SASL

Lunch

2012-01-29T17:06:00.000-08:00

Here we go with some more suggestions on what to take with you on your bug out. We covered breakfast a couple of entries ago so let's cover some items for lunch.

First of all let me say that lunch should be very light. It many times should be something that can be consumed on the go. If you are on a true bug out you may not want to take the time to stop and cook a meal. Having items in your pack that can be eaten on the run will be a blessing. Much of what I have is items I have prepared myself. First of all you should dehydrate as much fruit as you can to carry with you. I dehydrate apples, bananas, pineapple, tomatoes, peaches, pears and anything else that is in season that I can get. I dehydrate throughout the year so I wind up getting whatever is in season and keep it on hand. After I dehydrate one kind of fruit I like to put it into a quart Mason jar and seal it tight. After I have five or six different fruits on hand, I go out an purchase some mixed nuts. If I have a total of four quarts of fruit, I like to add one quart of mixed nuts. After I have them thoroughly mixed together, I then put them into individual vacuum bags of about one cup in each bag. This gives me twenty bags of vacuum sealed bags of the mixture, a supply of ten days for two people. Each year I use them on hunting and fishing trips and continue to rotate my stock by making more.

Pinole is another of my bug out lunch foods. This was a staple of the American Indian when they traveled. You need a pint of dry, sweet corn and you spread this on a cookie sheet. Place this cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees. This will parch the corn. When the corn is light brown, sprinkle two or three tablespoons of brown sugar evenly over the top and reheat until sugar begins to melt. Cool, place in home food grinder and grind. Put pinole in vacuum bags or in sip locks that are also sealed with wax. Pinole will last virtually forever and can be stored almost anywhere. You will probably want to make a half dozen batches of this.

Another thing I take along is Melba Toast. This is a hard dry bread product that you can vacuum seal and it will last a long, long time. It is great to munch on while you are hiking. Raisins are another thing that I take along, although I actually now prefer Craisins. These are cranberries that are dried and made like raisins. I sometimes put these in my fruit and nut mix but also carry some of each separately. These I usually carry in the little packets that they come in. This way I can just munch on them as I move.

There will be times that a hot meal is needed at lunch. For these times I carry Ramen Noodles and other items that all you need to add is hot water. Bullion cubes of both chicken and beef are always in my pack along with tea bags and instant coffee. Just having a cup of beef bullion soup along with one or two slices of Melba toast (I pack mine two to a vacuum bag) makes a pretty good lunch. The instant coffee is either in the individual packets or packed in a zip lock. I usually also take along a zip lock with some Tang orange juice powder in it. This is to kill the taste of water after purifying it, either by boiling or, preferably with purification tablets.

I have also used things like dried beef that comes in the small jars. I remove it from the jar and vacuum seal it in vacuum bags. This makes a nice treat from time to time. These are just a few of the things that you can get ready for your bug out pack. I talk about using them and taking them with me and I do. The reason I do this is that I use my hunting and fishing trips to check out different items for use. There are many more items that you can find right on your grocer's shelves. One thing I did not mention, which I have made, is pemmican. I will try to include the recipe either when I do the main meal menu or in another future entry.

Unless something comes up in the meantime that I feel is really important my next entry will be on items for the main meal of the day. I will then do one on what to put in your bug out pack besides just food. Until next time I hope you will check out my political blog and visit my web store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://webstore.com/~knifeman

A Review

2012-01-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

I know that last time I said that I would be doing a lunch MRE menu this time, but there is something that I thought was more important. I think it is time for each and every one of us to check our readiness. We all need to review where we stand as far as readiness goes. For instance, my food supply is now lower than I prefer it to be. The reason is that we are eating up some of the older supplies to rotate the stock and due to some financial difficulty, have not replaced all of it yet. One of the reasons that I am concerned about readiness right now is that I expect something to happen in 2012. No, I do not mean the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar. If that happened it would not matter what we had stored up. I am speaking about some political disaster taking place. Think about rioting, civil war, martial law and those type of things. With the election coming up and our first black resident of the White House up for re-election it is hard telling what will take place.

First look at your location. Are where you will most likely be out of harms way? If not, do you have a place to go? Do you have enough supplies at your getaway to keep you going long term. Do you have at least a year's food on hand and where you will be? Is your place, either where you are now if you are staying or, your getaway defensible? Are you ready to defend it at all cost, including shooting to kill if necessary? Are you able to hunt, fish and trap to obtain food if that becomes a necessity? Do you have a good supply of guns and ammo to take care of all eventualities? That means for hunting, self-defense and anything else that should come up, such as defending your area from wild-dog packs, etc. Do you have a complete medical kit and do you know how to handle medical emergencies? Do you understand some about the healing power of natural plants that grow in your area?

One of the things that not too many survivalists think about is the fact that they may have to take to the woods for a week or two. This is true even if they have what they consider a safe home or a safe getaway spot. Your spot may become hot for some unknown reason and you just need to leave for a short time for it to cool off. I keep a backpack packed with a two week supply of necessities. All I need to do is to grab it and go and I am good for a long time in the woods. The two week supply of food can be supplemented with hunting and fishing. My next entry will give both the homemade MREs for lunch and dinner. After that I will do at least one entry on what I believe should be in that two week pack. I will pretty much go by what I have in mine.

There are many other things that I could ask. Do you have a good supply of ammo? Are you well practiced with all of your weapons so that you will not need to hesitate? You should be so familiar with all of your weapons that the become part of you when needed. Do you know enough woods lore to survive if need be? Can you trap or snare animals and birds for food if needed?

There are many things to think of when thinking about survival. I could go on and as twice as many questions and give twice as many suggestions, but this should get you thinking. Step back and take a look at your complete survival plan. Does it need tweaking any place? Can it be improved? You want to improve your plan until you KNOW that you could survive in any given situation. Then, and only then are you ready. So take a look at where you are and I will be back soon with more information. Until then check out my political blog and my store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://webstore.com/~knifeman

MRE Meals

2011-12-04T20:10:00.000-08:00

You hear a lot about MRE's in most survival writings. They are talking about either the military MRE's or the freeze dried meals sold in camping stores and catalogs. While these are a convenience, I do not hold that they are the best way to go. If you have a lot of extra money and want to put some away that is fine. However, if, like me, you are watching your pennies and want to get the most for your money, there are a lot of ways that are cheaper and will do the job. Let's take a look at one of them.

Let's look at a breakfast that needs little or no preparation. If you want something that you do not even need to heat, put one or two ounces of cold cereal of your choice in a Zip Lock bag. In a smaller bag put enough powdered milk to make one cup of milk. Put the smaller bag inside the large bag with the cereal, zip it shut and seal the closure with sealing wax. Now you have a breakfast cereal in a bag with the milk and all you need to do is add water to the milk powder. Mix the milk in its own bag and pour as much as you need in the cereal. The rest can be used as a drink or to put in your coffee. If you want something that needs heat like instant oatmeal or instant Cream of Wheat, you can do the same only you can vacuum pack it if you want to. You could vacuum the cold cereal but the process crushes the cereal, although things like shredded wheat, Chex, Cheerios and some others could stand up under the vacuum sealing. However, my way calls for more yet.

In another small Zip Lock put enough Tang powder for an eight ounce glass of juice. Another small bag will contain enough instant coffee or tea to make one or two cups, depending on how much you think you will drink. You can skip this if you do not want to heat any of the water. You will also need another small Zip Lock to put some dehydrated fruit (which you have hopefully dried yourself) into, so you will have something extra to eat. In my Breakfast MRE I like to add two slices of Melba Toast. The reason I use Melba Toast is that it will stand the vacuum without crumbling.

Now you put all of these small Zip Locks into a large vacuum bag and vacuum seal the entire meal. So, you have cereal, milk, juice, toast, fruit and if you desire coffee or tea in one bag. Not much different than a commercial MRE only a lot cheaper and fresher. You just need to be careful about what type of cereal you put into the first Zip Lock so you do not wind up with crushed crumbs of cereal. You could easily put in sugar if you desire. Also, if you put everything in a large vacuum bag, you do not need to do the wax sealing on the cereal.

You can vary your meals by using instant hot cereals, different fruits, etc. If you want to do a little cooking there a lot of other choices. There is Spam to use for meat, which can now be gotten in soft packs that could be put into your vacuum bag. You could buy large containers of powdered eggs and have Spam and eggs for one breakfast, that is if you want to cook.

