Making Wine At Home – Part 2, by H.F.K.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)

Some winemakers recommend dissolving the yeast in water first (called “proofing”). I’ve done it both ways, and adding the yeast directly seems to work best for me.

There are many different kinds of yeast for winemaking. (If you want to keep a bunch of oenophiles busy for days, ask them what the best yeast is, and then scurry away while they argue over it.) I use one of four kinds that I keep on hand, depending on what kind of wine I’m making. Yeasts vary in how well they tolerate alcohol. If you prefer a sweeter wine, choose a yeast that isn’t as alcohol-tolerant, such as Red Star Premier Classique. If a drier wine is your goal, you should choose a yeast such as Red Star Premier Cuvee (which is a white wine yeast). Different yeasts bring out different flavors in the wine. You can read about what yeasts produce what type of flavor, but ultimately, the best way to find out which yeast you like best is through experimentation.

Within three to four days, your primary fermentation should start working. If you use an airlock that has water in it, as I do, you can watch the airlock bubble away, like a 60’s lava lamp, and you’ll start to smell your wine. Open the primary every other day and give the material a good stir with a long-handled spoon or stirring rod. Sometimes a crust, made of bits of fruit pulp that stick together, forms on top, and it’s important to break up the crust.Continue reading“Making Wine At Home – Part 2, by H.F.K.”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

We had fairly nice weather this week, so I got outdoors to do some snow shoveling and various other projects around the ranch. Spring is coming!

I’ve had a few recent auction purchases arrive, so I soon added them to my Elk Creek Company online catalog.  These include a U.S. Springfield Armory 1884 Trapdoor Rifle that is Chicago “Boston Store”-marked and a scarce Carcano M1891 Torre Short Rifle that is dated 1897 on the barrel ring.

Now, Lily’s much more loquacious report…Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.

Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abiah: they were judges in Beersheba.

And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah,

And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.

But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.

And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.

Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.

And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.

And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.

And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.

And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.

And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.” – 1 Samuel 8:1-18

Preparedness Notes for Friday — March 8, 2024

On March 8th, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people lost contact and disappeared, prompting the most expensive search effort in history and one of the most enduring aviation mysteries.

March 8th is the birthday of famed revolver shooter, big game hunter, and gun writer Elmer Keith, who co-designed the S&W .44 Magnum and .41 Magnum cartridges. He authored the book Sixguns, which is still considered a standard reference. His fascinating life story is told in his last book, Hell, I was there! A Proto-Redoubter, Keith spent the second half of his life on a ranch near Salmon, Idaho. (Keith was born in 1899 and died February 12, 1984.)

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In honor of Elmer Keith’s birthday, I have put all of my percussion revolver inventory on sale, at Elk Creek Company, for the next two weeks.  Every cataloged percussion revolver has been discounted! This sale ends on March 22nd, 2024.

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 111 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2,000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A Peak Refuel “Wasatch Pack” variety of 60 servings of premium freeze-dried breakfasts and dinners in individual meal pouches — a whopping 21,970 calories, all made and packaged in the USA — courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $359 value),
  4. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  5. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of USA Berkey Filters (a $305 value),
  2. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  3. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 111 ends on March 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.

Making Wine At Home – Part 1, by H.F.K.

People have been making wine for almost as long as there have been people. In the Bible, we’re told that Noah, after disembarking from the ark, “was the first to plant a vineyard.” (Genesis 9:21)

This article will give you some how-tos, whats, and whsy on making wine at home, as well as a brief description of how I got into it.

How I got started on making wine at home

The first time a friend of mine, Pastor B., visited our home, he gave us a bottle of homemade apricot wine. It was incredible. I picked his brain on the subject of winemaking.

“It’s really pretty simple,” said Pastor B. “It comes down to this: You give the yeasts sugar in a nice place for them to live. They eat the sugar, poop alcohol, and pass carbon dioxide gas. When the alcohol content gets high enough, they die, and your wine is done.”

