Has Healthcare Collapsed in the United States?, by SaraSue

First, let me say that these are my observations based on my experience the past two years. When the “pandemic” hit, the people I knew in the Healthcare industry seemed to overreact to the perceived threat. Some of those people were doctors and nurses. Most had no desire to see an alternative point of view and stuck to the “party line” of wherever they worked. They were adamant and strident in their points of view and communication. There was an air of superiority and certainly a total lack of recognizing that the patient was a customer – someone whose stated needs were often ignored as the party line was pushed. During that time period, I was not seen in person by my doctors, although my prescriptions were refilled. I was able to get blood drawn at the local hospital lab and view those results online. The doctors communicated via e-mail.

I was very sick once during that time and was unable to see my doctor due to lack of healthcare workers. I was told my only choice was to mask up, drive to an Emergency room and sit inside my car (it was winter in snow country) to wait for a healthcare worker to come out to the parking lot and “assess” my condition before I was allowed into the Emergency Room. I decided to gut that illness out on my own. It took a couple of weeks, but home remedies did the job and I recovered. That was an eye-opening experience for me.Continue reading“Has Healthcare Collapsed in the United States?, by SaraSue”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— 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. Today, we look at the mass media’s biased view of survivalism.

Inside a Prepper Convention

Over at U.S. News & World Reports, an AP piece written by Christopher Sparta of The Tampa Bay Times: Surviving a Day of Doom at a Florida Prepper Convention. Here is a quote:

“A humid breeze blew over the attendees at the second annual Florida Homesteading and Prepping Summit, mostly gray-haired men whose patriotic T-shirts clung to their bellies. Some had spouses or children with them. They raised hands to ask about radio matrices, cross-body holsters and moleskin, to protect their feet from blisters. Were these the survivors who would someday rebuild civilization?”

A Reusable Canning Lids Sale

Brad at Harvest Guard Reusable Canning Lids wrote to let me know that they are running a deep discount pre-season sale from now through June 12th, 2022.  You may use discount code PRE33 at checkout to get 33% off your entire order.  Share this discount code with all your friends.  With inflation coming on strong, I doubt that they will be able to repeat this sale. Stock up!

An Alarmingly Accurate Facial Search Engine

Kevin S. sent us this troubling news: PimEyes: An alarmingly accurate face search engine that anyone can use.

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

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — June 1, 2022

On June 1st, 1942, seven months after the extermination of prisoners began, the Warsaw underground newspaper The Liberty Brigade, made the public announcement of the gassing of tens of thousands of Jews at Chelmno, a Nazi-operated death camp in Poland. The story came from a young man, Emanuel Ringelblum, who had escaped the Chelmno death camp after being forced to bury bodies as they were thrown out of the gas vans. The West then knew the horrific truth about the slaughter of Jews.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present the first entry for Round 101 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 $2000.
  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 course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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,
  4. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  5. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  6. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  7. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. 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).
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  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. 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)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. A LogOX 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool (a $189 value) and a WoodOx Sling (a $79.95 value), courtesy of LogOx, both made in USA.
  4. A transferable $100 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $725,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 101 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging

Prepping with Healing Herbs, by Bonnie Blue

I was fortunate enough to be largely raised by my grandmother, who was a Great Depression-era bride. Even before Victory Gardens came along, her generation knew you had to take care of your family’s food needs and be self-sustaining. She was a strong farm and ranch wife, with the tenderness to let my little hands help her from as far back as I can remember. It would have been much easier for her to do it herself, but she knew it was important information to pass on. Those early lessons were largely centered around gardening and canning the fruits of our (her) labor. But there was a special area not far from the vegetable garden, and that was her herb bed. It wasn’t until I got much older, that I realized the importance of that bed. Back then, I simply saw it as growing dill for pickles, and herbs for a tasty cup of tea.

Fast forward to today. Food prices are skyrocketing, there have been warnings of shortages, and those that look at the world around them understand that many of our pharmaceutical components have been outsourced to China. That is where herbs come into play. As many people rush to plant modern-day “victory gardens”, herbs are often overlooked. For a variety of reasons, you need to tuck herbs among your vegetables, plant them with your flowers, or dedicate a bed to nothing but herbs and more herbs.

Herbs make a lot of the foods we grow taste even better. A few sprigs can make dried beans taste even better when cooked. But herbs go far beyond seasoning the evening meal. Herbs have been used for hundreds of years for medicinal purposes. Many attract bees to the garden. Given that bees, which are responsible for pollinating one-third of the world’s food supply, are declining in numbers, adding even more plants to attract them is never a bad idea.Continue reading“Prepping with Healing Herbs, by Bonnie Blue”

May 2022 in Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran of Gainesville Coins

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover gold’s performance and the factors that affected gold prices.

