Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader B.K. sent: Lights out: House plan would protect nation’s electricity from solar flare, nuclear bomb

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Eli sent us this video link where a “20-Something” with apparently mixed feelings about guns journeys into the wilderness to unleash his Inner Charlton Heston: Shooting the Biggest Guns Money Can Buy – The Big Sandy Shoot. BTW, that shoot looks like a lot more fun (and a lot safer) than attending a Saudi wedding.

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B. in Idaho sent an interesting article about Syrian militias competing.  B. noted:  “It is notable that one militia that was built up over the course of two years was taken over by hardliners in just one day.  Munitions and all!  Reading that immediately reminded me of the averted conflict that you described in your first novel between Todd Gray’s militia and the Troy Templars.”

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News from Western Oregon: New neighborhood group: ‘This is a Glock block’

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File under “Islam, Charming News”: NYPD Sergeant Convicted of Illegally Using Terror Database is Now “Integrity” Officer

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Buz Mills (who heads Gunsite Academy) forwarded this: Joe Manchin will fight back against the NRA with TV ad. Buz had these comments: “Let me make sure I understand this situation:  The kid killed his Mom (illegal), The kid stole his Mom’s guns (illegal), The kid stole his Mom’s car (illegal), The kid carried the stolen guns onto school grounds (illegal), The kid broke into a school (illegal), The kid killed 26 people (illegal).  Now just how would this new proposed legislation have prevented this act by a crazy SOB?  Suppose he had driven the stolen car into 26 children out on the playground (illegal.)  Would we need legislation like this to inhibit the purchase of a car?  I do not think so.  This is nothing but grandstanding to get reelected, this has nothing to do with making America better or safer!  Senator lets try again, just one time for America.”

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty [is] a fading flower, which [are] on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!
Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, [which] as a tempest of hail [and] a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:
And the glorious beauty, which [is] on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, [and] as the hasty fruit before the summer; which [when] he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.

In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people,
And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.” – Isaiah 28:1-6 (KJV)

Notes from JWR:

Please pray for SGT Bowe Bergdahl and his family. He has been held as a POW by the Taliban since June 30, 2009.

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This is the birthday of the late Col. Rex Applegate (born 1914, died July 14, 1998.) He was a mentor and friend of SurvivalBlog’s Field Gear Editor, Pat Cascio

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Today we present a guest article by wild foods expert Linda Runyon. Her writings have often been cited in SurvivalBlog

The Other Use of Wild Edible Food, by Linda Runyon

I am a wild food author who lived it for years while homesteading in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, and I lived on wild food for many years after that during my teaching days. I still eat wild food today in retirement.

YES.  Wild food is abundant, nutritious, healthy, easy-to-use and, best of all, free! This is important to know, and it’s an important cognition to have early on the way to becoming proficient with it. Having your eyes opened to the fact that it is everywhere must, of course, come before starting the journey that ends with being starvation-proofed.

BUT . . .
I understand that many peppers and survivalists tend to think of my materials as something they can keep on the shelf right up until they need them, then take them down and use them like a road map to instantly trot off to the wilds and subsist because the world went to hell and the supermarkets are fresh out of everything. That is feasible, but that’s not what I would call practical.  Even though you could do this, it is, by far, not the best way to learn the use of wild food.  I feel the need to warn against this grab-the-book approach. True skills are only acquired over time, and your progress can be greatly accelerated by guidance, building on the experience of others as laid out in their materials.

Surely the goal of a complete educational suite about wild food would be to starvation-proof an individual, a family or a group.  Information is important, but I’m sorry to say that your success or failure in that regard is based on how much practical effort you have put into learning and practicing these skills before they are needed. Of course not everyone will be ahead of the curve, and there would be many folks that have no idea of the fact of wild food, so never tried to learn or apply them.  These could be people you would want to help keep alive.

While simple foraging could indeed be useful as you trek off-road to your retreat, you may get away with not having practiced these skills before. But if that’s the only role you’ve set aside for wild food, your are missing the bigger picture. Wild edible food, used well, will play a crucial role at your retreat, camp or homestead. All of my early years of living on wild food occurred in a homestead setting.
Yes, I know you have food stores, but they cannot last forever. Yes, if it’s spring (and it probably isn’t) and you get your tomatoes, corn and zucchini started from your heirloom seeds, you might have some wonderful crops come July or August, and I hope you do. I’d love to join you if there’s enough to go around!

But you are a prepper, right?  Farming can be difficult; there could be drought, early and/or late frost, hail, wind or unpredictable weather or scant sunlight, problems with deer, rabbits, or other critters, insect trouble or possibly even theft from daring people in the night who didn’t take the trouble to plan ahead or think things through. When gardening graduates from a hobby to a vital necessity, the cost of failure graduates, too.  You do have a backup plan, right?

Even if you get a bumper crop, there’s still the problem of storage. Unless you thought to include a freeze-drying apparatus or commercial-level canning in your preparations, your storage will be limited by the number of Ball jars you have, whether your freezer can work or not, or whether you thought ahead to build a solar food dehydrator or have the materials and time on hand to build one. Those tomatoes will be good and plentiful in their short season, but you will need to do better than give or barter the surplus- you’ll want to store them.  A question will enter your mind during your high-volume canning efforts during the heat of summer: Is there an easier, high-nutrition food solution that we can use in parallel to traditional cultivation?

Yes there is.  That’s the main reason why we use wild food. Wild edibles aren’t just something you can live off of when there is nothing better; they really start to shine when you use them as a supplement to everyday nutrition. By simply harvesting, drying, pulverizing and storing in Zip-locs or dry jars, you can add a pinch or two of dried clover, violets, lambs quarters, chicory, chickweed or amaranth to your soup or casserole, your burger or omelets—anything you want. You can sneak it into any dish, and you’ll be increasing nutrition and quantity while also squeezing the most out of your food stores.  Later, when you are used to it, you’ll increase your usage, and why not?  It’s solid nutrition.

