The amazing selection of kerosene lamp wicks, kerosene heater wicks, Aladdin lamp mantles, and lamp chimneys available from the Miles Stair Wick Shoppe

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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Reader Dan D. wrote to mention the amazing selection of kerosene lamp wicks, kerosene heater wicks, Aladdin lamp mantles, and lamp chimneys available from the Miles Stair Wick Shoppe online store. There is a lot of good kerosene lamp and heater reference information available there, too. free of charge. What a great resource!

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Rogue Censorship Regime Tries to Shut Down Conservative News Sites Using ‘Disinformation’ Label

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Hiker Skip offered this:

“Until last year I had a precious metals IRA managed by a reputable company with allocated storage with a well know depository. To complete my retirement home/retreat, I needed to take several disbursements. The time, paperwork, lost forms and frustration in completing each transaction was unacceptable. Some transactions took well over a month with constant follow-up calls and emails trying to track down hold-ups. The story I always got was the depository’s high volume of transactions and their backlog.

I realized that when the collapse comes, I may not have a month to complete a delivery, so I’m taking the IRS taxation theft hit and took physical delivery of the balance of my metals.

To quote Ben Franklin: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

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And on the same topic, reader Randy F. mentioned:

“You referenced a private vault-type company in Las Vegas for a reader to store precious metals, instead of repository-type companies or bank safe deposit boxes. Please be aware that a las vegas private vault business was involved in a criminal takedown robbery and many several vault boxes were chopped open and contents stolen. These are in no way more secure than anything else. Don’t forget the case of the f.b.i. raid on one such business and everyone’s boxes and contents impounded, as part of a dragnet blanket sweep of some customers involved in illicit activities. Bury it yourself is the only way to be certain.”

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Tim J. recommended this instructional video: Poor Man’s Wilderness Survival Fire Kit.

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Keith Kidwell, a Raleigh, North Carolina state representative has filed the N.C. Constitutional Carry Act (H.B. 189). Folks in North Carolina tell us that this legislation will be fast-tracked. But Florida will probably beat them to it, to become the 46th state to have permitless concealed carry.

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SaraSue sent this snippet:

“I’m sure everyone is waiting with baited breath to hear how I’m solving my water problems. LOL. It ain’t pretty. I need an entirely new well, drilled down at the bottom of the hill, and water has to be piped up to the house. ChaChing! You can’t sell a house with a known water problem. You can’t have animals with not enough water. You can’t grow a large garden without water. Not to mention things like bathing, doing laundry, washing dishes, cooking, etc. Part of me wants to cry at the things I’ve had to get fixed on this property. The other part of me is thankful that there have been solutions, that I could pay for them (ouchie!), and that this property is turning out to be beautiful, and will be well-resourced. It’s gorgeous and peaceful out here in rural Tennessee. The only thing I hear besides my own animals, is the gun range, and the neighbor’s cows – two very nice sounds. I love it here, so I’m not going to cry. I’m going to keep moving forward. Please pray that the drillers hit water and lots of it, and that they don’t hit solid rock piping it up to the house.”

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Jon C. was the first of several readers who sent this: Two missing women found alive in their Jeep after getting stuck in snow for five days.

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Reader EBL wrote:

“It took 10 years since we bought our retreat property in February 2013, but I would like to celebrate the fact that we now have a beautiful pond! Some background…

We have six streams that start on our ~ 400-acre Appalachian Mountain property, in addition to the “big” stream that runs approximately a mile through it.. That one starts in another state. For years, my oldest Son and I have been attempting to find out the best place to build a pond. The answer to that question came to us during a severe drought that we experienced in the Summer of 2016. After planting our deer “food plots” in September of that year… and watching them NOT grow due to NO RAIN…. we decided to visit all the water sources on our property to see where the deer and wildlife were getting their water.

That day, in September 2016, we found the perfect place at the ‘head ‘of one of our six streams. It was the ONLY stream, of the six, with ANY water flowing that Fall. We asked ourselves…. “How could that be… especially during a drought ?” So we walked up that stream and found the reason… It is spring-fed! In fact, many active year-around springs start at the head of this particular stream. He and I immediately named it our “Spring Stream”. We had found the perfect place for our pond!

This year, I commissioned an excavator contractor friend of ours to build us a Pond. He finished building it this week and the pond has been filling up with water surprisingly fast ….about 1/3rd full, in just three days, of the ~13 feet of water when it is “full” at its Dam. And that’s with No Rain !. He also installed a covered “Spring Head ” above the pond area that can be used as an emergency/backup drinking water source.”

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Report: Fingerprints of unvaccinated NYC teachers sent to FBI.

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A. Nurse wrote:

“Complements to Dan D. for his recent article Burn Treatment: My Burn Adventure. As a medical professional with quite a few years treating wounds of all types (burns included) in the emergency department, ICU, and pre-hospital environment, I thought I’d add a few pointers.

In the immediate aftermath of the burn you absolutely want to stop the burning process and heat transfer, usually with water. We don’t advise applying ice packs, because of the possibility that it can damage the vulnerable tissue in the burned area. That said, I’ve definitely put ice on my own burns and it made it feel better. But for serious or large burns, don’t do it. Cool packs, but not ice packs.

