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 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,
This week we had some beautiful, beautiful fall weather followed by a huge windy rainstorm that caused many in our region to lose power for about 12 hours; We’ve had continual rain since that day. Whenever we lose power our SOP is to immediately call the power company to let them know about it, then we fill water containers from our faucet until the water runs out. This is for drinking, cooking and hand washing, only. We usually get less than 10 gallons from the faucet. (We do have some bottles of water stored and we also have a shallow well hand pump near the house and the river flowing through our property. But water from the hand pump and river will need to be filtered and brought to a near-boil.)

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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 onslaught against the Second Amendment continues and the Middle East Tensions are on fire again. I’m starting to get whiplash from looking east and west so quickly.

Second Amendment

The Democrats have now added a 3 day waiting period and Tannerite regulations to the bills waiting in the wings of the House. Refer to the Preparedness Notes for Wednesday – October 18, 2017 for a list of these proposed bills. Note that it is still the case that not a single one of the proposed bills, nor any of the existing laws on the books would have stopped the Las Vegas tragedy. This is clearly a case where the Congress (including Republicans) is pushing a gun control narrative and using this horrific shooting to justify their actions.

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The Legal Brief has posted a video about the gun control onslaught and what we are up against. They break the proposed legislation down and give you a good overview of the bill and the real-world issues the proposed legislation will cause. In any case, the laws only affect law abiding citizens. Those who would commit atrocities such as the Las Vegas shooting would simply ignore these new bills just as they ignore existing gun laws.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.” – Isaiah 54:7-8 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday – October 20, 2017

October 20th is the birthday of actor Viggo Mortensen (born 1958.) He lives somewhere in the American Redoubt. On his ranch is his horse-for-life “TJ”–one of the five paint horses used in the filming of the movie Hidalgo. Most SurvivalBlog readers probably know him best for his starring role in The Road.

This is also the birthday of “fast and fancy” shootist Ed McGivern (born 1874, died December 12, 1957.) He was born in Nebraska, but was a long-time resident of Butte, Montana.

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Do We Have Your Full Attention Yet?- Part 2, by Old Bobbert

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Experienced Preppers Fall Short As Great Teachers

There seems to always be that cursed word “but”, where the experienced preppers usually fall just a little short of the mark of a great teacher. They never seem to actually talk much, or show much, about the “how” to actually do these necessary/important stuff. Their road map is kept to themselves.

They never seem to realize that we all live in different worlds of experience with different needs and different financial positions. And we have different and often difficult family responsibilities, et cetera.

How I Researched The Specific Article Illustrated Earlier

So let’s go to how I did the research for the specific article I used as the example in Part 1. In part, it’s based on my experience through 40+ years of sales management, raising four terrific kids, and most importantly being a loving husband of 50 years and nine months.

My chosen attitude position is very simple. It was also learned through many pain-filled years of trials with errors uncountable.

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Freeze Dried Friday:

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Welcome to Freeze Dried Friday on SurvivalBlog! We’ve been making so many things in the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer that we want to share some of them with you. If you have something wonderful you’ve prepared in your freeze dryer that you would like to share with SurvivalBlog readers, take a photo of it and send it in along with a description. We might just feature you here!

Vacation is over

The Latimer household is back online after a wonderful vacation. We are still unpacking and cleaning out the camping equipment though. I’m happy to report that the freeze dried food offered us gourmet meals at a fraction of the price of standard commercial offerings. We didn’t even repack into Mylar bags this time, instead just choosing to take the Mason jars and store them in the trailer separated by a sheet of cardboard to keep them from bouncing against each other as we traveled. It was rather refreshing to not lose any food to spoilage or cooler sogginess.

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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 ancient coins.  The accompanying photo shows how many ancient coin hoards look, when first excavated. (See the Tangibles Investing section, near the end of this column.)

