Note from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is now at $600. This auction is for a mixed lot that includes:

1.) A huge lot of DVDs, CD-ROMs and hard copy nuclear survival/self-sufficiency references (a $300+ value) donated by Richard Fleetwood of www.SurvivalCD.com

2.) A custom-made, fully-stocked EMS Medic Bag from Cajun Safety and Survival (a $212 retail value)

3.) A NukAlert radiation detector donated by at KI4U.com (a $160 retail value)

4.) A case (6 cans) of Mountain House freeze dried foods in #10 (96 ounce) cans donated by Ready Made Resources (a $160 value)

5.) An autographed copy of “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” ($24, retail)

See the SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction page for complete details on these items. This auction ends on November 15th. Please e-mail us your bid.

Full Capacity Magazine Price Increases are Already Here

Regarding my recommendation to stock up on full capacity magazines, reader David B. noted this in an e-mail yesterday morning: “[The discount mail order dealer] Cheaper Than Dirt [is] already gouging us based on our fear of Obama being elected. Overnight, their price for Mag-Pul [brand AR-15/M16] magazines went from $15.97 each to $29.97 each. Wow. They just lost my business forever.” David’s note intrigued, me, so I just spent some time at the Cheaper Than Dirt (CTD) web site and compared their new prices with their latest hard copy catalog (dated November, 2008). Here is a brief sampling:

Glock Model 20, 21, 22, 31, and 32 full capacity factory magazines were all $19.97. Now some are $29.97 and others $39.97 Ouch!

Glock 33 rd. 9mm magazines were $44.97. Now $49.97 (Note: I bought a pile of these for $26 each, about a year ago, and I’m glad that I did!)

Ruger factory 20 rd. Mini-14 magazines were $59.97. Now $69.97

Beta CMAG 100 rd. double snail drum for Mini-14 were $299.97. Now $399.97

LR .308 19 Round Blued Steel mags made by DPMS (for their flavor of AR-10 rifles) were $39.97. Now $49.97 (But out of stock)

M14 and M1A .308 20 Round Parkerized “Military Style” [commercial copy] were $11.97. Now $29.97 (But out of stock)

AR-15 .223 30 Round, Bushmaster factory mags were $29.97. Now $49.97

FN P90/PS90 5.7x28mm 50 rd. magazines dropped from $69.97 to $59.81 (At least a some good news!)

All in all, I have doubts that the aforementioned price increases were all triggered by CTD’s suppliers. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call the increases “gouging”. Pricing is a function of supply and demand. In a free market, prices eventually reach equilibrium. And I’m sure that the current demand is skyrocketing. I certainly know that my personal demand is! For example, I just placed a “top off the inventory” order with one of my favorite suppliers, CDNN Sports. I was pleased to see that as of yesterday, none of their prices had increased. I did notice however, that they are now sold out of many magazines, including quite a few SIG, HK, and Springfield Armory XD pistol magazines. My advice: Stock up now, while magazines are still available at fairly reasonable prices. I anticipate that there will be some significant shortages for the next few months. But after BHO‘s inauguration in early 2009 all bets are off. If, (as I’ve predicted), an executive order banning importation of so-called “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines is enacted, there could be some huge price increases!

Letter Re: Some Changes in American Wholesale Food Distribution

James,
I have a good friend who is an executive in the "food distribution business". They supply restaurants, schools, hospitals, day care centers, nursing homes,,,,,the large quantity food purchasers.

This past week at their annual sales meeting, they were informed of coming changes.

#1–Most food has been delivered in #10 [96-ounce] or one gallon size cans. [The rolled steel for] most of these cans[is] made in China and the cost has increased dramatically in the past several months because of rising steel prices. Effective December 1, the price on an individual empty #10 can is increasing by about 75 cents per can. This means that whatever is in a case of food (six cans) the price will be going up by about $4.50 per case just because of the can price. On some products, the price increase will be as much as 25% because of the can price increase.

#2 In an effort to offset the rising price of cans, many food distributors are making a concentrated effort to switch customers over to buying frozen foods instead of canned foods. The big move is for customers to install commercial food freezers (costing between $3,500-to-$7,000 per location) where they can store frozen food instead of canned foods. The feeling is that with increasing prices on "canned" goods, there will be a long term savings by going to frozen products.

This could have a major impact on the folks that wish to store or stockpile "survival" supplies in cans if emphasis moves to frozen foods. It will also present an interesting situation if we have a major problem with the grid, tons of food would go bad in a very short order.

#2 Small customers and customers in remote locations will be gradually phased out of the delivery system. Delivery costs and diesel prices have made it impractical to service this type of account. I wonder if the same decision will be made about small rural and remote general grocery stores.

#3 Sales people were told to inform their customers that they need to plan and be ready to deal with rapid and un-expected price increases on food products, this is going to become a way of life.

Please pass this on to your readers. – Buckskin in Texas

Letter Re: Did Western Civilization Actually Peak Around 1970?

