Top 5 SHTF ‘Surprises’ – P.S.
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Immigration – B.B.
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Arrest made in ‘Vote Trump’ burning of Mississippi black church. Called a racial HATE CRIME, this sounds more like “a selfie false flag event”. – D.S.
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Consumer watchdogs say popular toys are secretly spying on your children – DSV
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Germany Tried to Deport Berlin Truck Terrorist… “Couldn’t” Because Home Country Wouldn’t Take Him – B.B.
“The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all.” – H.L. Mencken
On December 21, 1620, William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
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Today, we present another entry for Round 68 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $15,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 68 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.
In Part 1, I described why I believe it is impossible to bugout into the woods with just a rifle and a backpack when you have young children in tow. In Part 2 I’ll be offering suggestions on what can be done to get your children to safety when you have no choice but to leave home.
Before I get into that though, let me stress that by far the best advice when you have kids (or even if you don’t) is to live at your bugout location if at all possible. Besides the many reasons outlined by JWR in his writings, let me add that it will be much easier on your children. A disaster is a traumatic event, and kids will be much better able to cope if they can stay in their normal environment and maintain at least some of their normal routines.
However, if you must go, here are some important tips:
Unfortunately, young children are not very helpful. Kids may earn you a bit of charity here and there, but it would be unreasonable to expect a stranger to take in a family of five refugees knowing that only one of them will actually be able to give back in the form of meaningful labor. (Remember the other parent is taking care of the kids full time.)
As uncomfortable as it will be, I also recommend thinking ahead of time about potential scenarios in which someone does try to harm your children. You and your spouse should really spend time talking together about the best course of action. To whatever extent you can, create a plan now for how you will react and make those tough moral choices ahead of time. When someone has a knife to your daughter’s throat, it is not the time to think through the implications of negotiation vs. opening fire.
As a final thought, I’d like to encourage those who haven’t yet read it to get a copy of JWR’s novel Liberators. In that book, he describes a successful bugout by a young family. The family utilizes many of the tips I’ve described here. They are heading for a specific location (a friend’s house in another state), they stay in their vehicle as long as possible, when forced to abandon their vehicle they obtain two deer carts to carry supplies, and they wisely strike off on their own rather than head toward a known refugee camp.
If you don’t already have kids, you may have read this article and concluded, “I don’t ever want to become a parent. Why would I willingly take responsibility for a group of slow, heavy, picky, loud, curious, unhelpful, vulnerable little people?” The answer lies in the other things that children are. They are also precious, lovely, funny, wonderful gifts from God. They stretch us in so many ways, causing us to grow. They inspire us, motivate us, and fill us with indescribable joy. Some of the most fulfilling moments of my life have involved passing on my faith and my skills to my children. There is truly nothing like it. And in a real sense, raising the next generation of godly, self-sufficient men and women is the ultimate goal of survival in the first place.
– Soli Deo Gloria (All for the Glory of God)
Hello,
I just found a neat, and new to me, way of purchasing first aid supplies with pre-tax dollars that I thought I would share. For some years now I have taken advantage of my company’s Flexible Spending Account (FSA) program. For the unfamiliar, an FSA is money withheld from your paycheck that allows you to purchase eligible items with pre-tax dollars and is offered by many employers. If you have regular vision, dental, or copay expenses, it’s a great way to pay for these things. As I had more money withheld than I had spent this year, I wanted to make sure that it didn’t go to waste as plans are use-it or lose-it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could purchase Adventure Medical Kits and a number of other supplies that I would consider to be good preps online at fsastore.com with my FSA card. Now I’ve got two fairly comprehensive first aid kits coming my way with money that otherwise would have gone to waste. While some plans may allow carrying over these funds into the next year, you should check your actual deadlines as YMMV. – Jason in Colorado
JWR’s Comment: This is a useful tip, but under many corporate FSA programs this is earmarked as “use to or lose it” money. Under such circumstances, it is crucial that employees mark their calendars and spend those pre-tax dollars in the time allotted or risk forfeiting them.
Bail-Ins Coming? World’s Oldest Bank “Survival Rests On Savers” – DSV
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GM Inventories Highest in 8 Years, Multiple Plant Shutdowns Coming
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U.K. Retail Sales Grow at Fastest Pace in More Than a Year
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SurvivalBlog and its editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for details.
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. (Later made into a feature film of the same name, now available on DVD.)
Fool’s Talk by Os Guiness
Young Men and Fire
Sully. Tom Hanks plays pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who made an emergency water landing on the Hudson River, saving all of his 155 passengers.
Lone Survivor. (Mark Wahlberg plays Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell.)
12 Monkeys A time traveler from 2043 attempts to prevent a global pandemic that killed seven billion people, by traveling back to our present day. Originally aired on the SyFy channel. Season 1 is now available on Hulu.com. Both Season 1
Note: This series is a much more detailed storyline than in the feature film of the same name that starred Bruce Willis.
Dark Matter. This sci-fi series is not quite Firefly but something close.
