I actually have nothing to say today. Go figure.
Inflation? You can see that on the news. Gun stuff? The gunternet is filled with cooler people than me talking about guns. Survival gear? I’ve covered a lot of that and haven’t really gotten anything new lately. Financial stuff? I don’t think thats really why most of you are here.
No..I think that the free ice cream machine (as Tam calls it) is empty today.
Tell you what, how about instead of me telling you what Im doing in my life to prepare for the possibility(!) of a year or four of Carter-like national malaise, you tell me what you’ve been up to? Got an eye on some particular gear? Made some smart financial moves? Come to an epiphany on some preparedness-related topic? Networked with new people? Made some new survivalist friends? Let’s hear it.
I’ve made it this far by trusting my gut to I moved 401k money into cash, feel a correction/re-set coming on so I missed some of the down market this week. Bought some Lake City 50 BMG (Widener’s) with a ’79 head stamp for $3.30/rd plus shipping and tax along with some German mil-surp .308 DAG for under a dollar a round which seems like a good deal lately.
Been stocking up on AR parts and found some 12ga Hornady slugs on sale.
Like CZ sez, full retail is for suckers so I’ve stocked up on freeze dried meals when I catch them on sale or free shipping. The storm is a coming, I can feel it in me bones. Been looking at Valley Vet supply for some meds and first aid gear, got to thinking/reading how one wound would need a bandage change twice a day for about a month, thats a lot of bandages, especially if more than one person had a hole.
Planted a new garden in a different spot. Put in a bunch of different veggies to see which ones work best. One thing I am certain of is that it grows weeds like crazy. I didn’t add compost or fertilizer. Will wait until after harvest before adding goodies to the dirt. I should have a good batch of compost ready by late fall where it can then be worked into the soil so the plot would be ready for spring planting.
What have I been up to?
Got the little wood stove in the kitchen inspected and put a bird cage on top of it.
Getting a big modern wood stove put into the living room. Will put a big ole pile of wood in the back yard also.
Have been filling up the chest freezer. Mostly burger and chicken, not fancy stuff. Meat to add to the starches I’ve got put back and make decent meals.
Some emergency lighting.
On the short to do list is a Costco run for canned goods as well as flour and rice.
Hi Commander!
I have an idea, and I’d like to know what other preppers think of it…
There seems to be deep suspicion of how good a job FEMA would do building relief facilities. Why not get them to set up a camp and move into it all the druggies and nere-do-wells of an area into it. Sell it to the lefties as a care package, and sell it to the exhausted voters in the area as a way to get rid of the useless.
If FEMA do a good job, preppers can relax a little. If they foul up, they have a chance to do better next time.
Comments anyone?
Why would you expect FEMA to be any more competent than the USPS?
Given how dependent our civilization is on the internet, I’ve been considering how we would retain access to the breadth of human knowledge if (for any reason) the internet ‘went away’.
Among other things, decided to purchase a used encyclopedia set for the ‘Armageddon library’. Next up are undergraduate-level text books on the hard sciences, math disciplines, etc.
Anyone else making plans for “life without the internet”?
Yes, I just transferred about 150+ pdf’s on various preparedness topics to a Micro SD for use in a tablet that will be stored in a Farady cage with some comms gear.
Frosty:
Could show a listing to help me realize what I’ve left out?
Thanks a lot..
We printed out various medical info and water purification instructions to keep with our preps. Also have a lot of books on various subjects around, dvds, and board games for entertainment.
I highly recommend this book – he is providing an absolute compendium of How To Do It (or not do it).
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tjic/escape-the-city-a-how-to-homesteading-guide
Find yourself a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica, editions 11 through 13 — 11th edition is the gold standard but the 12th and 13th editions are simply the 11th with some post-1911 additions. Check Ebay — will be about $100-$150 and it will be money well spent.
Don’t just acquire .pdf files of useful texts — print them out and file them away like hard-copy books.
And READ your texts — know what’s in them — don’t plan on finding information when TSHTF — you need to KNOW where to go looking for information.
Maybe too simple or humble but here it goes: Freeze dried foods are NEAT but too EXPENSIVE for me and mine SO I found a couple of food dehydrators at local yard sales. Nothing fancy, I use a timer to keep my oft ADD from forgetting them when working-multi-tasking.