Today's supermarket is a veritable, survivalist's stock-up store. If you look around there are many things that you can do. I just gave you a small idea of what can be done for breakfasts. You should be able to come up with many more ideas. Next entry I will do a lunch MRE and follow that the following time with a main meal dinner. Until then think about ways to do more for yourself to save money and survive in style.

Check out my other blog and my web store at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

knifeman@webstore.com

Who are the Haters?

2011-11-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Nowadays you hear a lot about hate and hate speech. We now have hate crimes and people think that they can tell what someone was thinking when they committed a crime. Orwell's book 1984 is coming true right before our eyes. This new definition of hate is what the fasciunists are using to bring down the good patriotic people in this country. If you disagree with any policy of B. Hussein O. it is racist and considered hate speech. If you point out that Muslims cause most of the terrorist attacks in the world, it is hate speech. There are so many things that are now considered hate speech that many people are afraid to give an opinion about almost anything.

When you take a real close look at it, it is not what is said, it who said it. Why is it that when people take issue with B. Hussein O. they are racists but when people attack Herman Cain, that is free speech and not racist? Both of those men are black, but one of them gets special protections against people not liking him. Why is it that when Maxine Waters says "The Tea Party can go straight to hell" is that not hate speech? Why is it when James Hoffa says "Let's take the son-of-b-----s out", meaning to kill the members of the tea party, is that not hate speech? I could go on with many more examples, but I think you get the picture. There is a definite double standard taking over in this country.

We are constantly being asked to be politically correct. However, it only goes one way. I wrote last time about the difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrators. With the Tea Party it was if one little letter was out of place of if some liberal infiltrated the group with a sign, the Tea Party was a bunch of racist, hate mongers and were pilloried in the press for days at a time for one incident. The OWS demonstrators have hate signs and show their hatred in many other ways and the MSM (Malfeasant-Smug-Press) does not even cover the story. Just a bit of one sidedness I would say.

I remember well when there were signs carried with pictures of George W. Shrub with a Hitler mustache and there were no comments about it. There were also no comments by the MSM here in Wisconsin when there were signs with Governor Walker with a Hitler mustache during the demonstrations against his balancing the Wisconsin budget. In fact, it appeared that most of the press agreed with the demonstrators. There were many threats to the governor and to many of the state legislators, including death threats. However, reading or listening to the MSM, one would never know it. All of these things were swept under the rug as free speech.

Now, I am neither a demlican or a republicrat because most in both parties are nothing but shills for bigger government. However, when I see how democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, fascists and fasciunists (what a bunch of redundancy) doing things one way and not having to answer for it, it ticks me off. I was no fan of G. W. Shrub, but if drawing a Hitler mustache on him was okay according to the MSM, why is it hateful to draw one on B. Hussein O.?

Orwells 1984 was right on target when it came to the changing of the meaning of words. There are words that cannot be used today without being looked at as a bigot or a hater. Yet Joe Biden can get away with saying anything as can Nancy Pelosi and all the rest of the Demlicans. However, conservative and patriotic people are not allowed to voice their opinions without being accused of hate speech. Now the Muslims are trying to make it illegal to say anything that they believe is derogatory about Muslims. All they have to do is to claim it is derogatory, even if in reality it is not and you would be arrested. With a pretendsident that is either a Muslim or a Muslim sympathizer I have no doubt that it could happen. If he cannot get it through congress he will just sign another presidential order making it illegal to say these thing or you will be accused of a hate crime. That hate crime would be denigrating the Muslim religion. Even though we all know that most terrorist plots around the entire globe are perpetrated by Muslims.

This country is going amok. The MSM and the progressives are taking us into a world that we do not want. They are stripping us of our liberties and constitutional guarantees. Schools, especially colleges have strict speech codes that are undoubtedly unconstitutional and now the illegal government and the MSM are trying their best to make this kind of a speech code the law of the land.

If you want to know where the hate is, it is in the government especially the liberals and progressives and the press. They are the ones that truly hate. If they did not hate, why would they want to shut everyone that disagrees with them down? You can see the hatred emanating from every one of them from our pretendsident to the progressives in congeress, to the unions to the MSM. The unions are some of the worst haters in this country. They have always hated anyone that was not on their side. Now they own the person in the Whitehouse and can get away with going public with their hatred. It is time to stop them. How? I am not really sure but it is my hope that it can be done non-violently. However, if it is not done soon in a non-violent fashion, I do not like to think of what it would take later.

Lock and Load

2011-10-30T20:07:00.001-07:00

I think the time has come to be ready for anything and by that I mean even self-defense from roving mobs. With the anarchists, socialists, communists, fascists and fasciunists occupying Wall Street and many other spots around the country, I believe that it is time to start thinking about having to defend ourselves. Regardless of what our pretendsident says, these hooligans are not anything like the Tea Party. These are mostly people that hate America and anyone that has done better than they have and have more than they do. Everything they have was given to them by their parents and now they want more from the taxpayers. They seem think that the taxpayers owe them a living and a really good living at that. I currently receive Social Security (which I paid for) write for a newspaper and have an on line store and I cannot afford the gadgets that these scum are using. Ipads, Iphones, laptops, and every other electronic gadget that one could want. they have all of this and complain that they are disadvantaged. Just because someone makes a million dollars, as long as they make it legally they must deserve it. The scum want their share of the million without doing a thing to earn it. As you may have noticed there has been more and more violence every day. I am afraid that soon it may erupt into a kind of civil war. As I always say, I hope I am wrong about this but would rather be ready and be wrong than to not be ready and be right.

Here is a list or the armament and the ammo that I feel that every survivalist should have on hand. First of all you need a shotgun. This will be for close range protection. To me what action you choose is unimportant. The important thing is that you are comfortable with it. If for some reason you are only comfortable with a single shot, so be it. Whatever you have is better than not having anything. My personal suggestion would be a slide action (pump) as they are about the fastest cycling shotgun there is. I personally prefer a blot action myself but they are a little hard to come by and unless you already have one you would probably be better off with a slide action or a semi-auto. There is nothing wrong with a double barrel either. A 12 gauge is about the best you can do for a shotgun. However if smaller people are going to use the gun then a 20 gauge may be the best bet. It is all a matter of what you can handle. As for ammo for the shotgun, my recommendation is to have at least 500 rounds. My breakdown of shot sizes would be something like this: 200 00 buckshot, 100 #4 bird shot, 100 # 6 bird shot, 50 # 7 1/2 bird shot and 50 rifled slugs. that should cover just about anything that you need to take care of.

Next I would opt for a .22 caliber rifle. Here a bolt action or semi-auto are my choices. Again, I really do not think that the action is as important as the ability to use what you have and be safe and comfortable with it. Here there is only one type of ammo to have and the is the Long Rifle ammo. 1,000 rounds is the minimum I recommend for .22 ammo, with 2,000 being optimal. However many you decide on make it half hollow points and half solid lead.

Now we get into the high power rifles. Here is where I depart from most survival writers in that I do not recommend any particular weapon. You can have anything from a lever action 30-30, a bolt action 30-06 or .270 or you could have a .243 or .308 semi-auto. To me this does not make any difference. What makes a difference to me is that you are comfortable with your weapon and are able to hit what you aim at. For this weapon I suggest between 500 and 1,000 rounds of ammo. You may want to have a couple of different bullet weights but if you do remember to practice with both so that you are aware of where they are going to hit.

Handguns are another thing that you may or may not want. They serve as an excellent short range weapon and I personally recommend them. If you are a revolver lover, as I am, you will want to get a .357 or .44 magnum. You may also want to have a .22 revolver to use as a practice gun and for hunting small game. If you are a semi-auto handgun lover, my suggestion would be get a 1911 .45. If you have the money you may want to get a Desert Eagle in .44 mag or .50 caliber. I do not believe in .40 caliber and 9mm's as they do not have the knockdown power. If you want one because of the ammo capacity I guess they are all right but I want something with knockdown power. You may want one as a backup but I prefer a .380 or even a .25 caliber. Here again, with the semi-auto you may want to get a .22 to practice with. As far as ammo for your handgun, I feel that you will need at least 500 rounds.

That should take care of your armament and ammo supply for any emergency. I have only three other things to say about firearms, practice, practice, PRACTICE. Always be ready and hope the time never comes that you have to use the knowledge and skill you posses.