Precious Metals:

First up, at FX Empire: Silver Price Forecast October 18, 2017, Technical Analysis

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Despite some recent attempts at import controls, the wedding gift demand in India is a key determiner of the price of gold: Diwali sales have been up 15-20%: ORRA

Stocks:

Next, we read: Less than 18 pct of global stocks owned by index investors – BlackRock

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At The Motley Fool: Most Investors Expect a Stock Market Correction Later This Year — but They Also Aren’t Worried About It.   JWR’s Comment: Given the current P/E ratios, the weakness in the underlying economy, and the realization that the stock bubble has been driven by artificially low interest rates, I expect a far more drastic correction.

Commodities:

On to this, from the Resilience folks: Peak Oil Review 2: October 2017

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Visualizing US shale oil & gas production. JWR’s Comment: There is a two month lag in some of this data, but it is enlightening.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“All the fiery rhetoric of the Founders was directed at a “tyrant” who taxed his subjects at a rate of about three percent. Today, we in “the land of the free” are taxed at about 50 percent when you add federal, state, and local taxes. What kind of government would do this? A dictatorship would.” – Doug Newman

Preparedness Notes for Thursday – October 19, 2017

October 19th is the birthday of three notables– the late Alexander Zeisal “Zus” Bielski (born 1912), investor Jim Rogers (born 1942), and James Howard Kunstler (born 1948). Kunstler is well known to SurvivalBlog readers as the author of the novel World Made by Hand and the nonfiction book The Long Emergency. A fictionalized portrayal of Zus Bielski is seen in the movie Defiance. This movie was loosely based on the excellent book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec.

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October 19th also marks the anniversary of Operation Gatling; the “Green Leader” raid in which Rhodesia attacked ZIPRA (Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army) in retaliation for ZIPRA shooting down a scheduled passenger flight, Rhodesia flight 825, during the Rhodesian Bush War. Rhodesia suffered only minor casualties, but claimed to have killed 1500 ZIPRA personnel as well as some Cuban instructors. Other sources claim that those killed were refugees camped near the ZIPRA border. Sadly, history does not seem to remember the two airliners shot down by Zimbabwe along with the innocent civilians killed on them, but emphasizes the retributory Rhodesian strikes.

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Do We Have Your Full Attention Yet?- Part 1, by Old Bobbert

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Let me get your attention by sharing this fact: “Life expectancy is going up everywhere except in the U.S.” This opening statement is supposed to be the “grabber” and should make the reader want to read the entire article.

Okay! Here we go with your bad news of the day in two parts. The first part is short, simple, and terrifying. It’s the one liner in quotes above. And the second part is worse yet. This part says that the life expectancy news today will be worse tomorrow, and every American is subject to the same bad news. However, there is good news available in the next line.

The quoted one liner above is not quite entirely true.

Dealing With Huge Volume of Information Available

The specific end goal of this article to to help you, the reader, become better able to help yourself deal with the huge volume of information constantly being made available to us in our everyday lives. Towards that desired goal, I have chosen to create this message in a conversational tone plus a narrative style. I am trying to write for two types of readers– both the experienced and helpful prepper and also the eager but still very new members of our larger group of preppers. All readers of either type, of course, want to learn about themselves and how to better deal with the expected (SHTF) incident/event. You old adventurers will benefit through adding to your skill set with new ways to help others gain expertise.

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Letter: E-85 and Generators

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Hugh,

I didn’t have any luck searching for this on your website. May be something you consider for a future article.

How well/poorly do portable generators function using “ethanol gas” (E-10 ‘the normal mix”, and E-15 [or higher] which various lobbies seem to want to foist on us)? How about going all the way to E-85 if you can’t obtain/forage/swap for “the good stuff”? Even with stabilizers, the ethanol is very hygroscopic so goes bad fast, but what about a post-hurricane/tornado/etc. scenario where it hasn’t had to sit long in the tank?

I got to thinking in the post-Maria coverage that I didn’t know how well generators tolerated ethanol? Because it reduces the “energy density” of the fuel, would the power generated make it past the controller? Screw up your system?

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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”. Kids smart watches are something that you may want to be careful of this Christmas shopping season.

