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 “HJL”. If you haven’t built a tape measure antenna before, you need to read this article today. It’s a great way to retire those old tape measures.

Jobs and Drugs

Reader H.L. sent in this article on how thousands of jobs in Ohio are going unfilled because potential employees can’t pass a drug test. While the manufacturing industry is expanding right now, the growth is stunted due to lack of a qualified work force (or perhaps lack of a sober workforce). H.L. adds:

“It is not just Ohio. Here in Connecticut, our long time electrician cannot find an apprentice. Either they do not want to learn/work and/or they cannot pass a drug test! Across much of America parents think their children need to go to four year college to learn a “white collar” skill. They often come out with a useless degree and lots of debt. The electricians, plumbers, and various “trades” pay really well and there is always work. Parents would be wise to expose both boys and girls at a young age to mechanical toys, etc. and see if they have interest in working with their minds and their hands. Add exposure to robotics and IT and their young adult might just be able to make a good living.”

Tape Measure Antenna

Reader P.S. reported that at his Ham Radio meeting over the weekend, his club made these $20 antennas out of PVC and sections of a metal tape measure. He was testing it from home and was impressed at how well it worked, even with his cheapest hand-held radio. He plans to make a few more just in case of an emergency. There is also a video.

Baseball Bats and Nail Guns

With the recent article and discussion on gun control on SurvivalBlog in mind, reader DSV sent in this article on how Australian citizens are arming themselves to protect those they love. They are forming citizen militias, but since they can’t arm themselves with firearms, they are using baseball bats, nail guns, paint-ball guns, brass knuckles and steel pipes. It seems a bit like Mad Max, but when you have nothing else, you use what you have. Anything is better than nothing and attitude is one of the most important aspects of self defense.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.” – George Washington

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday – February 07, 2018

On this day in London, Benjamin Franklin published An Imaginary Speech in defense of American courage. The speech was intended to counter an unnamed officer’s comments to Parliament that the British need not fear the colonial rebels, because “Americans are unequal to the People of this Country [Britain] in Devotion to Women, and in courage and worse than all, they are religious.” Franklin’s response included his usual wit and acuity.

February 7th, 1867, is also the birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder (died February 10, 1957). SurvivalBlog highly recomends the Laura Ingalls Wilder books which are awesome books as well as her biography.

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From Piglets to Bacon- Part 2, by Animal House

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This is my story, as a retired grandmother of raising small livestock and our experience of going from piglets to bacon. In part one, I shared about preparing the pen, selecting the piglets, and basically getting them set up and situated in their new space. But after that, it was time for them to grow.

Growing the Piglets

When the girls were young, we fed them twice a day. They got a varying mixture of healthy non-GMO swine pellets, soy meal, fresh eggs, and hot oats on cold days, any table scraps that the rabbits and chickens didn’t get, and all the acorns and pine cones they wanted.

When they got to about 150 pounds, we fed them once a day. We increased the amount of feed as they grew. And at about 200 pounds, we introduced cracked corn to their diets. This seemed to help them feel satisfied. Plus, it increased the protein percent and fattened them up.

Predators

I was worried about predators, such as bobcats and a pack of coyotes that might target the young pigs. These concerned me, as they would occasionally run through my property. The youngsters only got out of their enclosure once– when they lifted the gate off its hinges. In this instance, the chain held on the lock side, but farm gates only weigh about 50 pounds (depending on width). So, the girls (who weighed about 125 pounds at that time) were out exploring for a while until the dogs began barking and we went running to shoo them back to their enclosure. After that, we locked down the hinge side so we would not have that excitement again.

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Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest 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 JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on the recent market turmoil.

Stocks, Cryptos, and Gold (Market Turmoil):

The top seems to have come off the equities markets in the last few days. This pretty well wiped out all of the gains since January 1st. (I hope that folks took my advice of placing stop loss orders!) Be ready for more volatility. And meanwhile, Bitcoin and the other cryptos have lost about 50% of their value since their high point, a month ago. Once again, gold seems to be a stable safe haven. When I checked on Monday, spot gold was up 1.57% in the past 30 days. But I still think that silver is the under-priced bargain.

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Janet Yellen calls stock market, real estate valuations ‘high’ in last interview before exit as Fed chief. (Note: This has CNBC’s usual annoying auto-start video.)

Commodities:

Next, over at Platts: Oil futures fall as Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges

 

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JWR’s Recommendations of the Week

Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. This week the focus is on NORB  range bags. (See the Gear section.)

Books:

The Prepper’s Cookbook: 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals. By the way, this book is from Ulysses Press–the folks who publish my novel Patriots.