What Did Gold Do in May?

May was an extremely volatile month for most assets, and gold was no exception. Inflation fears and Fed reactions (or inaction) to fighting it dominated market sentiment, with investors fleeing stocks and bonds, but moving to cash instead of gold.
Gold started the month by crashing by $48 to $1,863 an ounce. It would see five more extreme daily losses between small rallies to end May at $1,848 an ounce. $1,850 is now seen as a major resistance line.

Factors Affecting Gold This Month

INFLATION

In May, the inflation news wasn’t that prices were rising, but that 30-year records of inflation were being broken. Consumer prices rose 8.3%, while core CPI rose 6.2%. Real wages dropped 2.6%. Producer prices rose 11%.

Bonds were reflecting inflation fears and Fed inability to do anything about it, with the 10-yr bond yield hitting an intraday high of 3% on the first trading day of May. The high for the month was more than 3.1%.

Personal Consumption expenditures, which the Fed uses for its forecasts, was 6.3% higher, which was actually lower than the previous 6.6%. These gave investors hope that inflation would stop accelerating every month, though even at present it’s far too high.

SLOWING ECONOMIES

While inflation showed signs that it was topping out (even though it was at 30-year highs) it was the economic slowdown showing up in corporate earnings and government reports that sent stocks tumbling.

May started off badly for Wall St, with the Dow and S&P 500 having had the worst month since the March 2020 COVID crash, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq having had its worst month since 2008. Worse than expected earnings from WalMart and Target both had the worst single-day price crash since 1987, spreading the pain that the tech sector was already causing.

In answer to a question about changes in Fed policy in reaction to extreme market volatility in May, Kansas City Fed president Esther George said that their attention was on inflation, not the market’s reaction to having the easy-money punchbowl taken away.

China continued to wrestle in the grip of a widening economic slowdown, in large part because the government was locking more than 25 million people in their homes in Shanghai to fight the spread of COVID. This shut down factories and shipping ports in the largest export city in the country. The blowback from the slowdown affected economies world-wide, worsening supply shortages and driving up costs on both the wholesale and retail level.

FOREX

The dollar pushed to a 20-year high in mid-May. This was a result of investors fleeing stocks and even bonds, and parking their money in cash. The inaction of the European Central Bank (ECB) in fighting 40-year high inflation tanked the euro in May, which also lent support to the dollar. A stronger dollar suppresses overseas gold demand, as it takes more of the domestic currency to equal a dollar.

The dominance of the dollar was killed off in late May when ECB officials finally came out in force, supporting pushing the benchmark interest rate from -50 bp to zero by September. The news sent the euro soaring, knocking the dollar down from a 20-year high of 105 on May 13th to below 102. Some ECB officials have gone past LaGarde’s promise of “zero by September” and pushed for positive rates since inflation is out of control.

The DXY dollar index fell below 102 by the end of the month, giving a little tailwind to US inflation pressures.

Central Banks

The Fed is still in the driver’s seat, as far as influencing the economy. They raised rates by 50 bp as expected in their May 4th meeting. The big market reaction was over Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference afterward, when he pushed back against calls for a 75 bp hike. He flip-flopped two weeks later, saying that the Fed will get more aggressive if needed to slow down inflation.

The Federal Reserve dominated the market’s attention for most of May, until ECB president Christine Lagarde and other ECB board members unveiled a plan to raise interest rates to zero by the end of September, and possibly higher by the end of the year if needed.

This pledge wasn’t enough for some ECB officials, including the heads of the Austrian, Dutch, and Latvian central banks. In a joint statement, they warned that the ECB is losing credibility with investors and the public with its tardiness in addressing the inflation that is crippling the EU. They call for a 50 bp hike in July, which would get rates to zero, then another rate hike in September.

This was necessary, officials said, as sanctions against Russia and record-high natural gas prices were pushing the EU into stagflation.
____________

The Bank of England hiked rates by 25 bp in May, as expected. This boosted gold prices by 2% in Europe. What wasn’t expected was the number of officials that wanted a 50 bp hike. The accompanying warnings of stagflation for the UK sent the British pound to a two-year low, from which it never recovered.

Central Bank Gold Purchases

This month’s Central Bank Gold Purchases report covers the month of March. Globally, central banks shed four tons from their gold reserves. Kazakhstan continued to sell its gold, after years of net inflows. A total of 12.1 tons of gold was sold by the Kazakh central bank. Uzbekistan, another recent gold seller, shed 1.2 tons from its reserves.

