Odds ‘n Sods:

Ready Made Resources has introduced a “hot” new product: the Solar Spark Lighter–a pocket size solar lighter. It is a stainless steel parabolic mirror designed to focus the sun’s radiant energy to a precise focal point that can reach hundreds of degrees. This great fire starter is perfect for backpacking, boating, hiking and as a survival tool. Measures about 4.5″ diameter.

   o o o

Kara pointed out this news story: Air Conditioning Units Stolen For Copper

  o o o

Alfie Omega spotted this article: 20 million chickens now on farms may have had bad feed

   o o o

Bob Prechter’s commentary on the unprecedented debt leverage ratio in the U.S.: Debt Bubble: Buying More with IOUs Than Money

Note from JWR:

Today’s first letter is from “FerFAL”, SurvivalBlog’s newest volunteer correspondent, in Argentina. I find his observations cogent and credible. With the recent economic and social turmoil in Argentina he has certainly “been there and done that.”

Living in Times of Partial Law and Order, by FerFAL

Many people tend to think about survival as if it where an on/off switch, black or white reality. You have a relatively nice, normal life, such as the world most first world citizens live in these days, and suddenly you have a SHTF event and you go into Post-SHTF mode all of a sudden, meaning people start carrying their load bearing vests full of mags, with their SHTF rifle of choice, scavenging around the ruins of the city, shooting trespassers and burying them in the back yard.
This is all very cool to talk about, its fascinating in a Hollywood kind of way, and I love to discuss possible scenarios until 4 AM but it bothers me to think that people are actually losing perspective of what may occur, others scenarios that are much more likely than what people fantasize about.
I’m a moderator over at the survival forums at WarRifles.com, and I can tell you, If only I had a dime for every time I’ve read people writing stuff like “Now you can’t get away with it, but post-SHTF, I’ll put up “Trespassers will be Shot! “ signs and I’ll shoot trespassers as soon as I see them setting foot on my property.”
I simply have to ask: What on Earth makes you believe that you can get away with that?
The usual reply is that there will be no law or government to bring you to justice and judge you, every man for himself.
Now, I don’t want to urinate on anyone’s barbeque, but didn’t anyone consider that the government and police won’t disappear as if by magic after TSHTF?
Instead of just disappearing as so many people hope, what if they just go corrupt and/or inefficient? Meaning, they wont be there to protect you, but they will be there to take you away if you shoot someone 100 yards away without a clear threat to your life, or even take away your guns, as seen after Hurricane Katrina.
My personal situation doesn’t apply to all possible scenarios, but it’s a text book economical collapse, pretty much typical and it applies to many type of medium-to-long term crises. From the great Depression to Russia after the fall of communism, there are many parallels.
I kept contact through a survival forum with a guy that moved to USA from Africa, and the parallelisms and similarities between my own country in South America and South Africa where more than I would have thought, specially concerning street smarts and crime. You can go into some of the worst parts of the country, where most people don’t have potable water or sewers and hook illegally to the main power line, and there are just a few business that are pretty much standard in most poor neighborhoods.
There’s the evangelist church or sometimes catholic church depending on where you are, some kind of school/community kitchen where most kids get they one and only meal, where maybe a small primitive emergency room operates nearby. There’s entertainment, meaning a Bingo or small casino and a brothel, an then you have the local commercial road or street, where a gray/black market operates in a warehouse or empty lot nearby, a Third World version of the upper neighborhood’s mall and shopping centers that can be found in the same country.
None of this goes on on the wealthier neighborhoods, but its pretty standard along the poorest parts of the country.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me, is that no matter how poor the neighborhood is, there’s always a “Lawyer” sign, hanging in a house near the market or commercial part of town, sometimes simply written by hand with paint.
No matter how Third Worldly the country gets, there’s always place for judges, cops, and lawyers. Those guys are like cockroaches after a nuke, they still survive.
Just think for a second, and consider the huge justice and government apparatus. Think about the millions of people that work there.
I’m not trying to preach to the choir here, just help people understand that in the huge spectrum of SHTF possibilities, from an isolated incident where to you just have to spend a day or two without water or power, to a full scale nuclear war, Armageddon-like earthquake or invasion from China, their favorite scenario where society goes down but governmental institutions, police force and justice system simply vanish in thin air, allowing you to step up and take charge of things in you area as you see fit.
Hope I provided a bit of food for thought. Take care, everyone.

