Re-Purposing Small Containers, by The Novice

The squeeze tube was invented by artist John Goffe Rand in 1841. It was originally designed to contain and dispense paint. By 1889, Johnson and Johnson began selling toothpaste in tubes. When I lived in Norway during the 1990s, I enjoyed dispensing cod caviar onto crackers from squeeze tubes. Squeeze tubes provide a convenient container/dispenser for substances that might otherwise be messy to use.

One day recently as I was brushing my teeth, I was thinking that many toothpaste tubes are now plastic, whereas formerly they were usually made of metal. As I thought about this, I began to wonder if an empty plastic squeeze tube could be cut open, cleaned out, refilled, resealed, and reused. I decided to give it a try.

The First Test

My first granddaughter was recently born in another state. My wife and I went to visit my daughter and her family in order to welcome and celebrate the new arrival. While we were there, I used up a travel-sized tube of Colgate toothpaste. I decided that this small tube would work well for my first experiment. With a small tube, a smaller quantity of the contents would be wasted if the experiment failed. So I saved the empty tube rather than throwing it away.

After I returned home, I removed the cap from the tube, and cut off the bottom with a pair of scissors. I then opened up the tube and rinsed it thoroughly in warm water until the residual traces of toothpaste were washed away. I thoroughly rinsed the cap as well, and then left the tube and cap on a towel on the bathroom counter to dry. This process left the room smelling “minty fresh.” I decided that petroleum jelly would be the best material to transfer to the tube in this first experiment. My favorite tinder, with the possible exception of birch bark, is a cotton ball dabbed with petroleum jelly. A squeeze tube is a very convenient container for carrying and dispensing that material. On February 4, 2021, SurvivalBlog published an article in which I described preparing a reusable squeeze tube to dispense petroleum jelly. Now I would be seeing if I could re-purpose a disposable tube for the same task.

With that in mind, I took the dried tube and cap to the barn. There I lighted my Norwegian “Storm Kitchen” alcohol stove and put a pot of snow on the stove to melt. Then I put the cap on the tube, and secured the cap in the vise on my workbench with the open bottom of the tube uppermost.Continue reading“Re-Purposing Small Containers, by The Novice”

Letter Re: 2021 Winter Storm Lessons Learned

Dear Editor:
Regarding the 2021 Winter Storm Lessons Learned article, I have a few recommendations:

I keep a 1800W variable speed inverter generator around to charge phones, run the internet and routers, power a computer, run a television and keep the refrigerator or freezer going.  It is quiet, doesn’t disturb the neighbors, and sips gasoline, especially with the variable speed.  It is small and light enough I can bring it into the house to keep it warmer for easier starting.

For the car and the generator I keep a can of ether in the shed.  Most cars today do a great job atomizing fuel in the cold but I can remember shooting ether into my cars with carburetors when the temperatures dipped below zero back in the 80’s.  I still periodically use it to start generators with fuel issues.  It has some risks and some OEMs don’t want owners to use ether, but if I need it I’ll accept the risk.

For longer-term outages, say a solar flare or attack on the electric grid, I keep solar panels and a charge controller in the basement.  This can charge the battery from my pop-up camper and the batteries in my car jump starters.  I keep a couple pure sine wave inverters in my EMP trash can.

For the toilet I have a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat mounted to it, store-bought.  I could try to use it as a composting toilet with my sawdust, but I also keep a box of wastebasket liners, 10 gallon size, 500 for around $15 at a warehouse club.  The bags are thin, not sure how large the leak risk is, but the bags can be used to control the smell.  It would create quite a bit of waste but seems viable for at least a week.