Wild food is man’s original food, so it is quite naturally your ‘backup food store’ while you’re striving to grow fancier food.  We do agree on the prudence of having food reserves, right?  Anyone who values preparation will immediately see that, as a backup plan, wild food  is undeniably the best and only viable plan for your new homesteading efforts (unless you count waiting for the supermarket to restock, that is).
Harvesting and putting up wild food gets most efficient when you do it in quantity and get used to the idea of storing it as opposed to consuming it fresh. This is a long-term, staple food we’re talking about here, not having snacks with the forest creatures. It’s sort of an industry so you have to approach it as such, but it’s less effort than the traditional cultivation you’ve been planning.

How can you harvest sizable quantities of wild food if you have to walk a few country miles just to find it? Well, if you’re doing regular gardening, you’re going to find that this food pops up all by itself. The whole concept of weeding is keeping your cultivated food from being overrun by the incredible, edible weed. “Oh no! There’s food in with my food!”  Are you starting to get the idea yet?  If you’re not careful you could grow five or six different waves of wild food before your tomatoes are ready, all of which could be eaten, dried or frozen long before those tomatoes have to be put up.

Another point: A vegetable garden could be almost completely camouflaged if you were to allow it to become purposely overrun by tall weeds around its border! For that matter, your separate “wild garden” would never be looked at twice while your vegetables provide a fantastic decoy to the real nutrition, making your wild patches sort of a stealth garden, if you will.
You will be making frequent trips to your wild garden, harvesting and allowing it to replenish and harvesting again, over and over until you have a winter’s supply and then some. This takes the ‘wandering’ out of ‘foraging’ and bumps wild food up to a production level, where it needs to be for you to depend on it.

The transplanting and cultivation of wild edible food is actually quite easy. You can Rototill a strip to see what comes up from freshly tilled earth. This is a great exercise to see what grows naturally in your chosen patch and to see what the seedling forms of the wild edibles look like. Like most young plants, they do not look much like their later form until two or three sets of leaves form. These can then grow to full harvest maturity right where they started.

If you want to be sure your wild garden has the wild food you have identified elsewhere, just transplant it! There is nothing very exotic about transplanting wild food, but it’s easiest when the plants are small. This means doing it at the right time of year, because a weed will wait for nobody. Many plants like burdock, dandelion and chicory quickly establish a deep root which would make transplanting more difficult, so transplanting in the spring is best.

I cover the transplanting and cultivation of wild edible food in my latest book, Promote Wild Food Certainty Through Plant Identification Walks, but I cover it indirectly as a means of populating the type of walk that can be used to help people learn wild food identification by taking a self-guided tour. With labels and dividers, your wild garden can be used to this end, too, and you might find yourself teaching your spouse, your children, or your community wild food identification using this simple but effective method. The idea is simple but it can be rather involved in practice, so I’ll leave the details to the book.  The idea is yours now.  It is a living wild food exhibit that you must harvest from to keep under control. 

A walk works as a teaching aid very effectively, and is also one of the many activities in my new Wild Food Homeschool Teaching Guide.  This subject must be taught to many, and part of that job is yours however you choose to go about it.  I feel that God put wild food on the earth for a reason.

Wild food represents a lifestyle change — a change of mindset — and it takes some getting used to.  It is, first of all, more nutrition than your body is used to dealing with, so over-doing it is easy.  It is often a different consistency and a different taste. You will find that you have to adjust the quantity of your intake. There have been lots of instances where the men that I fed wild food to would overdo it and find themselves buzzing with energy from foods like a cattail pollen pancake or too much yarrow tea. This is why the idea of “a pinch to nutrition” is a good one. You will want to start slow and follow my Rules of Foraging as you go, reprinted below for your convenience.

You can dive in and go gung-ho, surely, but this is a journey and can’t be traveled all at once, especially on a deadline of personal starvation.  You need to start now, before you need it. The essential unit of learning this skill is learning one plant thoroughly and completely.  THIS represents one step, and that step is repeated for each and every plant until you finally have a full collection of them.  You quite probably do not have even one plant learned completely all the way from ID to storage. If so, you have not really started your journey into wild food proficiency!  Let me break down how to take that first step of one plant all the way:

  • Start by finding one edible plant.  You probably know of one already. 
  • Learn its identification with certainty.
  • Learn which parts to eat and each one’s various uses.
  • Clear the plant for your use by running it through the Rules of Foraging.
  • Learn that plant’s particular harvest and preparation.
  • Start eating it! Easy does it. Make it a part of you by eating it green when in season.
  • Start collecting it in bulk.
  • Start drying it and put it up in Zip-loc bags or glass jars.
  • Start adding it to meals, a pinch at a time and increasing over time.
  • Figure out, through use, what a winter’s supply really is.
  • Start growing it in your local surrounds.
  • Start teaching this one plant to kids, family and friends so they can start.

But I think you get the most important part of what you must do: on a real, sane, manageable gradient: Start!

The Rules of Foraging
These rules are for your own protection when investigating plants that are new to you. If followed closely, they will protect you in the field.