Jim,
I wanted to comment on something that was mentioned near the end of the Utah home break-in article: The author hit on the idea that TEOTWAWKI already took place in the late 1960s. Possibly some gifted insight.

I’m a member of a regional Peak Oil group. (I originally joined this group a few years ago, in order to learn food-growing skills: You’ve always suggested getting with various groups, in order to learn skills), we’ve begun a spin off group meeting–a ‘meeting of the minds’ so to speak, involving predictive analysis, regarding the collapse of the current civilization.

We were all encouraged to present our own theses, with the material to support it. In my case, I presented the idea that our civilization actually peaked sometime in the early 1970s, for the following reasons ( based on the “fusion” [an MI term] of the open-source analysis of several theories, in addition to my own historical observations):

– The last manned Apollo mission to the moon took place in 1972 (we have not seriously entertained the thought of going back there since).

– Domestic US oil production peaked at roughly 9.5 mbl/d (million barrels per day) in December, 1970, and has since gone into irreversible decline (without going into detail, we now produce roughly what we once did during WWII. In other words, US energy independence is a fantasy). This includes the North Slope of Alaska, which previously peaked in the late 1980s at roughly 2 mbl/d, and now produces roughly just over 700,000 bl/d.

– Nixon’s decision to remove the last aspect of the US Dollar being tied to anything tangible, in 1972 (DeGaulle wanted France’s loans repaid in gold bullion. This was in part a result of the Vietnam War).

– The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, which permanently devalued the US Dollar.

– The US withdrawal from South Vietnam, with Saigon being overrun by 1975, marking the US military’s first “defeat” (For the real reasons as to why the US got involved militarily in Vietnam, I suggest Googling ‘Geneva Conference’: By international agreement in 1956, Vietnam was supposed to be split in half for only two years, while the country took a popular vote.)

– A lower living wage for the average US worker, since the 1970s.

There are other examples. In my opinion the best author specializing in this area of predictive analysis is John Michael Greer in Oregon, who is critical of Jared Diamond‘s research. (Diamond avoids the Roman Empire, and skims over the Mayan civilization). Greer has concluded that a civilization takes roughly 150 years to collapse–something akin to Winnie the Pooh being dragged down the stairs, hitting his rear end on each step, staying there a brief moment, then hitting the next one

OBTW, I’m reading “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” for a second time, this time flagging it with Post-It notes. – CPT J.E. .(A prior service 96B)

Odds ‘n Sods:

Three readers sent me this noteworthy blog piece: Over 1 Trillion Dollars Worth of Credit Default Swaps Against Governments. The article mentions that there are still $33-to-$47 Trillion (notional) in CDS derivatives still outstanding. This skunk won’t be washed clean until the real estate market bottoms, and all the “Marked to Mystery” paper gets marked to the real market. And, BTW, that bottom may not be for another five years. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The fallout from the nascent derivatives collapse may topple some national governments.

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The latest huge download from Cheryl, our kindly volunteer Economic Editor: Oil Prices Up As Saudis Cut Production — Credit Continues to Tighten in US — Two EU Banks Warn of Tougher Market Conditions Ahead — Naked, Short Failures (from The Mogambo Guru) — Scrap Steel Buyers Cancel Orders As Prices Tumble — Dow Tumbles 443 On Weak Economic and Corporate Data (Post-vote losses = 10% in two-day rout) — Holiday Outlooks Grimmer After Dismal October —Oil To Shoot Back Through $100 — US Long-term Jobless Benefits at 25-Year High —Global Recession, Country By Country — Investors Running Out Of Places To Hide —1,000,000 Jobs Lost This Year (And this is the beginning of a recession?)

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Reader Henry S. mentioned: “The Swiss have produced a free guide to every type of toilet you can imagine. The guide is very Swiss and proper”: Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies (PDF)

Notes from JWR:

I just noticed that when I zoom in on our Clustrmap, SurvivalBlog has no readers indicated in Cuba nor in North Korea. It is amazing that the citizenry of these two nations have been cut off from the outside world.so effectively, and for so long.

Today we present another entry for Round 19 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

First Prize: The writer of the best contributed article will be awarded two transferable Front Sight  “Gray” Four Day Training Course Certificates. This is an up to $4,000 value!
Second Prize: A three day course certificate from OnPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses.
Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing

Round 19 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

On War, Gardening, and Cooking for Bad Times, by Elizabeth B.

Wars are forever. The memories seem to never end for families. They are passed on from generation to generation.The Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Iraq.
What remains is not even so much who won or lost, but rather the memories of war center on beloved family members that died and the foods of these times…

I’m only in my 50s, yet our family oral traditions date back earlier than 1860, but that is where I will start.
My great-grandfather’s two brothers marched off to fight in one of the major Civil War battles that no one can even name today. They were never heard from again. My grandmother’s half-sister, whom I knew very well as a child, worked as an attendant at the Home For Confederate Widows in Austin until it closed and she retired. I was born in 1951. My parents who both died after the year 2000 yet knew many Civil War veterans in their hometowns. They remembered parades where the vets were honorees. That war is remembered as the time they boiled the dirt from the smokehouse to retrieve salt. The girls and women of the family scratched vegetables out of the kitchen garden. Soldiers used the clothesline to hold target practice on china teacups. It was a hungry time.