Two Letters Re: Advice on Enhancing Cool Basement Food Storage

James:
For those looking to create stable and “passively” cool storage in a basement, the book “How and Why to Build a Wine Cellar” by Richard Gold is a well-thought, meticulously engineered solution to many of the same issues faced by those seeking to store food at stable, cool temperatures. Regards, – Ben

JWR:
I have spent much of my adult life in the construction industry and through experience and educational seminars, etc. I have acquired a substantial amount of knowledge concerning moisture intrusion into structures.
Water is the main source of problems in construction. Keeping it in, keeping it out, and getting it out once it is in. The components of a building that are constructed of concrete such as basements, foundations and slabs on grade are very susceptible to moisture intrusion. Concrete acts as a wick and when dry will actually attract moisture and move it through out the structure under the right conditions. For example a twenty-inch concrete column sealed on its sides and standing in water will wick moisture hundreds of feet straight up. A concrete basement floor set over a wet subsurface will continuously wick that moisture up through the floor and allow it to evaporate into the basement atmosphere, i.e., damp basement. For several hundred years this condition has been referred to as “rising damp”. The modern term for it is capillary action.
To construct a dry basement in damp ground conditions requires some planning and a little ingenuity. Choose as dry and well-drained location as possible to build the structure. Once the excavation of the basement is complete you should proceed with water management measures as dictated by the conditions of your location. If you have a substantial amount of groundwater or springs under the excavation you will need to install a drain system around the outside of the foundation and under the floor to move this water away from the basement. There is a lot of information available on how to do this. If located in a hillside it is easy to install a gravity flow system, dumping into a dry well down hill from the basement. The only other alternative is to dump into a sump pump installed in the floor of the basement and pump the water out away from the house.
Now comes the important part. Once the drain system is completed and the forms for the foundation and floor have been constructed you will want to lay down heavy-duty plastic vapor barrier on the ground under all areas where you will pour concrete. The barrier should cover the entire floor, pass under the foundation and up the outside wall as continuous as possible. Where you need to make seams, overlap the barrier at least five feet. Applying a sealant between the layers at the seams is advisable. The concrete will be poured over the vapor barrier only after it has been completely sealed from the outside of one wall to the outside of the opposite wall. Once the foundation and slab are poured and the outside walls are constructed, the vapor barrier protruding out from under the foundation is pulled up on the wall and adhered using the standard basement wall sealant. The entire outside of the wall is then coated with sealant. You should end up with basement that is totally encapsulated in a plastic vapor barrier. Most builders that attempt installation of vapor barriers ignore the foundation because it takes a little finesse to do this right. This leaves a path for capillary action to bring moisture into the basement.
Now that you have a dry basement don’t forget to properly ventilate it. It should be tied in with the rest of the house ventilation system. If you construct a safe room in one corner it will still be necessary to supply some ventilation to that room or it will become very musty.
I am presently planning the construction of a small house for my wife and I and will construct a safe/storage room as an extension of the basement, which will extend out from under the house. It will basically be an underground concrete room next to the house joining the basement wall and will be totally sealed from moisture as I have described. I will be able to easily hide the entrance through the basement wall in the back of a utility room. Being outside of the house footprint will also protect it from fire in case the house would burn down or otherwise be destroyed.
Hope you find this useful, – JR

Letter Re: Recent Improvement in the Jericho Television Series

Dear Jim and Family,
The latest episode of [the US CBS network television series] Jericho has finally built up into something significant. A battle between towns, using mobility, rifles, mortars, and negotiation. It was actually pretty good. While my faith in the idea of the show is not exactly restored from its initial low opinion, this is a major improvement in direction of the story. CBS offers streaming viewing of the whole season via their web site. If you open the viewer in a proper player via right clicking on the window, you can stop, pause, and select scenes to view (which is more convenient as well as allows you to skip the commercials. One particular bit of dialogue I think everyone here will smile at is this line: “Every able-bodied person, that needs a gun, sixteen years of age or older, line up.” Best, – InyoKern

JWR Replies: I was also pleased to see considerable improvement in the last three episodes (“Causus Belli”, “One if By Land”, and “Coalition of the Willing”.) While they were still tactically pitiful–with a couple of scenes such as the truck-jacking via horseback downright laughable–the last three scripts were captivating and even thought-provoking. These episodes reminded me a bit of Machiavellian politics in the Roman city states of the early Renaissance. OBTW, the scene where Hawkins reveals his storage space full of guns and gear reminded me a bit of my JASBORR. But I was disappointed that the weapons and ammo that they gathered didn’t even fill the back of a full-size pickup. (A lot of the SurvivalBlog readers could have filled several pickups.

There are rumors of cancellation. I hope that doesn’t happen. Despite its considerable flaws, he show does have its merits. I t might even convince a few forward-thinking viewers to prepare.

OBTW, don’t miss the lively discussion about the Jericho episodes at the Jericho Discussion Group moderated by Rourke–a frequent SurvivalBlog contributor.