  • DO NOT collect plants closer than 200 feet from a car path or contaminated area.
  • NEVER collect from areas sprayed with herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals.
  • DO NOT collect plants with RED STEMS, or red striations or stripes.
  • ALWAYS BE FAMILIAR with all dangerous plants in YOUR area of collection.
  • POSITIVELY IDENTIFY all plants you intend to use for food.
  • Take a piece off the plant and roll between your fingers.  SNIFF CAREFULLY.  Does it smell like something you would eat?  If it doesn’t, DISCARD IMMEDIATELY.  If it does, go to rule 7.
  • Take another piece off the plant and roll until juicy.  RUB the tiny piece on your gum above your teeth.
  • WAIT 20 minutes.
  • DOES YOUR GUM ITCH, BURN, TINGLE, SWELL OR STING?  If no reaction occurs, go on to rule 10.
  • Take another piece of the plant and put in a teacup.  Add boiling water and steep for 5 minutes.  SIP SLOWLY for 20 more minutes.  WATCH FOR NAUSEA, BURNING, DISCOMFORT.  If no reaction occurs, you may ingest a small amount.
  • WAIT ANOTHER 20 MINUTES and watch for any reaction.
  •  Keep all samples AWAY from children or pets.
  •  Store all seeds and bulbs AWAY from children and pets.
  •  Teach children to keep all plants AWAY from their mouths and DO NOT ALLOW children chew or suck nectar from any unknown plants.
  •  AVOID smoke from burning plants. Smoke may irritate the eyes or cause allergic reactions QUICKLY.
  •  BE AWARE of your neighbor’s habits with chemicals, pesticides and herbicides.
  •  BEWARE: heating or boiling doesn’t always destroy toxicity.

DISCLAIMER:
This is information about wild food.  The editors of SurvivalBlog nor the author make no claims as to the correctness, safety or usability of the data.

The information contained herein is intended to be an educational tool for gathering and cooking wild plants.  The information presented is for use as a supplement to a healthy, well-rounded lifestyle.  The nutritional requirements of individuals may vary greatly, therefore the author and publisher take no responsibility for an individual using and ingesting wild plants.

All data is to be used at your own risk.  Using the Rules of Foraging greatly helps to reduce that risk, but even they are not foolproof.

 

About The Author:

Linda Runyon is the editor of the Of The Field web site and the author of many wild plant books and instructional materials, including:

A Survival Acre
Linda Runyon’s Master Class on Wild Food Survival
Eat the Trees!
 The Essential Wild Food Survival Guide (also available as an e-book.)
A Basic Middle Eastern Desert Survival Guide
Wild Food Identification Guide
Promote Wild Food Certainty through Plant Identification Walks
Wild Cards: Edible Wild Foods (A playing card deck with photos and descriptions of 52 different edible plants.)

She has set up a 10% coupon code “backupplan” for SurvivalBlog readers that is good until July 4, 2013.

Economics and Investing:

The stock markets and the precious metals markets all got hammered on Thursday (June 20, 2013), following some comments by Ben Bernanke. Don’t be spooked. Don’t be fooled. The Fed and Treasury Department are essentially locked in to QE to Infinity. They may try to “taper”, but it probably won’t work. Today’s news does nothing to change the market fundamentals. Silver will remain in a bull market for as long as the government continues to grossly over-spend. So when the price of silver gets temporarily pushed down by these rumors, just look at it as another buying opportunity.

Over at The Daily Bell: Richard Ebeling on Higher Interest Rates, Collectivism and the Coming Collapse

Jim W. sent: Why the Fed Cannot “Exit” Successfully… Without a Market Crash

Jeff recommended: Banks Cooking Up Another Financial Crisis

Items from The Economatrix:

GEAB: Alert for the Second Half of 2013 — Global Systemic Crisis II–Second Devastating Explosion/Social Outburst on a Worldwide Scale

They Know:  Billionaires Are Quietly and Rapidly Dumping Millions Of Shares Of Stock

Retirement Crisis:  Trillions Of Your Pension Dollars Stolen In Broad Daylight

Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large Michael Z. Williamson recommended this brief video: How Turkish Protesters Deal With Teargas

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There is a gun show scheduled in Colorado Springs this weekend. With the July 1st legislation deadline looming in Colorado, I’m sure that sales of battle rifles and full capacity magazines will be brisk. Last call in Colorado!

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K.A.F. sent this: Telegrams no more. Stop. India to send world’s last message July 14.

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Courtesy of OSOM, come this link: Gary North on hands-free headlamps

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Sarah C. recommended this: Edward Snowden and the selective targeting of leaks.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“People are defiantly in denial about what we’re doing. . . . Nobody mentions the $85 billion a month we’re printing now [via Quantitative Easing] . . . . We’ve only printed about $800 billion in the last 100 years. We’re going to print more than that next year. So, literally 100 years of printing next year.” – Bob Wiedemer

Notes from JWR:

June 20th is the birthday of Audie L. Murphy. he was born in 1925. He died in a plane crash on May 28, 1971.)

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I just heard that novelist Vince Flynn died at the untimely age of 47. I’m sure that he had more books planned. He will be missed.

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Today we present a guest article by Amy Alton (of Doom & Bloom fame.)

Sharp Wound Management, by Amy Alton, A.R.N.P. and Joe Alton, M.D.

Given the media outcry against gun ownership, it’s easy to forget the wounds that are caused by knives and other sharp instruments.  Trauma incurred from these injuries may be minor or major; penetrating trauma such as caused by a stab wound should not be discounted as a major injury; it can be life-threatening, depending on the organs and blood vessels damaged. 

Penetrating trauma is divided into perforating and non-perforating.  A perforating wound is one in which the object causing the damage goes into one side of the body and then exits through the other side.  A wound from .223 or NATO .556 would, commonly, be an example of this type of penetrating trauma. One of my first classes in medical school showed a slide of Major General Henry Barnum, who received a minie ball through the hip in the battle of Antietam.  Years later, he could still pass a thin rod from the entry wound all the way out the other side.  General Barnum’s hip, incidentally, is still on display in the National Museum of Medicine, where it has been for over 100 years.