I wish I had a solution for the heat.  My mom had natural gas and I’ve thought about how to keep her warm if the power and gas failed in a storm.  She’s not tech savvy and I never found an easy to implement solution.  Blankets and sleeping bags was it.  My main heat is a ground based heat pump that needs large quantities of power.  For backup I have a propane furnace under the heat pump coils.  The furnace probably needs more surge power than the 1800W would produce but I have larger generators too.  I also have a pellet stove in the basement that could be powered off the 1800W generator that will add enough heat to the house to keep it in the 50s.  I’ve had to do this when my furnace failed.  A garage wall has enough pellets to last for 60 days.  I’ve done quality checks on the pellets and haven’t seen deterioration in 5 years of no rotation.   If OPSEC is important I plan to build a fort either above my bed or in a carpeted room.  I save old blankets and sleeping bags in the attic to act as the insulation for the fort.  Humans give off around 100W of heat per day which would have a warming effect on a small space, though not like a furnace. – Greg

Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at the effect of pending Federal legislation on gun prices. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)

Precious Metals:

Mark Lundeen: Gold is Now Very Oversold

o  o  o

Gold price can’t catch a break as oil hits nearly 3-year high; all focus on bonds – analysts

Economy & Finance:

At Econimica: The Narrative of Inflation Amid Depopulation

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At Zero Hedge: Warren Buffett: “Retirees face a bleak future”

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Senate Passes $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Package; Here Are The Differences From House Version

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Freddie Mac: Mortgage Rates Hit Three Percent

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Rates activity surges as bond yields rise sharply

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — March 11, 2021

Trapper and survivalist Claude Lafayette Dallas, Jr. was born March 11, 1950. The subject of several books and movies, Dallas had a “colorful” life. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of two game wardens, in Idaho. He served 22 years of a 30-year sentence before being released in 2005. He reportedly now lives in the wilds of Alaska.

—

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 93 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. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (a $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

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 Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, that have a combined retail value of $589,
  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. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum-sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  5. An assortment of products along with a one-hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

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. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  4. A transferable $150 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!

Round 93 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

To Freeze-Dry or Not Freeze-Dry, by J.A.

Our family began our self-sufficiency journey approximately 15 to 20 years ago at an LDS Home Storage Center location and we did not have a focused plan (Yes JW,R I should have thoroughly reviewed the list of lists, my bad!). In hindsight, we would not have gone as heavy as we did in wheat berries, beans and rice. However, that is water under the bridge at this point as we slowly work our way through the original purchases (wheat berry meatloaf anyone?). Since that time, our food storage has greatly diversified and if you have priced out certain freeze-dried items lately, you realize the prices can be quite high.

If we take a slight detour back to 2014, I remember reading a multi-part article on SurvivalBlog.com which was a review for the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer. He followed up with a retrospective review, in 2017. It was after reading Mr. Latimer’s article that I began to consider the purchase of one of these units. Several times during the years since the publishing of his article, I would vacillate on the concept of purchasing one of the units. It took me quite a while to pull the trigger on one, and in retrospect, we should have done it years ago. Last year, when we decided to put down our hard-earned Federal Reserve Notes and purchase the medium-sized freeze dryer unit from Harvest Right, we made a pinky swear that if we were to make this investment, we would use the machine on a regular basis and not just use it once in a blue moon. The intent of this article is not to update the review done by the previous author, but rather, to help others in the decision-making process by illustrating the potential return on investment associated with this appliance.

In full disclosure to the reading audience, at the time of writing this, our experience is limited with the dryer. We have had the dryer for two- and one-half months, and so far, only 16 batches have been completed but we feel we are getting our money’s worth from the machine thus far. Below I will provide two examples of the foods we have processed and then make the comparison of commercial procurement versus doing it yourself. The two examples that will be presented are biased towards higher dollar commercially available products and we have processed other foods (examples being yogurt, dill pickle chips, leftovers, etc.) that would still be decent savings, but likely not as drastic.

The first cost comparison will be freeze-drying cheese, specifically mozzarella. A few of the parameters/assumptions used for this comparison are as follows:
• We are using mylar bags to package versus #10 cans as we made the decision to not yet invest in a can sealer.
• The cost of electricity is based on what others have said their running costs were on average. At first blush, this assumed cost seems reasonable based on the average run time of 24 to 30 hours.
• The purchase cost per #10 can was determined by performing an Internet search and if the item happened to be on sale at the time, that was the price used in the spreadsheet.
• The cheese was purchased already shredded from our local restaurant supply store.Continue reading“To Freeze-Dry or Not Freeze-Dry, by J.A.”