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Finally!  A “self-help” style book backed by some conservative, religiously-grounded common sense has made it into Amazon’s Top Ten. (It was ranked #1 on Amazon, the last time I checked.) The book is titled: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

Movies:

This film has been mentioned before, and I’ll probably mention it (deservedly) again: The Patriot.

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And this is a classic shoot-’em-up drama, from masterful writer/producer John Milius: Dillinger. (Finally available on BluRay!)

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“A classic 1929-style [stock market] crash starts with a deep, fast decline. Then comes a recovery of about half the decline, which draws in ‘buy the dip’ investors, fresh meat for the monster ahead. It’s a quick gulp of fresh air before the real crash begins, the Big One, stair-stepping down for a couple of years until it bottoms at a small fraction of the peak, exhausted and depleted. While this probably isn’t the Big One, it could be the initial fracture, or it could be something like the -21% quick correction of 1987.

Will the Big One happen this year? My guess is yes. It’ll rival the Fall of Rome, the Destruction of Carthage, the Black Plague and Al Gore combined. When this huge bubble of insolvent malfeasance ruptures it will be an unstoppable, bloody carnage smashing everything in its path and the birds overhead” – Ol’ Remus, in his Yer Ol’ Woodpile Report blog

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday – February 06, 2018

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Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6th, 1911. He was an American politician and actor, who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he served as the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975, following a career as an actor and union leader in Hollywood. Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed “Reaganomics”, advocated tax rate reduction to spur economic growth, control of the money supply to curb inflation, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, escalated the War on Drugs, and opposed public-sector labor unions.

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From Piglets to Bacon- Part 1, by Animal House

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This article is about growing piglets, slaughtering, and butchering hogs. It covers everything we did from start to finish concerning piglets to bacon!

Why a Retired Grandmother Raises Small Livestock

But first, it is important to understand why in the world a retired grandmother would want to raise small livestock. While this article is not about the bad stuff in commercial pork products, I want to list the reasons why I make the effort to raise my own small livestock.

Just for starters, “…synthetic preservatives are added to 70 percent of all factory farmed meat and poultry to prevent spoilage, rancidity and mold growth.” Source:  http://www.wakingtimes.com

“Ractopamine is used in the pork industry. It puts on more muscle, instead of fat, and also puts on weight. Ractopamine is a livestock growth altering drug so dangerous that 160 countries around the world have banned its use. A container of ractopamine has a warning label says, “Individuals with cardiovascular disease should exercise special caution to avoid exposure. Not for use in humans. Keep out of the reach of children,” and recommends protective clothing, gloves, eye wear and masks.” Source:  http://www.wakingtimes.com

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SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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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. The emphasis this week is on Idaho’s Liberty Legislators group.

Region-Wide:

To begin , there is this, over at the Charles Carroll Society site: American Redoubt responds to @vestal13 #FakeNews published by the Spokesman-Review #idpol

That was in response to this shoddy diatribe: Shawn Vestal: The American Redoubt is alive and well in the Idaho Capitol as ‘Bundy sniper’ receives hero’s welcome. (I’m posting that link only as an example of why The Spokesman-Review is suitable only for birdcage liner.)

Vestal’s  article includes this outright slur: “The Redoubt is more idea than place – a dream of a Western haven for far-right revolutionaries that is not all that different from [Aryan Nations leader] Richard Butler’s view of the region – and every now and then it becomes bracingly clear just how much approval for armed insurrection lives inside that idea.” To conflate the American Redoubt movement with the name of a neo-Nazi and anti-Semite like Richard Butler is the absolute lowest form of political whitewashing. Shawn Vestal could have devoted just a minute or two to fact checking, and learned that Richard Butler died in 2004. And surely Shawn Vestal knows that the American Redoubt movement is outspokenly anti-racist and pro-Israel.  We have made that abundantly clear on countless occasions. Mentioning our movement and Butler in the same breath is more than an un-truth. It is a vicious smear.

We have also never advocated insurrection. (Armed or otherwise.) In fact, we haven’t even advocated states petitioning  for secession. We have only advocated two state partitions within the framework of the Constitutional Union of States. (The same way that West Virginia became a state separate from Virginia.) Yet left wing journalists keep doing their best to regularly paint us a “radicals” with their ever-handy Nazi/KKK brush.

I’m really tired of these lies. I demand that Shawn Vestal print a retraction. – JWR


Idaho (Liberty Legislators)

Next, courtesy of Redoubt News: is full coverage of a recent conclave of Idaho’s Liberty Legislators. Video: 2018 Idaho Legislative Preview.  (The speeches begin at 14:05 mark.)  The first speaker is Representative Priscilla Giddings, who is also a US Air Force Reserve A-10 pilot. It is refreshing to see how the new crop of truly conservative small government Republicans are standing up to the well-entrenched RINO legislators in Boise.  The same political groundswell is just getting started in the other Redoubt States. But it is clear that the spirit of liberty is on the march, throughout the Redoubt region.

