The Editors’ Preps for the Week of June 12th, 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

At the Rawles Ranch we are in full Summer Mode, which usually means lots of gardening, fencing,  and construction projects.  Since we live at a fairly northern latitude, the days are very long when we get close to the Summer Solstice. This gives us plenty of daylight–almost too much, since we sometimes work ourselves to the point of exhaustion.

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Ruger GP100 .44 Special, by Pat Cascio

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Ruger GP100

Ruger recently introduced their GP100 revolver in .44 Special. I still remember the very first .44 Special handgun I ever owned and shot. At that time, it was the “new” Charter Arms .44 Special Bulldog. And, if I recall correctly, back then the only factory ammo available was some lead round nose ammo that wasn’t very accurate. I couldn’t hit the target very often. When I did, the round key-hole went through the target sideways. Still, I kept that gun for a good long time. I don’t know why!

My long-time friend, confidant, and fellow gun writer, John Taffin, is probably the biggest proponent for the .44 Special caliber that I’m aware of. He has written tens of thousands of words on the virtues of the .44 Special caliber, not to mention a book on big bore handguns, which focused on the .44 Special & Magnum. When John speaks, my ears perk up and I listen, intensely. Taffin has promised to leave me one of his .44 Special handguns in his will, too. I don’t expect one of the fancy custom guns. Nope. I’ll take whatever he cares to leave me.

I used to be a huge fan of the .44 Magnum caliber. I still like it for medium to bigger game hunting, but I don’t much care for it as a self-defense round. It’s just too hot and will over-penetrate the human body, with most of the ammo available. That’s not a good thing. However, when stoking the .44 Magnum with .44 Special ammo, it’s a whole different ball game.

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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 quirky “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on Chinese investors.

Precious Metals:

First of all, Greg Hunter offers his Weekly News Wrap-Up  (6.9.17)

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From Reuters: Palladium surges 7 percent to highest in 16 years; gold retreats

Commodities Economics:

Next, over at OilPrice.com, there is an informative piece by Irina Slav. The Next Big U.S. Shale Play

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InvestorIntel: Rare Earths Monthly – May 2017

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The Editors’ Quote Of The Day

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“Hillary’s aides began planning her first national television interview of the campaign, a chance to strike back at the widely held perception that she was hiding from the press. Palmieri asked Abedin to find out which newscaster Hillary would prefer, and the answer that came back was ‘Brianna.’ That meant CNN’s Brianna Keilar, and Palmieri worked to set up a live interview on CNN. Only it turned out that Hillary had said ‘Bianna’—as in Bianna Golodryga of Yahoo! News, the wife of former Clinton administration economic aide Peter Orszag. By the time the mistake was realized, it was too late to pull back. Hillary went through with the interview on July 7, and it was a disaster. ‘People should and do trust me,’ she insisted under a barrage of questions from Keilar. One aide described Hillary as ‘staring daggers’ at her questioner through the exchange.” – Jonathan Allen, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign

Preparedness Notes for Sunday – June 11, 2017

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On June 11, 1979, Marion Morrison (better known as John Wayne) died at age 72 after losing a battle to cancer. John Wayne was an iconic American film actor known for his conservative political views. His trademark drawl and good looks ensure that he will be remembered. Appearing in over 250 films helps that as well. My favorite films of his were Fort Apache, The Quiet Man, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Alamo, The Green Berets, and, of course, True Grit (1969).

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I just heard that Adam West (of Batman fame) passed away, at age 88. It is sad to say “Adios” to one of the Good Guys. Since he was born in Walla Walla, Washington, Adam West was a native of The American Redoubt. – JWR

USMC Mountain Survival Course- Part 5, by E.T.

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Casualty Exercise

A few hours later, after dawn, we began our death march back to the USMC Mountain Survival Course base. To add excitement to our return, the instructors gave us several “casualties” that had to be carried out. We cut poles and ran them through our buttoned blouse sleeves to make stretchers. We soon realized that even with the casualty holding on, they would need to be tied onto the litter. As we carried it over rocks and up and down inclines, they would slide around and fall out. We almost made them into a real casualty several times.

This was extremely draining, but it was uplifting to know we were on the home stretch. At this point we were all emaciated and filthy. The hump back seemed to take forever. We moved continuously, passing the casualty from group to group of six people. As one group passed the stretcher to the next, they would move past them up the trail a few hundred feet then wait. This way we “leap frogged” with short breaks as we waited on the casualty to catch up.