My father’s father enlisted in the waning days of WWI but did not deploy to France. That war is remembered as the time when the family moved off the farm to the city, yet still continued to go back home in the late summers to spend several weeks canning, pickling, and putting up produce. Daddy wrung chickens’ necks for the cook pot in the backyard. It was a transition time. My mother’s [first] husband, the father of my sister, was shot down in a plane over Germany one month after the D-Day invasion. That war is remembered by its Victory Gardens, the ration books for sugar, the rationing of milk for a pregnant mother, and meatless Tuesdays. It was a time of want.

The coming bad times will also be a war, or likened to a war. It will be a war for your personal survival, a war for our future, and a war that determines the path humanity will take on our planet. Global warming, acid rain, rampant species extinction, and the collapse of fish populations and pollinators are in our immediate future.

What does the food of struggling people around the world have in common? Peppers! Think about food from India, Thailand, Mexico, China. All these cultures have developed foods spiced up with native peppers. In a survival situation, it will take about one nanosecond to get tired of beans, rice, pulses, corn, and potatoes on a daily basis. However, with the use of peppers and a couple of herbs and spices, you can spice up your daily fare.

Fortunately, peppers are among the easiest of all plants to grow. Nothing is much more forgiving than a pepper. Pepper plants are actually perennials, not annuals as they are sold in the stores. Where I live in south central Texas, a pepper plant can live for years. If the winter is mild, there is no problem. If the winter is a bit more severe, just place some rags around the roots, cover with some plastic and weight the entire thing down. In the spring, you will be rewarded with a delightful blooming pepper bush that will supply until the next winter arrives.
Right now, I have Big Jim, jalapeño, serrano, and ancho growing. But the king of my garden is the lovely volunteer chile pequin that sprang up from the forest behind my house. Chile Pequin is a native of south central Texas. Interestingly, this is a pepper well known by Hispanics in Texas. Most families have their stories of growing up with mother making very hot chile from the abundant chile pequin, a free gift from nature. However, huge numbers of the rest of the population have lived alongside chile pequin growing wild without ever knowing how delicious this little spicy number is.
Chile Pequin is a tiny little pepper, often no larger than an apple or orange seed, although mine can grow larger than that. Due to the fact that I live in San Antonio and peppers are called “chiles,” that is how I will refer to them from this point forward.

Confusion abounds as to what is the difference between chile, chili, chile con queso, salsa, and pico de gallo. Pico de gallo means “rooster’s beak.” It is tomatoes and chile plus onions, garlic, and cilantro. Chili is the saucy meat stew which may or may not contain beans. This is also called chili con carne. I prefer no beans, but for survival, of course I would opt for beans. Pinto beans, never those tasteless little pieces of chalk: red kidney beans. Salsa means any type of hot sauce made with tomatoes or corn or fruit such as mango and chile such as chipotle (dried, smoked jalapeños) or fresh jalapeno. Chile con queso is a melted cheese sauce cooked with chile peppers. If sausage is added, it is called “flameado.”

Molcajete
Every kitchen needs a stone mocajete or molcajete, not a fru-fru ceramic item bought at a gourmet kitchen store. This should be a workhorse in your kitchen. In traditional Mexican families, the mocajete sits on the table so mother can concoct the chile to specifications or requests from the family according to what is being served. In English, it is called mortar and pestle and is used for classic hand grinding. Decades of grinding will smooth the mocajete out. Chile is served with every meal. Today Hispanics do not cook this way so much, but it is how many were brought up. Times have changed all around and the family sit-down meal is ebbing away into memory in many cultures.
Depending on how much chile goes into the mocajete influences how “pico” or hot and spicy the chile turns out to be. One chile pequin is enough for one
tomato.

Comal
The comal is a flat cast iron griddle that goes on the stovetop. You can grill (blister or blacken) chile or more commonly, cook fajita meat and its veggies such as onions, bell pepper, and tomatoes. Americans have gotten out of the habit of using cast iron to cook, but it can’t be beaten. I grew up with cast iron, but my children are ignorant of its use and care. Cast iron is also a source of iron in the diet. Jalapeños can be grilled to produce chipotle, if you like that flavor. Tortillas can be re-heated.