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The recently-announced acquisition of GemTech Suppressors (aka Gemini Technologies) of Boise, Idaho by Smith &Wesson seems to have run afoul.  It has been reported that Gem-Tech just filed suit against S&W for breach of contract. The reason? GemTech claims that S&W has only paid about half of the agreed purchase price for the company, in the time allotted, based on the company’s earnings. Further muddying the waters, according to The Firearms Blog  (TFB), “about two months after the public announcement of the sale, CEO Ron Martinez was fired for publicly unknown reasons.”

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Not your average traffic stop: Elk pulled over in north Idaho. JWR’s Comments: I suspect that this is a case of a “hard winter” elk that has been malnourished because of the heavy snow cover this year. She probably didn’t have the strength to jump the fence seen behind her. During hard winters, do your best to not spook or pressure big game into running. Evey calorie of their fat reserves is precious.

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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 “HJL”. The water shortage in Capte Town continues to be a source of potential conflict.

Water Shortage

Cape Town is bracing for clashes as the city clamps down on water usage by its occupants. The kind of drought that they are experiencing only happens about once in every 300 years and the water levels are dropping by as much as one percent every day. That means that there is not enough water to bathe and the government is asking residents to use washcloths to clean themselves. They are also asked to flush the toilet only once a day. Thanks to G.P. for the link.

JWR added to Sunday’s update on Cape Town: “Is this a preview of urban life in America in another 10 to 15 years? By the way, the household electric fences seen in this video have a lethal voltage. That would be an invitation to a huge lawsuit in the US or Canada. But it is standard practice in South Africa.”

Educational Straitjacket

A recent study shows that kids are basically born geniuses, but that the educational system destroys imagination. Who would have ever thought that an indoctrination system designed to make children conform to accepted social norms would destroy imagination? The study was commissioned by NASA to help the agency identify and develop creative talent. The researchers were tasked to research school children and attempt to identify creative individuals that the agency could tap to help with their many products. 98 percent of 5-year-olds tested at the “genius” level. By age 10, that number had fallen to only 30 percent. By age 15, only 12 percent tested at that level. Yep, these are the people that will vote in three years. Thanks to G.M. for the link.

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Preparedness Notes for Monday – February 05, 2018

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On February 5th, 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt announced his plan to expand the Supreme Court to as many as 15 judges. This unconstitutional move was in response to the hostility that the court held towards his “New Deal”, itself an unconstitutional expansion of government authority. Roosevelt was flushed with his landslide victory in 1936, so Roosevelt pressed his advantage. In April of that year, two justices conceded the high moral ground and capitulated to his demands allowing for a narrow victory on the New Deal. The reorganization was now unnecessary and in July the Senate struck it down, but the damage was already done. By 1942, all but two of the justices were Roosevelt’s appointees setting the stage for the collapse of the checks and balances in the government along with the morally disastrous progressive rulings that have followed.

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2015-2017 SurvivalBlog Annual Archive Update

The greatly expanded SurvivalBlog Archive is on it’s way. We are expecting delivery of the USB sticks this week. We should be set up to take pre-orders later this week, with mailing to begin by the 15th of February, 2018.  This new edition will have substantially more bonus material than the pereious editions.

Ruger’s New Security 9, by Pat Cascio

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Whenever Ruger comes out with a new center handgun, people take notice. The all-new Ruger Security 9, 9mm handgun might just be their best offering yet.

Ruger Security 9 – A Perfect 9mm Handgun For Every Day Carry

Ruger never ceases to come out with more and more, and better and better products. Under review today is the all-new Ruger Security 9– a just perfect 9mm handgun for every day carry.

Many Years Ago

Many years ago, when I was working as a private investigator in Chicago, IL, my wife gifted me with a Ruger Service Six revolver. It had fixed sights, fired .357 Mag and .38 Spl ammo, and was made out of stainless steel. The grip area was a bit skimpy, so I changed the grips out for something more substantial. The gun was an excellent shooter, and I rotated it between my S&W Model 586 quite often. Ruger’s revolver was much lighter in weight than the 585, and that was a good thing in my book. In a moment of weakness, I traded that Service Six for something else. To this day, every now and then, the wife reminds me that a gifted gun is one you keep. I know that, now!

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Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest 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 JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on Predicting Future Collector Interest. (See the Tangibles Investing sections.)

Precious Metals:

Precious metals prices forecast to rise during 2018, according to survey

 

Commodities:

The Wall Street Journal reports: U.S. Oil Production Tops 10 Million Barrels A Day for First Time Since 1970
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