Jean Michel Jarre: Recollection
Afro-Celt Sound System: Capture 1995-2010
John Heisz: My Top Ten Workshop Projects
Money Making Welding Projects – 3 Point Carryalls (Three Parts)
U.S. Military Surplus Heavy Duty 25mm Ammo Boxes. These bargain-priced boxes (two for $40, postage paid!) are sold by a long-time sponsor of our non-fiction writing contest– CJL Enterprise.
Fox Outdoor Products Rifle Butt Stock Cheek Rest, Olive Drab
SCOTTeVEST Enforcer Jacket – 30 Pockets (CCW Tactical)
Comfort Fit Men’s Microfiber Fleece Lined Thermal Top & Bottom Underwear Set
How to Store Vegetables Without a Root Cellar – DSV
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CNN Responds to Islamic Terror Attack in Berlin by Blaming Conservatives – T.P.
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Egyptian police arrest five people for using children to stage fake ‘Aleppo’ footage – W.C.
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An interesting article. These stingrays have grown in use over the recent years. Imagine an aerial based platform, small, and remotely operated. Cell site simulators – Congressional Report and article – G.S.
“In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim – that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is derived from, the people.” – George Mason
On December 20th, 1606, the Virginia Company loaded three ships with settlers and set sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
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Today, we present another entry for Round 68 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $15,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 68 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.
The concept of bugging out is an integral part of preparing for an uncertain future. I won’t list them here, but there are dozens of reasons why it may be necessary to leave your home/homestead on very short notice. Page after digital page has been published online addressing this subject… some of it quite good and some of it good for nothing more than a laugh.
But there is one aspect of bugging out that I think has been largely overlooked in the survival community. It is the special considerations needed when bugging out with young children. My focus in this article is on families with one or more children in the age range of 1-10. I’m not writing as an expert on child development but as a father of two boys who has spent a lot of time thinking about this subject out of concern for my own family.
If you don’t have your own children in this age range, please keep reading anyway. If you are young enough you may have children someday, and if you are old enough you may have grandchildren someday. In any case, you may find yourself in a situation where this knowledge would enable you to help a young family in need of guidance when that day comes.
In the first part of this article I will address what can’t be done in terms of bugging out with young children, and in the second part I will offer tips on what can be done.
To get started, I will state emphatically that you cannot bugout with young children. It cannot be done. End of story. But before you get too discouraged, let me explain. What is impossible with young children is the stereotypical, bugout-fantasy of heading off into the wilderness with a rucksack on your back and a rifle in your hand, determined to live off the land like the mountain men of old.
The follies of this theory have been pointed out numerous times on SurvivalBlog, so I won’t get into them here. I’ll just say this: some people might argue that a young, healthy individual with the right skill set and the right tools could “live off the land”, but no one can argue that such a person could support a family of five “off the land”.
Don’t believe me? Then go to the local library and look for a book on wilderness survival for families. Even the few books written with children in mind generally assume the child is lost and alone. Search Amazon for “bug out children”, and the first book that pops up shows a dog in a ladybug suit. There are thousands of videos on Youtube showing how one person can build an emergency shelter to get himself through a long cold night, but I didn’t find any on how one person can quickly throw together an emergency shelter that allows an entire family to sleep warm and safe for the night before they continue their bugout journey at dawn.
Why is a stereotypical bugout impossible with young children? First, it’s because children are slow. A very fit 25-year-old might travel cross country at two or three miles per hour for up to 25 miles in a day on foot. So, if your bugout location is 75 miles away, you’ll be there in three days. However, a healthy young 5-year-old will travel at a pace closer to ½ mile per hour and cover maybe three miles in a day. So now, it will take 25 days to reach your bugout location, and you’ll need an awfully big backpack to carry 25 days worth of food.
“It’s no problem,” you might think, “I’ll just carry my little ones, like we do when we’re at the mall.” That brings us to our second point: children are heavy. Though many of us would struggle to do it, a good prepper fitness goal is to be able to carry a 40lb bugout bag on a multi-day hike. Well, guess what? That is almost exactly the median weight of a 5 year old(1). So, if you are carrying your children on your back, you won’t be carrying much else: not much food, not much water, not much with which to make shelter, and not much in terms of self defense.
Can you partially offset that lack of carrying capacity by foraging for wild edibles? Probably not, because many children are picky eaters. Most wild edibles taste different than the foods we eat on a regular basis, and to a child “different” usually means “yucky”. Add to that this consideration: in the absence of human competition, a skilled forager might find enough calories to sustain himself for quite a while (at least during certain times of the year). But in the long-term, a family of five will need at least 10,000 calories per day to break even; that’s 3,000 calories for dad, 2,500 for mom, and 1,500 for each of three kids. For reference, that equates to gathering about 39 pounds of blueberries, 78 pounds of unprocessed cattail root, or six pounds of raw acorns each and every day(2). Gathering and processing that quantity of food would drain nearby resources fast and wouldn’t leave much time for any of the other activities essential for survival.
