was sufficient to cause most of the looters to try their luck elsewhere. Once again, the denizens of LA’s uneducated, bottom-feeding, and lawless class were perfectly capable of calculating the risk-to-benefit ratio, and they found it wanting in significant parts of Koreatown.
Put simply, after everything has gone to pot, in a world Without Rule of Law, it is very unlikely to be in your interest and your neighbors’ interest to appear to be living in “a gun free zone”.
Some have suggested that it would be a good idea to merely make one’s home look abandoned and already looted. This is supposed to cause the bad guys to look elsewhere. All I can say about that idea is that even if you are personally willing to do this, the level of societal chaos will need to have sunk to Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell before most of your spouses will allow your homes to be trashed enough to fool the bad guys. (That first “shucking” action you hear is likely to be coming from your wife with the 12 ga. Mossberg 500 behind you.) Also, if your neighbors refuse to follow your example by trashing the external appearance of their own homes, just how is that going to help you very much in keeping the bad guys away from the area?
About the only time I can even imagine that it would not be in your interest to let potential predators know that you and your neighbors are armed to the teeth is when an ambush is planned. That may work in novels. In real life? Not so much. Trying to execute a serious ambush would be far beyond the capabilities of most people who have never fired weapons.
If you think that a group of marginally experienced neighbors should keep weapons hidden so as to sucker unknowing bad guys into an ambush, and that this is a really great idea, you probably also draw to inside straights when playing poker. Why would you ever want to invite an attack from predators who have misjudged the risk and mistakenly believe that your group is weak? In combat operations, the military is required to coldly calculate what are determined to be acceptable losses. Someone, perhaps Robert E. Lee, but I am not sure, said something to the effect that victories are purchased with the lives of men. Who among your family, your brothers, your friends, or your neighbors do you consider “expendable” in situations such as these?
The old adage is that “the best way to survive a gun fight is to avoid a gun fight”, and the logic is beyond dispute. Let predators believe, rightly or wrongly, that attacking you and your neighbors is going to be very dangerous and that “the game is not worth the candle”. Let them believe that attacking you will be very costly to them, at best, and let them believe that, even if they can hurt your group very badly, the result would still be very close to ”Mutually Assured Destruction”.
Before I close here, about that idea of neighbors turning on you with their new firearms, I am reminded of Cody Lundin’s remark when he and Joe Teti were in a bad place in some scorched, dry climate and came across a fetid pool of water. He posed a question and asked whether or not it was a good idea to drink from it. He answered his own question in words to the effect of, “Sure. You may be in a hospital wretching your guts out in three days, but it’s better than dying from dehydration by tomorrow morning.” Applying that logic here, living six months after arming your neighbors is better than dying in three weeks after going it alone. The crisis may be ended or substantially better in six months, and the conflict with your neighbors may never occur.
My view here is that if you have the financial resources to buy extra firearms to hand out to friends and neighbors in a very serious crisis, then you should seriously consider buying these firearms. Each one may represent an insurance policy that pays off handsomely for you and your family. What is the downside for having the ability to do this if you decide that it is in your interest to do it?
There surely would be a great upside and no downside if you had this option, and it’s not as if these firearms have expiration dates on them. The worst case scenario is that, if nothing else, you would have exceptionally valuable barter items after the collapse.
As long as you’re at it, don’t forget to buy adequate quantities of ammo for these firearms that, otherwise, would be large paperweights or clubs. This ammo will also be a terrific barter item, something that is likely to be the new “coin of the realm” post-TEOTWAWKI.
“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.” -Rudyard Kipling
I read the TB article linked to at SurvivalBlog. The comment section in it explains why we have a problem– all NYT liberals wanting to save the world…
Charity, while noble, should be private and personal. (I am not an organized church believer, so even that meets with my disdain, as example the harboring of the illegals being advanced by so called church “Christians” now, all Marxists in sheeps clothing….)
The influx of illegals now will cause a health crisis so that should be the number one concern; close the borders.
Thank you for all the work you do.
I am a legal immigrant and permanent resident alien. The term doesn’t bother me at all. Changing the words used allows the left to define the battleground to their advantage. Nomenclature shades the tides of discourse (war) against us. Instead of “pro choice” being countered with “pro life”, it should be “murder”. An even better term is cannibalism of our babies, where we have pictures on hand. The same “undocumented worker” versus “illegal alien” are terms used to create shock and awe, which isn’t just for the physical battlefield. Be well. Best wishes
Another article on Nagin: Gun-Confiscating Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison – D.C.
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Man Who Shot at Cops During No-Knock Raid Acquitted on All Charges . – T.P.