Bullets and other high-speed projectiles cause damage related to the shock wave produced as the bullet passes through the body. This is called cavitation.  Many bullets will fragment in the body as well, sometimes causing damage further from the entry wound than expected.  Luckily, low speed projectiles such as knives will not do this. Your concerns are related specifically to the area of entry and the structures located directly in the path of the offending instrument.

Stab wounds are an example of a non-perforating wound:  the projectile causing the damage enters the body and either stays there or exits where it entered.  Most knife wounds would fit in this category, as the knife doesn’t pass entirely through and out of the body.  Some sharp instruments might do this, say a crossbow bolt or a spearhead, but let’s assume that you’ll be unlikely to see these. Most knife wounds you’ll see will be minor lacerations.  Blood loss and failure of damaged organs will be the major issue to deal with.

A little about blood: Blood carries oxygen to the tissues and organs and removes waste products. It is made up of several components, including:

• ·         Red blood cells: These cells carry oxygen to body tissues.
• ·         White blood cells: These cells work to, among other things, fight infection and disease.
• ·         Platelets and other clotting factors: These allow blood to coagulate and lessen blood loss.
• ·         Plasma: A yellowish liquid in which the above are suspended.

Your immediate action upon encountering a victim of a wound with a sharp instrument may save their life.  Bleeding from arteries and internal organs can be very brisk.  If you are a typical 180 lb. (about 70 kg.) adult, you have approximately 9-10 pints (about 5 liters) of blood in your body. Athletes and those living at very high altitudes may have more. You can’t afford to lose more than 40% of total blood volume without needing major resuscitative efforts.  To get an idea of how much blood this is, empty a 2 liter bottle of fruit punch or cranberry juice on the floor.  You’ll be surprised at how much fluid that represents.

Hemorrhage (bleeding) is classified by the American College of Surgeons (of which I am a Fellow) as follows:

Class I:  Hemorrhage is less or equal to 15% of blood volume (1.5 pints/3/4 liter) in an average adult male.  A person donating 1 pint of blood is giving slightly less than 0.5 liters, for example. At this level there are almost no signs or symptoms, although some may feel vaguely faint.

Class II:  Hemorrhage is 15 to 30% loss of total blood volume (2-3 pints/1-1.5 liters).  The body tries to compensate at this point with, among other things, a faster heartbeat to speed oxygen to tissues.  This patient will appear pale and skin will be cool.  They will feel weak.

Class III: Hemorrhage is 30 to 40% loss of total blood volume (3-4 pints/1.5-2 liters).  At this point, the heart will be beating very quickly and is straining to get enough oxygen to tissues and blood pressure is low. Smaller blood vessels in extremities are constricting to keep the body core circulation going. This patient will be confused, pale, and in hypovolemic (low blood volume) shock. Blood transfusion is usually necessary. 

Class IV:  Hemorrhage is more than 40% of total blood volume (greater than 4 pints/2 liters). The heart can no longer maintain blood pressure and circulation.  Without major resuscitative help at this point, organs will fail and the patient will likely be comatose and die.

In most circumstances, sharp instrument injuries will be minor.  After controlling bleeding, your goal is to clean the wound thoroughly and dress it.  Wound closure may be an option in some wilderness cases, but most backcountry stab wounds will be dirty and should be left open (subject of another article).

If you’re attending to an actively bleeding wound from a sharp object, you will need a level head and quick action.  This is, sometimes, not as easy as it sounds; most people not accustomed to dealing with these issues on a daily basis will experience a type of paralysis that may waste precious time. If modern medical care is available, contact emergency services immediately.

In the meantime, follow these steps:

·        – Assess the safety of the situation.  Make sure the situation is secure; it makes no sense for you to become the next casualty.

·         -Put on gloves if possible.  Your hands are full of bacteria and you will reduce the risk of infection by doing so.  Non-latex (nitrile) gloves are superior in avoiding allergic reactions to latex, more commonly seen than you’d think. If no gloves are available, plastic bags/wrap or, at least, hand sanitizers/soap will be useful if you have to touch the wound with bare hands.    

·         -Verify the victim’s breathing and mental status.  Clear airways if obstructed and determine if they are alert enough to help you by following commands.
·         Remove clothing carefully to fully inspect the wound and identify other injuries.  Make sure that you have a bandage scissors or EMT shears in your medical pack.

·        – Elevate the feet above the level of the heart and head (the “shock position”) to increase blood flow to the brain.

·        – If the sharp instrument is still in the body, don’t remove it.  It may be providing pressure on damaged blood vessels and decreasing the bleeding.  Stabilize the wound in place with dressings or in any way you can.  If there is no chance of emergency services reaching you, such as in a backcountry trip in an underdeveloped country, you may have to remove it at one point or another.  Don’t do this unless you are where the bulk of your medical supplies are.

·         -Apply pressure with some type of dressing, even your shirt if necessary.  Most non-arterial bleeding will stop with steady pressure on the wound. If the sharp instrument is in place and help is on the way, place pressure down on either side towards the blade to prevent it from slipping out and decrease bleeding.

·         -Elevate the injured area about the heart.  Make it more difficult to pump blood out of the body.

·         -Some recommend applying additional pressure with your other hand to major arteries about the level of the wound (especially for extremities).  These areas are called “pressure points”.  For example, a major artery (the popliteal artery) is found behind the knee.  Pressure here might decrease bleeding from a lower leg wound.  There is an entire map of pressure points for most parts of the body [that can be found with a quick web search.]