Recipes

  • Basic chile: Grind one pepper and one tomato, salt and pepper only if desired.
  • Pico de gallo: Grind one diced pepper, one diced tomato, add by stirring in some chopped onion, garlic, cilantro, salt, pepper
  • Pinto Beans (charro beans or borracho beans): Add a jalapeño, one diced tomato, one bay leaf, and one onion while cooking
  • Rice: Sprinkle freshly diced tiny pieces of chile when serving or cook with tiny pieces incorporated into the raw rice before cooking
  • Pepper sauce: wash peppers, stack in a bottle, pour boiled vinegar over and cork, store in refrigerator. Fabulous over black-eyes peas, pinto beans, white beans, navy beans, or any other food that needs kick

If you prefer no skin, briefly boil the larger chiles and tomatoes to slip off the skin. Grind as usual. If you are lacking enough fresh tomatoes, add a little tomato sauce or canned tomatoes. Rinse the mocajete well with water after each use, checking the crevasses for lingering pieces.

Your garden needs to be growing parsley, cilantro, and various peppers. I have not mentioned bell peppers because they are not my favorites, but they deserve a place in any garden for ease of growing, beauty, and flavor. Chile gardeners are known for sharing peppers in order to share the seeds. If you meet a pepper you like, save some seeds or ask for some. People are unfailingly willing to share.

More Food for Bad Times
Greens are making a culinary comeback. One hundred years ago they were a staple. Now you find chard in many restaurants. The taste is acquired, so now is the time to begin to learn to cook and enjoy greens and teach your family to eat them. My family ate spinach and mustard greens when I was growing up. Kale, beet, and collard greens will supply vital nutrients to your diet and are easy growers in the home garden. The addition of bacon or bacon grease, red pepper flakes, vinegar, garlic, or sugar can add kick to a bland food. Experiment until you find the taste you and your family prefer.Okra has earned a bad rap due to bad cooking. As a child, I would not touch okra as it was often simply boiled and it became very slimy. Due to the proliferation of fast food fried chicken eateries, many people now know that okra is delicious served fried. Okra is a vital ingredient of seafood gumbos. I don’t eat seafood, but you make gumbo with sausage and rice and it’s wonderful. With my family roots going back to Civil War days and all the privations involved, we had many poor people food recipes handed down. Tomatoes and okra was a favorite of both of my parents. You can lay a piece of soft bread down first in a bowl as a sop and add the cooked okra and tomatoes. Naturally, sprinkling cheese of any type such as parmesan, romano, or cheddar would greatly enhance this humble dish.

Succotash is a vegetable concoction that is rather like a kitchen sink recipe. If it grows in the garden, add it in. Succotash traditionally utilizes corn and lima beans. Depending on the cook, you can add tomatoes and okra. Just don’t forget the herbs and chile to make it edible.

Use it All: Chicken
A whole rotisserie chicken will last for a week at my house.
Day 1: warm sliced chicken served as main entrée with skin and fat pulled off and fed to the dog who loves chicken day
Day 2: cold chicken pasta salad with finely diced/shredded broccoli, carrots, mayonnaise, ranch dry dressing (available in a big plastic container from Sam’s Club), and cayenne pepper, salt, pepper
Day 3: cold chicken salad with plenty of fruit such as raisins or currants, apples or grapes, toasted almonds, celery including the tops, a little onion, curry powder; use mayo as a binder
Day 4: baked chicken spaghetti topped with cheese
Day 5: boil bones and veggies for soup, add rice or noodles
This seems like a lot of meals for just one chicken, right? It’s because you are basically using the chicken as a flavoring. Americans eat way too much meat, so you’ll be doing just fine. Focus on flavors and carbs.

More Use it All: Ham
Buy an uncooked ham, cook it, and it lasts seemingly forever.
Day 1: warm sliced ham for entrée; delight clever dog by sharing scraps.
Day 2: ham sandwich
Day 3: omelet with ham and chile
Day 4: add diced ham fat cooked into your beans or peas or lentils
Day 5: fried ham for breakfast
Continue this way until meat is all used up.
Boil the ham bone for cooking beans or peas or lentils

Grease, Fat & Butter
In the old rural days, there was never a shortage of grease or fats. If you have ever read Poland by James Michener or The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, you will remember a recurrent theme was the lack of and longing for fat in the diet during the lean times.

If you have backyard chickens or a source of eggs, you’ll be fine. However, even a steady diet of lean rabbit meat can lead to “rabbit starvation” as the human body requires a small but steady input of fats for proper metabolism.

In my childhood home, bacon grease was kept in a special closed can for flavoring beans and corn. All other grease was put into a separate can for disposal. Just keep in mind if the bad times arrive, you will need to be mindful of your fat intake.

Finally, remember, everything is better with chile. If you don’t like spicy, it’s time to learn and develop your palate. A daily dose of beans and rice will get old very fast if you don’t do something different. If you really can’t go “pico,” then opt for bell peppers. They are in the same dependable plant family and won’t let you down. They dry easily in a food dehydrator and keep and reuse well.
I advocate growing your own chiles, since it is so easily done. Try different varieties from different regions. See what works well in your garden, zone, climate, and soil. Chiles grow well in containers,too. .