Antibiotics: Fact is, most burns are sterile, or at the very least, what we consider medically “clean”. We don’t give antibiotics for burns, although as the author points out, one of the chief jobs of the skin is to keep pathogens out, and compromised skin can eventually allow an infection to begin. Instead of starting prophylactic antibiotics, the recommendation would be to closely monitor the burn and begin antibiotics if signs of infection occur. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time between observing the first signs and when septic shock would occur. Just keep a sharp eye on it; the vast majority of burns won’t need any antibiotics which will be better saved for penetrating wounds anyway. In those cases I might consider starting antibiotics early.

Silvadene was once the major treatment for most burns less than about 20% total body service area. Seems to be used far less often these days, as I understand it because the moist creamy barrier over the wound also allowed lots of foreign body debris to stick to the wound area, which is not so good. And I don’t think in large scale studies it showed any real significant improvement in outcomes. But as the author stated, it is antimicrobial, and it makes the burn feel a little better, so for my personal kit, I still have some, for the small and medium sized burns.

Anti-inflamatories: The author mentioned naproxen (Aleve). This is worth mentioning again, as the NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) group of meds are a big part of treating small to medium sized burns. In addition to pain relief, they reduce inflammation and can speed recovery. Naproxen (Aleve) or ibuprofen(Advil) take your pick, they are more or less equivalent. Aspirin helps too, but is dose limited…you really don’t want to take more than a couple of asprin per day as it is hard on the guts at higher doses. Ibuprofen however you can safely take at 800mg per dose every 8 hours. You shouldn’t plan to live on it at that high of a dose, but if your stomach and kidneys are other wise healthy, a few days at that dose will be a tremendous help to the burn patient. But don’t use both at once, pick one or the other. acetominenophen (Tylenol) is not an NSAID, so you can add that for additional pain relief, but it won’t help inflammation.

Tdap booster: good call! Often overlooked, but the compromised skin may allow opportunistic infection. Keep your tetanus shot up to date (less than 10 years minimum, less than 5 years if you have a significant penetrating wound). But no need to go to the ER for it, the community med center, county health dept, or walk in clinic are all cheaper places to go, and you have several days at least to get around to it.

Wound dressings: More gauze and dressings is definitely better, but consider what you might use if you ran out? Boil and cut up cotton rags? That would probably be okay. Gauze is bulky, and while I store some, I know I can’t run a field hospital with what I have, nor really even properly treat more than a few gnarly wounds. But the non-stick gauze is fantastic, and you don’t need to store as much of it (only the non-stick goes against the skin, the rest of absorbent material can be regular gauze) so it’ll take up less space. But for weepy, oozy wounds like healing burns, it is great, and promotes faster healing.

Thanks to Dan D. for sharing his experience, I must agree that burns are a major consideration in a post-grid situation, given all the factors JWR mentioned, and I have no doubt will be far more common than gunshot wounds or maulings by cannibalistic San Franciscans.”

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Reader M.J. wrote:

“Some comments on the possibility of National Divorce:

1) It won’t be pretty. For a fiction treatment of this, see Kurt Schlichter’s series of books featuring Kelly Turnbull. (I included the Amazon link simply because it has all the Kelly Turnbull titles in one place, not because I endorse feeding the beast.) We’ll Be Back, also by Schlichter, also has some useful commentary.

2) The self-sorting of Americans into like-minded communities was discussed in 2009 by Bill Bishop in his book The Big Sort. The ham-handed response of “blue” cities and states to the covid put this self-sorting into warp drive. The one good thing about the covid hysteria was that it showed how much work can be done from home. This will allow people to live among those who are like them, and will do much more to reduce pollution than any schemes of the WEF or antics of Greta Thunberg. I have a hybrid work schedule now; as soon as I get an all-remote job, I will sort myself as well. I’ll be reviewing your retreat book soon.

3) The Greater Idaho movement seems to be taking off. If it succeeds, then it might provide a solution to the increasing anger in this country. The nub of the problem, as you’ve noted, is the urban-versus-rural divide, which is not exclusive to the United States. If state borders can be adjusted so that cities don’t control as much rural territory, then the city people can wallow in collectivism, crime, and perversions, and the rest of us can be left alone. For example, modern Germany is a federal republic in which three major cities, Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin count as states. Perhaps the largest cities in the U.S. might be split off from the states that they are part of. Many rural Californians would love to see Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento split off from the rest of California.

4) Lastly, I must point out that the characterization of grooming as homosexual is incorrect. The two gays I know are Republicans. They dress like regular men, work hard, are fans of the Second Amendment, and would never groom children or have anything to do with the transgender craze. A lot of this lunacy is aided and abetted by woke heterosexuals.”

JWR Replies: Judging by a sample of just two individuals does not provide reliable statistics.

By their behavior, homosexuals remove themselves from the gene pool. Aside from a few that are “closeted” and married to members of the opposite sex, few LGBTQ-MOUSE produce any children. So, this begs the question: If they are — as is oft-quoted “born that way” — then why have the percentages of homosexuals in our society doubled in the past 10 years? The answer is obvious: They recruit young people, most often by deliberately grooming of children from normal heterosexual families. So it is clear to me that we need to shelter our children from contact with them. Shun them, to avoid any close contact with kids — especially situations where they might be alone with minors!

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