Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in this column, in the Odds ‘n Sods Column, and in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

I’ve had another quiet week here, out of state, helping an ailing elderly relative.  I’m anxiously counting down the days until my return to Lily and the kids at the ranch.

As usual, I’ve had the ordering system for Elk Creek Company on hiatus for this month of travel. Judging from the large number of inquiries and “hold that one for me” e-mails that I’ve received, I can see that we’ll have a big rush of orders, when I reactivate the shopping cart system next Tuesday.  (March 30, 2021.) So be sure to mark your calendar!  I’m fairly certain that with the big anti-gun legislative push in congress that the demand for Federally-exempt pre-1899 guns will be huge, in the coming months.  This may be your last chance to have a good selection of pre-1899 guns at reasonable prices. Once again: H.R. 8 will ban all private party gun transfers EXCEPT for muzzleloaders, percussion revolvers, and pre-1899 cartridge guns. Please contact your senators again, and tell them that you oppose all Federal gun laws.

While I’ve been traveling,  Lily has been working on a “Honey Do” list for me. Apparently,  building a new shed roof to go over our intended new beehives and remodeling the chicken coop are the  items at the top of that list.

Now, over to Llly, for her part of our weekly report:

Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.

As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.

The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.” – Lamentations 4: 11-22 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday — March 26, 2021

The Battle of Glorieta Pass began on March 26, 1862.  This outcome of this battle ensured that the west stayed with the Union, and denied the Confederacy the gold and silver from the western states. The Confederates were stopped by a very mis-nicknamed unit ( “The Pet Lambs”) – the 1st Colorado Volunteers (official 1st Colorado Infantry) made up of hard rock miners (predominantly Cornish or Welsh), Irish track layers, mountain men, and some mountain cowboys.

—

I just heard about a very remote retreat property for sale, over at SurvivalRealty.com: It is 140 miles up the Stikine River from Wrangell, Alaska, in British Columbia, 25 miles from the nearest road. Snowmobile or boat access only. 146 acres, 2 bd/1ba home plus a 1896-vintage guest log cabin. Asking $1,000,000. It is 25 miles south of Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, Canada.

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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.

Tool Maintenance, by Richard T.

I’m now 73 years old and can’t remember ever not having tools. In my mother’s diary she wrote about little projects I made before I even started kindergarten at the age of four. Some of the tools that I have today were my father’s. These include a hammer and some tinsnips. They outlasted him and those and others will outlast me, if they are maintained properly. This is where most of us fall short, me especially when it comes to tools for tasks that I’m not particularly passionate about. Outdoor yard projects fall into that category. For a tool to do it’s job, it has to be maintained. As someone recovering from health problems once told me, it’s easier to stay in shape than to get into shape.

My dad was a farmer into his early 40s and worked a lot with yard tools. When he visited me and saw that I was putting away a shovel crusted with dried mud I got a lesson on how to clean it, by thrusting it into a pail of sand. I got my pail of sand and have done that, occasionally, but when I went to use it this for the first time after winter I was aghast at its condition as it was put away late last fall in a hurry and was crusted with dried mud and was unusable. It was time I had to stop and do what I should’ve done last fall, clean it up. I’ve got more shovels and rakes to clean up too.Continue reading“Tool Maintenance, by Richard T.”

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 how urban outmigration has created a rural land rush. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)

Precious Metals:

Poland Wants More Gold: “The ‘Most Reserve’ Of Reserve Currencies”

o  o  o

COMEX “Delivery” Update

Economy & Finance:

Roughly 4 in 5 Manhattan Office Workers Will Not Return Full-Time, Survey Says

o  o  o

At Zero Hedge: Cash-Out Home Refinancings Hit Highest Level Since Global Financial Crisis

o  o  o

Another from Tyler: “We Expect The Worst” – German Towns To Lose Millions In Greensill Bank Collapse

o  o  o

At Wolf Street: Market Manias Galore, But Long-Term Interest Rates Smell a Rat

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend on God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.” – George Washington

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — March 25, 2021

National Medal of Honor day is officially observed on March 25th of each year.

This is the birthday of English film director David Lean. He was born in Croydon, England in 1908. He died in 1991. He is best known for his films Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago.

On March 25, 1944 RAF Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade survived a jump from a burning Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet over Germany without a parachute. His fall was broken by pine trees and soft snow, and he suffered only a sprained leg. He died on June 22nd, 1987.

—

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.

Post-Collapse Barter: The Value of Silver – Part 2, By Dr. Derek King

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)

So let us postulate (while we still have time, sanity, and electricity) what that sack of coins might be worth as time crawls on.

The topic of bartering safely, back-room banking, armed protection and hiding places are beyond the scope of this paper and will be saved for another time and venue.