Until next time, check out my other blog and my store:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

knifeman@webstore.com

Agenda 21 (6)

2011-10-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

I do not know how long tonight's blog will be. I am going to cover the North American Union and the Trans-Texas Corridor and a little about what you can do about what is happening. I am still studying more about Agenda 21 so I may have more blogs on the subject. However, this will be the last one in this series.

To meet the global objectives for equalization of economies, the Sustainable Development system requires all global trade to be managed by the World Trade organization. The first thing they need to do is to bring down the American standard of living to equal with the rest of the world and bring American production down with it. They could never think about bringing the rest of the world up to our standards, they need to tear us down.

The Trans-Texas Corridor is a great part of that plan. This corridor is part of the creation of the North American Union. This will supposedly equalize the economic condition of Mexico, Canada and the United States. It intends to do this by bringing The United States and Canada down to the level of Mexico. This corridor will have trade routs, utility lines, inland ports and even toll roads. Various multi-national corporations will develop and manage and own these systems as a "public private partnership". In other words we are going into fascism. This is why I consider it fasciunism, because as soon as the fascism takes total control, we will be folded into a one world communist government. This would come about by the eventual merger of Canada, Mexico and the United States, which by design would lead to regional government and giving up unalienable rights and national sovereignty. This would soon give way to the one world government that all of the closet communists want. One of the things that started this was the Kelo v City of New London Supreme Court case. That decision neutralized the public use requirements of the Fifth Amendment. Now they can take land from people to build the corridor and there is no legal way to stop them.

What can we do to stop what is going on? First check out what your youngsters are being taught in school. In many schools they are being taught Sustainable Development by developing in them collectivist attitudes, values and beliefs. Sustainable Development calls for the abolishment of private property and that is also being taught in schools. Much of what is being done in the real estate market and the rest of the economy is to make sure that our children and grandchildren will never be able to afford to own property. We may be looking at the last generation to own our own homes. This is becoming a battle between Liberty and Freedom against Tyranny and dictatorship. We all need to get involved in stopping this or it will not get stopped. Here are a few thing that you can do.

Check and see if there is a trend in your area to replace present political boundaries with regional governance. There is no way to hold politicians accountable in a regional governance situation.

Make sure that your area does not take state or federal money for new Sustainable Development programs. This is not in tune with the American system of federalism. Withdraw from any established Sustainable Development programs that you may already be in.

Never allow your community to get into partnerships with the federal government, NGOs, Foundations or corporations if they support Sustainable Development. Do not allow your community to be surrendered to Sustainable Development interests and monied interests.

Make sure you understand the role of public officials in your community and make sure they administer government in a manner that protects your liberty and justice.

Get to know and fully understand the Constitution of the great country. Elected officials are sworn by oath to defend it. Check out Article 1, Section 8 and also the 9th and 10th Amendments. Also check out the 14th Amendment, which limits the states' police power.

And finally, if the ICLEI is in your town: KICK THEM OUT.

That is it for this week and as I stated in the beginning, I may make more entries on the subject as I learn more about it. Until next week check out my store and my political blog.

http://www.sasl.blogspot.com

http://webstore.com/ ~ knifeman

Protecting Yourself - 3

2011-10-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

As promised last time, I am going to go into raising animals and large gardens and also if time allows will get into some on hunting for your own food. One of the reasons that I am so sure we will need the ability to feed ourselves without depending on stores is that I believe that there is going to be a takeover of certain areas of the economy. As I write this there are demonstrations and riots going on all over the world. These are all directed at the one percent of the wealthy, or so it is stated. This is an act of pure anarchism. If this keeps up (and it looks like it may) the next thing that will happen will be looting and more riots. Once that begins, it will not be safe to go to stores, even if they do have goods on their shelves. The police will not be able to control it as there are not enough police. The only way to control it will be to declare martial law and that is just what I am afraid of.

My personal preference of animals to raise is chickens. The reason being that they can supply you with both meat and eggs. For two people I feel that ten laying hens, one rooster and two bantam hens are about right. The ten hens will supply eggs for two people and the rooster will fertilize the eggs. Sitting on eggs has been bred out of most chickens so you need the bantams if you want to produce more chicks. I would probably try to hatch at least twelve or fifteen chicks per year. This would allow you to kill off the roosters as soon as they reach fryer age and keep the hens as replacements for the older birds. If you have one of the heavy breeds such as Rhode Island Reds or Brahmas, which I prefer, and you wind up with too many hens you could raise a couple up for roasting birds. When the new five or six hens that you are going to keep for layers are of laying age, you can butches that many of the old hens for soup. Thus you will be able to keep a steady flock of ten good layers and still have meat.

You will need a hen house with roosts and nesting boxes in it for your chickens and a fenced in outside area for them to exercise in. You probably will need to purchase some feed unless you are able to let the chickens completely free range. Even then, feeding some laying mash will pay for itself in the amount of eggs you will get. When I keep chickens in a fenced area I feed laying mash and also some oats as a scratch feed. The mash is kept in a feeding trough while the oats is scattered around the ground. You also need to keep water where they can get to it at all times. In the winter here in the north that either means a heating element in the water or adding water two or three times a day.

Another plus you will get from the chickens is the fact that all of the manure that you get out of the hen house can be used on the garden. There is one thing to be careful of and that is that chicken manure is too hot to use immediately. You must let chicken manure age for at least one year before using it or the crops you plant in it will burn. If you build a movable chicken house you can rid entire areas of weeds. Every time the grass is all gone from the pen area you just move the house and fence to the next weedy spot and let the chickens do their thing. Also, throw any weeds and other trash from your garden into the chicken yard and they will clean it up. If you are not going to compost something, the chickens get it.

Now for rabbits. There are two ways to raise rabbits, the most common way in raised hutches or in a pen in a grassy area. The hutch method is probably best especially if you are limited in area. Also the hutch area gives you the ability to collect the manure and that is great stuff in the garden. You need to purchase rabbit pellets for feed and that can get a little expensive. You also need to keep water for them at all times and again up north that can be a problem. What I did when I raised rabbits was to butcher all except one pair in the fall so I only had one pair to take care of. I used an electric heat tape to keep their water from freezing and did not let them breed until I knew that the young would be born in warm weather.

If you are going to do the pen method, you will need to build a pen large enough to hold the amount of rabbits that you have. You will need to build it in a grassy area so they can eat the grass. A clover of alfalfa field is ideal but any grass is okay. This will cut down on the amount of feed you will need to purchase, if any. all you will need to do is to make sure they always have water. One thing about the pen. The sides do not need to be very tall but you should put a cover over it. This should be make out of the same fencing that you use for the sides. This will keep all predators out of the pen and keep your rabbits safe. the one bad thing about the pen method is that you do not get the use of the manure.

There you have a short explanation of what to raise and a little bit of how to. I would suggest that if you are really serious about raising animals that you would do some study on whichever animal you are going to raise. There are many good books on the subject and a wealth of information on the internet. I just gave you the highlights and enough knowledge to decide whether you think it is worth your trouble. I firmly believe it is because as I stated, I think we are in for a long hard time in this country.

I will get into the hunting for food in my next entry. This one has gone on long enough because the hunting portion will be just as long or longer. Until next time, check out my other blog and my store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://webstore.com/~ knifeman

Protecting Yourself - 2

2011-10-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

Last time I discussed protecting yourself. I think that it is getting more and more certain that it may be coming to that. I have been predicting on my political blog that I felt that pretendsident OhBummer may be going to cancel the election of 2012. This is the only way that he can be assured of four (or more) more years. Should that occur I believe that it will cause a civil war. People all over the country will be upset, as well they should. When they start to complain and to try to do something about it, the blacks that still back Ohbummer will scream racist and begin their riots. From there on it will deteriorate.

What should we do? First of all prepare. Do not sit back and say that it could never happen here in the USA. If enough people do that it WILL happen here in the USA. I am afraid that there is so much apathy in this country that it could happen. People are too busy watching sports and daytime talk shows that they are not even paying attention to what is going on in the country. Second, watch for some major catastrophe such as another terrorist attack or a major financial crisis (especially if it is worldwide) or anything that could trigger the government taking over. Even if it looks like it is not something that the government created, it could be and if it is not they could take advantage of it anyway. Remember, this is the regime that said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste".