Recommended "Easy Growers"

  • Tomatoes
  • Onions
  • Garlic
  • Cilantro
  • Parsley
  • Lettuce
  • Carrots
  • Radishes
  • All kinds of peppers
  • Greens
  • Potatoes (grown in alternating years with corn if space is an issue.)

In conclusion, a great variety of vegetables exits that can be grown in your area. I have listed a few I know from personal experience and find foolproof. Many, many foods await your experimentation. Try something new today. Compost your fruit and vegetable scraps to improve the soil. In fact, don’t let any biomass go into the waste stream. You do have permission to toss out bones and meat scraps. Use everything for compost and mulch. Harvest your rainwater. You will feel very good about this, I promise.

Just remember: buy heirloom seed only, avoid the hybrids, and diversify, diversify, diversify. Change your eating habits. Picky eaters are not survivors. Complainers are not survivors. Survival will depend on your head, hands, and heart. There is no time like now before the Stuff Hits the Fan to change. We don’t want to awake to find a changed world that could be likened to the war times of the past. Later, it could be a misery, today it can be an adventure.

Letter Re: Information on Blinding Flashlights for Self Defense?

Greetings
Do you have any information on a laser flashlight for self defence, designed to temporarily blind attackers? Thanks, – Dave S.

JWR Replies: When lasers blind, they do so permanently, by destruction of the human retina. The “dazzling” effect is quite different than blinding. Never use a “non-eye safe” (blinding) laser against an attacker, or you will very likely be sued for every asset that you have, as well as a portion of your earnings for the rest of your life.

There are indeed flashlights with a temporary “dazzling” effect designed for self defense, but I have not tested them. At least one publicized prototype uses pulsating LEDs, designed to induce dizziness and/or vertigo. I’ve never been one to trust my life and safety to high tech gadgets. Keep in mind that these “dazzling” effects might work well in controlled conditions, in a low-light situation, but they cannot be trusted to be effective in split-second real world confrontations, which can take place in all sorts of light conditions. I have my own ideas about appropriate technologies for self defense. If you want to effectively repel a violent attacker, expose their eyes to the sight of the gaping muzzle of a Glock Model 21 .45 ACP. This technique has been known to induce severe physiological effects including involuntary urination and defecation. If the visual stimulus proves insufficient to deter an attacker, then press the patented “on” button, in double taps, as needed.

Odds ‘n Sods:

Several readers have e-mailed to ask me for investing recommendations, following the election of Barack H. Obama (BHO) to the American presidency. My basic recommendations are unchanged. The dollar is still doomed as a currency unit. If anything, the Mother of All Bailouts (MOAB), will grow even larger in the BHO era. Mass inflation (following some distinct deflation) is even more likely. So your need to get out of dollar-denominated investments and into tangibles is now more urgent. Specific advice: I now put a stronger emphasis on purchasing any semi-auto firearms or full capacity magazines that are imported. I suspect that based on the precedents set by the last three presidential administrations, BHO will unleash a large stack of executive orders in the first few weeks after his inauguration. And one of those will probably be an import ban on semiautomatic firearms and “high capacity” magazines. Based on the experience of the 1994-2004 Federal ban I predict that a spare Glock magazine may jump to $6+, and FN FS2000 (5.56mm NATO) and PS90 (5.7mm) bullpup carbines could jump to $3,500 or more. Ditto for the SIG 556 rifles. The latter have been imported in fairly small numbers. Hence, they could see a huge jump in price in the event of an import ban. What a great excuse to buy a gun!”Its an investment, honey.” As for magazines, see this SurvivalBlog post from 2007 for my recommendations on buying full capacity firearms magazines. But now, as I’ve noted, you should put a stronger emphasis on buying imported magazines. Buy low, sell high.

   o o o

This house with an underground bunker was mentioned once before in SurvivalBlog. Too bad that it has been so heavily publicized. (Thanks to Matt C., “Rightcoast”, and Bobby, who all sent us the same link.)

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Bigbird spotted this article in Der Spiegel: As Crisis Grows, Investors Look to Gold

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From our Economic Editor: U.S. Stocks Post Biggest Post-Election Drop on Economic Concern — South Africa Runs Out of Krugerrands! — Morgan Stanley Calls An End To Bear Market — Global Recession Already Underway — Swiss Financial Guru Sees US Bankruptcy — Customers Pull Billions Out Of Fading UBS, Largest Swiss Bank — US Housing Market Nightmare: Next Phase — Stock Market Unrelenting Bullishness Amidst Deteriorating Economic Conditions

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 19 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

First Prize: The writer of the best contributed article will be awarded two transferable Front Sight  “Gray” Four Day Training Course Certificates. This is an up to $4,000 value!
Second Prize: A three day course certificate from OnPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses.
Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing

Home Security Lessons Learned: An: Unwelcome Intruder, by R. in Utah

The following is from Jennifer’s (my wife’s) perspective…
My Journal Entry of Jan. 30th, 2005. I do not intend to put just dramatic experiences in my journal, in fact, I intend to put mostly my feelings on higher things as well as normal everyday experiences in here, but this one is deserves to be remembered for posterity.

