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”. My blood is boiling today over the jury verdict in the Arizona shooting. Another incident of the thin blue line abuse.

Skynet

Reader H.L. sent in this article on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used to design and build more AI. Apparently, the child AI that results is better at performing the designated test tasks than other AI. Some seem to be okay with this development and others not so much. As the article states: “If we didn’t design it, how can we be sure that there aren’t unintended consequences?” How can you be sure that you can control it?

Moderate Islam?

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pledged to promote a “more moderate Islam” within Saudi Arabia. Now, however, Turkey’s president Erdogan claims there is no such thing as moderate Islam. Erdogan has been the typical Islamist power monger since he came to power nearly 15 years ago and has strained relations with the rest of the NATO alliance due to his radical behavior. While pushing the limits of what is acceptable inside NATO, he has at least been honest in his intentions, often stating them publicly. This statement is not a departure, but a clarification of his past stance. Note that in 2010, he famously declared that there was no Islamic terror.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.” – Acts 7:9-10 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday – December 09, 2017

December 9th, 1914 is the birthday of Maximo Guillermo “Max” Manus. He was one of the few Norwegians who had the testicular fortitude to put his life on the line, fighting the Nazi occupiers. (There surely would have been more active resistance fighters, but fearing widespread reprisal executions by the Germans, King H7 asked the civilian populace to stand down.) Max Manus passed away in 1996. I would have liked to have met him. His exploits are fairly accurately shown in the movie Max Manus: Man of War.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today features another entry for Round 74 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A $3000 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. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value), and
  8. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
  2. 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,
  3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
  4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
  5. A Trekker IV™ Four-Person Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $250 value),
  6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
  7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
  3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, and
  6. 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).

Round 74 ends on January 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.

Don’t Be Prey, by L.H.

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Nobody wants to be prey when things go wrong. I don’t have a cabin in the woods stocked with ammo and dried food with a well out back. I don’t have a pickup and trailer loaded with extra fuel waiting for the great escape.

Where I Live

I live in a city of a million. Here, we have street people living under bridges and dope shops on every other city block. (It’s legal here.) It’s also freezing cold in the Rockies and dry. All in all, it’s not the perfect place to weather TEOTWAWKI. But it’s what we have.

The Plan

Here’s the plan. These are the first three things I’m concerned about: drinking water, sanitation, and self defense. Self defense is on the list because even in good times street people wander into back yards in the middle of the day seeing what they can steal.

Roving Lawless Men

In the bad times, those living under the bridges won’t have any restraint on their need to pillage. When their food stamps, welfare, and the social security checks aren’t coming, they are going after whoever has more than they do. That means you. For them the choice is steal and loot or freeze, starve, and die. The theoretical risk of arrest or jail just won’t stop them. You owe it to your family and inner circle to be prepared to defend against them.

Continue reading“Don’t Be Prey, by L.H.”

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:
It was another fairly quiet week here at the Rawles Ranch. With some cold weather in the forecast, it was time to drain the pipes in our Bunk House. When I constructed the building, I planned ahead and installed a Tap and Drain valve near the back door.  Because we live in a northern climate, all of our pipes are buried at a depth of 4 to 5 feet. This particular valve is 5 feet underground and surrounded by a large pocket of gravel. To access this valve, I use a 6 foot tall “valve key” pipe with a T-Handle, through a vertical 2″ diameter PVC pipe.  The procedure is quick and simple:  Unscrew the PVC pipe access cap; gently slide the key down the access pipe; find the top of the brass valve “by Braille”;  and then give it a 90-degree twist. Then I go inside the Bunk House, power down the tankless hot water heater,  and crack open all of the sink and shower valves, for a few hours.  Done!

I took advantage of some good weather, and finished splitting all of the kindling that we’ll need for the rest of the winter. This used up the last of the framing construction lumber scraps that I had on hand.  So for next winter I might end up buying (the horror!) a pickup truckload of scrap wood from either the local cedar mill, or from a local pallet-making company.  But there is one good thing about living in the timbered portions of the Redoubt:  Wood is very inexpensive here, in almost all forms–especially scrap wood and rough sawn lumber.

I also set up two more stock tank heaters, for the tanks at the edge of our our winter pasture. Parenthetically, I should mention that e use a mix of traditional galvanized steel tanks and Rubbermaid black plastic tanks. I’ve begun transitioning to exclusively using submerged heaters. Not only are the safe to use in both types of tanks, but the livestock seems to leave them alone more than they do the floating-type heaters. Bored cows and horses can be very destructive, whether it is “cribbing” (chewing) behavior, or just playfulness.

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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 socialist utopia of Venezuela makes the news again over the black market from prescription drugs due to shortages.

California Fires

Wildfires raging across Southern California have shut down major commuter arteries, suspended movie filming, wiped out more than $3 billion of market value and are threatening some of the sates lucrative crops in addition to destroying homes. Ventura County, home to a third of California’s Avocado has seen tens of thousands of acres burned and the states citrus growers have been affected as well. Apparently the reason Edison’s stock has taken a hit is the suspicion that its power lines may be to blame for some of the blazes and it will bear the cost of the fires.