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Another victim/target rich environment for criminal activity: Store Ignores Obvious Signs, Goes Overboard With Its Anti-Gun Policy – JBG
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I am not one for these kind of shows. However, this one is worth watching. It shows just how screwed up the justice system is. Despite the fact that a strong body of evidence and human evidence showed otherwise, one of the convicted innocents was forced to sign an admission of guilt to finally get her freedom. This case shows just how sad the prosecutor in the case was to have railroaded the wrong person and even then, when there was plenty of evidence to the contrary, forced the poor woman to admit guilt to go “free.” If you have the time, find it and watch it. Dateline – NBC – RBS
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Democrat Congressman: Tax Drivers for Every Mile They Drive. – T.P.
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.” – James 1:12(KJV)
Ready Made Resources has just increased the discount on Mountain House’s favorite entrees from 32 to 40%.
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Scot Frank Erie, SurvivalBlog’s Field Gear Editor also weighed in on the discussion about Basementless Storage with this comment:
“Since I have the issue of lack of storage in air conditioned space and in a hot and humid climate, I have followed this closely on the Blog. I wanted to suggest a couple of comments. The Zeer type pot requires dry air to function. It probably won’t work in the Southeast. I remember being excited to read about them and then disappointed to discover that key fact. They also add humidity to an atmosphere, which is not a bad thing in the desert but not helpful in the Gulf Coast area. Second, once a well-insulated space gets hot, the insulation keeps it hot. I discovered this when trying to keep photography stuff cool in my car by using a cooler. Sometimes the film in the cooler stayed hot overnight while everything else had cooled down by 9 or 10 PM. “
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Today we present another entry for Round 53 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $11,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 53 ends on July 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.
Much of today’s survival discussion focuses on storing freeze-dried and canned foods and hunting game with guns. For the long term we can grow gardens, resume agricultural food production, and keep domesticated animals, just like our ancestors did in the 1800’s. However, what can we do for short-term food, without the stores, garden harvest, and chicken coops? One positive scenario is we can learn how to be good foragers and hunter-gatherers.
An advantage of hunter-gatherer hunting techniques for today’s survivalist is that they are quiet. Trapping a rabbit in a snare or a net trap doesn’t give away your position quite like the loud report from your rifle.
Early human hunter-gatherer societies started developing modern hunting techniques many thousands of years ago, before the domestication of livestock, and the evidence of early man at the start of argriculture show hunting was a source of about a third of the human diet. The development of hunting tools had advanced from rocks and clubs with the development of the bow and arrows. There is fossil evidence for the use of spears in Asia for hunting. Hunter-gathering lifestyles still exist in some remote locations but are now mostly seen in old National Geographic magazines and TV documentary films.
Alex Czartoryski and others have reported on some of the cultures still practicing hunting-gatherer lifestyles until the recent past. Some of these include tribes along the Amazon (Piraha and Ache), the African San people and Kalahari bushmen, the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands, The Vedda of Sri Lanka, the Fayu of New Guinea, the Miabri tribesmen of Laos, the Batak of the Western Philippines, and the Hazda of Tanzania, Africa.
In a true survival situation, surrounded by hungry people scavenging and foraging for food, I would prefer not to announce that I might have killed something to eat with loud gunfire. What are the best ways to hunt for meat without shooting your gun?
First, let me say that all the techniques described herein for hunting any species, out of season, without a license, in a regulated location, are for discussion purposes and only for emergency purposes.
We all know from watching Hawaii Five O about the use of a cast net for catching fish. The same net can be used effectively for catching small mammals and birds. Throwing a net takes some practice, but it is easy to use the net as a concealed trap laying on the ground to surprise small game.
One of the easiest and most neglected methods for hunting is with a net. Early men and women used natural fibers from grasses and bark fibers to weave thread and make strings and cords that could be used to make snares and nets to trap birds and small animals for food.
I think everyone should consider purchasing a 6’-8’ diameter net with a ½ inch mesh for their BOB. It weighs about a pound but is worth it. It requires very little training to put down a hunting net trap where large birds or small game have been observed feeding.
Pick a likely location and remove the surface litter from a small clearing and spread your net flat on the ground. Camouflage the outer perimeter of the net with natural leaf litter.
Bait the trap. Find what natural feed the birds or animals are feeding on. Gather some berries, seeds, or edible plants and place most of them in the center of the net. Lead a small trail of food from the edges of the net in towards the center. Tie some long lengths of 30lb test monofilament fishing line every couple of feet to the edges of the net for pull lines. Preferably lead all these small lines to a couple of long lengths of a central paracord that are led away from the net and up over a tree limb. You get the idea. You are hidden downwind of the trap as far as you can get and still able to see the net. Get comfortable and be prepared to wait patiently for a long time until your lunch returns to feed on the bait. Set the trap and collect your game. Again, there is no loud rifle noise and no difficult bow and arrow shots.