When pressed further on specifics, Pastor B. gave a simple recipe for winemaking: Three pounds of fruit and three pounds of sugar per gallon of wine.Continue reading“Making Wine At Home – Part 1, by H.F.K.”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at record-high gold futures prices, in Dollar terms. (See the Precious Metals section.)

Precious Metals:

 

Published on Tuesday: ‘We Have Liftoff!’ – Spot Gold Takes Out Record High.  JWR’s Comments: The fundamentals of gold haven’t changed, as a hedge. It is the U.S. Dollar that is showing its inherent weakness.  Oh, and ditto for Bitcoin, which also hit an all-time high in Dollar terms, this week.

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Gold Futures Close at Record High.

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Commentary from Gary Wagner, at Gold-Eagle.com: The Truth About the Collapsing US Dollar and Its Impact on Gold & Silver Prices.

Economy & Finance:

Fed policymakers look past ‘bumpy’ inflation toward rate cuts.

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In the U.K.: Banks force closure of 140,000 small business accounts.

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Millennials on course to become ‘richest generation in history’.

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Nolte: Bud Light Boycott Cost Tranheuser-Busch $1.4 Billion.

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Will Denyer, by way of Zero Hedge: Good Story Versus Bad Valuations.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — March 7, 2024

On March 7, 1778, Captain James Cook first sighted the Oregon coast at Yaquina Bay.

March 7, 1707 was the birthday of Stephen Hopkins, (Governor of Rhode Island) one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

And March 7, 1944 was the birthday of Townes Van Zandt, a gifted Texan singer/songwriter. (He died in 1997.)

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Update: We are running out of 2005-2023 SurvivalBlog archive USB sticks. There are only about 200 left. Many readers are ordering 2, 3, or 4 sticks. There will not be another batch of sticks produced this year, so get your order in soon.

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Today we present a brief reader-written review article. It was too short to qualify for the judging in the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

We are in great need of entries for Round 111 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 111 ends on March 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.

Separett Waterless Composting Toilet, by OhioGalt

Not the most comfortable topic to discuss but closing up the cabin last week I realized that our toilet has been problem-free for many years and worthy of a brief review to share with the readers of SurvivalBlog. I did not receive any compensation for this review, and we purchased this unit four years ago and have been using it regularly.

We installed a composting toilet in our cabin several years ago for those times we didn’t want to trudge 300′ through the snow to the outhouse. My wife and I watched numerous video reviews of different composting toilets in tiny houses. Quite frankly many of them were disgusting to watch with cranking handles to stir up the mixture, adding sawdust, or dumping buckets. Some of the toilets sat up on a riser so you had to step up to sit on it. Then we ran across the Swedish-made composting toilet called the “Separett”. It is named as such because the urine is separate from the solid waste (“poo”). We learned if you remove the urine from the poo, the odor will dissipate in short order.Continue reading“Separett Waterless Composting Toilet, by OhioGalt”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, a further examination of emigration from northeastern “blue” states.

Five Million People Have Fled ‘Blue States’ in the Last Decade

A Moneywise report: ‘One of the biggest mass migrations in American history’: Economist says 5 million people have fled ‘blue states’ in the last decade, wishes these places would ‘stop avoiding reality.’ Here’s why.

A pointed quote in the article from economist Stephen Moore:

“‘If you look at, for example, the states that gained the most population over the last 10 years, you’re talking about obviously, Florida, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, those states, the Southeast now has a larger GDP — total combined economic output — than the Northeast,’ Moore pointed out. ‘That’s the first time that’s ever happened in American history.’”

The Great Blue State Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal States

At MSN, a Homeward How piece: The Great Blue State Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal States.

Remington is Relocating from New York to Georgia

H.L. sent this: Remington CEO Cites ‘Legislative Environment’ in New York as Company Moves to Georgia. A key line from the article:

“The pending closure of Remington’s Ilion, New York, plant — launched in 1828 — marks the end of generations of New Yorkers working for the American gun maker.”