The big buyer in March was Turkey, purchasing 4.8 tons of gold. India followed, with gold purchases of 2.5 tons. The ECB added 0.9 tons of gold to its reserves, while Ireland bought 0.8 tons.
Gold ETFs.

European gold ETFs saw the largest inflows among global gold ETFs in April, at 25.9 tons. The UK by itself was responsible for more than half that, at 14.2 tons.  Energy shortages due to Russian sanctions and fears that the Ukraine war will lead Russia to attack Poland were among the largest factors in the increase of gold demand in the EU.

American gold ETFs saw the next-highest inflows, at 17.5 tons. In Asia, Indian gold ETFs saw inflows of two tons, but these regional gains were more than wiped out by outflows from Chinese gold ETFs. This sent Asian regional gold ETFs down by one ton.

The “Other” category saw 0.5 tons of inflows, as a gain of 0.7 tons in Australia was moderated by 0.2 tons of outflows from South Africa.

On The Retail Front

The US Mint continues to be hamstrung by the silver shortage, which has decimated American Silver Eagle sales. The Mint has limited ASE sales to 850,000 for the last two months.

While supply quotas have choked off any big numbers for ASEs this year, the US Mint’s gold bullion programs are still going strong. 147,000 ounces of American Gold Eagles of all sizes were sold in May. Adding the 52,000 one oz Gold Buffalo sales, a total of 199,000 oz of legal tender gold bullion was sold this month.
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The US Mint saw its best first quarter for investment gold sales since 1999, selling 518,000 ounces of American Gold Eagle and Gold Buffalo bullion coins. Demand in the US and Europe overcame decreased demand in the Middle East and China.
____________
The Q1 2022 Gold Demand Trends from the World Gold Council reveals that global gold demand for the first three months of the year hit 1,234 tons. This was the highest quarterly level of gold demand since the fourth quarter of 2018.  Most of the physical gold demand was driven by inflows into gold ETFs, which totaled 268.8 tons.
____________
The Perth Mint sold more than 2.1 million ounces of silver in April, up 28.5% from March. Gold sales fell, however. The 80,941 ounces of gold sold in April was 33.7% lower than in March. To be fair, March’s gold sales of 121,997 ounces was the third-best month on record for the Perth Mint.

Market Buzz

Tennessee became the latest state to remove the sales tax on gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion and coins. Only Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, and Wisconsin still collect state sales tax on investment precious metals.
____________

Analysts at Metals Focus expect the silver supply deficit this year to grow to 72 million ounces this year.
___________

Jan Nieuwenhuijs investigates a hot-button subject this month for Gainesville Coins in his article “Is The Russian Ruble Linked To Gold?”
____________

Paul Tudor Jones says that Fed hikes and a slowing economy mean that capital preservation should be the main goal of investors. He says, “Clearly, you don’t want to own bonds and stocks.”
____________

Britons better get into gold before it’s too late. Inflation and an economic slowdown due to high energy prices, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine has rocked the British pound. The pound’s devaluation has led the Bank of America to compare it to an emerging market currency.
____________
The London Bullion Market Association and World Gold Council, two of the largest authorities in the gold market, are cooperating on developing the first global gold ingot ledger to track bars by serial number from refinery to the end customer. This distributed ledger aims to increase transparency and security in the international gold market by establishing a publicly accessible chain of possession for every bar in the global Good Delivery system.
____________
China’s draconian COVID lockdowns of major cities have choked off gold purchases (since the police won’t let people leave their houses). More importantly, it is fanning the flames of popular unrest toward the Chinese Communist Party.

Looking Ahead To Next Month

We’re entering the summer months, which are always a soft time for gold prices. However, with a land war in Europe, economic slowdowns accelerating in the major world economies, and higher energy prices having carry-on effects on prices for everything, who knows what will happen?

This is probably not the typical “Sell in May, go away” situation this year, no matter which asset class we’re looking at.

Those of you lucky enough to get some 2022 American Silver Eagles may want to take a closer look at them. An extreme striking error on some of them has caught the attention of coin collectors.

There are hundreds of coins with this error being discovered, so any premium above the normal price hasn’t been established yet. You might want to set aside any Mint State versions that you may find in your stash, just in case!

