“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine
The 70th anniversary of 1984 won’t be in 2054. It is today. On June 6th, 1949, George Orwell’s novel of a dystopian future, Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. The novel’s all-seeing leader, known as “Big Brother,” became a universal symbol for intrusive government and oppressive bureaucracy.
The 6th of June is of course also remembered for both D-Day and for the birth of Dieudonné Joseph Saive (born 1899.) He was the designer of many well-known firearms including the Browning Hi-Power, the FN49 and co-designer (along with Ernest Vervier) of the very popular FN-FAL, which was issued to the militaries of more than 90 countries.
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Today we present another entry for Round 83 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
Round 83 ends on July 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.
In this article, I’ll explain why I consider perennial vegetables a “must have” for my self-sufficiency garden.
It was during the time I lived in Kamakura, Japan, a once short-lived capital of Japan about an hour southwest of Tokyo, the place where both of my sons were born, that I learned to garden. Fell in love with it really. At that time my wife and I lived in a small duplex. All rooms were floored in tatami mats (straw mats). You couldn’t wear shoes on them, one of the few customs which the Japanese wouldn’t allow under any circumstances. The smell of straw filled the air and it just felt right walking barefoot on the dried grass mats.
Behind our apartment was an empty lot owned by our landlady, Suzuki-san. It was empty except for bamboo and weeds of all kinds. We were very close with our landlady and it turned out over time that she would let me use the entire lot, about half a soccer field, as a garden on the condition that she could get some of the veggies. It turned out great and there were many weekends we were all out there picking weeds or picking vegetables together.
At the time I grew different vegetables with varying amounts of success. Corn, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, green beans, arugula, lettuce, spinach, peanuts, taro, soybeans, peppers, carrots. All of it was grown organically without fertilizer. I’d compost what I could, used cow manure (not sure if could be considered organic or not) and used Neem oil as a pesticide with moderate success (and lots of picking off insects by hand).
Some of my happiest memories of that time were going out to the garden with my then 2 year old son and eating cherry tomatoes off the vine; digging under the peanut plants thinking they were dead just to find a buried treasure trove of peanuts to my surprise; digging up large numbers of huge potatoes and making my own French fries; and laughing my butt off at how pitiful my tiny, twisted corn cobs looked.Continue reading“Perennial Vegetables: A Must Have, by D.P.”
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”. Today, we focus on LAPD Officers Contracting Typhoid.
Some commentary by Vincent James: Twitter Bans Analyst Who Exposed Ties Between Media and Antifa. JWR’s Comment: Since I’ve personally been libeled by the SPLC, I am not surprised to read the allegation that they were a party to this manipulation.
This news coming from Vincent James does not bode well: YouTube DEMONETIZES EVERYBODY! Meanwhile, they are “mass deleting” thousands of videos, and completely removing a few channels. James references YouTube’s “Four Pillars” policy (recently re-stated in YouTube’s official blog), to wit:
“Over the past few years, we’ve been investing in the policies, resources and products needed to live up to our responsibility and protect the YouTube community from harmful content. This work has focused on four pillars: removing violative content, raising up authoritative content, reducing the spread of borderline content and rewarding trusted creators. Thanks to these investments, videos that violate our policies are removed faster than ever and users are seeing less borderline content and harmful misinformation. As we do this, we’re partnering closely with lawmakers and civil society around the globe to limit the spread of violent extremist content online.”
Read between the lines, folks. Wake up! This is a horrendous form of censorship and hive mind style manipulation and agenda pushing. This reminds me of Communist China’s Social Credit scoring. But in this case it doesn’t just harm individuals. By blacklisting content creators, they are also harming their hundreds of thousands of content viewers.
This purge is the 21st Century equivalent of Book Burning.
Here is British stand-up comedian Alastair Williams with a brief, brilliant analogy of Brexit. I laughed. A lot.Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:”
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell
On June 5, 1851, novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe published the first installment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in The National Era. She was the sister of firebrand abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher.