·        – If this fails, consider applying a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.  Tourniquets are to be used only when absolutely necessary, as they also stop the circulation of undamaged arteries and veins.  This will cause damage or death of tissue beyond the level of the wound if left on too long.  They also, after a very short time, hurt like a son of a gun. If a tourniquet is on, you may choose to loosen it after a period of time to determine if the body’s clotting mechanisms have stopped the bleeding. Unfortunately, this can sometimes cause further bleeding, so this is mostly a strategy for when help in NOT on the way. If you are transporting a patient to a modern medical facility, make sure you mark a “T” on the victim’s forehead or otherwise notify emergency personnel.

·        – In certain circumstances, the use of blood clotting agents such as QuickClot or Celox may be helpful.  They are effective in stopping bleeding, although they are sometimes difficult to clean out later.  We keep these products in all our medical packs, even individual first aid kits.

·        – Once bleeding has subsided, don’t remove a dressing unless you have to.  There are clots that can be dislodged if you do, and this may restart the bleeding.  Add additional dressings on top if help is on the way. In survival situations, you will eventually have to change and clean wound dressings.

·         -Secure everything with a pressure dressing, of which there are various on the market.  The Israeli Battle Dressing, known as The Emergency Bandage in the U.S., has a hinge which can apply up to 30 pounds of pressure if used properly.

·        – Keep the victim warm: Throw a blanket or a coat over them.  If help is coming, keep them as still and calm as possible to avoid further bleeding.  Monitor breathing, pulses, and mental status.

·        – An unconscious patient should be placed in the “recovery position”.  This will, among other things, allow fluid to drain from airways and help them breathe.

All of the above may not be necessary if you practice preventative measures.  In other words, don’t run with scissors.  With some foresight, you may be able to avoid a mishap that could turn into a tragedy.
 

About the Authors: Amy Alton, A.R.N.P. and Joe Alton, M.D. (aka “Nurse Amy” and Dr. Bones” are the producers and hosts of the popular Doom & Bloom podcast.

Economics and Investing:

Analyst Says China’s Credit Bubble Is Unlike Anything In Modern History. (Thanks to Andre D. for the link.)

Four current trends in the housing market: Rents holding steady nationwide, young home buyers, bidding war trends, and going after strategic defaulters.

Shock: Iceland Defies EU, Freezes Membership Bid

Items from The Economatrix:

Obama Rewards Wall Street Again, Thwarts Reform By Sacking Gensler

Financial Chaos, Disappearing Freedom & Hyperinflation

Bond Bubble Threatens Global Financial System

Odds ‘n Sods:

Pantry Paratus is offering a free Sport Berkey filtering water bottle with any purchase $150 or more.  This offer is only valid through June 30th.  
 

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Maine has become the first state in the nation to pass legislation ordering its grid to be hardened against an electromagnetic pulse. (Thanks to H.L. for the link.)

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Over at Ryan and Ryan’s excellent blog: Birdshot For Self Defense?

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My old friend Terry sent: Russia Nearing Final Stages For New Assault Rifle In Legendary Kalashnikov Series

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What to do with a leftover #10 can (Part 1)

Tamara of the excellent View From The Porch blog recommended this piece by Borepatch: Hiding your data transmissions from the NSA. (OBTW, the “hidden in plain sight” Lego USB drive suggestion reminded me of the tradecraft that I described in my second novel, “Survivors”. A tiny USB memory stick stub can be hidden in many commonplace objects, and the even thinner micro SD memory cards can be mailed covertly. (Just tape them inside a folded 4″x6″ piece of cardboard and pop them in an envelope.) The requisite card readers have become ubiquitous. It is noteworthy that the MicroSD card has a plethora of potential hiding places that are very difficult to detect.)

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world." – Henry Kissinger

Notes from JWR:

This is the birthday of Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon. He was born in 1834 and died in 1892. This British Particular Baptist preacher’s powerful sermons are still widely read, and can now be listened to, as presented by modern orators.

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Today we present another entry for Round 47 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course. (A $1,195 value.) B.) 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, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), F.) Two BirkSun.com photovoltaic backpacks (one Level, and one Atlas, both black), with a combined value of $275, G.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo. and H.) A roll of $10 face value in pre-1965 U.S. 90% silver quarters, courtesy of GoldAndSilverOnline.com. The current value of this roll is at least $225.

Second Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. Together, these have a retail value of $589. C.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. D.) $300 worth of ammo from Patriot Firearms and Munitions. (They also offer a 10% discount for all SurvivalBlog readers with coupon code SVB10P.), E.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials and F.) Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) 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, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value. E.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value), and F.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

850 Miles in 27 Weeks: Experience With Long Distance Walking, by Erik M.

Do you plan to walk to your retreat?  Then read this first.

For those who like me, are nearing or over 50 years old and out of shape after years of working a desk and who think that walking or biking to a retreat is an option for them, let me tell you about the last 27 weeks and the 850 miles I’ve covered by walking and biking. In doing so I’m hoping that I can convince you to start now rather then waiting for a situation that forces you to do so. After all, if my retreat were 260 miles from where I live, could I, or you for that matter, really afford to take the 10 weeks to get there that it took me to cover that distance when I first started? That’s how long it took me to walk 260 miles and now that I’ve walked 200 more I can tell you that even in my current shape to walk 260 miles would take me a long and grueling time!

First let me say that I’m not a ‘doomsday’ prepper and I don’t believe that a catastrophic economic collapse will end the world as we know it tomorrow. On the other hand I’ve seen human nature at its worst (war) and have studied enough history to know that things could go south in a big hurry if the right things occurred and we do seem to be living in a time in which a lot of those ‘right things’ are lining up to present the best possibility or “things going bad in a hurry” actually happening. I believe, however, that it will occur sometime in the future because, if one studies history, it always does.