Proviso: This column is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended as investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

– Steven Cochran of Gainesville Coins

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly column is a collection of short snippets: 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. We may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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Reader H.L. sent us this: N.J. shuts Appalachian Trail shelter after bear slashes tent. This article begins:

“A black bear tried to claw its way into a tent in Stokes State Forest on Wednesday night, which prompted the park service to announce that it was closing the Brink Road shelter to hikers.

Brink Road, a popular camping and water stop along the Appalachian Trail, is closed temporarily “due to increased bear activity,” the state Division of Parks and Forestry said in a Facebook post.

The post did not say how long Brink Road would be closed, but said ‘hikers should plan their itineraries accordingly to avoid camping at the shelter until further notice.'”

o  o  o

Michele Bachmann on WHO Amendments: “This creates a platform for global governance”.

o  o  o

Reader James S. had this comment:

“I’m a semi-retired physician who has used tourniquets daily in orthopedic surgery for 30 years. This article is spot on without any inaccuracies I can spot. Consider this passing peer review if you will. I would amend this excellent article with the filling info: after 2 hours (arm) or 3 (leg) the incidence of complications goes way up, so expedited care is important. Under no circumstances ’flash’ the tourniquet. Also, a venous T (bleeding may stop but still has pulse, hand/foot NOT blanched) is the worse situation of all.”

o  o  o

H.L. was the first of several readers to send this: Farmers allowed to pull land out of federal conserved contracts amid global food crisis – USDA. An excerpt:

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will allow farmers who are part of the federal conservation land contracts to voluntarily terminate their contracts and plant on that land, in order to help mitigate the global food crisis, the agency said on Thursday.

The offer is open to farmers who are in the final year of their contract with the agency’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), USDA said on a statement published on their website.”

o  o  o

Reader J.P. wrote to mention that a big package of “gun control” legislation will be debated in committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, possibly as soon as tomorrow. (Thursday, June 2, 2022.) These include: Raising the minimum age of long gun ownership to 21, a ban on so-called Ghost Guns, criminalizing intrastate private party sales (under the guise of “Universal Background Checks’), expanding the NFA to include Federal registration of many semi-autos, and a ban on 11+ round magazines.

Please contact your congresscritters repeatedly via phone and e-mail, to insist that NO NEW FEDERAL GUN LAWS be enacted!

o  o  o

This sounds like something straight out of my novel Liberators: Canada Outlawed Numerous Firearms Years Ago – So Far, Only 160 Have Been Turned In.  The law had an April 30, 2022 deadline. So… Just 160 out of 100,000 banned guns were surrendered?  We are witnessing large-scale resistance to tyranny. The message from the Canadian citizenry is clear: “Justin Trudeau can go jump in a lake.”

o  o  o

And, most recently: Trudeau moves to implement ‘national freeze’ on handgun sales across Canada.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — May 31, 2022

May 31, 1930 was the birthday of actor/director/producer Clint Eastwood.

On 31 May 1970, an earthquake off the coast of Peru caused a substantial section of the north slope of Mt. Huascaran to collapse. The avalanche moved downhill at a speed estimated at 175 to 210 mph. with a mass of roughly 80 million cubic meters of ice, mud, and rock. The avalanche traveled nearly 11 miles, burying the towns of Yungay and Ranrahirca in up to 300 feet of rock and debris. It is estimated that this earthquake and avalanche killed more than 67,000 Peruvians. It is the deadliest avalanche in recorded history.

May 31st, 1895 was the birthday of George R. Stewart. Prior to his death on August 22, 1980, he was a novelist, university professor, and toponymist. In the preparedness community, he is best remembered as the author of the classic post-pandemic novel Earth Abides.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 100 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 $2000.
  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 course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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,
  4. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  5. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  6. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  7. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. 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).
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  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. 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)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. A LogOX 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool (a $189 value) and a WoodOx Sling (a $79.95 value), courtesy of LogOx, both made in USA.
  4. A transferable $100 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $725,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 100 ends on May 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

Nootropics and Mushrooms for Survival, by Robert R.

I’m writing about the benefits of nootropics and how they can be used to enhance health, reduce the effects of stress, and even help to mitigate and treat anxiety, depression and PTSD.  A nootropic is a substance, natural or synthetic, which enhances memory and cognitive functions.  Some of this article also assumes that the government has collapsed and there is no longer any legal system or laws.  I have tried a number of things to help with my own PTSD and ADD issues and learned about many nootropics and supplements that can help in a variety of circumstances.

Imagine for a moment that you’re in the freezing cold, marching hours to go help protect your community from some threat, or maybe you’re out in frigid temperatures hunting to put food on the table.  You’re exhausted, your cognitive performance is reduced, you feel chilled to the bone, and your morale is suffering.  This is when 200mg of Phenylpiracetam would really help.Continue reading“Nootropics and Mushrooms for Survival, by Robert R.”

SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies of interest to preppers and survivalists that are located in the American Redoubt region. Today, we focus on a cougar attack in Eastern Washington. (See the Central & Eastern Washington section.)

Region-Wide

New tool assesses wildfire risk for Inland Northwest homes.

o  o  o

Lennar, one of the nation’s leading homebuilders, announced plans to establish a new market serving the Inland Northwest.

o  o  o

Greater Idaho Movement Modifies Proposal Map.

Idaho

Idaho bull rider wins big at world finals after battling injuries, alcohol addiction.

o  o  o

Idaho woman gets 2 months jail for U.S. Capitol riot actions.

o  o  o

Judge delays Lori Daybell’s October trial, ruling couple will be tried together.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”

Preparedness Notes for Monday — May 30, 2022

Today, Memorial Day, is a day of solemn remembrance in the U.S. of the many who have given their all for our freedoms. We always thank those who are serving in our military and their families who have also made sacrifices, but today most of all we want to honor those who gave their lives.

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Today’s feature article is another product review written by our Field Gear Editor Emeritus, Pat Cascio.

 

 

Smith & Wesson Wyatt Deep Cover, by Pat Cascio

I don’t normally write about firearms that have been discontinued. However, there are still a lot of this model still available on the secondary market – just too bad S&W discontinued them – more on this later.

The Wyatt Deep Cover, is a modified S&W Model 637. The modifications were designed by a former FFL dealer in Colorado. It is sad that he went to prison, but he flaunted what he was doing – illegally, on a television show. So it was only a question of time, before the Feds closed in on his operation. I won’t even say his name in this article, because he gave honest FFL dealers a bad name. He would fly around Colorado in a helicopter, showing everyone how well off he was. He was doing gun sales away from his shop – that is illegal – an FFL holder can only do gun sales deliveries away from your shop, at a regular and recognized gun show. He was doing deals – big money deals – away from his shop. I don’t know if he was ignorant of the law or if he thought he wouldn’t get caught – but he did!

Years before, he had contacted S&W and told them he could modify one of their 637 revolvers in less than half an hour, so they would be custom guns. He was invited to S&W to demonstrate his technique, and sure enough, he could modify one of these guns in half an hour, and it was a super-smooth double-action revolver, the equivalent of stuff out of their Performance Center. Smith & Wesson bought into the idea, and were factory producing these guns, with the “Wyatt Deep Cover” name on the frame, and “Gunsmoke” on the barrel.

I’ve owned a few revolvers from the S&W Performance Center over the years, and every one of them were a real joy to own and shoot. However, the Wyatt Deep Cover was everything you would expect from a Performance Center trigger job and then some – and the price was kept down – only slightly more than a Plain Jane factory Model 637. And, again, it only added less than half an hour of manufacturing time to do these modifications at S&W.Continue reading“Smith & Wesson Wyatt Deep Cover, by Pat Cascio”

Recipe of the Week: Monkeyman’s Dirty Rice

The following Dirty Rice recipe is from SurvivalBlog reader “Monkeyman”.  He notes that he often makes this doubled recipe.

Ingredients
  • 2 cups brown rice – you can use white rice, just reduce the liquid to exactly 4 cups
  • 3 cups chicken broth
  • One 14-oz. can of coconut milk, I add a little water to rinse out the can and add it
  • Lard, Olive Oil, butter, or your grease of choice
  • 2 medium onions, chopped
  • 4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
  • 2 pounds pork sausage
  • Dried Home Grown Sage, to taste
Directions
  1. Add rice, broth, coconut milk to large pot and bring to a full rolling boil.
  2. Turn heat down to low, cover and let simmer until all liquid is gone and rice is tender. (This is basic rice making; either brown or white)
  3. In a large skillet add garlic, onions and fry in oil. I add the Sage as the garlic and onions turn translucent and mix it up.
  4. Add the sausage and cook and chop it all up until it is fully cooked and resembles ground beef.
  5. When the rice is done, add it to the sausage and mix well combining all the ingredients together. Note: Sometimes the sausage is extra greasy; I dump the whole thing into a large metal colander and let it drain into the skillet with no heat.
SERVING

Some family members add salt to their own servings, to taste.

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Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? In this weekly recipe column, we place emphasis on recipes that use long term storage foods, recipes for wild game, dutch oven and slow cooker recipes, and any that use home garden produce. If you have any favorite recipes, then please send them via e-mail. Thanks!