Next you should make sure that your home and your family are well protected. I have written enough about this that I should not have to repeat the particulars. Be ready to protect yourself and your family. That can mean anything from finding a good hiding place to standing where you are and fighting. I truly hope and pray that it never comes to that, but it is something we must be ready for if the time comes.

For those of you who live in an area where it is possible and that have enough space to raise some animals for food; do so. I personally am going to obtain chickens in the spring. I am going to get one of the large breeds such as Rhode Island Reds or Brahmas to give us the most meat and still lay eggs. I am also going to get a rooster and a couple of bantam hens. The rooster to fertilize the eggs and the bantams to sit on them and hatch them. Sitting on eggs has been bred out of most regular breeds, but bantams still have that instinct. By raising my own chicks, I can butcher the young rooster for fryers, keep the hens for layers and when they are laying good I can butcher the old hens for soup. If there are more hens than I feel I need for replacement layers I will let them get big enough for roasting hens. That is another reason for obtaining one of the larger breeds.

I will also be planting a larger garden and possibly looking at other animals. We live on a dead end road, (last house) and have five acres. Although most of it is in woods, we could raise a couple of hogs if we felt it would increase our chances of survival. It is also easier for me to protect what is mine than it is for some of you. Rabbits are another possibility for a meat animal. They are easy to raise and do not make the noise that chickens (especially with a rooster) do. There is also a lot less odor that there would be with hogs. You can even get away with raising rabbits in some towns and smaller cities.

These are just some of the ways to prepare yourself for what may happen. If it does not happen and I pray to God that it does not, you will have just saved some money by raising your own. Whatever you can do, be it little or much, it cannot hurt and will definitely help. In my next entry I will be giving some information on raising animals and large gardens. Until then SURVIVE and check out my other blog and my store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://webstore.com/~knifeman

Protecting Yourself

2011-09-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Protecting oneself is first and foremost on every good survivalist's mind. If we cannot protect ourselves, how can we protect our loved ones? Each and every one of us needs a plan. Are we where we want to be to be able to protect ourselves and our loved ones? Do we have the equipment and supplies for a long holdout? Are we physically and mentally prepared for a war with a bunch of rioting no-goods? How about if a rogue government comes to get your guns or to take you away? These and many other things are all things that must be considered. You also need to be able to take care of wounds and illnesses in a long drawn out event. Do you know what natural items can be substituted for prescription drugs and that can be used medically in other ways?

First, let's talk about your location and what should be done. First of all it should be out in the country if at all possible. This will make it easier than if you are located in a city. Wherever you are located, you need to do some things to make your home more safe. Have a perimeter around your home that will allow you to see anyone trying to sneak in on you. In the country that means open space of twenty to fifty yards on all four sides of your house. In the city you should not have any blind spots on your entire lot. Trees should be far enough apart that you can see anyone trying to get from one to another without being seen. City or country, you do not want shrubs next to the house that can be used to hide in. In the city especially, but even in the country, you should be able to lock all of your windows and doors. While this will not keep someone from getting in if they really want to, they will probably have to make enough noise that it will alert you if they try to enter.

I suggest that you keep loaded weapons in your home. If you have children that you are not sure are old enough to know what is going on and that might experiment with weapons, make sure the loaded weapons are not available for them to get at. We do not want any accidents to happen. Only you know what type of weapons you should have on hand. For inside the home I recommend a shotgun loaded with about number 2 or number 4 shot. This will give you a big enough pattern and yet is large enough shot to do what you need it to. If there is no way you can keep a shotgun around at the ready, a handgun is the next choice. If you are worried about people coming on your property, you could also keep a rifle in the house. Either that or keep some slugs for your shotgun. If you keep a rifle in the house I would recommend that you have it in a place that is the most likely place it will be needed. One thing about any type of shotgun, rifle of semi auto handgun is do not keep a live round in the chamber. Nothing puts the fear of God into an intruder like the pumping of a shell into your shotgun, working the bolt or the slide on a semi auto on your rifle or racking the first bullet into your pistol. Just doing that you may not even have to shoot.

Again, as I have stated many times in the past, (see the archives) you need one to two years of food on hand and a good supply of ammo. You need to learn as much as possible about alternative medicine. Things like herbal medicine and alternative ways of staying healthy. I would not take too long with the learning of these things as I believe that things may come to a head before much longer. You also need to make a decision as to how you would handle a situation if it was your own government that came and tried to take your guns or even take you to a internment camp. Could you take aim at one of your own countrymen? Could you shoot one if you had to, to protect yourself and your family? These are not easy questions and most of us would have a hard time answering them. I still do not know for sure what I would do unless I knew that my life or the life of a loved one was in danger.

As I stated, I feel something is going to happen soon. I truly hope that I am wrong. I hope that this government comes to its senses and leaves us the freedoms that we are supposed have under our constitution. I like life just the way it is and could live out the rest of mine without having to protect myself. However, should push come to shove, I will protect myself and my loved ones and I expect that every true survivalist would do the same. However, I will never start anything, just finish it. More in a couple of weeks. Until then remember my political blog and my store. I have stated in past blogs that silver coins are the best investment for a survivalist and I currently have some in my store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://webstore.com/~knifeman

Self Protection

2011-08-28T20:02:00.001-07:00

The time has come, I believe, to think about what we are going to do when the riots begin and the gangs start running wild. How do I know that is going to happen? I do not "KNOW" it is going to happen, but after following the news and watching things that are going on in this country, it is my best guess that it will happen. When you look at the rioting that took place in Wisconsin after Governor Scott Walker tried and succeeded getting the state budget under control, you will get some idea of what could happen. These things are taking place on a lesser or greater scale all around the country. This is exactly what happens when a country that is supposed to be a Constitutional Republic begins to be governed as a democracy. Democracy is just one short step from anarchism. That is where America is right now. We have a pretendsident that governs like a dictator and unions and groups like Acorn that hold protests every time they do not get every thing they want. I believe that between now and the 2012 election there will be more and more of these protests and riots and that leading up to the election it will become deadly. The unions, the community organizers and a certain group of the blacks will not stand by and let someone beat B. Hussein O. without trying their best to intimidate every voter in the country. Will it work? I do not really know, but it might. I also believe that the whole thing could break out into civil war. We need to be prepared.

There is also the things that are going on in the mid-east. All of the riots and people trying to topple the governments. Our pretendsident and all of his allies seem to think this is wonderful. Do you think they will see it any different here in this country? Rioting, maiming and killing have gotten to be just another method to get the political conclusion the mob wants. That is what is wrong with a democracy and that is why the founding fathers of America made this a Constitutional Republic.

It is time right now to decide where you want to be when the ship hits the sand. And wherever that might be you need to have a plan to protect yourself and your family. You need to have a food supply on hand to last at least three months and hopefully two years. Most importantly, you need to be willing and able to defend yourself and your loved ones. You need to have the weapons on hand and be willing to use them. You need to be willing and able to leave your home and hit the wilderness if need be. It may come to the point that you cannot defend against the number of rioters that descend on you.

Now is the time to get all of your weapons in good order and practice with them. It is also the time to get out in the woods and hunt and fish and make sure you know how to handle yourself. Learn how to do without all of the modern conveniences that we now have. I have a complete line of tools to replace all of my power tools. That is just in case we lose our power and still need to do things. Number one thing if you are going to remain where you are, make sure it is defensible. You do not want gangs coming on your property stealing you blind. Make sure you can protect your home and your property. Have a good talk with yourself and make sure that if push comes to shove, you could shoot.

So here is a quick rundown on what to do now. Make sure of your food, make sure your weapons are cleaned and ready and that you are comfortable using them, know how to obtain food from the wild if need be, learn how to do without some of the things you now depend on. It would not take much to shut down the power grid in this country. It would not take much to take out cell phone usage. It would not take much to shut down most of the transportation in this country. You need to be ready for all of that. Maybe nothing will happen but I feel something will.