Owned by Debt

Understanding debt and economic slavery is probably one of the most important preps that you can make. It’s not that all debt is bad, but you have to understand that the debtor is slave to the lender. That works whether the debt is for the latest iPhone, a new car, or even a home. Hopefully, acquired debt is not for some frivolous purpose like a vacation. Even our young people end up with the equivalent of a house payment in starting their professional careers (with no corresponding asset to show for the debt). Thanks to S.W. for the link.

Non-Binary Gender

California will now recognize a third non-binary gender for residents who do not want to identify as either a male or female. Leaving aside the obvious absurdity of non-biological gender issues, we are now left to wonder how various federal issues will be resolved. To my knowledge, an FFL form #4473 only allows “Male” or “Female” as appropriate responses. I’m sure there are many others as well that will have the same complication. Thanks to G.P. for the link.

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Preparedness Notes for Wednesday – October 18, 2017

The mass media-driven Congressional gun control juggernaut seems to be slowing. It is noteworthy that the horribly vague and unconstitutional H.R. 3999 appears to now be stuck at just 25 co-sponsors—but it is frightening to see that 12 of them are Republicans. Hopefully the bill will die in committee.

Please keep up the pressure, folks. This fight is far from over! Please contact your Congressional Representative repeatedly (by phone and e-mail) and insist that he or she oppose ALL civilian disarmament legislation.

There are now a half dozen bills pending in Congress. SurvivalBlog reader Kevin A. sent me this summary list:

  • H.R. 3999: To prohibit parts that increase the rate of fire of semiautomatic weapons (25 co-sponsors)
  • S. 1916: To prohibit possession/transfer of certain firearms/accessories (38 co-sponsors)
  • H.R. 3947: To prohibit possession/transfer of certain firearms/accessories (173 co-sponsors)
  • H.R. 3962: To require face-to-face purchase of ammunition, reporting of bulk ammo purchases (29 co-sponsors)
  • H.R. 4025: To require reporting sale of 2 or more handguns (3 co-sponsors)
  • H.R. 4052: To prohibit transfer/possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices (85 co-sponsors)

Don’t back off on being vocal, or the Congresscritters will interpret it as our acquiescence or surrender on this issue. – JWR

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October 18th, 1662 was the birthday of Matthew Henry (died 22 June 1714). He was a Presbyterian minister who lived primarily in Chester, England. Matthew Henry’s six-volume Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (commonly called Matthew Henry’s Commentary) (1708–1710) is a must for the bookshelf of any serious Bible scholar.

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Reload Your Own Ammo, If You Want To Be A Good Shot!, by Steve Collins

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Common Sense and Facts About Shooting

Common sense tells us that if you want to be a good shooter, you need to shoot often. Facts tell us, though, that our wallets won’t allow us to shoot as often as we want or need to. While resorting to the .22 caliber firearms is often cited as an acceptable alternative, at some point you need to shoot your primary gun. The answer to buying factory ammo is to reload your own. I started reloading in 1984 when I got my first Colt 1911 .45 auto. Shortly thereafter I received a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver for Christmas, along with my first reloading kit. Mom must have known something, or it was Divine Providence, that led her to get both of those items at the same time, because I found out very quickly how expensive .44 ammo was!

Not Somewhere Between Rocket Science and Black Magic

Reloading is seen by many as being somewhere between rocket science and black magic. Nothing could be further from the truth! Reloading is a safe activity, as long as you pay attention to what you’re doing. Making our own ammo allows us to tailor a particular load to our particular situation. We also aren’t left at the mercy of the manufacturers during times of short supply, such as we saw in 1994 and again in 2008. While a lot of folks were scrambling to find practice ammo, I was at my loading bench making as much as I wanted.

If you’ve chosen a caliber that isn’t that common, such as .38 Super, 10mm, or .41 Magnum, reloading isn’t just a nice hobby but becomes almost a necessity. Making your own ammo can allow you to shoot that old rifle that belonged to your grandpa and for which you can’t find factory ammo anymore, too.

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