Letter Re: A Home Purchasing Guide For Rookies

…the Palestinians.  If you are moving to a small town or community, remember that people talk.  You do want to fit in don’t you? Feel free to think out of the box to make the deal work.  Negotiating is not all about price.  Do you have something of value that you can bring to the table to sweeten the deal instead of paying more?  On the other side of the table, would you agree to a lower price if the other party provided something else of value that you want or need? There is much more that I could write.  However, I find that the topics addressed above are some of the most common topics that I spend time discussing with people when we are considering working together.  Please understand that the real estate transaction sales cycle is complex and presents many challenges financially, legally, ethically and even morally.  The…




An Update to the Classic: The Hyperinflation Survival Guide, by OSOM

…happening in real time in real markets. Relying on government statistics that only tell you what happened in the past is like driving using your rear view mirror. Even worse, government statistics on inflation are bald-faced lies understating the REAL inflation rate. Relying on US government numbers is like driving looking backwards – using the side mirror with that little warning “Objects are CLOSER than they appear.” Stay ahead on the information curve – read Survival Blog daily, and follow Austrian economists who foresaw this crisis, and have made consistently good predictions, e.g.: Gary North, Richard Maybury, and Casey Research. (They all offer a lot of valuable, free information to motivate you to become a subscriber.) Your Job Your wages will probably NOT keep up with inflation: You get a cost of living increase to catch up on last year’s inflation, so you are always playing catch-up The actual inflation…




U.S. Government Issues Guide to Pandemic Preparedness

As reported at NewsMax.com, the Bush Administration had just issued a Guide to Pandemic Preparedness. See:  http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/1/5/215956.shtml It is interesting that they mentioned both self-quarantine and home schooling. What radicals!  They musta been reading SurvivalBlog or sumthen’… OBTW, why do I get the feeling that if John Kerry had been elected that the message on this topic wouldn’t be quite the same?…




Letter Re: A Poor Man’s Guide to Prepping and Food Storage

Hello Captain, I just read “A Poor Man’s Guide to Prepping and Food Storage,” by T.P. He mentions getting free meat by way of road kill and says “It helps to be able to tell how long an animal has been dead.”   I can help. Having been a bricklayer in the Southwest and the Northwest for 35 years, I have worked with and become friends with many native Americans. Years ago one of my pals told me that he ate road kill all the time. When I asked how he knew if it was fresh or not he replied:   “That’s easy. When I’m on my way home from work I look for dead animals on the road. Whenever I see one I stop and draw a circle around it. [Most of us in construction carry lumber crayons] Then, when I go to the store to buy a pack…




Preparing for Uncertain Times–A Simple Guide to Getting Ready, by Mr. and Mrs. Joe Patriot

…difficult choice for you to make. This is strictly the opinion of the author, but you should plan to avoid major cities during this time of crisis. In other words, if you live in an urban/suburban area become good friends with someone like mind and a tank of gas away or if you live in the country, plan to stay in and make room to have extra permanent guests if a catastrophic event happens to our nation. Whatever choice you make, you will need more people than just yourself. You will need a team of folks to sustain your Area of Operation (AO). This is where the purpose of this document ends. You have to use the gifts God gave us – intuition, critical thinking, gut feeling, etc. – to plan out exactly what you are going to do. Some suggested helpful links: Survivalblog.com Alpharubicon.com Frugalsquirrels.com efoodsdirect.com Readymaderesources.com Freezedryguy.com AWRM.org…




Herbal Cures at Your Doorstep, by Organic Cathy

Guide Series Tom Brown’s Field Guide – Wilderness Survival by Tom Brown Back To Eden by Jethro Kloss The Complete Guide to Herbal Medicines by Charles W. Fetrow and Juan R. Avila The Herb Book by John B. Lust A field guide to weeds in your area. [Ask your USDA Agricultural Extension Office Agent. They often have free reprints and fact sheets on weeds available] Herbs you can start with: (The information that follows the herbs is very brief and general. Be sure to do your own detailed research) Aloe: Vera — Easy to grow/maintain houseplant; a must for every household – burns Cayenne: powder — Gel cap or spice bottle; bleeding (internally and externally), shock Comfrey — plant/salve for wounds, cuts, scrapes Goldenseal — Supplement/salve, fighting infection Echinacea purpea (Purple Cone Flower) — Boosts immune system Peppermint — Stomach ailments White Willow Bark — Same active ingredient as aspirin…




Bare Bones Survival, by Blake R.

…pressing need, one to be fulfilled first.  Shelter keeps you warm, dry, and concealed. It gives you the ability to escape the elements as you plan your next step.  Six of our seven continents are inhabited and have been for millennia.  What this translates into is that almost anywhere on earth the natural materials already exist to provide you with a sufficient shelter.  From igloos to adobe settlements, all these materials are free for the taking if you know how to use them.  These are just examples, so I’m not suggesting you build an igloo or sun bake bricks because of the time and energy required to do so.  What I am suggesting is that you familiarize yourself with the natural materials present in your neck of the woods in order to build an efficient and expedient shelter.  Be it sand, snow, dirt, grass, rocks, sticks, moss or leaves, they…




Profitable Homesteading: How to Thrive in a TEOTWAWKI World, by Dusty

…list a few ideas for you to think about or research: Copy editing Free-lance and content writing of e-books, articles, blog post, press releases, product reviews, proof reading, forum posts… Illustrating for authors, web designers, etc. Become a Virtual Assistant (VA) Offer research assistance to authors, editors and writers Web or graphic design Web security consulting Voice-overs or record your own ad-supported podcast Language translation Note: Not sure how to find these opportunities or how to market yourself?  Try eLance, Guru, Sideskills, Freelance Jobs or iFreelance.  You’ll probably be surprised how many opportunities there are. Just be sure to specialize and differentiate yourself, otherwise you’ll likely get lost among the other freelancers. Authoring – Authors such as James Rawles, Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon and Joel Salatin have been able to make a living off the land with publishing being a primary source of income. Could you be the next one?  Why…




My Favorite Materials for Clothing, by B.A.