Letter Re: Constructing a DIY Composting Toilet

Dear Editor:
In regards to “Constructing a DIY Composting Toilet”:
That urine could be a valuable commodity for those that might need to improvise their own black powder one day. I respectfully submit this website link, which explains one way the Old Confederacy manufactured nitre (saltpetre.)

A chemist named Jonathan Harrelson in 1863 figured out how to create more potassium nitrate or nitre by extracting it from urine. The men were all away fighting. But women could collect their urine out of bedpans and pour it into a huge truck pulled by a horse around town and they would make potassium nitrate out of it. A request as placed in the Selma Alabama newspaper and apparently it worked.

So various people on both sides wrote limericks about the phenomenon.

From the Confederates: “An appeal to Jonathan Harrelson”

John Harrelson, John Harrelson, you are a wretched creature,
You’ve added to this war a new and awful feature,
You’d have us think while every man is bound to be a fighter,
The ladies, bless their pretty dears, should save their p** for nitre,

John Harrelson, John Harrelson, where did you get this notion,
To send your barrel around the town to gather up this lotion,
We thought the girls had work enough in making shirts and kissing,
But you have put the pretty dears to patriotic pissing,

John Harrelson, John Harrelson, do pray invent a neater
And somewhat less immodest mode of making your saltpeter,
For “tis an awful idea, John, gunpowdery and cranky,
That when a lady lifts her skirt, she’s killing off a Yankee.

(There are a few more lines I have omitted out of respect for the ladies.)

Regards, – Wagstaff

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 Digital Vaccine Passports.

H.R. 8 Gun Background Checks Bill is on Fast Track

It has been widely reported that the recently re-intoduced H.R. 8 — the primary “Universal Background Checks” bill — is being fast-tracked by House Speaker Pelosi. The phrase “Universal Background Checks”  sounds warm and fuzzy, but what it really means is a private party transfer ban, with violations considered a felony.  Here is a link to a PDF of the  the ‘‘Bipartisan Back-4ground Checks Act of 2021’’ text. The plan is apparently to rush it through committees and push for a floor vote tomorrow, with just a few perfunctory hours of debate. Please contact your congress members again, about this.  And also contact your Senators and tell them that you oppose any similar legislation in the U.S. Senate. Remind them that this perverts the Interstate Commerce Clause, because it regulates sales of used guns between residents of the same state. That isn’t interstate commerce. That’s intrastate!

Note that in-family transfers must be “bona fide gifts”, not sales. And also note that the law would take effect 180 days after enactment. I can safely predict that this six-month period will be the wildest period of price inflation for secondary market  (that is: used, private-party) guns in history.  Prices will probably at least double and possibly triple or quadruple for the most sought-after guns, namely: AR15s, AR-10s, Tavors, M1As, HKs, FALs, Steyr AUGs, military pattern AKs, Glocks, SIGs, Colts, and so forth. So stock up, muy pronto. Stack them deep! If this bill passes then gun shows held during the six-month Window of Opportunity will be truly memorable!  Just imagine the scene at a gun show the weekend before the law goes into effect.

One last note:  After that window closes, the only guns that will be exempt from background checks will be “non-firearms”. That means: Air rifles, air pistols, blackpowder muzzleloaders, percussion revolvers, and pre-1899 guns. With the latter, the law of supply and demand will dictate substantially higher prices. There simply aren’t a lot of serviceable 124-year-old cartridge guns in circulation.

Digital Vaccine Passports Are Coming

Reader D.S.V. sent us this: Digital Vaccine Passports Being Rolled Out Everywhere to Prove You’ve “Got Your Shots”

Australian Journalists Smear “Selfish” Preppers

A.S. suggested looking at this subtle propaganda piece from Australia: Coronavirus conspiracy theorists act more selfishly than others, new study finds. Here is a quote (with emphasis added):

“The study – released today by the University of Queensland – states that coronavirus conspiracy theorists are more likely to respond selfishly to the pandemic, rather than as a society.
They are also more “likely to focus on ways of helping themselves” such as stockpiling, and less likely to respond to community-focused strategies like hand-washing and social distancing.

