Preparedness Notes for Thursday — October 31, 2019

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As Christians, our family does not celebrate the pagan Halloween. Since October 31st is also Reformation Day, that is what we celebrate, here at the Rawles Ranch. This year we’ll be having a small Reformation Day feast dinner featuring squash from our garden, something plump from our poultry house, and apple cider that we pressed.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 85 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A $3,000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
  2. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  3. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  4. A $300 purchase credit for any of the products from EMPShield.com
  5. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  6. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  7. An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

Third Prize:

  1. Good2GoCo.com is providing a $400 purchase credit at regular prices for the prize winner’s choice of either Wise Foods or Augason long term storage foods, in stackable buckets.
  2. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.

Round 85 ends on November 30th, 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.


8 Comments

  2. In corporate America, on my contracts, I always take photographs of the Halloween decorations and issue a warning [through an outside throw a way email] to HR and the top dogs.

    “Since we do not celebrate Christmas, the Christian holiday, we mustn’t celebrate the pagan holiday of Halloween. I am outraged at this site of celebrating one holiday whilst BARRING the celebration of the other holiday. I am contacting my attorney unless Halloween is abandoned as Christmas is at this professional work environment.”

    You get the picture.

  3. We celebrate Halloween, because that is all we have ever done. It’s simply fun. As I understand it (and I admit my understanding is extremely limited), Halloween is old Scottish (I think) for “All Hallows Eve” coming from the word “hallowed” , and was supposed to be a competition holiday introduced by Christians who were evangelizing to pagans who celebrated it to join Christianity, and was meant honor Christians who had died for their faith (the eve of All Saints Day), therefore it is hallowed.
    We have a Church close by who has “trunk or treat” in order to get all the people who celebrate the dark side of the holiday to instead come check out their church.
    Anyhow, to me, it isn’t “if” you celebrate Halloween or not, it’s what your intentions are. It seems not much has changed in hundreds of years, but it seems like the celebration of evil has won out as far as what the holiday celebrates in our culture.
    My kids like to dress up in scary costumes because it’s fun, but I use it to tell them about real notions of good and evil, and the difference between “fantasy and fun” vs the people who truly celebrate demonic forces. It’s an important issue.

  4. My family is a strong Christian family, and some pop culture things aren’t tolerated in our house. However, Halloween is something I also don’t see as evil unless intended. I think it is a great way for neighborhoods to congregate in fun. My family was dressed up as the “Toy Story” crew and we also visited the nursing home, as did many other kids. Some things are no cuter than youngans in costume that get to play their favorite character roles. I’m not big on going to strangers, but it’s good tool to get to know others.

  5. the only holidays i support are thanksgiving and 4th of july BUT just in case the kids come around i always have some candy ready….haven’t had a trick or treater in almost 20 years….

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