I’m a 47 year old Marine who’s allowed himself to ride a desk for far too long without exercising. This means that my formerly ‘lean and green’ 190 pound self managed to add 90 pounds of not-so-lean body weight. My blood pressure was high and I was diagnosed with Hypertension. While I ate well, so I thought, by avoiding processed foods as much as I could (I thought) I never really examined my food intake with a critical eye and as a consequence I added weight in the form of fat and raised my blood pressure to unhealthy levels.

My blood pressure was managed with drugs (a diuretic and Lisinopril) and because of that I didn’t worry so much about it. My blood-work was excellent with cholesterol numbers that made the doc jealous but once in a while he’d frown at my blood glucose level which was bumping up against 100 – so not diabetic yet but starting to be something to watch.

I was out of shape, down right fat with high blood pressure unless I took drugs that might not always be available and I was fighting dehydration and a myriad of issues as a result of taking a diuretic and not eating as well as I thought. Something had to change.

After a few attempts to lose weight by dieting and a few ‘starts’ at walking I finally committed and began walking in earnest. Since I’d started and stopped a few times it was easier this time, but let me tell you, the first time I tried walking a mile was killer! This coming from a marine who once marched 32 miles in under 8 hours carrying a heck of a lot of gear! However, this time I wasn’t so bad off and walked two miles with relative ease – if you call having shin splints relative ease anyway.  That first week I clocked 8 miles in 4 walks and I was convinced I could do ‘this’. The next I was walking 4 miles per outing and put in 26 miles followed by 27. I was well on my way and felt I could easily attain 100 miles a month which was my goal at the time.

Christmas saw me take a week off but when I returned I stepped up and hit the road for an additional 23 miles and began to examine the foods I ate. I was determined to lose weight and get back into shape and while I’d done a lot of walking (now over 85 miles) I’d only lost about 5 pounds and my legs were killing me. I wanted off the blood pressure drugs and I wanted to get back in shape and lose all the weight.

I watched some movies that inspired me like ‘Fat sick and nearly dead’, ‘Forks over knives’ and ‘Hungry for change’ and through those and help from others I decided to really make some changes. I swapped my two eggs, cheese, toast and butter breakfast for cooked wheat and oatmeal with a little honey or agave for flavoring, I changed my lunches which were usually meat and cheese sandwiches or Ramen noodles packed with meat and cheese (I need the sodium so I thought) to rice with a little flavoring. I cut out meat and dairy from my first two meals with the exception of cream in my coffee (1 cup a day habit).

At first I gained a few pounds back which I attribute to my diet being different but I began to get used to the new foods and actually enjoyed them. It was more filling to eat the grains then I thought and I had plenty of energy for my walks. However, by now my legs were constantly sore and I began to realize that I needed more protein during the day so I added a protein shake between meals (twice daily) which seemed to cure that problem. I left my dinners alone mostly which gave me an incentive to eat well throughout the day because, after all, I could eat whatever I wanted for dinner. Doing this saw my daily caloric intake drop from around 2,800 calories a day to about 2,100 and I knew it would make a difference.

With my legs feeling better and my diet making a difference I stepped off for longer walks with more confidence. I was often walking 7 miles and clocked 25 miles the first week on my new diet and then 40 miles! I also stopped my blood pressure drugs and found my numbers were nearly normal! Frankly, that shocked me. How could this be? After all, I was told I’d probably have to take them for life so how could the doc be so wrong?

Before trying to tackle that last question, however, a new problem arose: my left foot began to really hurt. I’d done a 7 mile walk and then a 3 mile walk in the same day to reach my goal of 40 miles in a week and hadn’t stopped or slowed down when I felt pain in my left foot. Perhaps it was the old marine in me loving the march again and feeling better, however it was clear I’d made a mistake the next day. My foot hurt.

I began to research the pain I had and realized that I’d given myself ‘Planter Faciitus’ which is tearing of the planter tendon on the bottom of the foot. The most likely cause of which was my lack of stretching! All this time I’d been telling myself that walking is what people do, it’s not like it’s running or something and there is not need to stretch when you walk. I was so wrong!

I also learned that my old runners (unused for most of their ten years) weren’t what I needed and I learned about ‘motion control’ shoes and how they help with the problem I was experiencing. Off I went to the local shoe stores in search of a decent pair of runners to wear on my walks and I managed to find a good pair of gel control / motion control Asics that really helped. I was glad to be able to get back to walking and wasted no time (like a dumb old Jarhead) in getting back on the road. I clocked in another 25 miles before realizing that I was overdoing it and took my old mountain bike in for repairs because I knew I’d need to ride it if I wanted to continue my regimen of daily, or almost daily, cardio.

By this time I’d walked over 175 miles and while my left foot hurt I’d learned to stretch. My shins no longer bothered me, my thighs were no longer sore all the time and my blood pressure was nearly normal still. I’d also lost some weight and was down a total of 13 pounds off my heaviest. I was motivated but also realizing that no one my age or older who wasn’t already in shape, was going to ‘walk’ out any great distances. After all, I was trying to walk in the best of conditions and I was having to learn a lot of things and relearn things I’d long forgotten or ignored. Consider that after each walk I could take a shower, I could eat and drink well and I could relax on a couch if need be. My evenings were spent in a comfortable bed and a nice home that was secure and warm and I had plenty of resources to pull from should I need supplements, shoes, Motrin or whatever. It wasn’t as if I was walking through the hinterland on my own carrying a pack with no grid to log into and no Right Aid around the corner to purchase painkillers from. I wasn’t sleeping on rocks and filtering my drinking water from a stinking mosquito infested pool and yet all I had managed in 6 weeks was 175 miles and to show for it I had a bad tendon in my left foot.