You can also convert a flat casting type net into a purse net by inserting a drawstring around the perimeter. The purse net was used in front of an animal burrow to trap it when it ran out. Smoking leaves were used to “smoke out” the animal from its burrow and into the purse net. Hopefully, when the animal rushes out of the burrow, it crashes into the purse net and tightens the draw string so it is captured.
What other simple and quiet tools can you use to bring down small critters? The good old sling shot requires more practice to get accurate at close range but is also effective for food gathering, as most country boys know.
If you are practiced enough to be able to hit a lime-sized target consistently at 10 yards or more, then you have a good likelihood of harvesting birds and small mammals for dinner. My slingshot is store bought and relies on the great invention called surgical rubber tube. My supply of ball bearing ammunition could eventually be replaced by small round stream pebbles. The rubber has a lifetime of a few years, if you store it out of the sun.
The primitive sling is another hand-held hunting weapon that requires considerable practice to become proficient. I made one out of leather and tried, but I couldn’t get good accuracy at any range. Still, give it a try because it is lightweight, made from natural materials, and is quiet. I had the same experience with the primitive throwing stick. We all likely played with a boomerang, but I never got proficient enough to compete with the Australian aboriginals for hunting game. Maybe I wasn’t hungry enough.
An important part of my bug out gear is a walking staff, made from a wooden rake handle and tipped with a 6” piece of steel rebar, sharpened to a point. This is my modern version of a Roman spear. You can easily make this valuable tool with a handsaw, electric drill, hacksaw, and a steel file.
The six-foot staff is very useful support for walking over uneven terrain for improving balance and for personal defense against feral dogs or mountain lions. Another use is as a hunting spear– a basic tool of hunter-gatherers.
This versatile “stick” also makes an excellent center post for a plastic tarp, improvised, shelter. I carry a small roll of lightweight plastic “painter’s tarp” in my BOB. I use it for a waterproof ground cloth and for erecting a small rain shelter. Another purpose for my spool of monofilament fishing line is to secure the corners of my improvised sheet plastic shelter in the wind. I tie a small rock in the corners of the plastic to secure the monofilament tie-downs. You can improvise some natural camouflage for yourself or your shelter by using your net and attaching leaves, weeds, and natural litter to it.
A final touch for my “walking stick” spear was to drill a 3/8” diameter hole about shoulder height up from the ground. I attached a 6” piece of yellow #2 pencil to the top of the walking stick so it can be inserted in the hole. Now your versatile walking stick can serve as a steadying muzzle rest for you rifle for those long shots where being quiet doesn’t matter.
There is another benefit for using a pencil instead of a plain wooden dowel for my homemade ”bench rest”. I can leave a note for someone on the trail. The sharpened spear tip works well for dispatching snakes and spearing fish, crawdads, frogs, and small mammals when they are available.
We all know the classic longbow and steel tipped arrows are one of the best high tech hunting weapon inventions in human history. Practice, practice, practice and you have a quiet, efficient food hunting tool for birds and game. With some training and experience you can fabricate your own bow, bowstring, arrows, and arrowheads from found and natural materials.
The modern manufactured crossbow is increasing in popularity. It is more familiar for a rifle shooter to adapt to using. Again, it is also quiet. You could make extra “bolts” or small arrows for your crossbow by sharpening and fire hardening straight pieces of pine wood. The crossbow can be a lethal hunting tool at 15 yards for deer size and smaller game. Like regular bow archery, the key to consistent hunting results is constant practice.
You can see the list of improvised hunter-gather tools can get long, and you need to consider weight and what items will likely give you the most food to eat quickly. For my BOB, the net has a top priority because it is easy to learn to use, is inexpensive, doesn’t weigh much, and has several beneficial uses. Good hunting!