Not being a survivalist, nor being flush with cash, I am constantly amazed at the number of times people are told to buy the newest and greatest items for their family’s welfare. Sure, if the money was available for the average person to buy the newest “gee whiz” items all of the time, we would never have to worry about TEOTWAWKI, because by the time we have finally gotten through all the fancy gear once, we would be dead of old age. In response to an outdoor sports catalog that I brought over, my mother said to me, “American’s will all starve to death, but they will look good while they do it.” Of course, I was raised poor. I knew it, because there is plenty of people in this world who are more than happy to remind a guy of it. You did not ruin stuff; because if you…




Identifying and Protecting Yourself and Your Family Against Hazardous Chemical Materials Incidents, by a Marine in Missouri – Part 2

…am not getting any money from them, so I’m not making a recommendation. With these industrial filter and mask combinations, the manufacturer has details on what exactly they will filter out. If I were to purchase a mask for a specific reason, I would trust a new manufactured mask with provided specifications and capabilities more than a used military mask and a 30-year old filter. Remember, we test our masks in the military regularly and discard millions of dollars worth of expired equipment every year to ensure our stuff works right. Who knows if that is happening at places you can purchase masks from! One more issue I would like to briefly discuss, before I go into my recommendations for what you can reasonably do to protect yourself, is detectors. I am NOT going into specifics on these because I cannot make a recommendation unless I know what chemicals one…




Don’t Be Blind-Sided By a Secondary Event, by Bill W.

…the power and employees not be available to monitor and maintain stable conditions at the facilities that use or maintain inventories of hazardous materials.  This is not easy even for a trained professional.  It involves knowing the inventory of hazardous material stored at each facility and the effect that those materials may have on humans and the environment.  Learning the material and quantities is the hard part.  The hazards can be learned from Material Safety Data Sheets which can be found on the web. As you may expect I was surprised at what I learned.  Even in a semi-rural area in Georgia, away for any large cities like Atlanta and in an area that we don’t typically think of as chemical ally, I found a very large number of facilities that use or process large quantities of chemical that are hazardous and / or deadly to humans and the environment….




Shelter During Turbulent Times, by Alex C., Engineer

…adding a few more such as large bow saws, two man cross-cut saws, large braces (hand drills) with self-drilling-threaded-tip bits, axes (large and small) adzes, chisels (wood and cold), draw knifes, block and tackles sets/come-along, sledge hammers, large sharpening stones, and or manually powered grinding wheel.  Having an assortment of timber pegs ranging from ½” to 1 ½” in diameter would be helpful.  Common in the log home industry are a group of fasteners call “log home screws” sold under the brand names of Olylog, TimberLok, Log Home Screw, and GRK.  These screws come in boxes and buckets of 50-500.  They typically have a hex or torx head and are self drilling – commonly accomplished with a strong ½” drive power drill.  They can also be installed by hand with a socket and ratchet wrench.  These screws are the duct tape of the heavy timber framing industry and most are…




Prepper Lessons from Noah’s Ark, by C.H.

…with God: ‘Noah walked with God’ (Genesis 6:9). Dear reader, I implore you to walk with God and receive His plan for you. Noah lived a holy life. ‘Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time’ (Genesis 6:9). Let us follow his example and ‘lay aside every encumberance and the sin which so easily entangles us’ (Hebrews 12:1). Search for sin in your life for sin and ask the Lord to set you free from it. Or, better yet, ask the Lord to ‘search [you] … and see if there be any hurtful way in [you]’ (Psalm 139: 23-24). Noah did what he was told. From his introduction in the text to the point where God’s rainbow appears in the sky, Noah doesn’t say a thing. But ‘thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.’ Obedience is what God rewards. Noah had a…




Lime and its Uses in Survival Scenarios

…at this point provide a comprehensive springboard which can serve as starting points for future research for all long-term preparation. The most important thing to distinguish when acquiring lime is the type of lime and storage capacities based on your targeted use of the product. Besides the lime fruit, which will not be discussed in this article, “lime” generally refers to three types of limestone-derived materials: Limestone, Quicklime, and Hydrated Lime. It is important to explore the different uses of each type of lime and its availability in order to plan accordingly. Furthermore, it is important to note that the chemicals come in different grades as recognized by the FDA: Pharmaceutical (Pharma), Food, Feed, and Industrial/Technical, with pharmaceutical and food grade being safe for human consumption. Below are each of the common types of lime, their storage recommendations, and uses. What is not included: uses of lime (and there are…




Legally Prepared?, by L.C.

…every right is of equal significance and is entitled to the same deference. Unpack the Amendments and you will immediately see that they support and reinforce one another for the purpose of restraining the central government from tyrannical impulses. They do not represent an ala carte menu, from which the government may pick and choose, but rather constitute a recipe in which all the ingredients are necessarily included. This reality has real consequences; no one would look at a brownie and insist that the baker “back out” the eggs for use elsewhere, and neither could one reach into the Constitution and void one provision without crashing the whole thing. Freedom of speech and of religious expression, of peaceful assembly, to petition the government, from unreasonable searches and seizures, from excessive bail, from compelled self-incrimination, from cruel and unusual punishment. . . these are all cut from the same cloth as…