A comment from A.S.: Note the clever manipulative propaganda, i.e. = stockpiling = selfish = prepping

Amazon’s Alexa Vulnerabilities

C.B. sent this: Study reveals extent of privacy vulnerabilities with Amazon’s Alexa

The Left’s Campaign Against Self-Defense

Henry K. suggested this American Thinker essay by Janet Levy: The Left’s Campaign Against Self-Defense.

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Whenever someone starts talking about ‘fair competition’ or indeed, about ‘fairness’ in general, it is time to keep a sharp eye on your wallet, for it is about to be picked.” –  Murray N. Rothbard

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — March 10, 2021

On March 10, 1910, China officially ended slavery. But unofficially, China now has one of the world’s largest slave populations. These are mostly political prisoners, working in prison factories. Sadly, there is no way of reliably knowing whether or not most of the “Made In China” merchandise that you buy might originate from these prisons.

—

I just heard that loyal SurvivalBlog advertiser Ready Made Resources is having a two-day sale on selected night vision monoculars and binoculars.  The sale ends this evening (March 10, 2021), so be sure to take a look!

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 93 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. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (a $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

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 Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, that have a combined retail value of $589,
  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. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum-sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  5. An assortment of products along with a one-hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

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. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  4. A transferable $150 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!

Round 93 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Constructing a DIY Composting Toilet, by SF in Oregon

Here is my description of my do-it-yourself (DIY) toilet that works like a charm. This is how to deal with the “S” part of when the Schumer Hits The Fan (SHTF).

Of all the kludges I’ve built off-grid, I’m most proud of my toilet. As preppers, we tend to spend a lot of time on food (what goes in) but not so much on sanitation (what comes out).

If you are on-grid with a septic system, great. But as many folks in Texas recently discovered with their once in a generation below freezing storm and subsequent power outage, without water to flush, toilets don’t work.

Add to it that without power, they also have no ventilation, and without heat, just keeping the bathroom windows open is not an option.  It’s not just about bad smells, it’s then a health hazard.

Nine years ago I began building my off-grid retreat and one of the first questions was: “What about going to the bathroom?”  We have a big tick problem here (guineas to eat the ticks and dogs to chase away the rabbits and deer have helped), so I didn’t think that urinating around the house was a good idea. I have read that the smell of urine can attract the ticks.

Also, using the ‘bucket’ method (whether a 5 gallon bucket or the fancier versions) wasn’t working well.  While the urine and feces had a smell, add them together and it was much worse.  Wet feces goes through a different biological process than dry feces and the smell and end product is both more dangerous and offensive.

We think nothing of mixing solids and liquids since they get flushed down the toilet.  We never have to experience the end result of their mixing unless we live near a waste treatment plant.  Mixing the two and adding a flush of water makes sense in a modern world. Liquid slurries are easy to move from point A to B.  From your toilet, down pipes, into your septic.  Not so easy to move solids. So, what to do?  First, let’s separate the liquids from the solids. The idea is called a ‘urine separating toilet’.Continue reading“Constructing a DIY Composting Toilet, by SF in Oregon”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens… Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.” – Leo Tolstoy

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — March 9, 2021

March 9th is the birthday of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin – the first man to ever travel in space. He was born in 1934 and died in the crash of a MiG-15-UTI fighter on March 27, 1968.

Today is the birthday of writer John McPhee (b. 1931), a master of creative nonfiction. One of McPhee’s most widely read books is Coming into the Country, which eloquently describes the Alaskan wilderness.

—

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 93 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. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (a $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

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 Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, that have a combined retail value of $589,
  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. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum-sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  5. An assortment of products along with a one-hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

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. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  4. A transferable $150 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!