Odds ‘n Sods:

A new low-cost firearms training organization is up and running: The Western Rifle Shooters Association. Check out their blog site. They have lots of free resources, such as downloadable rifle training videos, and training manuals in PDF.

   o o o

S.F. in Hawaii and RBS both sent us this one: Man dies of thirst during survival test

   o o o

RBS also mentioned these two articles US Housing Bubble Meltdown: “Is it too late to get out?”, and Hedge fund risks worst since ’98 crisis, Fed says

  o o o

When a reader sends me a link, I do my best to visit the site and check it out. When two readers send the same link, I give it even more attention. But when three readers all send the same link, I sit up and take serious notice. This is the case with ScytheSupply.com. For those of us that are accustomed to using ancient scythes that we picked up third or fourth-hand–usually filed so many times that they are getting quite thin–these freshly-made tools are a welcome change. They even build scythes with custom-length snaths to fit the user. At $170, their “Outfit” scythe package is not cheap, but they are certainly well-made and far more up to the task than a scythe scrounged from a junk shop.

Note from JWR:

I just got an update from Rob Ashton at Green Mountain Gear about the “SurvivalBlog Group Buy” for new-in-the-wrapper military contract C-Products M16/AR-15 30 round magazines that was announced in late March: The Group Buy orders should be shipping next week. This matches the original ETA that was given by the manufacturer. For any of you that have never been involved in a group buy before, be advised that it often takes two months before you will receive your merchandise, since all of the group buy orders must be paid for before the deal can be finalized. Thanks for your patience. Rest assured that you will get your magazines, and you are getting them at about one-half of the retail price. OBTW, Rob mentioned that if you have any question, do not call the number on your credit card statements. The processing bank made a typo on their records and the phone number is incorrect–some poor lady in Vermont has handled about 50+ phone calls for Rob. Instead, please use the e-mail address and phone number mentioned at the Green Mountain Gear web site.

Letter Re: Be Prepared to Perform Tooth Extractions

The recent discussion on dental care started me thinking, and I had to again survey and inventory my supplies. My medical supplies are in good shape but my dental supplies were sadly lacking.
Consisting of only Eugenol, temporary filling material and dental wax. So I started by downloading “Where There is No Dentist” from this site: http://www.inteldaily.com/.
It is on the right under free books. After reading a bit and seeing the book advises the same tools as the previous post. I started searching for dental tools. The auction sites, and supply houses have some high prices. $45-to-$90 per tool. The frugal side of me overrode those prices especially as I want to have multiple of each tool to outfit my kids equipment in the future,
provide for barter, and prevent infection spread. So I found several lower priced suppliers, [but] most in India or Russia, so shipping killed those buys. I found this site http://www.excelinnovative.com With much better prices and free shipping on orders over $80. They also carry medical and specialty instruments at good prices. all of us should have the tools and supplies to care for our families, we should have the knowledge, at least in a hard copy book and the will to do what needs doing to survive.
As an aside: With the kids getting older and us considering moving to the country full time, the long term stocking of supplies and equipment really scares me as far as having to move it from the exurbs to the boonies. I guess I shall have to buy several CONEX containers and move them to the middle of nowhere to get just my home supplies there. Oh well, live and learn. – Tip in Lost Wages

Letter Re: The Importance of Proper Hearing Protection

JWR,
I was having a discussion tonight with a friend of mine who has his own plans. One of the things that came up is those other things we may be missing from our “duty equipment”. It’s great to have rifles, pistols, magazines, bullet proof vests, gas masks and all the other kit. But the one thing we were both missing was hearing protection. While some people may argue that the damage done to the ears during a gunfight is “minimal”. If you are firing your MBR in indoor conditions, you will be in some very serious pain in a very short time. This can damage you for life, as well as severely compromise your combat effectiveness.
The other argument against is that hearing protection may compromise your ability to detect a hidden enemy. This is true, but it depends entirely on the technology you are using.
The answer we both agreed on is the use of electronic hearing protectors.
Personally, I’ve been using the Peltor tactical 6S (sound trap) for almost a year now, and am deeply in love with them. These muffs (or ones like them) give a moderate degree of protection against impulse damage (gunfire or explosions) typically on the order of 21dB. However, the advantage, is that these have electronics inside the earphones which will also amplify non-damaging sounds. In addition, the sound trap model has an optional cable that allows you to connect your headphones to your personal radio. (For example CB, MURS, FRS,GMRS, or Ham) which could make a lot of difference.
The best price I’ve found is here.
There is also a cheaper model which doesn’t have the headset plug.
While the battery power for these is somewhat of a concern, they are well worth what you might spend keeping a few extra sets of AAA rechargeables (2 for each ear) around. Even without the batteries, they are still good at protecting your hearing. I don’t know what your opinion is on these. But I’ve been very happy with mine, and wonder why I didn’t make plans to keep these things around sooner. (I think I may even order an extra set) – Drew

Odds ‘n Sods:

Sid mentioned the Space Weather web site, which had been mentioned at least once before in SurvivalBlog. This site has great information on close-call asteroids, solar flare predictions, and so forth.