For years, we in America have looked at other countries and their riots as something that happened only in dictatorships. Well, at the moment America is being run on presidential orders and the congress is not stopping it. That is just about the same as a dictatorship, so I believe it is our turn to have some of those riots that other countries have. I am going to be ready and I hope that all of you take heed and get ready also. I have written about many of the things that need to be done. You might want to go into the archives of this blog and re-read some of these items. I will try to add more to this in two weeks. Until then check out my political blog and my web store. I currently have silver coins for sale that are close to what silver bullion is selling for.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://webstore.com/~knifeman

Self Protection

2011-08-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

Be careful

2011-08-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

I have just posted an article on my political blog explaining what the FBI is currently doing. They are sending flyer's around to all surplus stores telling the owners to turn anyone purchasing: excess ammo, waterproof ammo cans, MRE's, waterproof matches and other standard survival items. Many of these items are the very items that another government agency is telling us to keep on hand in case of a natural disaster. I believe it is a way for the government to entrap innocent survivalists; first suggest you purchase the items and then consider you a terrorist when you do. They cannot profile real terrorist possibilities because of political correctness so they come after the average patriotic survivalist.

This is going to be a very short entry tonight. I just wanted to let everyone know about the latest government big brother scam. I would also like you to make your purchases as innocuous as possible. Purchase your ammo in small quantities at different stores. Do the same with all of your other survival items. Also, I am going to do even more of making my own survival equipment and dehydrating my own food. I will also purchase food that can be vacuum packed here at home and use that in place of any MRE's. I would advise anyone that can do so to do all they can for themselves and keep gun and surplus store trips to a minimum.

Actually I do not believe that surplus store owners will turn in survivalists because they are usually survivalists themselves. Many of the are veterans and patriots and would not think of turning a patriot in.

There is one thing on the list that I did not mention that is comical. That is the purchase of "night" flashlights. I kid you not that is exactly what they list them as. Does that mean it is all right to purchase day flashlights? That is all for this week, just wanted you to know what is going on and make you able to watch out for yourselves. Until next week check out my political blog and my store. I currently have silver coins in my store at just over bullion prices.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

www.knifeman@webstore.com

Depression II

2011-08-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight's blog will be a short version due to the fact that there is still so much upheaval in the financial world. Also I also did a blog entry on my Fasciunism blog relating to Agenda 21. You may want to read that one too as I believe that is much of what is causing our problems.

As you may or may not know, the credit rating of the United States of America has been downgraded from AAA to AA+. This is a serious problem as it means that this country is not considered as credit worthy as it was a week ago. Another problem is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are also about to be downgraded. This will throw, not only this country but the entire financial world into chaos. The problem is still that the politicians in this country do not know how to stop borrowing and spending. I will say it right now, anyone that voted for the debt ceiling raise, demlican or republicrat, should be voted out of office.

The one main thing I can say right now to those of you who have credit card debt, pay it off quick. The interest rates are going to go up and go up steeply. Our country is about to have a depression that will make the depression of 1929 look like a time of great prosperity. It will also mean riots and looting and burning. People will not put up with what they did in the 30s. The people in this country are too used to having everything given to them. Heck, in Pennsylvania people on welfare are given cell phones and 250 minutes a month. This is considered a civil right in that state. Imagine when the government cannot even give them food.

As I have stated many times gold and silver coins will be valuable. But even more valuable than that will be ammo. .22 caliber, 308, 30-06 and other common cartridges will be better than gold. Shotgun shells are another thing that will be valuable, especially 12 gauge. .357 pistol ammo is another one. Also .223 or the NATO equivalent 5.56mm will also be great as well as 7.62mm.

those are the main things that I want to get across this week. It is time to batten down the hatches and get ready for a long hard dry spell. If you have been following my blog and preparing as I have suggested, you will have a good chance of coming through it with not too much loss.

That is going to be all for this week. Look for another blog here next week as I am going to try to do both blogs every week again. Until then God Bless and good luck. Check out my other blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

And check out the silver and survival books and mags at my store at:

www.knifeman@webstore.com

Depression

2011-07-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

The title says it all: "Depression". That is what I see coming soon and what I believe we should prepare for. At this moment I do not know whether the congress and our pretendsident can get a plan together to raise the debt ceiling. Nor do I believe that it should be raised. However, that being said, I believe that if it is not, we are facing a major catastrophe. The stock market is already getting jittery and the demlicans are making all kind of threats. B. Hussein O. is threatening not to pay our Social Security and not pay the military. Everyone that follows things like that know that there is enough money coming in to make all of those payments plus the interest payments on the debt. However, we do not know what the fasciunists will actually do, so here is what I am going to be doing and suggest that all of you do.

If you are on SS or any other type of government pay, save any money you may have on hand. Just in case they are rotten enough to stop the payments. Make sure your food supply is where it should be. If you have been following my suggestions you will have a one to two year supply of food on hand. My supply is a little low right now but will be right up to par once my garden comes in. If you have not raised a garden this year you may have some other way of obtaining food. I know that not everyone has the space available to raise a garden. Another thing I hope that those of you who could raise a garden did and that is to use at least a portion of Heirloom seeds. These are seeds that are not hybrid and you can save seeds from the produce you harvest. I do not have everything in heirloom yet but I have several of the most important staples covered.

Another thing to do is to have your weapons ready and have a good supply of ammo. I hope it does not come to that but there may be looting and stealing if peoples government checks are cut off. Be ready to protect yourself, whether you are in the city or the country. If you have a garden be ready to protect it. It may take a few weeks and then food will be at a premium. Food is going to be at a premium this year anyway because of the drought in the west and southwest. Cattle are being sold off at a rapid pace in the southwest and that will mean higher prices for beef. To me that means that I will have to do more hunting and fishing than normal and provide even more of my own meat.

At this point I do not know whether to tell you to be ready to bug out or not. I am not sure how bad it will get or how long it will last. It may be that the fasciunists that control the presidency and senate will just do enough to really irritate the people who depend on the government and hope to cause the sensible politicians (that is a contradiction in terms) to cave in.

Look at what you would need to live and try to anticipate what will happen if you do not have money. Can you pay an electric bill, purchase your LP, obtain water or any other necessities? What can you do without and what must you have? Just because you live in the country and have your own well, do not feel confident that you will have water. If your electricity is shut off, how would you get the water out of the well? Do you have a backup plan. The least you should have is several rain barrels so that you could use that water. You might have to purify the water you drink, but that is not that much of a problem. If you live in the country, do you have an electric stove for cooking? Do you have backup? I currently have two LP camp stoves and a Coleman fuel camp stove and plenty of fuel for all of them. I also have an antique kerosene cook stove that could be put into use if need be. I do not have a lot of kerosene, but could do some cooking. What kind of fuel do you use for heat? Do you have a backup for that? Here again, we heat with LP but have wood backup and I have five acres of woods. Actually about four acres is woods that could be cut while the other acre is house, yard and garden. We have added apple trees to our yard and that will help us in the future. this is the first year they are bearing so we will not get much from them but we have a tree out on DNR land that we know about. It was where there was an old farm that the state bought. The tree still produces and we have made all of our applesauce from it for the last two years.

Those are some of the things you need to think about if we go into a depression. As I said earlier in this blog, make sure your weapons are ready and you know how to use them. I hope that it does not come to that but fear that it might. If it does come to that it will be because someone in government wants it to. Just something else to use to get their own way. This country is currently a fasciunist country and will soon become a communist country if we do not do something about it. Get ready, keep your powder dry and remember, the USA is supposed to be a Representative Republic. We need to to whatever it takes to keep it that way. Prepare now and survive later. Check my other blog next week to see how I could get the government back on solid financial footing.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

And check my web store for silver investments and survival information books and mags.

www.knifeman@webstore.com

What Now?

2011-07-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

What Now? That is the question I keep getting. Where are we headed? What should I prepare for? All of these are very good questions. I do not know the exact answer. I myself am preparing for many different scenarios. I look around and see what is going on and I know that something is going to come to a head. It could be natural disaster, it could be political, it could be financial or it could be war and possibly a combination of two or more of these situations. What I do is look at what I personally is the most likely in the near future and prepare for that. However, I do not neglect other scenarios. I try to keep to a balanced survival plan.

First of all I think we all need to get right with God. I believe that he is currently warning us that something big is about to happen. If you look around and see all of the natural disasters, wars, financial dips, unemployment and other things that are currently going on in the world, you have to believe that there is a higher power behind it. As I stated, I believe that God is trying to tell us to either straighten up or we are going to be in big trouble. I think that He is giving us warnings so that those of us who believe can get ready for all that is coming.