Dear Editor, I just wanted to add some thoughts regarding your recent article on starting a garden now. I grew up in the Midwest, and our family had one and sometimes two gardens. We grew a variety of vegetables, and we canned and froze whatever we didn’t eat. After I moved away and eventually moved into a city, I got out of the habit of having a garden. My travels took me from Iowa to Minnesota, back again, and eventually to Texas. This year my wife and I decided to grow a small garden. We have a home in the Houston area. I thought, “How hard can it be?” Wow! I had forgotten. For one thing, we needed to till the ground, and I didn’t own a tiller. We marked out a 15 x 25 foot section for our first try. I went off to a local hardware store (Home Depot) and rented a tiller for the day. The ground is mostly a clay and sand mix with a thin layer of topsoil. It was covered with grass (and weeds). I got beat to death!!! Still, I managed to till it up. Winter ran long this year with frost up until almost March. (We had a long winter for Houston, thanks to global warming.) We went to various stores to pick out plants and seeds. Heirloom slicing tomatoes, a roma-grape tomato hybrid, jalapenos, cayenne peppers, habanero peppers, green peppers, green beans, peas, sunflowers, some radishes, some leaf lettuce, onions, and a cucumber were all planted. We may be adding pineapple to the mix, and we have a lemon tree growing as well.
Okay, here is where we get to the reason why it is good to plant NOW rather than post SHTF. I learned and relearned a lot! I didn’t have enough room for all that stuff. I had crowded it. Some crops didn’t grow well in that soil, and some things grew wild! It is so much better to learn that NOW. If we have a TEOTWAWKI situation, will we bug out or stay in? I still don’t know. It will depend a lot on just what the threat IS. I will have the option of staying, if we want to. Green beans and peas grew, but we need a lot of space to make them practical. Onions didn’t work, but radishes did. I am not sure why. I thought maybe it had to do with the soil being bad for root crops, but the radishes did fine. Oddly enough the jalapenos did poorly, but all of the other peppers did well. We are going to tinker and try different vegetables going forward, as we try to learn what we can grow and what we want to grow. Yes, we can add nutrients and conditioners and grow about anything. Yet, we mostly prefer to grow what WILL grow easily and then only add minimal fertilizer as needed. Another aspect that not everyone in the nation deals with is that here we have two growing seasons, so we will be starting our second planting in a couple of months. Again, some vegetable will likely grow better in the second season than the first. (By the way, in a true TEOTWAWKI situation, think about doing some gorilla gardening. I meaning that some public green spaces could probably be planted in some vegetables without anyone else being particularly wiser. For example, along a creek or drainage ditch I wouldn’t plant tomatoes, as that is too obvious. However, I bet you could plant beans or wheat, and as long as you spread it out a bit and didn’t have huge patches,.there is a good chance that most people would never see what was in plain sight.
Okay, so the garden has gone well and now you have more vegetable than you know what to do with. Well, this has turned into a blessing in a surprising way. My wife has been skeptical about my attempts at prepping. Slowly she has been coming around. After all, everyone in our area prepares for Hurricane season. So I was starting there and tacking on extra here and there. My wife is a wonderful cook! We are both foodies of sorts. This is where the garden has actually been a surprise blessing, My wife has decided she LOVES canning! I know, if we HAD to can 100 of jars for survival, the fun would go out of it. For now, we have canned salsa from our tomatoes, tomato sauce to be used for spaghetti and other dishes, and bread and butter pickles from a recipe borrowed from a TV chef. A new favorite is cowboy candy– a candied sliced jalapeno that is yummy. Since we don’t HAVE to have this to survive, we sometimes give vegetables and canned goods to friends and neighbors. We marvel at how good everything is. We had forgotten how great a dish can be when the vegetables are all home grown. Sauces that had been “ok” from the store POP when made with your own ingredients.
The bonus for me is both gardening skills and canning skills are being practiced, and if we fail or mess up in some way, it doesn’t REALLY matter! How much better to make mistakes now when lives are not on the line. Also, I am gathering the tools for gardening and canning NOW, at my leisure, while they are relatively cheap! I am learning (relearning) what works and what doesn’t, and I am eating better than I have in years! Talk about a win-win. – W.H.
The Only Prescription for a Real Economic Recovery
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Janet Yellen Is Out Of Touch With Reality, Inflation Is NOT Just Noise
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Items from Mr. Econocobas:
Video: Chris Martenson-People Will Be Wiped Out In Coming Crash
Bulgaria Tries To Contain Bank Run
Japan Economics Minister Warns Of Premature QE Exit, Sees Room For More Easing
Three months, and counting, to release of Atlas Shrugged, Part 3!
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More Concealed Carriers = Less Violent Crime, Study Shows. – H.L.
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Another reason why homeschooling is so important. Without even realizing it, the author has made a strong case for homeschooling. Our public schools are not designed to help your child get the most from their education; they are designed from the ground up to ensure conformity. Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today. – P.M.
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Border Patrol Warns MS-13 Using Nogales Processing Center as Recruitment Hub. – G.S.
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Nation Without Borders, Nation Without Morals. – B.B.
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Citizen militia recruits patriots to protect border; draws warning from the feds. – P.L.
“Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” Psalm 130:7-8 (KJV)
