Editors’ Prepping Progress

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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 the Comments. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

I’ve been helping a relative for the past few days. I brought along one of my Stihl chainsaws and my Fiskars pole trimmer, and have made good use of both of them. Having the right tools handy is always a time-saver. And I should mention that it is also often safer.  If I had been up on a ladder with a bow saw instead of standing on the ground with my pole trimmer, I would have put myself at needless risk.

I took some of my own advice, and have been more aggressively buying pre-1899 cartridge guns, whenever I can find bargains. My goal is to gradually sell off much of my modern “trading stock” and replace it with pre-1899 guns, in the interval before the Democrat/RINO-planned “universal background check” law goes into effect. Enactment of some variant of this vile and entirely unconstitutional piece of legislation now looks very likely.  PLEASE repeatedly contact the White House, your congressman, and both of your U.S. Senators.

I now have just eight days before the second half of my book manuscript is due to the publisher, so I must make this entry short. We now shift our attention to my dear wife’s weekly report:

Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

Preparedness Notes for Friday — September 13, 2019

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September 13th, 1951 was the birthday of President Salva Kiir Mayardit of South Sudan.

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Uh, oh!  Here comes the back stab… just as I warned you, folks: Trump says good progress made on gun proposals. Please call and write the White House today to say: No Background Checks on on private party INTRAstate sales!  There is no Federal jurisdiction, period!  The White House Comment Line is: (202) 456-1111.

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Harvestguard is running a 13-hour sale just today, Friday the 13th, 2019, from 7 a.m.  to 8 p.m. Mountain Time. Customers who enter the coupon code Friday13 will receive an additional 13% discount, on top of their current 20% introductory discount, making it 33% off regular pricing. Stock up on these great canning lids!

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 84  of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A $3,000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any 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 (an $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 gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
  2. 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.
  3. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  4. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  5. 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).
  6. 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. Good2GoCo.com is providing a $400 purchase credit at regular prices for the prize winner’s choice of either Wise Foods or Augason long term storage foods, in stackable buckets.
  2. 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)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.

Round 84 ends on September 30th, 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.

The Pharmacy Around Us – Part 1, by Jen R.

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Editor’s Introductory Note and Proviso: This is the first installment of a three-part article series.

The following is for informational purposes only and is not be taken as medical advice. Consult your local physician before taking any herb or supplements, being mindful of interactions with either prescribed drugs or any other herbs or supplements.

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Most SurvivalBlog readers already know about brewing pine needles for vitamin C, crushing egg shells for calcium, using willow for aspirin, and making an elderberry tincture for influenza.  It’s important to know about these remedies and be able to use them to care for our loved ones.

But there is a whole lot more to learn about, and it goes far beyond honey for coughs or peppermint tea for calming an upset stomach. Skeptics aren’t too sure of herbal remedies, and indeed it can be hard to distinguish hope from hype. I this three part article I will describe some potent natural treatments that can be obtained from items we have on hand or that are commonly found in the great outdoors. Many of these treatments not only work, but actually outperform conventional treatments. So why don’t we know about them? Why aren’t these treatments researched? Because there is no money in it for Big Pharma. Big Pharma can’t patent a naturally occurring plant.Continue reading“The Pharmacy Around Us – Part 1, by Jen R.”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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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. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at investing in discontinued sand AR-15 PMAGs. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)

Precious Metals:

An interesting primer, over at Visual Capitalist: The Silver Series: The Start of A New Gold-Silver Cycle (Part 1 of 3)

o  o  o

H.L. spotted this at Zero Hedge: Russia, China Continue “Massive Substitution” Of Dollar Assets By Gold

Economy & Finance:

How Is Negative Interest Possible?

o  o  o

Wolf Richter: Men’s “Real” Earnings Below 1973 Level: Census Bureau.

o  o  o

US hiring slows. Economy added 130,000 jobs in August.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — September 12, 2019

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After nearly 40 years of riding across millions of American television and movie screens, the cowboy actor William Boyd, best known for his role as Hopalong Cassidy, died on this day in 1972 at the age of 77.

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A reminder: To help cover some family medical bills, I’ve put a few guns from my personal collection up for sale on consignment through a trusted friend who has an FFL. They are being auctioned at GunBroker.com. They all have modest opening bids, and no reserve prices. If any of these interest you, then please consider bidding. These guns include:

These auctions end this coming Sunday evening (15 September, 2019), so please get your bids in soon.

The auctions will be followed at weekly intervals with auctions for two more of my pre-ban HK91 rifles. Those are both in original condition.

These guns are all good investments, and you’ll be able to say: “This once belonged to Jim Rawles.”

Many Thanks! – JWR

—

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 84  of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A $3,000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any 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 (an $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 gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
  2. 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.
  3. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  4. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  5. 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).
  6. 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. Good2GoCo.com is providing a $400 purchase credit at regular prices for the prize winner’s choice of either Wise Foods or Augason long term storage foods, in stackable buckets.
  2. 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)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.

Round 84 ends on September 30th, 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.

The Prepper’s Smartphone, by Aden Tate

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It seems as if pretty much everybody has a smartphone of some sort today. Considering such, and that a phone is something that people tend to have on their person virtually 24/7 in today’s society, it makes sense to make one’s phone as versatile of a tool as possible. If it’s going to be in your EDC to begin with, why not have it work for you as hard as it is capable of? Do cell phones die? Yes. But at least in the beginning stages of a disaster, there’s a very good chance that your phone will both have battery and be functional.