When you look around this country, you see that we have become a Godless, humanistic, atheistic bunch of people living just above the sewer of the world. I am not talking about everyone, but the majority of Americans are lacking any type of morals. We have homosexual and lesbian marriage in more and more places. Bible reading and prayer has been taken out of our schools. Pastors are preaching dominion theology, and social justice and positive thinking. they no longer teach God's word from the Holy Bible, many of teach the Oprah Winfrey type religion that everyone has their own god inside of them. So-called Christian pastors are teaching that all religions are good and can get you to heaven. They are teaching that Hindu meditation and Muslim's Allah are but a part of a giant worldwide religion and that no one of these religions is wrong and that we should all just get along and share one another's beliefs. They apparently have forgotten John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way the the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me". (ESV). That means that all of those pastors that say that there are many ways to get to heaven are calling Jesus a liar. I do not think I want to go there.

that leaves me getting ready for a great awakening that I believe God is going to bring on this country. I am currently learning to grow more and more of my own food. I am buying heritage seeds so that I can save seeds from the plants I grow. That way if I cannot get seed due to a shortage of money or some other reason, I can still grow my garden. I am practicing living on a different level that we now consider normal. I am upgrading my weapons and practicing more with them. I am foraging more for food so that I can get my own meat and other wild food if need be. In other words, I am practicing my survival skills more and more. I am where I intend to stay during any survival situation. However, my pop-up camper is sitting ready and loaded just in case. The items in the camper can be used here at home if I do as intended and stay here. They can also be used to keep us going if i have to bug out.

There are many things that can be done to get ready. Only you know where you are in your preparedness and what you need to do. Can you live without electricity? Can you grow or forage your own food? Are you properly armed and do you have the skill with weapons to protect yourself and your family? Can you keep yourself and your family healthy by practicing herbal medicine? Can you make it without an income? These and much more are questions that all of us must answer on our own.

As I stated in the beginning, I believe that God is warning us that something big is going to happen and those of us that believe in Him and prepare, can weather the storm. Two weeks from now, when I make my next entry in this blog, I will get back to specific survival skills but this week I wanted to warn everyone that I believe something is going to happen and it is going to happen soon. If I was to make a guess I would say that it will begin with a financial meltdown and get serious from there. We have a Muslim, or at least a Muslim sympathizer in the White House. He is also a Marxist and a Fasciunist, which is something that those of you who read my other blog would know about. I believe he is out to ruin this country so that he can bring it to at least a European style socialist state. I also believe that he is in favor of international and sharia law. These are the things that I believe will bring this to a head and will cause a survival situation. Get ready, get right with God and lock and load. Until next time, check out the political blog.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

And my web store at;

knifeman@webstore.com

Medicine III

2011-06-26T20:32:00.002-07:00

As I stated in my last post, tonight I am going to talk about some more natural remedies. However, there are a couple of things I would also like to cover. that is the fact that I see this country coming closer and closer to being torn down. I think it is time for all of us to get ready for whatever is coming. We are not coming out of the recession that we are in. Pretendsident Obama cannot keep blaming Bush for the problems. There are also the wars which our so-called leader gets us into. I firmly believe that before the election of 2012 we will see martial law. I have talked about this some in other blogs and will go back into it in two weeks when I get back to this blog. I will also be talking about it in my other blog next week. But for now let us get back to the subject at hand, health and natural ways of curing things.

First of all let me say that if you took everything that I mention you probably could not afford it. I am just going through all of the possibilities that I can think of at the moment and giving you choices. You take the ones that you need and leave the rest alone. Many people in today's world are on anti-depression drugs such as Zoloft or Citalopram Hydrobromide. Two herbs come to mind here. First is St. John's Wort which is a fairly well know herb for this purpose. the second is Ginkgo Biloba. While this is more well known as a memory herb, it also helps with depression or anxiety. One that will help with the anxiety is Chamomile. this is the week that grows in many yards. All you need to do is to pick the flowers dry them and make tea using the dried flowers. You can also just go to the store and purchase the Chamomile tea bags. I prefer to pick my own as I can control exactly what I am doing.

Do you have a problem with arthritis? You could go to the store and get some Glucosomine and you would find that it works well. I used it for a while and it helped my arthritic knee. However it got so I could not afford it so I tried another method. Take one cup of hot water, add one teaspoon of Cinnamon and two teaspoons of honey. Mix it up good and drink it. You need to do this twice a day for it to work. I have been doing it for a couple of months now and have no knee problems. Cayenne peppers are great and making a salve or lineament with this in them and used daily on your arthritic area will help a great deal.

A couple of things that could happen in a survival situation are diarrhea and indigestion. One of the best things for diarrhea is a tea made from either blackberry or raspberry roots and leaves. Steep about two teaspoons of dried leaves in a cup of water. Take this three times a day and within a day or two your diarrhea will be gone. Chamomile tea or Peppermint tea are two of the best antidotes for indigestion. One teaspoon of dried Chamomile flowers or one and a half teaspoons of dried peppermint leaves to a cup of hot water, and again about three cups in the day and you should be good to go.

I could go on with this as there are whole books written on herbal remedies. However, I just wanted to get you started and maybe interested to pursue it on your own on line or from books. From time to time in my future writings I may slip in a remedy or two just to keep you up on things. I am still learning and will probably always be learning. the study of herbs is a never ending study. We do need to know how to take care of our health during a survival situation and I feel herbal medicine is the best way. Especially the herbs that you can pick wild or grow and the remedies you can make for yourself. Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep and stay healthy.

Until next time check out my other blog and my store;

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

knifeman@webstore.com

Medicine II

2011-06-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight's entry is going to be mostly about keeping healthy and having what you need in a survival situation. First of all I am a firm believer in vitamins and supplements. If you look at many of them, you may be able to replace some of the prescription meds you are taking. For instance: garlic tablets do a fine job of keeping your blood pressure and cholesterol. You need to take a lot of this item, but it will do almost as good. Now, I am not advising going off your blood pressure medicine or your cholesterol medicine. What I am suggesting is knowing that if things really get bad and you simply cannot get your medicines, garlic will definitely do you good. And if you are raising some of your own garlic and can use that, it will help even more.

Let's get down to what I think that we should all be doing right now. First of all, I believe that everyone should, at the very least, be taking a multiple vitamin. Even if we believe that we are eating a balanced diet, many of the foods we purchase commercially are so over-processed that we are not really getting all of the vitamins and minerals that we need. Processing removes a lot of trace minerals that our bodies need. By taking a multiple vitamin/mineral tablet, you can correct that shortage. That is the least I feel you should do. I also feel that you should have a store of these on hand in case of a large enough upheaval that you are unable to purchase any.

Now, let's look at some specialty vitamins and minerals. As I already stated, garlic should be on your list if you are currently on blood pressure or cholesterol medicine. It will not hurt you to take it now with your other pills and if you cannot get the prescription you are covered. Most vitamins and supplements have an expiration date two to two and one-half years from the date you buy them. I feel that they are probably good for at least a year after that, so you should be able to keep them for at least two years and possibly three.

I currently take cod-liver oil capsules, zinc tablets, 1,000 mg vitamin C and 400 mg vitamin E. All of these are to improve your immune system. I take double doses of all of these in the winter to deep from getting sick. I do not believe in flu shots and take these in place of getting shot full of rotten eggs. Depending on your metabolism, there are several supplements you can take. Acai, cayenne and super B complex are just three of these. I take these in various combinations at various times and find that they do help, especially in the winter when we are inside more. That is one of the reasons I take cod-liver oil, for the A and D vitamins they contain. In the winter when we are not out in the sun we can get deficient in vitamin D especially. As for as the other metabolism aiding supplements I believe that we should be taking the B complex at the least.

Iron is another supplement that will help promote a healthy heart. It is also something that many people are deficient in. They are very cheap and worth having on hand or even taking to insure that we are getting what we need. there are a couple of supplements that are specialized that you may want to think about also. One of them is milk thistle. This is used to improve liver function. Only you know if you should take something like that. Another special supplement and one that I take is bilberry/lutein. This is for the eyes. I have found that it helped improve my already excellent night vision and it also helps control any allergies that affect my eyes. Another one you may want to keep on hand is potassium. I personally prefer to eat bananas now while they are available but in a survival situation they may not be. It is best if you know your current potassium level as I know people that cannot have anything with potassium because they already have too much in their body.

these are the ones that I am familiar with and as a minimum I believe that everyone should take the multiple all year long and zinc, C, E and cod-liver oil during the winter. these are also the ones that you should keep on hand for emergencies. During a major catastrophe the food you are eating may not give you all you need in the way of vitamins and minerals. All of the other ones you can make up your own mind about.