I buy 2 pound bags of frozen veggies and dehydrate them until crispy, pour into well cleaned ex-peanut butter jars and with a sharpie label them with contents and date.
I do the same thing with hamburger when I find a good sale to make Meat “Rocks” by cooking off and rinsing out the remaining fats and dehydrate them.
So Far keeping them in a cool, dry, mouse free area I’ve enjoyed many a minestrone style-stew-chili style meal for several years after I “processed them” by adding cheap noodles, dried beans and such.
I work at keeping a ROTATING 2 year supply for 4 adults even though I currently am a family of two. When REAL TROUBLE ™ occurs I’ll either have too much (much fake sobbing here) and trade some OR extra friends will be blessed.
I make friends with the store produce manager and get throw away too ugly to sell produce and such for my “Pigs” for the cost of a smile and occasional Dinkins Donuts donation.
My collection of 5 gallon pails (the preppers best friend) of fermented veggies as kimchee and sauerkraut has given me plenty of nice meals every week. Those “ugly veggies” work just FINE here.
Yes I grow my own peppers 🙂 Mostly in 5 gallon pails so I can move them inside WHEN NOT IF the weather gets weird.
Gardening when it counts, PLANT Potatoes in your flower beds folks!! They look nice and NOBODY seems to KNOW what a Potato Plant looks like. If you don’t get them all don’t worry, they will Volunteer to grow again Next year if the mice don’t get them all. A LOT of free food for the “Price” of a couple of sprouting store potatoes and some shovel work.
Already too much of a post, Killhouse rules ALWAYS applies but here’s
#5 Mostly, ALWAYS BE WORKING . There is always something you can be doing to improve your position. Always. Because nobody is coming to save you.
I guess at this stage of my survival/prepping life I’ve become an opportunist. I don’t really “need” anything but when I see items that are inexpensive and/or useful on the homestead I pick them up. Garage sales, flea markets and auctions are my best places to score with the Salvation Army offering bargains at times too. I still stock up on food but mostly rice, beans, pasta, salt and sugar. We are methodically morphing our property into a small farm- homestead. We have several raised beds, and tilled plots for vegetables, herbs and corn (and no corn is NOT a veto table it is a grain). We have put in a 1500 gallon tank to collect rain off our new pole barn, this June our old barn is getting rehabilitated, with new metal siding and roof. We are just about done fencing in a little over an acre of land, where our future dinner will graze. For about the last year I have been on a quest to acquire tools and equipment for a blacksmithing shop that I plan on putting together by the Fall. I have forge with hand cranked blower, a nice post drill, 2 post vices, and just found my anvil, now I just need to build a shed. One of my other prepper quest is to acquire belt driven devices and the needed belts, pulleys, shafts, gears, pillow blocks etc. hope to acquire a steam engine to run everything but if push comes to shove in a SHTF mad max world one will be fabricated.
“Anyone else making plans for “life without the internet”?”
–oh yeah. Then there is the rabbit hole of how far you think civilization will fall, and if you think books on pediatric surgery are going a bit too far…
There is a great starting point for a “rebuild the world” library at https://zerogov.com/2013/11/13/dfml-library-for-the-end-of-the-world/
There is some duplication, but that is the point, and if you can’t find the exact titles, the TYPES and SUBJECTS will help you enormously.
For my own efforts, I’ve run out of shelf space at the house, and I’m moving the more advanced, and more “just in case” books to storage, while leaving the everyday references on the shelf. FWIW, you need to practice with them just like anything else. Practice going to the shelf instead of the internet next time you have a question about gardening, etc.
Used book stores, especially in college towns, and Goodwill stores will be your friends in this endeavor. It only takes a minute to pop in, and scan the shelves. Google and Project Gutenberg have electronic copies of some great old books for free.
Others, like Aesop, have put together specialist lists, like for medical reference.
My personal feeling is you should concentrate on textbooks, and industrial education books from the late 50s to early 70s for everything except medical. That is old enough that you can still ‘do the math’ by hand, and modern enough that it probably won’t kill you outright.
nick
(and I have seen older encyclopedia sets, like mid to late 60s Britannica (the gold standard) sell for more money lately than in the past, when you couldn’t give them away. Seems lots of folks want some hard copy general knowledge, and want it from before the poison of the lefty 70s tainted everything.)