Clearly I need to change some things and clearly the idea of walking to a retreat could only really be done by the likes of me if the retreat was very close – which means too close to be of use.

I got my bike back from the shop and promptly rode it a mile – and nearly died! Forty minutes later I road it 4 miles and while my pulse was a bit higher then I’d like it wasn’t that high. I could do this!

Over the course of the next four rides each getting longer and between riding I walked, albeit shorter distances and often slower paces since I was still dealing with a sore foot (that was healing thanks to the riding and a lot of stretching). My knees would get sore, my legs would complain but overall I was getting use to riding again and the following week I completed a 9 and finally a 10 mile ride. I was getting there and my pulse rate was much lower after those rides then on that first day. I also walked but a lot less and while my tendon had mostly healed it was something I had to constantly pay attention to.

In ten weeks I had completed 205 miles of walking and 55 miles of riding in ten weeks and lost about 16 pounds (20 off my heaviest). My blood pressure was ‘ok’ and while not below 120/80 in the morning it was often right there or only slightly higher (sometimes it’s actually lower but not that often yet). Another 17 weeks followed with an additional 580 miles traveled and my weight is down 45 pounds, I can walk 4 miles per hour for 3 hours with few breaks (I walked in a ‘Relay for Life’ for 3 hours) and can cycle 13+ miles without killing myself. I believe at this point that I could walk, if I had to, 10 miles per day without much issue if I had to and had to carry a pack etc. To push to 20 miles a day would require a lot more work on my part but at least at this point I’m certain I could make a 260 mile hike inside a month providing there weren’t any unforeseen circumstances. If I could ride, I’m certain I could ride 260 miles in 10 days or less though admittedly I’d be very saddle sore! Please bear in mind that this is after over 6 months of constantly walking and riding and eating right. I’m healthier today then I was 6 months ago and still off my blood pressure meds (my BP this morning was 121/79) and while I still ride a desk I work very hard to not allow it to debilitate me like I had previously.

The moral of the story here folks is that if you’re out of shape like I was and you expect to be able to walk to a retreat further then a few miles, then you better get cracking and start walking now! Change your lifestyle, diet and routines and get in shape today because it will take months (no get fit quick scheme will work) and a commitment as great as any you’ve done so far.

I’m continuing on my quest to lose the weight and get back into shape but wanted to take a moment to recap for you some things that I think are important if you, like me, think you could ‘walk out’ if things head south in a hurry.

1. If you are not walking now then don’t assume that you can later. Chances are you will injure yourself and quite possibly end up stranded somewhere you do not want to be stranded.
2. Your body simply cannot take the punishment if you are overweight and out of shape so do something about it now and get back into shape, lose the weight and strengthen your body.
3. You cannot carry all that you need so consider carefully what you think you will or can carry bearing in mind that the added weight of carrying a pack is added weight (ten times) on impact to your feet and knees.
4. You will likely suffer injuries to the planter tendon, Achilles heal and the knees as well as shin splints and other possibilities. Prepare for he worst and hope for the best.
5. You must consider pacing yourself which may mean only walking 2 to 5 miles every other day at the start and only slowly getting to a daily distance of 4 to 8 miles an only if you’re at least well enough prepared that you have good shoes/boots that won’t cause injury themselves.
6. You will need rest, lots of it, so if you really plan to walk out without at first getting back into shape then you will need a good sleeping mat and a lot of luck in finding comfortable places to rest.
7. There is more to prepping then just buying lots of stuff; physical fitness and personal health are as important, if not more important, then a lot of what you might be spending a lot of time and money on. Having a great retreat won’t help you if you can’t get there.
8. It is often said that you should store what you eat and eat what you store, but do you? How many have the required amount of wheat per person but don’t know what to do with it? Have you sprouted wheat? Cooked it? Milled it into flour for bread? If you store it, eat it! Best way to do that is to start incorporating wheat, oats, rice (black, brown, wild more so then white but white is OK when added to the others), quinoa, farrow and others into your diet now. Try cooked wheat for breakfast and mixed rices and quinoa for dinner. It will be good for you and get you used to eating your storage foods.
9. If you store beans, then eat them! Many store beans but don’t eat them so don’t produce enough of the enzymes needed to digest them (hence the bloated gassy uncomfortable feeling when you suddenly do eat them).
10. Cut out processed foods, they are bad for you! Even store bought milk is processed and while it may be nearly impossible to replace it at least know that it isn’t as good for you as the advertisements say. It’s processed and that means ‘damaged’. Raw milk contains enzymes and bacteria like ‘probiotics’ that today’s modern American’s buy expensive yogurts to get, ever wondered why that is? But I digress, I’m not saying ‘go raw’ I’m just saying pay attention to what you stuff into yourself on a daily basis and try to start eating right – something most of us have forgotten how to do.
11. Start making things you think you might have to make, or want to, at your retreat. Make cheese (you’ll learn all about store bought milk then, I assure you), butter (you’ll need good cream for that), soap, flour, sourdough bread etc. Everything you make will taste better then what you buy anyway and you will know what went into it. Just remember that you also have to be fit and maintain a healthy lifestyle so don’t go eating cheese for three meals a day!
12. Seriously consider what you think you can do or might have to do and then test yourself. If you believe you can ‘ruck up’ and march off to a retreat that’s 200 miles away hidden deep in the woods then ruck up today and take a nice long walk, chances are that if you’re like me and no longer that young and lean fighting machine then you’ll learn real quick that you need to make some changes. Make them today and survive tomorrow, make them tomorrow and you won’t survive.

