Harvest Right: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Part 1, by HJL

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Intro

Three years ago I reviewed Harvest Right’s Freeze Dryer (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). Since then, Harvest Right has updated their freeze dryer with many improvements and new features. SurvivalBlog felt is was time to re-visit this subject and update the review based upon these new and improved features. We’ll also include many of the operating tips that we have learned along the way. We’ve been running the new model of the freeze dryer (FD) for almost a year now, right along side the old model. It made the comparison very easy on the new features.

The Good

Harvest Right has obviously been responsive to their user base. They’ve listened to the issues, made improvements that the users have suggested, and incorporated many of their customer’s suggestions into the redesigned FD. The original model that we reviewed had a matte black finish and looked like an industrial machine. While it sat on my kitchen counter for most of a year while we profiled it, it was ugly. It also stood out like a sore thumb with every guest to our house immediately attracted to it.

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The Editors’ Preps for 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 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 also welcome you to share your planned activities for increasing personal preparedness in the coming week. (Leave a Comment with your project details.) Let’s keep busy and be ready!  This week’s focus is on NOLO Bait.

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,

This has been a very busy and hot week for us here in the American Redoubt.

A Camping Outing

We had a marvelous time with our friends camping during this past weekend. It was a somewhat primitive campground, located on the shores of a reservoir. We didn’t have any running water, nor toilet facilities, nor power. We brought our own well water for drinking and for hygiene from home. Cooking was done both over a fire in cast iron pans and over a propane stove; Beef stew, pancakes, sausage and eggs were cooked over the fire.

The children and adults swam, fished, and went rock hounding and collected driftwood. Children played board games while the adults talked about world and spiritual issues. A 30″ Northern Pike was caught. Jim gutted and cleaned it, and our friend cooked it over the campfire in coconut oil and a mixed Cajun seasoning. It was quite tasty. The children, surprisingly, really enjoyed it. Some of us took a hike to identify the local edible plant species that will be producing their abundant fruit during the next weeks.

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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”. Leading with a quote from Mike Rowe.

Jobs

There is a growing disparity in job outlook in the U.S. right now. For years, our pseudo indoctrination camps education system has hammered home the concept that a college education is mandatory and in many cases is refusing to grant diplomas for those who have not enrolled in a college. But there is a whole sector of high paying blue-collar jobs that continue to go unfilled. Tucker Carlson recently interviewed Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame). The interview was focused on “emojis” but ended on his advice about today’s young people interviewing for a job. I absolutely love his advice:

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Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Balaam the son of Beor hath said,
and the man whose eyes are open hath said:
he hath said, which heard the words of God,
and knew the knowledge of the most High,
which saw the vision of the Almighty,
falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
I shall see him, but not now:
I shall behold him, but not nigh:
there shall come a Star out of Jacob,
and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,
and shall smite the corners of Moab,
and destroy all the children of Sheth.
And Edom shall be a possession,
Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies;
and Israel shall do valiantly.
Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion,
and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.” – Numbers 22:15-19 (KJV)

June in Precious Metals by Steven Cochran of Gainesville Coins

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Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, by Steven Chochran of Gainesville Coins, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover the price action of gold and examine the “what” and “why” behind those numbers.

What Did Gold Do in June?

Gold made another run for the $1300 mark in early June. It closed at $1,294 an ounce on June 6th. This was not acceptable to the market manipulators, so they engineered a “take down” in gold later in the month. By trading 1.8 million ounces of gold (61.7 U.S. tons) in one minute, this “mystery” transaction chopped the gold price to a six-week low.

Gold prices stabilized at the end of the month but still posted the first monthly loss of the year. Even after June’s losses, gold is still 8% higher for the year (chart).

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Letter Re: Food Storage Expiration

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I have always wondered about food storage manufacturers’ claims about the shelf life of their products. Many claim 30 years shelf life for what they sell. Of course, the question is how can the consumer ever know that this is true?

Many purchasers are dead and buried by the time 30 years pass. Who could ever go back and demand that their money be returned if it did turnout that the product had gone bad?

I know one fellow who obtained No. 10 cans of wheat from a small survival food manufacturer. When he opened a can several years later, to his horror, he found the contents to be moldy. He began opening other cans and found that all of the others were similar. That would obviously be a very bad thing, even something fatal to discover during a long-term emergency.