Only you know what your health is like now and only you can decide on what to take. I am just letting you know a few things that I do and a few others that I know about. Next week I will wrap up the medicine entries with some more natural remedies for things like depression, bad memory etc. There is so much you can do without going to the doctor. I recommend that you go to the doctor and get one good physical and make your decisions from there. Until next week, as always, check out my political blog and my web store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

knifeman@webstore.com

Medical Help

2011-05-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

As promised in my last posting we are going to take a look at making some of your own health products. I am not going to tell you how to make heart medicine or diabetes medicine or any other pharmaceutical. I will leave that for you to decide. What I am going to do is give you the recipe for several external medicines and a few hints about keeping healthy.

The first med I would like to talk about is an ear medicine. I have been bothered with ear infections all of my life and was tired of going to a doctor who would give me some ear drops and an antibiotic. This gets expensive and you soon become immune to the antibiotic. I made my first batch several years ago and had not even used it when my sister-in-law stated that she had to go to the doctor for an ear infection. this was on a weekend so she would not be able to go to a doctor until Monday and that only if she could get in. I gave her a small bottle of my homemade medicine and told her to try it as I knew it would not hurt her. She called me a couple of days later and told me that her ear infection was completely gone and that she did not have to see a doctor. I will also say that I have not seen a doctor about ear infections in over three years. I catch it early and the infection never really takes hold. So here we go with the very simple method of making the medicine.

Put several handfuls of mullein flowers in a glass jar and cover them with olive oil. Let the mixture steep for seven to ten days. Strain off the flowers and bottle the oil. Use dark brown bottles if at all possible. You can also put some in an empty ear drop bottle or a bottle with a dropper inside. When you feel an ear infection coming on put several drops of this medicine in your ear and place a piece of cotton ball in your ear to hold the oil in. The mullein in the medicine is the thing that heals the infection. You can use this to soften ear wax as it is olive oil based. the olive oil will soften the wax and the mullein will not cause a problem.

Next lets make a salve. This is an excellent salve on bruises and scratches. I even use it on my psoriasis. While it does not eliminate the psoriasis, it works as well as the salves they sell especially to use on psoriasis, and it is a lot cheaper.

2 oz. dried comfrey root, 2 oz. dried oak bark and 5 or 6 plantain leaves (fresh or dried). put these in saucepan and cover with 1 1/2 cups olive oil and simmer for 45 minutes. Put into glass jar and cap tightly. Let sit for ten days, shaking once daily. Strain back into saucepan add two tablespoons lard and two tablespoons bees wax. Heat until lard and wax is melted stirring to keep mixed. Pour into containers to cool and set. Apply liberally to bruises, scratches and scrapes.

The third and final med for this post is for a lineament. This works good on strained muscles and other tired parts of the body. I have used it on my back, my legs and my arms and it does a decent job of relieving the pain and soreness.

one 48 ounce container of 91% isopropyl alcohol, four ounces of dried cayenne pepper, one ounce of dried echinacea root and two ounces of dried oak bark. Put all ingredients into a two quart glass jar and let sit for two weeks. Shake jar several times during the two weeks. Strain the juice into glass bottles and you are ready to go.

There you have three medicines that you can make and keep on hand. I will get into more on herbs and herb teas and other uses in the next entry. Lord willing and the creek don't rise that will be in two weeks. Until then, as always check out my political blog and my store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

knifeman@blogstore.com

Ready? II

2011-05-08T20:11:00.001-07:00

As I stated in the last post, it is time to get ready for a number of possibilities. Last time I talked about hyper-inflation. this time I would like to create a different scenario. I am thinking about class warfare. Right now our pretendsident is creating class envy. He is also using race as a wedge. the Tea Party is being called racist and they are the farthest thing from it. All of this by B.O. and his lap-dog media is to further drive a wedge between different classes and races in this country. I hope it does not come to a head that causes a type of civil war, but I am leery of it anyway.

What I would like to talk about this week is practicing with your firearms. I believe that regular practice sessions with your firearms is very important. I feel that all weapons, but handguns especially, should be practiced with at least once per week. I happen to be one of the fortunate people that have a range on my own property. I have found that with a handgun if you do not keep in continuous practice you soon lose the ability to hit what you are shooting at. If you are practicing for self-defense, you will need to do most of your practicing at close range. I do a lot of mine at five yards. This will cover most indoor self-defense scenarios. For outdoor confrontations you may want to do some practice out to twenty-five yards. I began my practice at five yards. I do not move out to ten yards until I can hit the five yard targets wit great regularity. Remember, in a life and death struggle, close is not good enough.

that is one scenario. Another is the fact that some of bin Laden's followers may want to take revenge on this country because of our killing of him. Once again, it pays to be prepared by getting your marksmanship tuned up. If nothing happens (that is what we all hope for) you will have had a great time shooting and getting in some target practice. If you are a hunter, and we all should be if we are real survivalists, the extra practice with various weapons will help you keep your freezer full of meat.

As much as possible, whenever you shoot up a box of ammo replace it as soon as possible. What you may want to do is what I do. I shoot up two boxes of ammo and then replace it with three boxes. that way I am always adding to my ammo supply. Even then, I probably do not have nearly as big a supply as I should have.

I am going to cut this entry short as there is much I could say but am not ready to say it yet. Being a survivalist is a good lifestyle if it is done right. I have many other things besides just weapons and things like that. As I have stated at other times I believe a good survivalist should hunt, fish, gather wild plants and anything else that they can do to provide for themselves and their loved ones. Next time in this space I am going to talk about making a few of your own medicines. I currently am making some and will be doing more in the future. I will be back here in two weeks (I hope) but until then next week I will be doing my other blog, check that one out and check out my web store.

http://www.therealkamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

knifeman@webstore.com

Ready?

2011-04-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologize for not getting this on sooner. I began writing this post exactly one week ago. Along about the middle of this post we lost our electric power due to a nearby tornado. The power was out for six and one-half hours and I had much to do. Things got hectic during the week and I never got back to it.

First of all I would like to apologize to anyone that comes here expecting to see weekly updates. I find that I do not have the time or the information to pass on. From now on, I will be posting a new entry on this blog every other Sunday. On the Sundays I do not post on this blog, I will be posting on my political blog. I guess I have taken on too many things. Besides writing for the local weekly paper, I also write for two magazines and have recently opened a store on Webstorencom. the address is knifeman@webstore.com. I sell knives, coins, books, magazines, and various other items. Well enough advertising, time to get some info in this blog.

The scenario that I am going to cover this week is runaway, hyper inflation. The reason for covering that is that is what I feel is coming soon. If you take a look at the gasoline prices you know that everything else will soon follow. With diesel fuel currently over four dollars a gallon, you know the cost of trucking will have to go up. that means food prices will go up along with everything else that is hauled by truck, which is almost everything. Next week I will be covering more about inflation in my political blog, so this week I am going to try to cover what we all need to do.

First of all, if you have any gold or silver, hang on to it. Silver has passed the forty dollar an ounce mark and I feel it will go higher. If you do not have any silver and you have some extra cash I would still go out and buy some. If you already have some silver buying a little more would no hurt. Do not spend all of your cash on silver, there are a couple of other things that I think are currently more important.

Food is one big item that you should be storing up right now. Start with food and if nothing else you can eat well and use the rest of your money for other necessities. For an inflationary period canned food is a good bet. This is not a scenario where we feel we will have to evacuate and carry the food with us. This makes canned foods, frozen foods (if you have freezer space), dried foods such as beans, noodles, rice, instant potatoes and other dry items important.

One of the things I plan to do this year is much more fishing than I have done lately. I do not intend to fish for sport, I am going out and fish for pan fish, catfish and other fish to be used for food. Remember, fish are a healthy food and if you can catch them yourself, you can save some money. If you have looked at fish prices in the supermarket lately you can see how much money you can save.

Another thing that everyone that has space to do is to raise a garden. It does not matter how large or small your garden is, whatever you are able to grow will help keep the food costs down. If you have a big enough area and can grow a fairly large garden, you can can or freeze some of your produce. For those of you who just cannot raise a garden, start collecting wild foods. I do both and if you have the option to do so, you should. When thinking about wild food do not just think about wild plants. Think about plants that are left over from abandoned farms. As I wonder through the woods looking for edibles, whether hunting or just looking for plants, I try to find areas where there are abandoned farms. Several years ago I discovered a farm which has been taken over by the State Natural Resource Department. I discovered a plum tree and an apple tree. As this is public land, the fruit is on a first come first serve basis. For the past two years we have picked enough to make a year's supply of applesauce. things like this can stretch your food budget.