Hunting, fishing, and trapping are other options for bringing in calories (although human competition is likely to quickly decimate the wild animal population in most areas). Again, though, few of the websites that advocate this have in mind what you would actually need to feed a whole family. It comes out to about 76 individual squirrels, 13 individual rabbits, or 19 pounds of trout each day or about one whole deer every six days to meet your family’s calorie needs(2). Hunting, fishing, and especially trapping also all require gear, and remember that you can’t carry much of that because of the weight of the children. Also, keep in mind that children are loud. You won’t have much success stalking a buck with an 18-month-old strapped to your chest. So the kids will have to stay back at the camp.
This leads in to the next point: someone will have to watch the children almost constantly, because children are curious. Don’t think that both Mom and Dad can be out hunting at the same time to bring in those 13 rabbits. Most young children simply aren’t mature enough to be left alone at your shelter in the woods where you (presumably) have an open fire, some knives sitting around, a loaded firearm or two, and endless opportunities to get lost. As any stay-at-home mom can tell you, keeping two or three children changed, fed, safe, and marginally clean is a full-time job for one person. Don’t expect it to get any easier if you are fleeing for your lives in a disaster.
Someone out there is probably thinking, “Wait a minute. It can’t be as bad as you’re making it out to be. The Native Americans lived off the land while frequently moving around among hostile tribes. If they can do it, so can I!” I would point out that they had a few key advantages over us: a very low population density, a very high ratio of resources to people, and the accumulated wisdom and skills passed down by generations before them who had lived that lifestyle. A little research also shows that despite those advantages, their lives were much harder and shorter than the idyllic picture we often imagine. The life expectancy of the very healthiest Native American tribes has been estimated at 35 years(3) and the child mortality rate in the pre-industrial world was about 20-30%(4).
So if the balloon goes up and you grab your family and march out into the woods, it probably isn’t going to end well for you. In a day or two you’ll find yourself 10 miles from home, carrying your children, with no food and very little gear, facing the hopeless task of providing your family with shelter, water, and 10,000 calories per day.
I know this is a gloomy picture, but I thought it was important to go into the details of why the stereotypical bugout is impossible with young children. I don’t want anyone to start thinking “Maybe I could pull it off if I just…” It can’t be done, period. Tune in tomorrow to find out what actually can be done to get our children and families to safety in a hurry when it really counts.
Notes:
(1) Median weight of children was taken from this website on 28Oct16: http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/clinical_charts.htm#Set1
(2) Calorie counts for various wild foods were taken from these websites on 28Oct16: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list http://woodtrekker.blogspot.com/2013/09/living-off-land-delusions-and.html
(3) Native American life expectancy was taken from this website on 27Oct16: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/science/don-t-blame-columbus-for-all-the-indians-ills.html
(4) Child mortality rate estimate was taken from this website on 28Oct16: http://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/dmortality.htm
JWR:
Trump is savvy. He will split the bankers if he is aggressive in eliminating Dodd Frank. Reinstatement of Glass-Steagall may also be perceived as favorable by many main street bankers as less regulation will be necessary. He will need to win over that chunk of the banking world as he has planned to go after the “Carry Trade” exemptions, which will alienate investment bankers. The FDIC is not on the investment banker side of things. I am trying to remember what it was like in the 1980s when Reagan’s policies took hold. I think it comes again. Without a doubt, the banks are “fragile”.
I just picked up six cases of rice to go with three cases of beans from the Mormons. There is crushing inflation coming. We cannot just sit in a defensive hole and survive that. – R.V.
“That’s pretty rare”: Helena gets two record-breaking days of snowfall this week
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The liberal Cascadia Movement’s planned secession territory map flies in the face of logic. The territorial divide seems to have been selected based on watersheds rather than social and political demographics. The ground truth is that the folks in northwestern Montana, north Idaho, and virtually all of Oregon and Washington states east of the Cascades are conservative stalwarts. So including any part of the American Redoubt region into the Cascadia plan is laughable. I, for one, want no part in it. Even if they were to secede (which is doubtful), they would have an electorate that is deeply divided. In contracts to “Cascadia”, the American Redoubt movement’s geographic goal is NOT secession. Rather, it is for simple partitioning into new state boundaries. This is what happened when Virginia and West Virginia split. They remained in the Union but became separate sovereign states, each with its own capitol and legislature. Something like that is my goal for eastern Oregon and eastern Washington. – JWR
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2 found dead after mobile home fire in Mountain Home
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Wyoming: Bill would prevent public from viewing police dash, body cams without a judge’s order
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The War On Cash And Then On Gold And Silver
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Who Won The 2016 Oil War? Heading into the New Year with oil prices above US$50, both OPEC and the U.S. shale industry are claiming victory in the latest oil war battle, but who really won it?
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Chinese Rush to Open US Dollar Forex Accounts: More Capital Controls Coming
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Will A Stronger Dollar Cause a Trade War with Europe?
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SurvivalBlog and its editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for details.
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Adding a tensioning feature to your snare decreases the likelihood of your prey chewing through the line or working their way off. The tensioning feature can be a spring pole or a suspended weight like a hunk of wood or a jug filled with water. The use of a tensioning feature requires a trigger. Woodscraft: Triggers for snares – Joe
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From Breitbart – Washington Post: Virgin Mary Offends Rape Victims by Her Purity – D.B.
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On the 225th Anniversary of the United States’ Bill of Rights – Antonius Aquinas
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