“…if you think books on pediatric surgery are going a bit too far…”
That’s not too far, but I opted for the easy way out & just *married* a pediatrician instead. 😉
Bought a freeze drier and am in the process of putting up meat – mostly beef. It was expensive, but I calculated my breakeven point and deemed it acceptable. My rationale is that the hippies are especially coming after beef (global warming via cow farts, dontcha know…). And, I do like my burgers and steaks.
paid off my truck yesterday, now i owe nobody. ordered tires, don’t need them yet but they will be going up dramatically, soon. this also allows me to put the current treads on my older truck which is sporting 15 y/o tires. bought a new hvac unit, current one works but getting long in the tooth. having no bites on installing it though. i may be losing my job soon due to mandatory vax b/s so i may just go to tech school and install the hvac myself. silver and cash stacking for what’s coming. next will be stacking lumber etc. some believe the price will drop soon, before it skyrockets again. i want to be in position to take advantage of that. will demo and rebuild my pos camper into more of a tiny house/ bug out trailer. that’s about it. praying for the country.
Overall, I have added to my stock of ammo, preparedness pdf’s, long term stored food and a few other items over the past few weeks. I have also increased our ability to respond for long term grid down and what life might look like if that occurs. Overall, I am well positioned but the big question is for how long? 1 month, 3 months a year, more…? What do we do when it goes down long term fort whatever the reason is. Bottom line, be prepared for as long as you can…..the guvmint won’t be helping and I suspect they will just cause grief (I work for them……insert rolled eyes). As Nick Flandry says, keep stacking.
Did anyone take notice of the CME that hit earth this week? It impacted the magnetosphere much worse than predicted that the science community is a warning sign that the magnetosphere has degraded faster than they thought, which means we will be in real trouble if the sun spits at us again which is likely. Start watching that and adding that to your plans folks.
Trying to figure out the Deep State/Oligarch counter to all the firearms and ammo Americans have. This weaponry has to be negated the way US, Japanese, British, German, etc battleships were in World War II. But how?
Doc John go to American Partisan and look for the article “Electronic Gulag” no door kickers needed. You become an unemployable Non-Person with NO Job, No Electricity, No Landlord willing to keep you inside, No Credit, No Money aside from whatever cash you had when it happened. Momma and the Family will be SO PLEASED eh?
Or if they really don’t need your living body they shut off the electric grid in your troublesome area and POOF some 90% have NO WAY to get water from their wells, and very limited water purification for the lakes and creeks.
How may days until your dead from bad water or lack of water? 3 maybe 5 eh?
I mention this because there IS counter tactics like Grahams Killhouse #5 Always be working, there is ALWAYS something you can do to improve your situation. Nobody is coming to save you.
I ordered another chest freezer, and meat to fill it – the meat is from the butcher, vac bagged and IQF. Worth my time to pay the butcher to package it that way.
The propane tanks are getting topped off next week.
I polished my diesel fuel last week. This weekend, I’m inventorying all my supplies, especially consumable parts. And I might take the gasoline fuel caddy (30 gallons) to the gas station, to top it off.
+Finished mounting barbed wire brackets to back wall and stringing one strand of smooth wire as guides for newly planted thorny bougainvillea
+Finished the last 80% 9mm
+Building an 80% 7.62 AR
+Bought more 7.62 ammo
+Bought more AR parts for the last 5.56 80% ARs not started
+Bought more beans, rice, salt, spices, and 5 gallon buckets
+Bought more gold and silver, and withdrew more cash
+Need to fill new 15 & 5 gallon water containers
+Need to fill & treat new 5 gallon gas cans
I’ll try to keep it short, but here’s an AAR on our three week RV trip from southern Oregon to Arkansas and back. Granted, it was entirely in flyover country, but the interstates are the arteries of national circulation, and I report that they are chock full of semi’s doing the posted 70, 75, or 80, or better. My truck/trailer likes 60, and will do 65 if I push it, so it’s a good thing there’s a lane for them to blow past me all day long. We avoid cities at all costs, and where we couldn’t (Salt Lake City; no good way around) we planned our pitstops well outside, and didn’t leave the freeway to pass through. From the viewpoint of the highways, byways, and RV parks, you’d think there was nothing wrong in the country. But we know that SHTF could be just around the corner. The RV is my bugout shelter, so practicing it’s systems and operation is fully on board with prepping skills. I spent weeks ahead of time plotting our route, with a good atlas and G**glemaps, including streetview of interchanges to know how to get off and back on, compiling a notebook so that at no point on the road was I more than an hour away from an exit, rest stop, or gas stop. We didn’t utilize nearly all of them, but knowing in advance where we were and were heading, we were not relying on any electronic navigation on the road. I’m a pilot, and love GPS, but I’ll always have backup paper map options AND the skill to use them.
