The Editors’ Preps for the Week of June 19th, 2017

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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!

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,

The weather in the northern American Redoubt will be clear and dry with moderate temperatures, this week which will be excellent weather for outdoor activities.

In The Garden and Greenhouse

We’ll be continuing to pull weeds.  It looks as though I need to replant certain squashes.  I also plan to plant some more carrots, broccoli, and some turnips.

Around The Ranch

Jim will continue to work on the carpentry and plumbing projects which are nearly finished.  He will also be hauling firewood from our ranch’s woodlot.  Jim will have a shorter work week on the ranch since he needs to make a consulting trip at the end of the week.Continue reading“The Editors’ Preps for the Week of June 19th, 2017”

Letter: Kitchen Water Filter Advice

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Hi,
I listened to JWR on yet another interview (making the rounds) and wanted to know if you (or Hugh) would be able to suggest a water filter I could use for my kitchen sink.  I live in an apartment. Management informed me that a Water-Filtration System (as in reverse osmosis) is not allowed.

Is there anything, not super duper pricey, that I could attach to my faucet? Thanks! – T.N.

HJL’s Comment:

Many of our readers use a Berkey water filter. You can get these for under $300 from many of our advertisers. The advantage of the berkey type system is that it is gravity fed so you don’t have to have power. On the Latimer homestead, we use a Multipure Aquaversa system which can generally be had for about the same as a Berkey. The Multipure does require pressurized water. It’s a solid carbon block filter. You can mount it on your counter top or under your sink. It provides filtered water on-demand. We also have it attached to the ice maker in the refrigerator.

A word of caution is in order on the Multipure though. Multipure is a multilevel marketing program (MLM). The filter is one of the best made, but you really have to price shop as some vendors charge way over the suggested MSRP. If you really want to save money, you can also build your own from some of the articles presented here on SurvivalBlog such as “Do-It-Yourself Ceramic Water Filter, by The Architect”

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 world’s best-known cryptocurrency,  Bitcoin.

Precious Metals:

First, there is this, over at Kitco: Ignore the Hawkish Fed, There’s Still A Case for Gold – Traders

o  o  o

The Taipei Times reports: India plans gold policy revamp for US$19 bn sector


Alternate Currencies (Bitcoin):

Next, there is this over at SovereignMan: You won’t believe this stupid new [draft] law against Cash and Bitcoin

JWR’s Comments: Beware of putting too much of your wealth into Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.  When times get hard, governments get grabby. And of course Bitcoins stored by third party exchange services are vulnerable to hacking.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing for Preppers”

Editors’ Quote Of The Day

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“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.” –  Justice Alex Kozinski, US 9th Circuit Court, 2003 

 

Killing the “HAKA”, by The Recovering Feminist

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Pushing Too Far

Have you ever wondered why God spared Job’s wife?

Have you nagged?

Ladies, can I ask you a few personal questions? It’s a question about nagging. Have you ever nagged a man so much that you pushed him too far? Basically, have you nagged him to the point where you regretted it? I’m not going to discuss the topic of abusive male aggression here or domestic violence. On the contrary, I’m hinting at the reality of how we, as women, have the innate ability to nag men. We all know how to do it. Some are more gifted than others. Have you wanted something very much and your way of asking (nagging) backfired? You pushed too hard. You were harsh, rude, demanding, and bitter about it. Have you ever done this to a man? If you answered “no”, then I highly suspect you are lying. If you honestly answered “yes”, then you understand what it means to push a man too far. So, if you have done this, did you learn your lesson and realize that you were wrong? Did you stop yourself the next time you were tempted to nag and say to yourself, “I know this way won’t work; I need to approach him instead with respect and love.”?

Fighting Our Weakness

Don’t get me wrong, I still nag my husband. Sometimes I do it like a champ. However, I know that I am wrong for approaching my husband this way, and I know that to approach him with love and respect is the better way. I do need to mention that there are men out there who are legitimately abusive to their wives, and there is no excuse for this. Both men and women are weak in different ways. We have to fight against our weakness and lean into the truth if we are going to find the peace that we seek in our closest relationships and in our own hearts.

Continue reading“Killing the “HAKA”, by The Recovering Feminist”

Letter Re: The Practical Application of Tactical Gear, Load and Weight Considerations

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Hugh,

I’ve been reading the MAX V articles about practical application of tactical gear, et cetera. This spurred me to add my .02 cents. During a 2014 deployment to Kandahar with the Air Force Reserve, I had an ankle injury that wasn’t serious enough to send me home but serious enough to slow me down for my entire tour. I had brought with me a Tactical Tailor H-harness and belt set, which I set up to wear under my armor. (Once the armor was on, I never felt it.) I kept one magazine pouch and a small admin pouch, used for power bars and band-ades, on the armor. Everything else was on the H-harness/belt.

Loading up the carrier with ammo pouches and extra crap looked high-speed for the younger troops, but I felt was additional weight to try to get on and off in a hurry. Also, with my age related ankle injury, I decided that should I have to ditch my armor to trade for speed, that keeping the ammo, canteen, and admin pouch with CLIF bars separate was the way to go and something to consider for the “old warriors” in the readership. Keeping in mind that during an emergency here when a person needs to ditch 30 lbs of armor to run an important message, or simply E&E an overwhelming foe, might be something to consider.