I believe that many survivalist/preppers, like me, are reluctant to open relatively expensive cans of stored products to test them. Having paid the money for the product, they are reluctant to “waste” it by using it during normal times.

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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 economic crisis in Venezuela.

Precious Metals:

First, there is this news: Gold inches higher as dollar weakens, central banks point to end of QE

o  o  o

Next, here is a phone interview: Silver versus Time, Cryptocurrencies & JP Morgan – Mike Maloney and Jeff Clark

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day

“Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the constitution by claiming it’s not an individual right or that it’s too much of a safety hazard don’t see the danger of the big picture. They’re courting disaster by encouraging others to use this same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don’t like.” – Alan Dershowitz

Preparedness Notes for Thursday – July 06, 2017

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July 6th is the anniversary of the 1994 Storm King Mountain wildfire that took the lives of 14 firefighters. Weather changes, resulting in 45 mph wind gusts, caused a modest wildfire to erupt into a blazing inferno, which threatened homes in and around the town of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Firefighters from around the country were called to assist in fighting this wildfire. We will never forget the young men and women who lost their lives battling this fire:

Prineville (Oregon) Hotshots: Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Douglas Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso

Missoula Smokejumper: Don Mackey

McCall Smokejumpers: Roger Roth, Jim Thrash

Helitack Firefighters: Robert Browning, Jr., Richard Tyler

o o o

There are only three weeks left in round 71 of the SurvivalBlog Writing Contest. If you haven’t seen the list of the nearly $11,000 in prizes that will be awarded, then you need to look them over. Get your article finished and sent in!

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Also, don’t miss reading the comments on our articles. There have been some fantastic discussions that have really added value to the articles. We’ve only been running the comments for a short while be there have already been more than 2,500 comments posted. Most of these include great additional information. Be part of the conversation! Ask your questions and share your expertise. Thanks!

Preparing For The Cashless Transition

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Most western nations will soon adopt digital currency. Already, more than 80% of day-to-day transactions in the First World are settled with debit cards, credit cards, PayPal, or checks. In Europe, the use of the EC card—a sort of interbank debit card—has become ubiquitous. Going “cashless” is the Big Trend.

With the now widespread use of smart phones, payment for many small transactions is as simple as just waving a phone at the checkout counter. (This is a so-called “contactless” or “mobile wallet” purchase.) Mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay, are catching on rapidly.  So rapidly, in fact, that some urbanites no longer carry any cash. At many stores, kiosks, and even restaurants this will likely become obligatory in the next few years. No smartphone? Sorry, “No soup for you!”

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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”. Central & South America news starts us off today.

Nanny State

Reader H.L. sent in this article on Chicago not allowing high school students to graduate without a plan for the future. She also sends this comment:

“There is so many things wrong about this concept, I hardly know where to start

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day

“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.” – Benjamin Franklin, (For the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 1789)

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday – July 05, 2017

On July 5, 1810, P. T. Barnum, the great American showman, was born. He died on April 7, 1891. He is often credited with the phrase “There is a sucker born every minute.” While the actual attribution of the quote is suspect with many versions of the story abounding, the concept remains valid, especially when one considers the economic state of the entire world. Only in a world of fools could the economy of entire nations, indeed the vast majority of the world, be driven solely off of debt.

Horizontal Relationships: The Key to True Independence- Part 2, by J.E.

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We are continuing to look at my thesis: True independence is achieved by cultivating horizontal dependencies and avoiding vertical dependencies. We have done so through a hypothetical family’s situation– the Johnson’s– and analyzed their most basic needs, as Maslow would say. We’ve looked at the Johnson’s food, water, and shelter scenario.

Security

Speaking of Maslow, let’s look at another critical need– security. If the Johnsons are anything like the average American Suburban dweller, they probably have a shotgun somewhere in a closet. It was probably Mr. Johnson’s dad’s or grandad’s, and it brought down many a fowl in its day. Mr. Johnson has shot it a few times and plans to teach his son how to use it. Somewhere in the garage is a box of #7 target load. The Johnsons lock their doors at night and have a great security system installed. It’s a good neighborhood with a low crime rate, and the police station is close by.

So, who do the Johnsons rely on for security? Primarily, they rely on the ordered, polite, civilized society. If it remains a good neighborhood, the Johnsons will be okay. Secondarily, and exclusively in the event of an incident, the Johnsons rely on their local law enforcement.

Continue reading“Horizontal Relationships: The Key to True Independence- Part 2, by J.E.”