Acquiring Small Game Quietly- Part 2, by S.D.

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We are talking about the need to acquire food, specifically small game, in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. I have shared the importance of knowing your game and how to approach them and also practicing your hunting skills. I’ve also explained the types of pellet rifles available, given that they are quieter options than a standard .22 rifle, which with its noise level might invite neighbors to want to share in the dinner acquisition. So, let’s continue to talk about the popular calibers of pellet rifles.

Pellet Rifle Popular Calibers

Pellets come in all shapes and sizes, but the three most popular calibers are the .177, .22, and .25. The larger pellets pack more punch. I prefer the .22 for the small game I hunt. I have shot .177 caliber pellets for a while, and they do get the job done on most small game, but the .22 caliber will handle a rabbit with ease and some even use them for game as large as a raccoon. The .22 pellets are more expensive than the .177 caliber, but even so they are substantially less expensive than standard .22 rim fire ammunition.

.25 caliber is getting a following more recently due to the more powerful pre-charged air gun’s efficiency. The more powerful guns can shoot .25 caliber pellets with little drop in the pellet speed, which will increase the energy substantially. I shoot primarily .22, because it is easy to find and has enough power for anything I shoot at. In a TEOTWAWKI situation, I would prefer using my pre-charged pellet gun for small game hunting than any other weapon because of the quiet knockdown power.

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Letter: A Letter To Homeschooling Parents

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HJL:

I am no scholar, but the Bible calls on us to evangelize. There is a philosophical call in JWR’s material to be productive at every level and to eschew being idly entertained. We may not sit in our respective holes and just watch.

The letter that follows brought this to a bright, shiny point in my mind:

Dear parents,

In his 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman considers the arguments of two books – 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Postman wrote,

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The Editors’ Preps for the Week

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To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. Steadily, we work on meeting our prepping goals. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities. They also often share their planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, property improvements, 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!

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,
We did some travel part of this week, so were mostly away from the ranch.  But even while traveling, we continued homeshooling our kids. We did have the time and a nice break in the weather to do our usual poultry house and barn mucking. But not much else — other than the usual livestock feeding and stock tank filling.

We are looking forward to reading comments from readers about your preps this winter.  May you all have a blessed week, – Avalanche Lily Rawles

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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”. This week, the influential R.C. Sproul passed on.

R.C. Sproul

I was sad to hear this news: Theologian and religious broadcaster R.C. Sproul dies at 78. I credit Sproul with helping me to understand the difference between ethics and morals with this simple statement: “Ethics are what you ought to do; Morals are what you do.” When I heard that, the light suddenly clicked on. It was not possible to have bad ethics because the standard is set by God. It was, however, entirely possible to have bad morals. In fact, morals in conflict with the ethical standard set by God are bad morals.

Manual Air Pump

SurvivalBlog reader J.M wrote in about shelters. He’s seen pictures of 1950s bomb shelters that had hand cranked air pumps and was wondering if readers knew where he could obtain such a mechanism. Please comment if you know of a good supplier.

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Preparedness Notes for Saturday – December 16, 2017

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December 16th, 1928, was the birthday of Philip K. Dick, who died March 2, 1982. He penned a remarkable number of sci-fi novels and novellas that have been adapted into movies, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, Screamers, Impostor, Minority Report, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, Next, and The Adjustment Bureau. Though he had a troubled personal life (with drug use and several failed marriages), his captivating books certainly had a knack for envisioning potential futures.

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Acquiring Small Game Quietly- Part 1, by S.D.

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In the event of TEOTWAWKI, procuring food, including acquiring small game, can be not only a benefit and a help making supplies last longer, but it can also be a lifesaving ability. Small game is prevalent just about everywhere until the hunting pressure is on and then it disappears. I have seen this first hand on our small six-acre lot. We hunted the rabbits on the property one year with our archery equipment, and although the rabbits won overall, we harvested a few, or two, over the course of the season.

Visible Rabbit Population Decline

Despite our inability to make a dent in the overall population, the rabbit population on our property seems to have declined substantially. This decline could be attributed to a rise in predator population, but I think it is more directly related to the pressure we applied during hunting season. The neighbors properties still have plenty of rabbits, and I can see them hopping around during the day in many areas. They seem to be as plentiful as ever, and yet our property didn’t contain any that I was aware of.

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Letter: What are Your Daily Prayers as a Survivalist?

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Dear Hugh,

I would like to know what Daily prayers are from the readers, including their wording. I am also interested in the Editor’s response, including JWR himself as I believe this will greatly assist fellow readers in the times ahead, including myself. Thank you, – M.S.