And that brings up the one suggestion I have for blog fodder. I’ve long harped that prepping is not so much about “stuff”, or how much you have in the basement, but about what’s between your ears. As you have noted many times CZ, it’s those personal EOTWAWKI situations that are far more likely to affect us than the big scale disasters, so I’d like to see more discussion of prepping skills, and which are more likely to be needed and used. Yes, I can start a fire with a few sticks and a bootlace, though it’s been many years since I did it, but knowing how to use the tools at my disposal is far more likely to be needed.
Moved 401k to cash position.
Have a wood burning stove as a backup for the geothermal system. Military surplus, whole house diesel generator with fuel supply.
Garden is planted and will can/process the harvest as it comes in.
Hopefully, the beans, bullets and bandaids have been adequately stocked.
Praying for the best, preparing for the worst.
Trying to break my wife’s normalcy bias. The project is now in year 32. Success is expected Any Time Now.
Keep “swinging for the fences”, sir. She’ll come around (sooner or later).
My dear husband is the normalcy person in our house. Even after what has happened with COVID lockdowns and shortages of stuff in the grocery and elsewhere, he resists seeing. He calls my preps ‘your junk’ or ‘that crap.’ Especially the #10 cans of LTS food. Needless to say, this greatly hampers my/our preparedness.
On the sexy side of things, shifting from stacking ammo and stripped lowers deep, to stacking mags, BCG’s, braces, etc. deep. If you don’t already have ammo and lowers stacked deep, now’s not the time to start unless you have a really fat bank account and even then, it’s going to be a lot of work. The days of putting a couple of boxes in the cart every time you’re at the store are gone for the foreseeable future.
On the non sexy side of things, built two new raised garden beds, trying to finally get busy on inventorying preps, and organizing the mess. Keeping my circle of LMI tight. Keeping all the freezers full. Making the weekly rounds to the Sam’s Club. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel to being fully debt free. As CZ preaches, the non sexy side to this lifestyle is the side that will save you when you go through your own personal SHTF. $50 will save the day a lot more often than .50 cal.
Coming to the realization that having a few health issues and with an adult autistic son, a rather spoiled daughter and a wife who looking forward to retirement without consideration of all this entails, we will likely to remain in the city. So its probably war to the knife, knife to the hilt bitchez ! I’m just picking out a bad ass war lord name to instill fear to those who hear it. :^)
If you are new to survival movement, you have my condolences. Very expensive or non existent materials. You are going to have to research and science the shit out of finding out how to live in our downsized world.
Considering that TPTB in the western world are hell bent on handing world domination to the CCP, learning the language for free over at duolingo is a slow but probably good investment (especially since it’s free). Otherwise it’s just a matter of stacking the beans bullets and bandaids as high and deep as the wallet will allow
/wants_vs_needs/parse_high order
*earthquake/grid down>
Comm stat→UP
• Check-ins
Power stat→UP
I concur with Michael, and Killhouse Rule, as in always be working. I concluded long ago, that I will never be satisfied with my preps. I will always have something more to learn, something more to try, something else to practice. I decided not to treat this as “training” but shifted to “lifestyle”. PT, work, PT, read, PT, plan, plan, plan, improve and so on.
Attitude is everything, even when you don’t have all you want, be good with what you have, plan for the “better”, strive for “enough” and then some.
Mustang sends.
https://www.trex-arms.com/store/T-REX-ARMS-Plate-Backer/
Grabbed a set of these. I figure I’ll try anything for 30 bucks that keeps me in the fight longer on the ergonomics front. Check out the video on the link.
When the gas shortage hit North Carolina last week, I used 5 Gal. of stored in those wretched plastic containers that won’t pour) gasoline. I then noticed that one of my plastic containers of kerosene was leaking. So I went to Coleman’s and found 20liter NATO surplus jerrycans for $24 (plus shipping-got them in one week). I bought 8 and will transfer what I’ve already stored and and new when the price receeds some.
https://colemans.com/nato-military-jerry-can
Wow, assuming those are legit, they’re the cheapest NATO jerry cans I’ve ever seen. Well done.