I know that’s not a complete list but I’m hopeful that those of you reading it might take it to heart and get doing something. Just be sure to get good shoes to start off, to stretch lightly during and after each walk (calve stretches will help a ton!) and to research your diet now and make the appropriate changes to it so that you can both have the energy to keep at it, to keep walking or riding, and the nutrients to heal the muscle you will be tearing down and rebuilding.

Here is a sample of my daily diet for those interested:

1. First thing in the morning I drink a 12 oz glass of water (something that I never would have done before).
2. 1 cup of coffee with about 1 TBS cream and a half TBS of Agave sweetener
3. Breakfast: ½ cup of oatmeal mixed with ¼ cup of cooked wheat or bran and 1 scoop of Chia seeds sweetened with Agave nectar and cinnamon.
4. Snack: 1 8oz protein shake (140 calories, 27 grams of protein) made with water not milk.
5. Lunch: 1 1/2 cups of mixed rice with some flavoring (Mrs. Dash no salt seasoning and olive oil)
6. Snack: 1 8oz protein shake (140 calories, 27 grams of protein) made with water not milk.
7. Snack: on particularly hungry days I have ¼ cup of mixed nuts for a snack in the afternoon.
8. Dinner: Whatever I want but preceded by a large salad (fills my dinner plate) with a small portion of salad dressing (I used to pour on the Blue Cheese dressing but today use a 50-80 calorie dressing that I measure out to be sure I don’t pour it on). I try to keep my dinners to about 500 calories except on days I burn a lot more doing cardio.

My current daily caloric intake is about 1,450 calories unless I do cardio which can increase the intake to about 2,100 calories (these are the days I take the protein shakes or eat protein bars).

Letter Re: Mass Versus Bullets (and Hail Stones and Gamma Radiation)

Hello James,
I read your blog every day and enjoy finding information that is useful. Recently a posting discussed the use of the 5.56 mm NATO bullet and its poor performance in penetrating automobiles.
 
I took notice of this information about the penetrating power or lack of penetrating power of the 5.56 in relation to single and double barriers.

We moved onto our five acres of land nine years ago. One of the first building projects was to have a contractor installed tornado shelter set in the ground. Then over the next two years I added a 16’x20’x50” high system of concrete walls around the opening to the tornado shelter. I added baffled entrances and a sturdy roof. The concrete walls are 7 inches thick on the bottom and taper to 5 inches at the top.
I designed this kind of wall to get the greatest thickness on the bottom where any residual radioactive might collect on the ground.

On top of the concrete walls is a 24” tall wooden wall with screened openings 7” along the three sides away from the embankment. The insides of these walls are stacked with bricks to increase the personal protection factor (PFC) against radiation and perhaps the penetration of bullets, slugs and shot.

We have electricity and water in the bunker. The roof has survived a single impact of large hail that we measured at 3.25 inches in diameter. Thankfully we had this hail only fall for 30 seconds and it was spread out widely on the property. One of these large hail stones penetrated completely through our house roof. But I had sheeted the roof of the bunker with 3/4 inch plywood. We call this structure our "Weather Bunker."
 
I have proceeded to attempt to harden it against weather and other possibilities. The south side of the weather bunker is protected by setting 9 to 11 foot tall discarded electric line poles along the roof edge. They average 8 to 11 inches thick and extend up to the roof ridge in height. I get these discarded poles from the local electric company. The north side and part of the east side are protected by a row of railroad timbers set on end creating a wall. These are for breaking the wind and protecting the shingles on the roof. However they do present an initial barrier for bullets, slugs and shot before coming to the concrete wall. We have a 350 gallon water tank on the north side that sets outside. This barrier protects it from visual observation and perhaps from penetration from light firearms.
 
The weakest part of the structure are the two doors made of 2×4’s and 5/8” plywood.
 
Recently we replaced our heat pump and the contractor left the old unit. During the disassembly I discovered that the outside was made up of two louvered rectangular units curved around to encase the unit. They laid out nearly flat when removed. They are good heavy steel units. After measuring I mounted these plates on the outside of the two doors. I now have a louvered steel plate plus two layers of 5/8” plywood on my doors. We will be visiting the contractor who did the installation looking for two more from discarded units for the inside of the doors.
 
As I read this article about penetration of the 5.56mm NATO I realized that the addition of these louvered plates was the correct thing to do.
 
We are both 72 years of age. Unless there are some really severe mitigating circumstances we will not be leaving this place if all hell breaks loose. This place is our lifeboat. But we are surrounded by hundreds of acres of range land. Some of which is very rough hilly land covered in sandhill plum brush, sages brush and some shinnery oak. The larger draws support a surprising growth of larger trees.

We have developed rally points close and far. Under certain conditions if we were forced to take to the land we have an environmental set of conditions in which we could hide. We have one ATV to use for transport locally in the rough land. As a last resort we have two pneumatic four tired garden carts that could be pulled. If the situation deteriorates we plan to buy another ATV of some sort quickly.
 
We have had to adjust our outlook recently. My wife had a mild non-debilitating heart attack last year. She is back to normal now. I appear to be recovering from Leukemia after diagnosis in January. Time will tell us how our health is and time will mark the requirements for our survival.
 
My thesis for this note is this: you should consider these louvered air conditioner plates as additional potential barriers for doors, windows and walls. They should be available if you can find the contractor who has a junk yard full of old units.
 
Secondly consider using railroad ties or discarded electric line poles for barriers around your retreat or home. Don’t forget to put a barrier around your outdoor privy area. Nobody wants to get shot with their pants down.

From the red hills of western Oklahoma and America’s most secret redoubt. – Joe C.