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Today we present another entry for Round 83 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
Round 83 ends on July 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.
(Continued from Part 1. This installment concludes the article.)
There are numerous videos on the web about this process in building your seed-starting set up. It’s simple and again a one-time effort and expense. I’ve never even had to change a bulb after three years. I also have a surge protector that the three lights and three seed mats are plugged into. I then plug that surge protector into a timer so the lights and mats turn on/off automatically for around 10-12 hours each day.
The next thing you have to plan is: when to start what seeds or seedlings. I’m just going to offer up what I do and what I’ve seen and what I plan to do going forward, based on what my family eats. I mentioned tomatoes and peppers. Peppers take much longer to get going and I suggest starting those around six weeks earlier than your tomatoes. Tomatoes take around six to eight weeks for me, and they are quite bushy and healthy (6-8” and up) and ready to transplant to their final maturing place. Planning a calendar around when to do what will help immensely. I can fill up all my three shelves with starts of just different types of tomatoes and peppers (hot, sweet, etc…).
Containers: We use lots of containers for placing our starts in. Again, you can control the soil easier but they do dry out quicker than garden beds. If you plant tomatoes in containers, be sure to put the stakes in when you plant so you don’t disturb the root system later. I’ve also decided that I will only plant determinate type tomatoes in containers going forward. Look at your seed packets and find ones that are determinate as they grow bushier and less tall and leggy than indeterminate tomatoes.
Continue reading“Garden Lessons – Part 2, by R.R.”
Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. This week the focus is on wilderness medicine. (See the Book section, Instructional Videos and Vlogs section, and the Gear & Grub section.)
Wilderness and Rescue Medicine
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NOLS Wilderness Medicine (NOLS Library)
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Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine E-Book
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MEDICINE FOR THE BACK COUNTRY, 2nd Edition
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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 scarce variants of the Ruger Mini-14 carbine. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)
Gold Prices Holding Near 2-Month Highs After U.S. ISM Manufacturing Survey Falls In May. JWR’s Comments: Gold and silver are not for timorous investors. The price swings can be large, and they can test the patience of many folks who are not willing to commit for the long haul. Remember: Precious metals are not “money-making” investments. Rather, they represent a store of wealth, as insurance against the inevitable decline of the U.S. Dollar and other fiat currencies.
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Funds Increase Bullish Gold Positioning, Pessimistic Toward Silver
10-year yield continues collapse on slowing growth fears, falls as low as 2.07%
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Here’s the value of $1 in each state, according to new data. Not surprisingly, the five American Redoubt States fared quite well. (It is only in Washington–and I suspect that is just western part of Washington–where a Dollar presently buys less than a Dollar’s worth.) The high cost of business overhead is difficult to escape, on the coasts.
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Steven Pearlstein: A new credit bubble gets ready to burstContinue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
On this day, June 4th, in 1944 United States Navy Task Group 22.3 captured U-505, a German submarine and with it an intact Enigma cypher machine. This was the first time since the USS Peacock seized HMS Nautilus in 1815 that the USN had captured an enemy vessel at sea. The sub, reunited with its periscope a decade ago, is displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Today is also the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, in 1989. The Chinese government hasn’t changed much, since then.
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Today we present another entry for Round 83 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
Round 83 ends on July 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.
So… You think that you can garden? Got the books, got some seeds, and you grew something once. Sure, it’s easy! Well, good for you. It hasn’t come easy for this guy. I’m the so called green-thumb in my house. House plants, no problem. Landscaping around the home, got that. Garden as if our life depends on, not so much. I managed lawn and landscaping crews for seven years during and after college. We did some major commercial work and I know more than the average homeowner about these things. I have to admit that vegetable gardening has been a whole different experience. I hope this article provides you all with some gardening lessons learned and hopefully some motivation to get moving and not wait for the apocalypse before getting some food growing.