We started out the new year with a 100 year flood. We were evacuated from our home, but we were able to move back in a day later. Luckily had 72-hour kit available and ready, but if it would have been longer, we were ill-prepared for this situation. No plan, no shelter, etc.

The sewer lines were broken due to the flooding, so they capped our sewer line and the city pumped it daily. Last week I woke up Tuesday morning at 4:45 am and smelled something funny. I went downstairs and stepped into 2” of sewer water all over the basement floors. 2000 sq. feet of sewage. Wait—–It gets better or you could say worse!

I hadn’t slept very well all week and was getting up several times a night to check the drains down in the basement. Friday night our neighbors called us to go to a late show. We left our oldest daughter to baby sit, and our son was on his way home from his friends to help her. When we got home at 11:30 or so, the back door to our house in the garage was open a little bit and we really didn’t think much about it. We figured our son hadn’t shut it tight when he got home. (we live in a very small town with literally zero crime. Our two oldest children were sleeping in our master bedroom and the other four were upstairs in their beds. So we woke up the kids and sent them upstairs to bed. My husband and I got ready for bed and went to sleep.

At about 2:30 AM, my 7 yr. old came down stairs because she had had a bad dream. I told her she could sleep on the couch in my room. I heard her go back upstairs about five minutes later. I was awake somewhat so I got up to go check the drains downstairs so I could have some piece of mind and be able to go back to sleep. I came back to bed and my husband was snoring, but it sounded kind of funny. I moved over closer to him and realized that the snoring wasn’t coming from him but from under the bed. I told my husband that one of the kids must have came down and fallen asleep over on his side of the bed. He was unresponsive, he sleeps very sound. I got up in the dark and felt under the bed and I was shocked to feel a full size big body instead of one of my tiny kids.

I somewhat calmly told my husband that it wasn’t one of our kids. This woke him. I can’t say why I was calm except for the fact that perhaps angels were watching over me. I went over and turned on the lamp and looked under the bed. There was a big man sleeping under the bed. I whispered with some serious intensity, “Roger, there is a man under our bed!” My husband immediately got out of bed and looked under the bed also. For a minute we thought it might be one of our son’s friends. Not thinking real clear at 3 am. He has two 14 yr. old friends that are pretty big. My husband ran upstairs and pulled my son down to our room and he looked under the bed and our son informed us that he had no idea who that was sleeping under our bed.

I immediately dialed 911 in the other room while my husband was grabbing his shot gun from the closet. He cocked his shotgun and looked in the chamber and it was empty. Because we have kids in the house, he usually keeps it empty, but has the shells nearby. He ran into his closet to grab his shells and they weren’t there. Realizing his gun was nothing but a big whoppin’ stick, he told me to watch the man while he ran to get shells in the garage. He didn’t find them in the garage and realizing that he just left me with an empty gun on an intruder, he grabbed a golf club and came back into the house. (He told me later he had picked out his four iron first and thought, I never hit my four iron very good so he grabbed his nine iron instead.)

Anyway, the sheriff showed up within 10 minutes of me calling 911. He came in and shined his flashlight under the bed and turned to us and said, “you don’t know this guy?!” We said, “Nope.” He looked at us with amazement and then took out his Taser and undid the holster on his gun. He then woke him up, handcuffed him, and started searching him. He started pulling out a bunch of drugs, meth, pot, pipes, [drug weighing] scales as well as my ‘ wallet, checkbook, cell phone, keys to our Suburban and a .99 cent pen of my daughters that had a bunch of shiny beads on it that looked like diamonds and rubies (that is, it looked like that to a guy that was wasted on drugs), and a hand gun. You can not imagine the scene of seeing the cops arrest a 170 pound drug lord under your bed at 3 am after you realized you slept with the guy there for 4 hours.

Apparently, our son didn’t lock the side door to our house when he came in, and he and his sister fell asleep in our master bedroom about 10:30 or so. The guy comes into our house at about 11:15 or so. We arrive at 11:30 and he gets scared and jumps under our bed. We come in and get the kids to bed in their rooms and we get undressed, brush teeth and jump in bed. We talked for about 10 minutes. He was going to wait until we got to bed before he made his getaway, but he fell asleep before he could make his getaway.

We are so lucky that the kids were ok, I mean, he literally had to step over our son as he was going thru our stuff in the bedroom. Anyway, we were blessed to escape completely without harm, he is really lucky he didn’t wake up to my husbands nine iron, the cops had one of the easiest arrests ever, the guy was prone, asleep, under our bed, in our house, with all the stuff he stole from us in his pocket with all of his drugs. The guy apparently had two outstanding warrants for arrest for breaking and entering.
I know the “what ifs” are endless to think about. But, there are some basic “what ifs” that do not take much imagination. What if the turning on the light would have awakened him? He has a gun, we have an empty shotgun and a 9-iron. What if our kids were awake when he broke into our home?