Let’s just speculate as to what a 1960 quarter and a plain 1-ounce 99.9% silver “round” will be worth on a chronological time-line, shall we?! Remember that silver is measured in Troy ounces (12 to a pound) and that this specific quarter is 90% silver instead of 98% copper as today. (According to Coinflation.com, there are 0.4584 pounds of copper and 0.0417 pounds of nickel in $10 face value of the current clad quarters.) By the way, a Troy pound is 373.2 grams.

As I’m writing this (February 2021) silver is at $25 USD per Troy ounce, so we will use that as our baseline. After pondering and evaluating, asking and extrapolating, I guesstimate that a silver round will DOUBLE in the first day. I surmise that it will DOUBLE again the next day. That means it may QUADRUPLE again by the End of the first week! It will then DOUBLE again by the end of the first 30 days. What this really means is NOT that the metals are actually worth more as a hard investment, but that the US dollar has plummeted into worthlessness and it would take a dump truck-full to buy something of value.  (Do you remember reading about the Weimar Republic in Germany when its Papiermark currency hyper-inflated around 1923?). See the graphs below.

Ben Bernanke said on July 18, 2013, “Nobody really understands gold (precious metal) prices, and I don’t pretend to understand them either.” Well, I will sleep better at night now…And what he is trying not to say is that “money” has not been money for a long time…it is DEBT that he ruled over at the FED.

Here are a couple of subjective graphs that I created:

 

 

 

Silver at $1,000 per ounce? This is the part where different people will have different opinions, and that’s okay. You get out a pencil and paper and draw an X and Y-axis and plot some values yourself. Does it look similar to mine, or totally unique? Where do we agree, and where do we differ? How fast do you think Real Money, hard tangible commodities will climb. And how fast will fiat paper currencies de-value? Think hard in real terms of buying bread, rice, beans, canned-goods and gasoline…IF any is even available after the hordes raid it the first three days! That is why I believe the $20 bill will go up, temporarily, and then plunge down to obscurity quickly! There is nothing to back it! And if you can’t get any more…it will be like the Confederate bills following the War between the States (1860s American Civil War). WORTHLESS to buy and sell with because the game changed. Well, when the SHTF, the game will Change forever, my friends…so we must be prepared to “Deal with it.”Continue reading“Post-Collapse Barter: The Value of Silver – Part 2, By Dr. Derek King”

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 examine Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs).

License Plate Readers are Becoming Ubiquitous

Over at EndGadget: Anyone with a camera and $5 can now have a license plate reader. The article begins:

“Automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), software that allows computers to separate and analyze license plates from camera footage, could soon become ubiquitous in American neighborhoods thanks to a company called Rekor Systems. On Thursday, the firm started selling a product called Watchman. The $5 per month subscription allows homeowners to add the company’s OpenALPR software to almost any home security camera.

The centerpiece of the software is a feature that allows you to white and blacklist specific license plates. Each time your cameras capture a vehicle on either list, the software sends you a notification.”

2021: Post-Apocalyptic Philadelphia

Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: This May Looks Like A Zombie Apocalypse, But This Is Actually Philadelphia

The Evil Side of Amazon

Reader C.B. sent this, which should come as no surprise to SurvivalBlog readers: The Evil Side Of Amazon.

DuckDuckGo Could Expose Your Search History

D.S.V. sent us a link to this piece over at Kim Komando’s site: Vulnerability in DuckDuckGo could expose your history to snoops. A quote:

“Discovered lurking in DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, cybercriminals can use a universal cross-site scripting (uXSS) flaw to access a victim’s device. The uXSS technology is used in popular browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Mozilla’s Firefox.

Researcher Wladimir Palant revealed that hackers use the flaw to spy on users and collect data on the websites they visit. The vulnerability can also give them access to sensitive data like banking info and other personal information.”

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.” – Noah Webster

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — March 24, 2021

March 24th is the birthday of Dr. Art Robinson, who was born in 1942.

—

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.

 

Post-Collapse Barter: The Value of Silver – Part 1, by Dr. Derek King

You, as an avid reader of SurvivalBlog posts, know a few things for sure: 1. That the spot prices for physical gold and silver metals have been tremendously manipulated and suppressed for decades. 2. That if a huge coronal mass ejection (CME) from our sun (similar to the Carrington Event in August of 1859) strikes our country and our planet, that ALL of the semi-conductor circuits, electrical transformers, and vehicles dependent upon those parts will instantly become inoperable. And 3. That the Dominion Voting machines would not be used in the next elections.

If an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) struck the united States of America tomorrow (heaven forbid), what would the price of physical gold and silver be the next day? And at the end of the first week?! Silver will go to $1,000 per ounce and $20 bill will go to zero.

Whether caused by a natural phenomena hitting Earth’s magnetosphere, an unprecedented cyber-hack computer virus, or a North Korea strike causing a type of geomagnetic storm, you were astute and educated enough to recognize that the power was not going to come back on any time soon (if ever…) you would instantly go into your “prepper mode” and begin to organize your preps into priorities. But without a television or Internet to tell you with a quick click what the daily trading price of an ounce of silver was, how would you know what its bartering-power is currently?