HJL’s Comment:

Daily prayers are a highly personal thing and your approach to it will generally reflect your background. On one side of the spectrum some use rote memorized prayers. On the other side, some use free form prayers of whatever comes to mind. Many use a combination where perhaps certain phrases are rote and are filled in by whatever is on the person’s mind.

While I used to participate in mostly free form prayer (and still do at times during the day) I have adopted a much more structured approach which helps me make the time that I need with God. I have borrowed the Jewish practice of praying three times a day based upon Deuteronomy 11:19

“…and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

I then use the Lord’s prayer as a model:  Matthew 6:9-13

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”

I do not just repeat that prayer, but structure my prayer after it. I do it in this order:

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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”. Cyber Security is again front and center as we learn of some of the hacks over the last year.

Cyber Security

Wired Magazine has a fascinating article on how three bored college students concocted a scam to give them an advantage in the game of MineCraft. But the software that they wrote, which basically attacked their competitor’s servers, was so effective, it set new records for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. At its heart, it simply co-opted IoT (Internet of Things) hardware that had not had its default access passwords changed. However, it was so efficient that it was able to infect over 600,000 simultaneous devices at any one time and achieve bandwidth rates of over 1.1 Terabytes. By comparison, the previous known record was about 50 Gigabytes. It managed to take down one of the largest Internet providers in the U.S. last year, leaving much of the east coast with very spotty Internet connectivity.

o o o

Hackers halted Schneider Electric SE plant operations in a cyber attack. SurvivalBlog reader M.P. notes: “While this particular attack seems to have been at a site in the Middle East, the software involved is used widely in the energy industry. The article warns of the likelihood of copy cat attacks elsewhere, but I think it is more likely that others will use this as a stepping stone to even more damaging types of attacks, not just more of the same. A successful attack on some generation parts of the energy grid would be bad. A successful attack on others, such as nuclear plants, could be even more catastrophic, depending on what other actions are part of a particular hack.”

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Preparedness Notes for Friday – December 15, 2017

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December 15th is Bill of Rights Day. (The Bill of Rights became law on this day in 1791, following ratification by the state of Virginia.) We encourage our American readers to gather publicly and read the Bill of Rights aloud.

The 15th of December, 1923, was the birth day of Uziel “Uzi” Gal (born Gotthard Glas). According to Wikipedia, he was “…born in Weimar, Germany. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 he moved first to England and later, in 1936, to Kibbutz Yagur in the British Mandate of Palestine where he changed his name to Uziel Gal. In 1943, he was arrested for illegally carrying a gun and sentenced to six years in prison. However, he was pardoned and released in 1946, serving less than half of his sentence.” He is, of course, remembered as the inventor of the famous Uzi submachine gun and the short-lived Ruger MP9 (an improvement to the Uzi). Uzi Gal is not to be confused with Israel Galili, the chief weapons designer for Israeli Military Industries (IMI), who along with Yaacov Lior designed the Galil improvement to the AK-47.

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Thoughts on Hunting for Survival, by Ohio Country Man

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Hunting for survival is a topic on my mind. I ran into an old coworker and his wife while volunteering at the local food bank the day before Thanksgiving. While exchanging pleasantries, his wife mentioned that she had heard we lived on a farm well outside the city. It’s not really a working farm, I explained, but more like a hobby farm on a lot of acreage.

Our Acres Down the Road in the Country

My wife and I have plans to use most of our 15 acres down the road, but with two small children we have neither the time nor the money to realize most of them currently. Still, we have our big garden, our wood heat, and our chickens. We’re not completely off the grid, but we’re as far out into the country as we can get while still maintaining employment and family obligations. We love the clean air, the privacy, and living closer to nature. We regularly see all kinds of wildlife you would never see in the city or the ‘burbs.

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Light One Candle

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Happy Hanukkah!

We are hoping our Jewish and Messianic friends are having a bright and peaceful Hanukkah!

We are currently in the third of eight days of Hanukkah, a celebration of the re-dedication of the Temple at the time of the Maccabean revolt after Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated it during the Seleucid empire’s occupation of the Holy Land. Much of the Maccabean story is about fighting against assimilation into a pagan culture.We can certainly understand this concept today. This video is Benny Friedman’s rendition of Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Light One Candle” in memory of that victory.

John 10:22-30

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Economics & Investing For Preppers

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 Bitcoin investing strategy.

Precious Metals:

Asian Metals Market Update: December-14-2017

 

Stock Markets:

S&P 500 buybacks up 15% in the third quarter as Apple buying spree continues

 

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