Have there been issues discovered relating to smartphones and privacy? Absolutely. Unfortunately, I need my GPS, I need social media for my business, and I greatly enjoy having a rock-solid camera with me all the time. And so, I have opted to retain my smartphone. I would argue that since the majority of the population within the States seems to have smartphones, that there’s a good chance there are a sizeable number of preppers out there who agree with me.

And so, it brings me back to my earlier point: if your EDC matters, and your phone is something you will have with you all the time, doesn’t it make sense to have your smartphone be as fully useful to you as possible?
I think the answer should be a strong yes here, and started delving into helpful apps as a result. And here’s what I found. The apps that will help the prepper’s smartphone be everything it can.Continue reading“The Prepper’s Smartphone, by Aden Tate”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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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 how Hong Kong protestors are using a mesh messaging app.

SHTF Intelligence Gathering

Tim J. sent us this Forward Observer video link: SHTF Intelligence Gathering

Arctic ‘Global Warming’ Mission Foiled by Sea Ice

Linked over at Whatfinger.com, there was this bit of schadenfreude: Delingpole: Ship of Fools VI – Arctic ‘Global Warming’ Mission Scuppered By Mysterious Hard White Substance

New Property Listing: A Wyoming Silo Missile Site on 1.6 Acres

I just heard about this new listing over at SurvivalRealty.com: Wyoming Silo Missile Site on 1.6 acres.

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“If the citizens of the United States are to turn away from the Communist Manifesto and preserve the purpose of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and our Bill of Rights, we must first thoroughly reexamine and learn about each of them, and uphold America’s founding documents by testing every political action in light of them.” – Chuck Norris

 

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — September 11, 2019

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September 11th is of course the anniversary of the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. , but it is also the anniversary of the Benghazi Embassy attacks, in 2012. (Those events were recounted in the Hollywood film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.) Please remember the sacrifice of J. Christopher Stevenson, Sean Smith, and CIA (former Navy SEAL) agents Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Between them, Woods and Doherty reportedly dropped at least 60 of the attackers, before their position was overwhelmed. Please also remember the spineless worms in Washington, D.C. who decided to not back up the embassy staff when they were in dire need of help. Eventually, they will pay for that. Time wounds all heels.

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Don’t forget that September 20th is Paratus. That is the annual survivalist gift-giving holiday. It was the invention of Commander Zero of the Notes From The Bunker blog.

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Today we present a short guest article. Because it is less than 1,500 words long, it will not be ncluded in the judging for the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

Prayer Before You Prepare, by C.H.

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My first memory of SurvivalBlog is reading the Rawlesian precepts, almost a decade years ago. I remember quickly hurrying over to the ‘Quick Start Guide’ to find out where I should begin. It was there that I read the most important piece of advice for any prepper: “Before you begin to prepare, pray.”

Unfortunately, I thought that this meant little more than a salutary ‘tipping of the hat’ toward heaven before starting out on whatever I thought was best. ‘Do your best, pray it’s blessed, and let God do the rest.’ So I asked the Lord for his blessing and guidance, without really expecting any answer. And then I set forth.  I looked for a job in the American Redoubt, began stockpiling guns, ammo, and precious metals. I read any material on prepping I could find. I devoured books and scoured the Internet. I kept a close eye on the news for any hints on what to get ready for.

And then I watched all my prepper plans lead to frustration. I couldn’t find a job outside the major urban complex where I lived. I have forgotten how many resumes I sent, and how many interviews I had. No bites. I wound up having to sell my stockpile when financial hard times came. My timing was always wrong – I would buy at high prices during panics and be forced to sell when medical or credit card bills came due. I struggled to build a common vision for the prepping life with my wife. Where and when should we move? Should I quit my career in the city and try something else? To homeschool, or not to homeschool? I couldn’t seem to get off the ground. I was frustrated, exhausted, and angry. I was stuck.

Maybe this is your experience too?

In this little article, I would like to share what the Lord has taught me about ‘prayer before prepping’ and how these lessons have changed my life and my preps.Continue reading“Prayer Before You Prepare, by C.H.”

JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:

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Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. The focus is usually on emergency communications gear, bug out bag gear, tools, books and movies–often with a tie-in to disaster preparedness, and links to “how to” self-sufficiency videos. You will also note an emphasis on history books and historical movies. This week the focus is on the upcoming release of the Kevin Sorbo movie The Reliant. (See the Movies section.)

Books:

40th Edition Blue Book of Gun Values. When visiting a gun show, knowledge is power.

o  o  o

The Dehydrator Cookbook for Outdoor Adventurers: Healthy, Delicious Recipes for Backpacking and Beyond

o  o  o

Hidden Success: A Comprehensive Guide to Ghillie Suit Construction

o  o  o

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture & Cabinet Construction

Continue reading“JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“The fact is that the modern implementation of the prison planet has far surpassed even Orwell’s 1984 and the only difference between our society and those fictionalized by Huxley, Orwell and others, is that the advertising techniques used to package the propaganda are a little more sophisticated on the surface.
Yet just a quick glance behind the curtain reveals that the age old tactics of manipulation of fear and manufactured consensus are still being used to force humanity into accepting the terms of its own imprisonment and in turn policing others within the prison without bars.” – Paul Joseph Watson

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — September 10, 2019

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On September 10, 1776, George Washington asked for a spy volunteer. Nathan Hale stepped up to the challenge of an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City. Unfortunately, the British captured and executed him. He is probably best known for his last words before being hanged: “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” He has long been considered an American hero, and in 1985, was officially designated the state hero of Connecticut. It is good for us to remember that every American patriot and hero from the times leading up to and during the American Revolutionary War would have been considered traitors to the crown and would have suffered much the same fate as Hale had America not won her independence.