Great cans,not necessarily pretty but old school quality(1950s). Get the spouts(may have to modify vent tube) and can fill car in about 90-100 seconds each. But don’t buy them all I need more.
Just ordered 4, for ~$150 delivered UPS.
New Wavians would have cost at least twice that amount.
I wish I could post a picture; I’ve finally got my radio room (The Shack) to where I want it. I have a vhf Motorola set for public service frequencies, Search & Rescue, fire, medical, and police. A Yaesu vhf/uhf on the ham frequencies we generally use, and an icom hf rig. I have two MFJ power supplies, one for the two vhf radios and one on the hf. I run the hf rig thru a tuner and for antennas, I have a Gap Challenger for hf and a Diamond 30 on the roof for the vhf/uhf.I have a general class license and I get a lot of practice every week.
I could use more first-aid supplies — always, right? — but am in decent shape in terms of beans, rice, bullets, PMs, and cash at hand. Got all my crumbling molars crowned over the past 3-4 years.
My BIG gap is not knowing my neighbors well, knowing their talents, their weaknesses, their political leanings. In a suburban setting, I think coordinated neighborhood defense is going to be our only hope, but if your household is the only ones with guns, food preps, a water supply, and first aid supplies, that’s going to be depleted real, real fast. Any suggestions for how you approach your neighbors about SHTF scenarios without them immediately labeling you either a nutjob or “the guy with the guns and food”? Most folks are so far in debt that even if you can open their eyes, they can’t afford to run out and spend $10,000-$15,000 on food and defense preps. They’d probably buy the wrong stuff anyway.
“My BIG gap is not knowing my neighbors well, knowing their talents, their weaknesses, their political leanings.”
Take a good look at your neighbors. What kind of vehicles. What can you tell about them just with a slow scan of them and their families. Bumper stickers?
What is the racial makeup of the street, neighborhood, city. Is it somewhat consistent, or is there a dramatic change by the next block. To some extent, you can make an educated guess about where they stand just from this preliminary observation.
My neighbors are mostly Asian. They think a big dog, or two, is a safe choice for home security purposes. Of course, they ignored the suggestion to get professional training for the dog(s), and themselves. The one that got two dogs did this after having a home invasion with just his young teen girl at home. Burglars, but they attempted to break down the bathroom door she was hiding behind. He’s a lefty/Dem, but he was willing to call me to rescue his daughter (I missed the call) and the police. (BTW, the cops showed up and just stood around waiting for the three to exit without any arriving sirens. They were not interested in confronting them inside the house.)
Frankly, I would be VERY reluctant to let the neighbors know anything upfront, until you get a good reading of where they stand politically, at the very least. You should also not be advertising, yourself. You can’t un-tell your neighbors vital info about who you are/what you do. Play the gray man at home.
Mike:
The simple rule of thumb is “If you aren’t sure – DON’T!”
Leave them in happy ignorance while you look to move.
Remember Evangelical Missionaries often end up in the stewpot…
On June 3rd a automatic transfer will take place and the House is paid for .
Now we own it now , In the last 4 years we have redone both bathrooms, Gutted the kitchen and redone it, New water heater , New high efficiency HVAC system . New flooring , All new appliances throughout the house . So now we can focus on keeping things topped off
Congrats!
lets see-
revamped all medical supplies – started assistant teaching of EMS classes – purchased .22 rifle and pistol to continue training – 1 carbine class – organized the “Zombie Apocalypse list” (just cause I love saying that) – camping equipment updated to include propane camp stove and extra fuel – and other activities.
Sorted through some old stuff and got rid of junk. Helped make an earthquake kit for a neighbor’s 18 year old daughter who plans to move to LA for school next month. Bought some .556 and some snake shot. Cleaned out and refilled a rain barrel (no rain expected until July). Bought coffee at Marshall’s — they now have the 8-packs of half-pot cans of SBucks for $5. I don’t usually buy SBucks for ethical reasons, but these little cans have some versatility not found elsewhere. Considering they are less than half the grocery store price, I decided to get some. Got some cash, took a little profit from the market. Washed a lot of winter bedding for summer storage. Wow, I did more than I thought.