Arrival into Base

After several hours, we humped into base, posed for the obligatory picture, and were turned loose into the barracks. Orders were to drop gear, strip to skivvies, and go out back for our weigh in before anything else.

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Letter Re: Excessive OPSEC

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JWR,

A good friend of mine recently died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack and had excessive OPSEC. Let’s just say he was prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse but not prepared to die. He kept much of his information to himself, including the combinations to his gun safes, hidden keys, and buried caches among other things. This has created huge problems for his surviving family members. Since none of us are immune from death, proper planning should include passing on critical information in a secure manner. – JEH

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 politics.

Politics

In a continuation of the political prisoner drama in the American West, the judge in the Bundy Ranch case wants the defendants in chains for the trial. While I can’t condone the actions of the Bundys, it is clear that this judge is biased from the outset. At this point in the process, the only reason for this demand by the judge is to further humiliate the defendants.  He wants to “set an example” as a warning to others who challenge the Federal government.

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How does a British Primer Minister, who rode to power on the Brexit vote, so quickly lose the advantage? Mike Williamson, SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large, sent in this article demonstrating a strong link to Britains proposed “dementia tax”, which again takes from the middle class to fund yet another government health program. In just a few short weeks before the election, Theresa May lost a comfortable 20 point lead in the polls. She just barely survived the election, but now also lost her power base. As Mike states: “This is a good reason to have your property owned by a family trust.”

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Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.” 1 Corinthians 10:6-10 (KJV)

USMC Mountain Survival Course- Part 4, by E.T.

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Phase 3 – Group Survival (continued)

Relocation and Warmth

We had been in the field on our USMC Mountain Survival Course for four days in Phase 1 and five days for Phase 2. Phase 3 was just beginning. We had taken in roughly 1500 calories over nine days. After everyone had arrived from our isolation locations, the group went for a hump. We moved about five klicks up and down a couple of mountains and posed at the top in some snow for a couple group pictures. Then we humped back down into a large, mostly barren valley, which had a grassed stream running through the center about 4-5 feet across.

We arrived around afternoon and dropped our packs and gear in formation, except our personal survival kits and knives that were strapped to our bodies. After the hump and with the rising sun, we warmed up. Most had stripped down to skivvy tees or taken off their grid fleece and dropped them on their packs. I had put my grid fleece in my pack but still wore my blouse.

Group Division and Fishing Lesson

The instructors split us into three groups– two groups of nine and one group of eight. I was in the group of eight. We spent a couple of hours learning from the instructor how to catch fish with our hands. One person would muddy the water upstream. As the sediment floated down and obscured the fish’s sight, another would slowly move their hands through the murky water along the creek bank feeling for fish. No one caught any except the instructor. We did have some close calls. The fish were still small but slightly larger than before. The largest fish we saw was probably six inches.

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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.

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,

Well it was a busy, very warm, and humid week here at the Rawles Ranch. Because of the heat, not everything we planned to do outside was accomplished. However, this is what we did do outside:

In The Orchard

Our orchard is about 1/2 acre in size and the weeds were two feet high, so Lily weed-whacked three quarters of it. The fruit trees were composted with manure. One more apple tree was added, and the hoses were set up for watering.

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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”. Today’s focus is on Food Prep.

Food Prep and Storage

Reader T.J. sent in the link to this Canadian Prepper’s video on using the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer to produce long-term food that you can use as currency in SHTF. We’ve reviewed their machine before, and we have an update coming out next week on the long-term use of this machine. When you consider how expensive commercially-made freeze dried food is and the fact that you have to eat what they make rather than what you like, this machine makes a lot of sense.

Yes, it’s a big up-front cost (between $3000 and $4000), so it has to be considered a major appliance, but you can recover that cost in less than a year if you regularly use it. My favorite part is the low-sodium foods that we produce. I also have to say that Mrs. Latimer is a much better cook than any of the major freeze dried food producers.

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Editors’ Quote of the Day

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and say unto him, When thou lightest the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick. And Aaron did so; he lighted the lamps thereof over against the candlestick, as the Lord commanded Moses. And this work of the candlestick was of beaten gold, unto the shaft thereof, unto the flowers thereof, was beaten work: according unto the pattern which the Lord had shewed Moses, so he made the candlestick.” Numbers 8:1-4 (KJV)