   o o o

Rookie found a link to an interesting story about firearms ownership in Switzerland: An Armory in Gun-Shy Europe. Rookie’s comment: “It’s good to know that in at least one country it’s considered normal to keep a high power defensive rifle in your closet. And that the government gives it to you for free, for life! Of course, it’s no surprise that the Washington Post spun the story to make it sound like the Swiss want to get rid of them.”

  o o o

Reader Alfie Omega recommend the Backwoods Home Magazine e-newsletter. I’ve been a fan of Dave Duffy’s writings ever since the first year that Backwoods Home was published. It is a great magazine, well worth a subscription.

   o o o

Aaron mentioned an article from MIT‘s Technology Review, with more on the U.S. Army’s “Tactical Biorefinery”, which was mentioned once before in SurvivalBlog.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch – Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference – that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.” Congressman Ron Paul

Four Letters Re: Storing Oil and Lubricants for TEOTWAWKI

Jim:
I run synthetic motor oils in all of my vehicles, it’s barely any more expensive any more and it reduces engine wear, especially on tight-tolerance Japanese motors. Mobil (for example) recommends a
5-year shelf life for unopened quarts, but I wonder if any of your readers have any more info on whether this is CYA on Mobil’s part or, failing that, a lead on long-shelf-life synthetics?
Also, speaking of oil, if you’re looking for very high mileage on diesel trucks (and I know we all are), bypass oil filters are the holy grail. A quick explanation, they’re very fine particulate filters that
are way too low-flow to be a normal oil filter, so the oil lines pass them by. Most of the oil for running the engine goes right past it, but a little bit goes through and gets filtered out back to
almost-new. This will eventually clean the entire circulating oil supply. OBTW, SurvivalBlog readers will find lots of oil info here. – PH

 

Dear Jim,
While facilities sometimes dictate needs, I’d be very leery of storing propellant, caps and explosives in the same building as flammable liquids. It’s not just the decay of the explosives if exposed to vapor, it’s the massive amount of fuel for a fire or vapor explosion if the explosive detonates.
My explosive experience isn’t huge, but I have done some for the military and I’m aware of their storage requirements. A container of primers, propellant or caps will probably make a loud bang or series of them, with some damage and possible fragmentation. But if stored near a fuel that can vaporize and disperse, the risk of an impromptu FAE with a large overpressure wave is certainly much higher.
I recall a worker from an ammunition factory noting that the primer line was kept well-separated, so that “When, not if” it popped, the damage would be minimized.
At the very least, I’d consider a solid wall of sandbags with a vapor seal between the two types. – Mike

 

James:
I suggest that you add to your list chain lube for the chain saw, as well as bearing grease. Thanx for all you work. God bless y’all – Monty

 

Jim:
It is very likely the use of non-detergent motor oil will cause very early engine failure in modern high tech equipment.! Read the code on the top of the can (bottle). These ARE important and will save you a lot of trouble. It is OK to use a higher rated oil in a less demanding service. I would like to learn the source of the info about detergent oil going bad early. This is truly bad info that will cause grief. Take Care PS Do some research….the auto and oil companies are not your enemies here. Regards – Don C.

JWR Replies: From what I have read in manufacturer bulletins and web sites, detergent motor oil has a roughly three year shelf life. I recommend using detergent motor oil on a day-to-day basis, but storing a couple of cases of non-detergent motor oil, just in case of TEOTWAWKI. Yes, detergent motor oil does foster longer engine life, but is nice to know that there is still one sort of motor oil with an essentially indefinite shelf life. (The only limiting factor that I can foresee is UV degradation of the containers, and keeping your stored cases of oil in a dark place should prevent that.

Letter Re: Seeking Advice on Gardening Skills, Seeds, and Crop Mixes

Mr. Rawles:

I’d like your advice on gardening. What skills should I concentrate on, pre-Crunch? What crops should I plant to be ready for a major Crunch? (If it makes any difference, I live in the Midwest.) What is the best source of seeds? Thank you, – T.D.W.

JWR Replies: I recommend concentrating on organic gardening and composting. (This is in anticipation of a long term scenario where commercial chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not available.) Learn seed gathering and saving.

Concentrate on vegetable crops that grow well in your climate zone. Practice using all–or nearly all–non-hybrid (“heirloom”) annual seed varieties. These will “breed true” and continue to produce well, year after year, from your saved seed. (Hybrids won’t!) As previously mentioned in SurvivalBlog, I highly recommend the heirloom seed variety packs sold by The Ark Institute, in Bandon, Oregon. Practice using those seeds this gardening season to see which varieties do well in your microclimate, and again, practice saving seed for future crops. (The book “Seed to Seed” describes how to do this for many types of vegetables and grain crops.)