Some observations: An empty gun is worthless, it will never save your life. We owned no rifle and no handgun. We have no training. We had no dog and no security system. We have purchased a rifle and handgun now and put in a security system. We got a dog. We need training. The situation presented to us would have been much less stressful and less out of control if we would have had front sight training and the appropriate weapons to protect ourselves. Our oldest two children would have been safer, if awake, if they would have had front sight training and so forth. We are lucky it turned out to happen the way it did, but you can’t base your life on luck, you need skills for every situation, skills are the answer, from gardening to weapons training, skills are the focus of our family now. We were so vulnerable.

We talk about protecting ourselves, our preparations, our fuel, our shelter and our food for TEOTWAWKI, always in the future tense, but we are seeing more and more situations every day and year that make me believe that TEOWAWKI happened sometime in the late 1960s and as we have lost skills, become spoiled people dependent on fragile infrastructures, accepted crime and immorality as something we just have to live with, and all this has crept in, in an amazingly subtle way as we have slowly and sometimes quickly lost essential skills and freedoms. – R. in Utah


JWR Replies: This article underscores te importance of having both the tools and the requisite training needed to survive in an uncertain world. I highly I recommend that SurvivalBlog readers take advantage of Front Sight’s “Get a Gun” training and gear package offer. It is worth flying across the country to take Front Sight’s Four Day Defensive Handgun course. The Memsahib and I have both taken it, and it outstanding.

Letter Re: Mexico as a Retreat Locale and Advice on Water Filters

Hello Folks,
I just completed going through a portion of the SurvivalBlog archives and look forward to exploring the site further. I especially liked the animation about Libertarian philosophy. Very well done with excellent points to consider.

I have recently returned to the US after having spent four years in a small village in Mexico outside of Guadalajara. I am an artist and teacher of art and semi-retied there after having had my medical insurance increased a number of times to the point of being ridiculous. I just got fed up and moved south. Two years earlier I had spent a year or so living on a boat in the Sea of Cortez and so had some language and culture skills.

I had one of the Berky models sent to Mexico and proceeded to use it as my primary source of drinking and cooking water. I also used the 24 oz. portable version when traveling. I used the system for four years and was so confident that I began distributing them to local orphanages through a local Rotary Club. I liked the idea of not being dependant on electricity or a plumbing hookup. I lived on a lake and on occasion would use lake water if the municipal system was not providing water, which was quite often or if the utilities would not provide electricity, which was quite often. Although the Black Berky filter is classified as a water purifier by the manufacturer, it does not remove viruses. I would add either iodine or chlorine to the water to kill viruses. The filter would then remove the iodine or chlorine from the water.

I read an article in your blog about adaptation as a primary means of coping with changing circumstance. Mexicans are extraordinarily adaptive. Living with a history of political and societal instability for generations and with strong roots in indigenous cultures, they are experts at finding ways at making one thing substitute for another. I remember one time coming back to San Diego by sea from the Sea of Cortez, I was running low on fuel and had to stop in Turtle Bay about half way up the west side of the Baja Peninsula. I didn’t have enough cash and Turtle Bay was way way off the beaten path. I had to hitchhike 125 miles through the baja desert on a seldom used road to get to a bank to get the cash. One the way back I hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck traveling with an old semi carrying supplies. The semi got stuck in a place where the road turned into a salt flat and while stuck, one of the tires went flat. We discovered the only spare was also flat and un inflatable. If you’ve ever tried to re-inflate a semi truck tire you know that it is not easy without a means of keeping the tire against the rim. We had nothing with which to do that. Instead, the Mexican driver had his compadre get some gas while he got the tire off the truck, patched and ready. He had the compressor hooked up and running and had his partner sprinkle gas on the inside of the tire and throw in a match. The tire blew up with a whoosh, sealed the rubber against the rim and the inflation began. All we had to do then was get unstuck–which is another story.

My ancestors on my mothers side were Mennonites and I have spent some time on the colonies. Surviving since the 1500s in small groups throughout the world, they have devised a system of cooperation that leaves them able to adapt easily to the winds of change. I’m sure there is much that could be learned from them and look forward to spending more time on their farms. Last time I was there they were making home-made root beer that was like nothing I’ve ever tasted.

Well, anyway, congratulations on a great blog site and for all the valuable information. Best of everything to you both, – Daniel N.

JWR Replies: I highly recommend Big Berky water filter. They are just about idiot proof. However, as they come from the factory in gleaming stainless steel, they are fairly expensive. Especially for your circumstances, I recommend manufacturing your own to sell or to distribute for charitable purposes. I described how to do this in a SurvivalBlog post a few months ago.

Two Letters Re: Adapt to Survive, by Elizabeth B.

Mr. Rawles,
I can understand Mrs. B’s reasoning from a long term standpoint. But, what I believe she is missing is that most of what is trying to be conveyed to people on this site is to stock up on articles such as food stuffs, hygiene supplies, bartering goods and such for the period of time that will exist from the point that the realization of a SHTF time and the time when all the skills and knowledge will be needed to sustain life.