Mid-crisis is not the time to strip your plate carrier to reconfigure for weight saving. Pulling and caching the plates might work as well but would still require time that could be better utilized creating distance. – T.G.

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”. Today’s focus is on the fall of America.

Fall of America

Kalifornia has often led the way in polices across America. Now, taxpayers in California will be forced to pay bullies on college campuses who will force their agenda on classmates guilty of “thought crimes”. Between 8 and 10 Social Justice Activists (SJAs) will walk around campus. They will indoctrinate whomever they come across of the perils of whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity. You might think that paying students to incite racism, sexism, and heterophobia in the name of social justice is counterproductive and satire. But it’s apparently happening. Thanks to H.L. for the link.

o o o

Rhode Island schools who participate in the “1-1” programs, where each student is issued a laptop, have a policy of encouraging the students to use the electronics for more than just schoolwork. Some even go so far as to encourage the parents of students to use the computers as well.  The schools insist that they have the right to monitor the computers. They routinely search the laptops for information. Some have been known to install certificates allowing man-in-the-middle interceptions of private sessions.

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” – Romans 13:1-2 (KJV)

The Good-Enough Cheapskate Garden, by J.D.

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Easiest, Cheapest, and Quickest Gardening Option

You have some garden options that include a “good-enough cheapskate garden”. You could buy a bunch of stuff, get special ground covering, and mark it every two inches. Then you could buy poles, and notch then five feet up, and then prepare your soil by double digging. (Make sure to plant at the setting sun, and on and on.) Even if I had the time, money, strength, and patience for all the instructions I have read over the years, I’m just rebel enough to try the easiest, cheapest, and quickest way to get it in the ground and get it growing.

My Experience

I’ve spent years gardening in hot sunny areas, super cold snowy locations, and now somewhere in the middle. It is possible to grow in any of these locales with a minimum of work and money.

I know there are some people who are genuinely unable to garden due to limitations. And I am truly sorry for that and know a little of how that feels. I had my time recently where I thought that’s the way it was to be for me too. And my husband has been that way for many years. I am not writing this to tell those folks that they should somehow be doing what I’m doing. But my hope is they will find something in what I write that will help them too. Many of my easy methods were discovered while I was going through chemo and recovering from lung surgery.

If you like spending all your time pampering your plants, you may want to look away. If you like to garden but can’t or don’t want to make it your life’s work, maybe I can help a little. I’ve gardened while working full time, with little kids, with a family run business, and lately while going through a few years of chemotherapy and surgery for cancers. There have been times where it was sink or swim for the plants. Yet they’ve always come through. But we all know we can’t make anything grow on our own. I can put a seed in the ground and water it, but I can’t make it grow. God is ultimately the Giver of Life, and He has certainly blessed my garden.

Continue reading“The Good-Enough Cheapskate Garden, by J.D.”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

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As preppers work to make progress to achieve prepping goals, we took some actions this week too. The SurvivalBlog editors made plans earlier in the week and now reflect upon these. At this time of year, gardening is at the top of our lists. Below, the editors share what we each accomplished. Please write to us in the comments and tell us what you did this week to get your preps in place and to be ready. Today’s highlight is combating some raspberry cane fungus.

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,
Some recent rain was great for our pastures, orchard, and gardens, but it drove us indoors.

In The Garden – Cane Fungus!

Lily weeded the garden again.  Nearly everything is growing nicely. However, she had recently noticed that her red and black raspberry canes looked liked they had taken a very serious beating from our hard winter.  Their bark was peeling and, some had died, while others had very poor growth of their leaves.  The more she looked at them, the more she realized that they must have a disease. So she looked up raspberry cane diseases and discovered that they really were not suffering from our severe winter, but rather from a cane fungus infection caused by wet and humid conditions from our very wet summer last year and also, probably from running the wave sprinkler on them too often during the wrong times of the day.  Bummer!

Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

Letter Re: USMC Mountain Survival Course

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Hugh,

I read the [multi-part] article and had to tell you I thought it was pretty good. I talked to a few of the guys up there, and it does indeed look like the course is going to be canceled. It went through some cool changes after E.T.’s course and the ones to follow. It’s too bad. It was good education. I was really impressed with how much he remembered. I sent it to the other guys who were there at the time too. Hope all is well for him now. He’s got some good stuff going. – Jerry

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”. Today’s focus is on liberal-progressive terrorism.

Liberal Terrorism

Reader K. sent in this YouTube video of a confrontation with a woman calling for the death of Alex Jones. She states “Her attitude is scary. She is supposed to be a teacher but I’m not sure how that was determined. I have no respect for the boyfriend/husband that would tolerate this woman’s views. I think people need to see this video so they can make a calculation as to what we are up against.” There is certainly a double standard that the liberal progressives hold.

o o o

A Union County Democrat has called for Republicans to be hunted. James Devine posted several messages on Facebook following the DC shooting. Liberals are quick to call “hate speech” on anyone that disagrees with them, but this fits that category like no other.

o o o

A truck flying a “Make America Great Again” flag was shot at in Indiana. Apparently a driver who didn’t like the message pulled up next to the pickup on the freeway, pulled a hand gun and shot several times. Thankfully, no one was injured, but no arrests have been made yet. Thanks to reader T.P. for the link.

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