Round 93 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

 

2021 Winter Storm Lessons Learned , by Chill N. Texas

I am a long time reader of SurvivalBlog.com but this is my first time submitting an article to the blog. Much of this will be “train of thought” as I am reading through my notes that I was keeping during and immediately after the exceptionally cold winter storm that hit the Houston, Texas area in February, 2021.

I have been “preparedness-minded” most of my life, but didn’t consider myself officially a “prepper” until about 10 years ago. I have generally had the support (or at least she humors me) of the wife when it comes to being prepared, but as with everything else in life, you have to find balance so I’ve tried to keep my family prepared where we are, when we can.

For some context and level setting:  My family and I live in the greater Houston area. We are a family of five with near-adult children living in a suburb with a HOA,  one-story single-family home. It has natural gas appliances, and a wood-burning fireplace, on a municipal water supply. We try to maintain a baseline level of supplies at all times, for both natural/manmade events, as well as just general day-to-day living without having to run to a store every day or two to pick up something that we need but don’t have.

I won’t get into too many details related to timing since that has been covered in news reports, but when we started seeing weather forecasts that something unusual was heading our way (about 10 days out) we started to take a look around and “top off” anything that we thought we might need to stay inside for a day or two.  (We get icy weather every few years, and didn’t expect this to be much different from those events.) Unfortunately, that ended up not being the case, but in general, and especially compared to many people, we did not fare badly. I believe that this was a combination of being ready, being able to pivot and adjust to the actual situation (not just what we had planned for), and quite frankly just being blessed or lucky.

We lost power for a few hours Tuesday evening (while it was still very cold outside) and again on Wednesday afternoon also for a few hours, but other than those events we had power. We never “lost” our municipal water, but we did have very low pressure for several days and were under a “boil water notice” for several days.

If you read nothing else from this, please read this: The stuff that is discussed in preparedness articles/blogs is very real. The things that happened in this event are all things that we’ve all read or talked about and will be surprising to no one here. Things happened basically the way that we all thought it would. Lots of people were not ready for this, stores were cleaned out quickly, and then could not be restocked for several days due to either the loss of power at warehouses, or due to not being able to get trucks moving since all of the roads were iced up. By the second day of the storm, the news was rife with stories of people out looking for groceries and basic supplies and not being able to find them since stores were closed, without power, without staff (roads were icy), or some combinations of those.

I know I’ll be “preaching to the choir” on many of the following mentioned items, but wanted to put together a list of what went well, what didn’t go well, and some takeaways from this event that I hope that someone will find useful, or at least help to reinforce areas that someone might be lacking in. Note that this is coming from someone who thought that he was pretty much ready for this.Continue reading“2021 Winter Storm Lessons Learned , by Chill N. Texas”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

We no longer have comments to articles, but this column is intended to maintain the continuity of some two-way communication. This weekly column is a collection of short snippets: 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.

—

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, Tim. J. was the first of several readers to recommended this excellent vlog from Good Patriot: “How To Fight Back – Part 1: Using Your “SHIELD”.

o o o

Frank suggested this piece by John Whitehead: Home Invasions: All the Ways the Government Can Lay Siege to Your Property

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Sir,
I read the review about the slip-on Pachmayr Decelerator pad with interest.  I have a much older permanently installed Decelerator rifle butt pad installed in late 1980s.  It still works nearly as well as it did when new.  At least, that is what my now 58-year-old right shoulder tells me :^)  Because adding the extra length would have affected my off-hand rifle shooting, I removed about ½” of factory wood stock, then regained approximately ¼” from the pad thickness.  It does affect future worth to collector, but it gains faster time mounting to shoulder.  Worth it to me. I recently purchased a slip-on Kick-Eeze pad for a lightweight single shot 12 gauge shotgun but as of yet have not tried it yet. – J.R.G.

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Avalanche Lily (AVL) and several readers sent me this link: The Digital Gulag: Why Team Tyranny Won’t Need Door-Kickers to Enforce the Coming Gun Bans

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From Reader C.B: Red Canary researchers find evidence of malware on 30,000 infected Apple computers

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G.G. suggested this: So Long as You Carry a Cellphone, the Government Can Track You

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