For an example, lets say that it’s October or November and everything has just fallen apart. The time has now come to start to acquire food from sources other than the local grocery store. According to Mrs. B, everyone should be able to immediately start gathering food and starting survivalist skills immediately. Unfortunately, its not that simple. The fall time frame would be the end of the growing season in most of the country, so if a person is expecting to plow a field, mature plants, and harvest for food, they are looking at approximately five months before planting, another two to three months for maturing of plants, then harvesting. In the meantime, what are they supposed to survive on?

They are going to have to rely on the food stores that Mrs. B seems to be recommending against. Unless a person is already living at their planned retreat, or if they have had the capability of regularly visiting their planned retreat to properly have gardens ready, livestock already purchased and fenced in, and shelter already established, there is going to be a desperate need for food stuffs, batteries, medical supplies, and everything else that has been discusses on this site.

I and many of us here have working ranches/farms that we live on, and yet we know that even we have to have all these supplies set aside for when the SHTF. We still make weekly/monthly runs into town to purchase items for everyday use. Also, with the responsibility of livestock, purchasing feed is economically advantageous to us right now in comparison to having to dedicate acreage to the growth and storage of feed grain. So the transition from regular ranching/farming will still effect us to a point that we have to have stores of not only human needs, but livestock needs also.
I do not want to take away from most of Mrs. B’s article, for the period of time that would exist after a prolonged TEOTWAWKI what she has written is well thought out, and will be useful. The only thing that I am disagreeing with, is the need for a substantial amount of stores for when that time occurs. Respectfully, – Bob W. in Texas

 

CPT Rawles:
I disagree with most of what was said [in Elizabeth B.’s article] about what do when TSHTF. I was in Somalia and have seen what happens to civilization when no law is apparent. Those that have the means gather together to take from those that have [what they need].

Numerous web sites describing how to survive (not yours, but many others) say to find a community that has a large LDS (Mormon) or Mennonite following and you will have food for a year.
Within 60 days after a total SHTF event, over half the people living [in affected areas] will have died, from either starvation illness, murder neglect or out right lawlessness–oh and lest I forget stupidity.
After 120 days half of the people left alive will have eaten most of the easily available food sources and taken most of the food from survivalists who haven’t planned their survival to include fighting off warlord style roving groups of people (as was seen in Somalia). Within 300 days most if not all the food sources that had storage such as grocery store warehouses will have been either looted or infested by bugs, or scavenged by wild animals and others searching for food.

I have talked to friends of my other half who work in zoos and animal habitats who have stated that if something goes wrong and they fear for the safety of the animals they will set them free.
Conservative estimates of wild bears, lions, and others dangerous wild animals such as gorillas are 2,000 to 4,000. Most of these facilities are located around large cities so they will find many things to eat and survive on. (Read: people, dogs, house cats, etc.)

As for prisons I’d be surprised if less then 80% of the inmates don’t make it out of the facilities as most of the guards will desert when its obvious that they don’t have government or local law enforcement back up.

So what I am trying to say is, their won’t be any way for people like Elizabeth B. to grow gardens, work with those in the community to trade and survive through working together Its just not going to be possible, since 98% of your time and effort will be spent staying alive and free of lead from outside sources. That’s the bottom line. Even if you have say four or so families (possibly up to 20 or 25 soldier-age persons with weapons and 20,000 rounds of ammo for each weapon–which I doubt most do). You could face as many as two or three hundred attackers with all sorts of weapons procured from National Guard armories, police and SWAT teams, other survivalists, and who knows what else. They will be attacking you with only one thing in their mind: That is to destroy you–rape, pillage and take what you have so that they can survive.

Look at history. Whenever there is no rule of law those who have the means to gather together will overpower those individuals who seek to stay isolated.

My main point is not to say give up but to try to get as many people as you can together to make small communities where you can build defensive positions or exploit natural defensive terrain–walls, moats, heavy forests, cliff faces to help you in your effort to survive to carry on what amounts to a real civilized life. A community of 20 to 40 families with defensive walls and structures could and would be able to have gardens, orchards and the things which some of you say you must be able to do to survive. What many [who don’t think in terms of a 24/7/360 perimeter defense] suggest is just a futile attempt at making people think that they can hide out in the woods in their little homes gardening and raising their food, without need to worry about the other 90% of the population of the US. (Those [currently] living in big cities, where even now its “the big dog eats the little dog” .)

Okay, so this is my two cents for what it is worth. I wish all of you the best in everything you strive to do. God bless each of us. For background: I have 22 years military experience starting with my service in Vietnam two tours (’67-’69 & ’70-’71) South Korea, Central America, Africa, Middle East and Germany.

SurvivalBlog is great site. Thankfully, I don’t think we will get to the scenario of Schumer Hitting the Fan. So most of what you and your readers recommend on your site will work for a slight hiccup in the system of life.- FFZ