North Korea

North Korea is making rumblings that the U.S. B-1B heavy bombers that the U.S. deployed in exercises with South Korea have made the outbreak of war “an established fact”. This was an annual exercise that South Korea and the U.S. participate in and it draws condemnation from North Korea every year, but the B1-Bs were new this year. China is officially urging calm and Russia has said it will facilitate peace talks between North Korea and the U.S. though I’m not sure either country wants peace at this time. North Korea is like a spoiled child in that it keeps throwing temper-tantrums to gain concessions like it normally does and the U.S. keeps provoking instead of giving in.

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. 10 Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. 11 And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the Lord.” – Amos 2:9-11 (KJV)

Mid-Scale Grain Gardening in Alaska- Part 4, By Alaskan Gardeners

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My wife and I have developed a mid-scale grain garden and have shared much of the crop operations earlier in this article series. We are in the middle of disclosing modifications to the Rodale Thresher as part of our Threshing and Winnowing operation. Let’s continue.

Threshing and Winnowing (continued)

Exit Modifications To Avoid Lost Grain

I used ½” galvanized hardware cloth for the exit screen as shown in Figure 10. Most of the grain lost from the thresher is via sweeping out seed along with threshing debris. Counter this by installing finished 1” X 1” boards across the screen to provide stops, and also by sweeping the coarse debris side-to-side before sweeping it out.

The original thresher design dropped the grain through the screen onto the floor. I installed a drawer under the screen as shown in Figure 10. A 5-gallon bucket full of reaped grain results in a drawer ⅔ full of threshed debris. The drawer is then emptied into a 5-gallon bucket (Figure 11), and my wife winnows this (Figure 12) while I thresh another bucket load of seed heads.

Continue reading“Mid-Scale Grain Gardening in Alaska- Part 4, By Alaskan Gardeners”

Letter: Battery Comparison and Cost

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Hugh,

Has there ever been a cost basis study comparing rechargeable batteries versus changeable taking into account original cost of batteries and charger, cost of purchased electricity at today’s average rate, or if solar charged the cost of that equipment. As my rechargeable batteries lose life and I see changeable batteries going for cheap, I am beginning to wonder if loading up on the cheap expendables isn’t cheaper in the long run. – R.T.

HJL’s Comment:

I’m sure there have been cost studies, but I am not aware of any. However, you can do a basic comparison on costs yourself. Just be aware that cost is not the only factor that has to be considered when making the decision.

Typical purchase costs:

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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 derivatives counterparty risk.

Precious Metals:

We’ll start with this from Andrew Hecht at Seeking Alpha: Precious Metals in the Final Month of 2017

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David Morgan: What drives the Silver Price — Supply or Demand?

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Reader R.B. wrote to mention this sign of the times:  “APMEX just sent out an email indicating that they are now accepting payment for precious metals in Bitcoin.”

Stock Markets:

Kirk Spano: Let The Stock Market Bubble Blow

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen – a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a life.” – William O. Douglas

Mid-Scale Grain Gardening in Alaska- Part 3, By Alaskan Gardeners

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My wife and I are convinced we need to pursue self sufficiency, and a large part of that is food self sufficiency, including providing our own protein, vegetables, and grain. I’m writing about our family’s grain gardening and am in the midst of detailing our crop operations. We’ve gone over soil preparation, planting, and reaping. Let’s now continue with drying.

Reaping and Drying (continued)

Mild fall weather during harvest time as shown in Figure 3 is unusual in the Copper River Valley, Alaska. It’s usually cold and sometimes wet; we had three inches of snow on the ground during our first harvesting year. So it is frequently necessary to dry the harvested grain before threshing. Also, peas harvested for shelling must be dried before threshing.

Constructing Drying Trash

I constructed 43 drying trays to accomplish this purpose. Construction details are shown in Figures 4 and 5. The wood is finished 1” X 2” lumber. The floors are made of galvanized ½” mesh hardware cloth. One exception is that the floor of three trays are ¼” galvanized hardware cloth; these trays serve the dual purpose of also screening grain as shown in Figure 13. All pieces are attached with screws, for strength.

Continue reading“Mid-Scale Grain Gardening in Alaska- Part 3, By Alaskan Gardeners”

Letter: Neutron Shielding for Fallout Shelters

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Hugh and Jim,
I was recently reading a book on nuclear reactors. I learned that iron can be used in concrete to provide neutron shielding. The iron slows the fast neutrons down to thermal levels that can be easily absorbed in the concrete. I also mine my own gold. As a byproduct of my mining, I have buckets of magnetite and hematite iron ore sand. The magnetite ore I sell to a local blacksmith for making steel. The hematite I’ve found no use for until now. I can use this black sand in place of silica sand in the concrete to provide neutron shielding for the temporary bomb shelter I’m building at my primary residence. Magnetite is Fe3O4 and is magnetic, and hematite is Fe2O3 and non-magnetic. Both comprise the black sand in the gold pan. So talk to your local gold miners about obtaining their black sands. – D.W.

JWR Replies: That is a useful idea, but perhaps it is more labor intensive than necessary. The main thing to remember about stopping the most energetic forms of radiation (neutron, x-ray, and gamma) is that the lack of quality of any particular type of shielding can be made up for with quantity. If in doubt, add thickness. With neutron radiation, it is water that is the best shielding. So damp soil works just fine. So does concrete, because it holds moisture for many years. Iron or steel actually stops gamma rays better than they do neutrons. My advice: Construct a deep shelter (my favorite is a dual purpose shelter and root cellar) with at least four feet of soil on all sides and overhead.  Six feet would be great. If you live in a region with sandy soil, then the soil should be kept dampened during times of high international tensions, for the best shielding.