I’ve been experimenting in the garden for eight years with some successes, a few accidental successes and plenty of failures. Failures are just lessons, right? I’ve always tried to learn from my own mistakes but more so learn from the mistakes of others. Mistakes cost time and money and I’d rather learn from the lost time and money of others if possible, in the garden and in life.
Continue reading“Gardening Lessons – Part 1, by R.R.”
We’ve completed the judging for Round 82 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The winners are:
First Prize goes to L.R. for It is Planting Time (posted in two parts on May 7 and May 8, 2019). L.R. will receive the following prizes:
Third Prize goes to PJA for Our DIY Solar Well Pump, posted May 28, 2019. He will receive the following prizes:
Seven articles won Honorable Mention prizes in Round 82. These writers will each receive $30 Amazon purchase credits, funded by JWR:
Eccentricity: A Viable Solution, by Kit Law
Prepper Complacency, by Wood Tamer
1803: The Preps of Lewis and Clark, by S.K.
The Handloader Never Wants For Ammo, by Wingfootjr
Our Garden Produce Roadside Stand, by R.J.
Growing Shitake Mushrooms on Logs, by Dave S.
Round 83 of the writing contest is already underway. It will end on July 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.
Here is SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt. This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. We also mention companies of interest to preppers that are located in the region. Today, we focus on Wyoming Home Costs. (See the Wyoming section.)
Radio Free Redoubt on KTW – 2019-05-04 Standing Firm Against Propagandist Deceivers
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Antifa Attacks the American Redoubt — Who are the black shirt communists?
Over at Redoubt News: Public Comment Wanted on Idaho Administrative Rules
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Post Falls men sentenced for theft of firearm used to kill Coeur d’Alene Police Sergeant
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Idaho national parks brought more than $37 million into the state’s economy. JWR’s Comment: Gosh, if they were converted into State parks, just think how many of the park employees would be recruited locally, rather than from the pool of US National Park Service employees.
Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”
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”. Today, we look at military contractor Check-Mate relocating to Florida. (See the final item in this column.)
Some good news: The PA Supreme Court: Unconstitutional to ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ For Firearms. JWR’s Comment: Open carry or the mere sight of a firearm in a vehicle by the local gendarmes is not probable cause to suspect the commission of a crime. Nay, it is just evidence of that someone is exercising a primary right that pre-dates even the Second Amendment!
Reader Ron S. wrote to mention that Palmetto State Armory is having a very short duration $29.99 sale on their standard “Safe-Fire”-marked stripped AR-15 lowers. (Search on SKU 1728, at their web site.) That sale ends at Noon, Eastern Time, today (4 June, 2019), so jump on it. If you have some extra dough, and if your local dealer charges a percentage, rather than a flat fee, then I suggest that you stock up on these, heavily! You will thank yourself the next time that the price of stripped lowers spikes up to $200 each. Please be sure to use our Palmetto State Armory affiliate ordering link. That way, we’ll earn a small commission.
The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun Prepper. (Kudos to G.P. for sending that link.) A brief introductory excerpt from teh lengthy article:
“As gun policy discussions unfold in the wake of mass shooter incidents, they routinely end in three buckets. There’s the “tyranny can never happen here” bucket, which the left has mostly abdicated in the wake of Trump winning after they called (and still call) him a tyrant. There’s the “you can’t fight the army with small arms” bucket, which is increasingly unsound given our ongoing decade-and-a-half war with Afghani tribal goat herders. And there’s the “what the hell do you need an AR-15 for anyway?” bucket, which, by its very language, eschews a fundamental lack of understanding of what those people are thinking. I am not a prepper. But I know a few. Some of the ones I do know are smart. They may not be doing as deep an analysis as I present here, on a mathematical level, but the smart ones are definitely doing it at a subconscious level. If you want to understand the perspectives of others, as everyone in my opinion should strive to do, then you would do well to read to the end of this article. To get where we’re going, we will need to discuss the general framework of disaster mathematics.”Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:”