The same could be said regarding ammunition, liquor, toilet paper, cigarettes, and water-purification tablets. Those who know their actual worth and value are reading this article- and those clueless souls will only truly recognize the value in a week or so, when it is waaaaay too late! When all the 1’s and 0’s are replaced by Au and Ag (and possibly old carbon with a crystalline-lattice structure) people will still need something to do their “horse-trading” with. The survivors will need gasoline for their old cars, old motorcycles, old mopeds…and for food once the store shelves have been emptied; furthermore, since silver has been known as “the people’s money” for centuries, I believe it will become “worth its weight in gold” so-to-speak.Continue reading“Post-Collapse Barter: The Value of Silver – Part 1, by Dr. Derek King”

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — March 23, 2021

Today is the birthday of acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. He directed 30 films. His samurai films (many starring Toshiro Mifune) such as Yojimbo, Sanjuro, The Hidden Fortress, Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, Kagemusha, and Ran are considered legendary in the cinema world.

And today is the anniversary of Patrick Henry’s famous Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death speech. It was delivered to the Second Virginia Revolutionary Convention meeting at St. John’s Church, Richmond, on March 23, 1775.

—

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.

AAR: Winter Storm Uri, by Rocket J. Squirrel

Editor’s Introductory Note: The following is the third After-Action Report (AAR) that we’ve posted in SurvivalBlog about the recent severe winter weather in Texas. Anyone who lives in a temperate region should read these AARs closely, and learn from their experiences. Make adjustments to your home/retreat’s backup power system, water system, heating sources, and insulation. If nothing else, these AARs illustrate that you need to now how to repair copper, PVC, and PEX pipe, and keep the requisite tools and repair pie and fittings on hand.

—

I live in a suburb south of downtown Houston, Texas. We woke up on February 15th with about 1” of snow on the ground and the power to our home was out. Power outages are common for Houston. An inch of snow is not too unusual for Houston; it may happen once every few years or every decade. What was unusual was the length of time which the temperature was below freezing and how far below freezing the temperature dropped. A “typical” winter on the Gulf Coast might have overnight temperatures dropping to 25°F but daytime temperatures hovering near or going back up over 32°F during the day. I looked at some historical weather data and an average year has 62 hours of temperatures observed below 30°F but those instances of cold temperatures would typically be spread across all of the cold winter months, not 62 hours in a row.

Our home was without power for 42 hours straight including the time when it was 11°F overnight Monday night. I estimate that temperatures were sub-freezing for about 56 hours straight. I didn’t turn on our generator. The interior of the house was down to 47°F when the power first came back on. Jackets were sufficient. Our natural gas supply was still operational but we had to break out the matches to light up the burner on the stove for cooking because normal operation is spark ignition.

Even though I grew up and lived most of my life in Southern California, I am familiar with cold weather. I spent one winter in Michigan commissioning a newly constructed power plant. I tell people that we spent the six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day going from one spot to another thawing out frozen pipes in the power plant. The plant had started operations but the insulation of various pipes was not yet complete.

The Achilles heel for homes in the Houston area turned out to be the water piping. The pipes run through the uninsulated attic space. For information, my home has PEX piping with insulation on most of the piping. From my winter experience at the power plant in Michigan, I implemented a strategy of running the water in every faucet in the house every 4 hours to displace the water in the pipes with fresh, less cold water. There were three occurrences when I opened a faucet and the water dribbled out, then stopped completely. After waiting with the faucet open for about 30 seconds, the water started flowing again in each instance. An ice plug had started to form in the piping somewhere. What was happening was the water pressure was sufficient to push out/melt the ice plugs which were starting to form. If I had let the ice plug grow then the piping might have been damaged.

The water pressure dropped to almost zero for several hours during the second day without power. If the water had been out the whole time then my strategy would have been different and I would have shut off the water at the street and drain all of the piping in the house. That strategy would not have been ideal as there would have remained some water in low points as the plumbing was not designed with drain valves.

My home survived without freeze damage but I helped two friends deal with the broken pipes and the water damage which occurred after the ambient temperature rose above freezing. My friends who incurred damage had copper pipes that were uninsulated. I came to the conclusion that the local building code requirements only anticipate freezing temperatures overnight with warming during daylight hours. I expect that people up north in the Texas panhandle survived just fine because the construction techniques anticipate sub-freezing weather for multiple days in a row every winter. I went up in the attic of my 2-year-old home and found very poor workmanship with respect to the application of insulation to the water pipes. I observed many gaps and large sections (~10’) of insulation had fallen off. I have some work to do to get things properly insulated.Continue reading“AAR: Winter Storm Uri, by Rocket J. Squirrel”