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The churches represent the great area of freedom from statist controls in many countries. This is a condition which the modern state finds intolerable and is determined to alter. The state’s great ally in this struggle is all too often the church itself. The humanism of so many churchmen makes them dedicated allies of statist objectives.” – R.J. Rushdoony, Christianity and the State

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — March 6, 2024

On March 6, 1475 Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti—who exerted an unparalleled influence on Western sculpture, painting, and architecture and whose works rank among the most famous in existence—was born in the Republic of Florence.

Today is the birthday of Georg Johann Luger (March 6, 1849 – December 22, 1923). He was the Austrian designer of the famous Luger pistol and the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge.

March 6th was the birthday of Leroy Gordon “Gordo” Cooper Jr., born in 1927 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. This U.S. Air Force pilot and astronaut was aboard Mercury 9 and Gemini 5. Cooper had his exploits well documented in Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff, and in the well-done film of the same name. Cooper died at age 77 from heart failure at his home in Ventura, California, October 4, 2004.

Coincidentally, this is also the birthday of Valentina Tereshkova (born 1937), a Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space (aboard Vostok 6). She was born in Maslennikovo, USSR.

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These new listings caught my eye:

Turnkey Survival Bunker Homestead on 7 acres — $625,000 — 170 Lightning Creek Road, Harpster, Idaho.

and,

Country Living at Its Best! — $840,000 — 4300 Custer Frontage Road, Pompeys Pillar, Montana

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Today’s feature article is a review written by SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.

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We are in great need of entries for Round 111 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 111 ends on March 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.

Taurus TH9 Pistol, by Thomas Christianson

The Taurus TH9 is a full-sized, hammer-fired, SA/DA, semi-automatic, polymer-framed, 9mm handgun with a 17 round magazine capacity. It is reliable, accurate, and reasonably priced, with a manufacturer-suggested retail price of $389.99

Background

I am a big fan of single action/double action handguns with decockers. I have been ever since my son first let me fire his Beretta 92FS. I like the extra measure of deliberation that the double action mode requires in a first shot, and the greater accuracy that the single action mode makes possible in followup shots. I really appreciated this feature in one of my all-time favorite handguns, the Walther P99. In fact, if Walther offered a full-size version of the P99, I would try to be first in line to buy one.

I also like hammer-fired handguns. I like being able to quickly and easily determine visually whether or not a handgun is cocked. I like being able to quickly and easily cock a handgun if it is not already prepared for single action use.

So when I heard about the Taurus TH9, I was eager to give it a try. I sent a message to my contact with Taurus, and they were kind enough to agree to provide me with a sample for testing and evaluation. Before too long, I received a message that the handgun was at my FFL, and I went to pick it up.Continue reading“Taurus TH9 Pistol, by Thomas Christianson”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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A blog reader in Tasmania sent a snail mail letter, warning of a “regulatory change” that will soon go into effect, canceling the long-standing “Exemption 4” for antique guns. The law redefinition requires registration, making an application for a “limited individual exemption”, upgrades to existing firearms licenses, and “gun cupboard” storage of all antique (pre-1900) guns on the island. This is regardless of a gun’s ignition system — even matchlock and flintlock muzzleloaders.  The only legal alternatives will be selling or surrendering those antique guns.  The officials haven’t yet decided what the “training requirements” will be for the owners of all those pre-1900 antique guns. What insanity! The officials of course say that this change is for “public safety.”  Each day, the chains of tyranny get a little stronger, all around the world.  Readers in the Commonwealth: I beg you, don’t surrender your antique guns for destruction!

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Reader D.S.V. suggested this essay from The New Atlantis: Things Used to Work in This Country.

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Great Reset Watch: EU Parliament Approves ‘Digital Identity Wallet’.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”