As the price of meat is about to skyrocket, hunting should be high on your list. We very seldom purchase beef as we try to substitute venison, which I shoot. I got skunked last season so we do not have our usual supply. We really notice the difference in the food budget. Rabbits, squirrels, ducks, geese, pheasant, grouse, etc. are all good meat suppliers. These are the small game that everyone should have a least a couple of in their area.

This brings me to one last item that is high on my survival list: ammo. That is correct, you need to have an excellent supply of ammo on hand right now. Prices are going no place but up as everything else does also. Get as much ammo on hand as you can afford. Get big supplies of ammo for each and every gun you own. This includes rifles, shotguns and handguns. If you own a couple of .22s buy as much as you can afford of ammo for them. I do not believe that a person can have too much .22 ammo.

Those are just a few things that should be done immediately. There are more things but a lot of them should already have been done or at least planned for. Remember, a good survivalist is ready for anything. Until next time, check out my political blog next week and back here in two weeks. Check out my web store.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

www.knifeman@webstore.com

More Nuclear Info.

2011-03-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

With what just happened in Japan, it is even more critical that we start thinking about nuclear survival. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan gave us a small look at what nuclear fallout is about. This could happen in this country and we had better know what to do. Those of you who live close to a nuclear power plant and on a major fault line need to be the most prepared. This is especially true on the coasts where a tsunami is possible after the earthquake. However, anyone living within one hundred miles of a nuclear power plant should prepare for a possible meltdown.

I talked last week about having shelter and a two day supply of food and water. In past entries I have covered how to protect your electronic equipment if it was a war and the bomb was exploded in the atmosphere causing EMP. This time I am going to talk strictly about protecting yourself from fallout. This information will be valid whether it is a bomb exploded in the air, a dirty bomb detonated at ground level of a nuclear accident.

First you will need to think about long term shelter. Right now in Japan they are telling people within a fifty mile radius of the nuclear plant not to go outdoors. They are also considering expanding the area to one hundred miles radius. You must know where you are going to make your stand. As I stated last week, having a root cellar/bunker at your home would be your best possibility. In the first place you could store all of your garden produce and canned goods in the root cellar making it a great place to have to spend time, no shortage of food. You could also store much of your emergency supplies like radios, gas masks, flashlights and anything else you would want to have with you.

Whatever you do for a fallout shelter, having the mass between you and the fallout is the important thing. For the first few hours a person could survive in a large road culvert or a tunnel or even an underground parking garage. However, for long term survival, you need to refer to the above paragraph. You could also fortify an above ground building such as a garage or shed or even a room in your home. Underground is best but you can make many other things work.

One of the things that you need to store a lot of is water. You can live without food a lot longer than you can live without water. The best way would be several fifty-five gallon barrels with lids and lined with plastic bags or sheet plastic. You could also use metal garbage cans with plastic liners if you cannot get barrels. You are going want to add some chlorine bleach to your water to keep it pure. Several drops per gallon of water of unscented bleach will keep the water pure. You could also store several cases of bottled water for drinking. that way the other water could be used for cooking and bathing. There is no such thing as having too much water stored. Having a well close to your shelter with a manual pump on it would be a huge plus. However, you would still have to store enough to get you through until it was safe to go outside.

Sanitary and bathroom facilities in a shelter can be a great concern. For a couple of days a five gallon pail with a lid and a seat will suffice. However, for longer term use something else will have to be done. Here I suggest one of the porta-pots that campers use. You will still have the problem of emptying it when the holding tank gets full. Here is another place where a fifty-five gallon drum or a large garbage can could be used. this should be lined with plastic and have a very tight fitting lid to control the odor. Having a bag or two of barn lime on hand to sprinkle on the top of what is just dumped in will help a lot with odor also. You need to remember that you are going to have to be able to get the container out of the shelter when it is safe to do so. If you have a two wheeled hand truck outside of the shelter this could be used.

There are many plans to make to keep yourself and your family safe in a nuclear disaster, be it a bomb or simply a power plant problem. I will continue next week with things like cooking, weapons and other necessities. Until then, check out my other blog and check out my web store.

The political blog is at: http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

My store is at: www.knifeman@webstore.com

Nuclear Survival

2011-03-13T20:18:00.001-07:00

What would do if you knew the possibility of a nuclear attack was possible? What would you do if you knew it was imminent? Are you ready for something like this? Surviving a nuclear blast is not impossible, in fact it is not even close to impossible. That is, you can survive it if you are prepared.

The first thing you would need is a place to be protected from the radiation. You have to know if you are going to stay where you are or leave. Even if you are intending to leave at the first warning, I would suggest that you also prepare a backup plan in case the attack is unexpected and finds you at home. If you live in a house, rather than an apartment, with a basement, it can be as simple as a small area in one corner. Set up what may look like a small flat roofed house in that corner. The flat roof of the house should be below the level of any windows in the basement. The longest side of the shelter should be totally enclosed. the end should be open so you can get in but there should be something that you can pull behind you to shut that off too. Store enough ready to eat food inside the shelter for two days. You should not have to spend more than two days in the shelter. If you live in an apartment in a city, pick the best closet nearest the center of the apartment and use that as your shelter. Again, have two days of food and water in the closet. Whatever you use you need to be sure it is big enough for your entire family to stay in for two days.

Radioactive fallout is carried by particles of dust or smoke caused by the mushroom cloud. These particles float through the air and if there is little or no wind the will not go far. However, there is usually enough wind to carry the particles quite some distance. The closer to ground zero, the more of the fallout will occur. The radiation is not carried in air it needs the particles to carry it and the particles need to land on something to make it radioactive. As the particles fall, the farther away you are the less particles are going to get there. The particles are dangerous because the emit radiation that can penetrate most walls, roofs, clothing, water and most other materials. you need eleven inches of concrete or sixteen inches of earth to stop that radiation completely. You would need over three feet of wood because it is not dense enough to stop the radiation. That is the reason that in a basement you want the shelter below the level of the windows and below the level of the ground surrounding the basement. You can also stack items on top of the shelter to provide even more protection. While the fallout is initially very potent it weakens as time passes. After seven or eight hours it is only about one tenth as potent and after two days it is only about one one hundredth as strong. This is an amount that, if you take proper precautions you can move about in.

What you will need in your shelter beside food and water for two days is flashlights, plates and utensils for eating, something to go to the bathroom in, (a five gallon bucket with a seat and a plastic bag liner and a cover, toilet paper, a radio and any prescription drugs that are needed. this should hold you for the two days that you will need to stay in the temporary shelter. After that it will depend on whether you are going to stay or go as to what you will need.

For those of you that are going to stay put, you may want to think about building a permanent shelter. Those of you who live in the country or very small towns and grow their own vegetables (as all survivalists should) could build a root cellar. At least that is what you could tell anyone that got nosy and wanted to know what you are doing. As I currently do not have a permanent shelter and intend to stay where I am, that is one of my ideas. You could make it as long and wide as you felt necessary for the number of people that are going to use it. I would then dig down about four feet and start from there. I would build a wood structure out of two inch lumber and would cover that with about six inches of concrete and cover that with about eight or ten inches of dirt. I believe that the combination would give me all the protection I would need. A person could use a root cellar/bunker like this to store all of their survival food and a lot of other gear. Putting in shelves and racks for food and supplies would not be difficult with the wood walls. that is one of the reasons that I would go for the wooden structure. You could even go deeper than the four feet if you wanted to. If you went five feet down and two feet above ground, once you put the cement and dirt on top of it you could have a nice rounded area where you could plant grass and it would not look too out of place. Do not forget to put a air vent in the roof. Otherwise you could use up all of the oxygen and suffocate when you had to use it. A six inch length of PVC pipe could be stuck through a hole in the wooden roof and the cement and dirt could be poured around it. Cut it off at ground level and put an elbow on it so that you are not going to get fallout straight down the pipe.

There is much more that needs to be said and I will continue on from here next time. I will not be gone as long as I have been this time. I will try to get everything done in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, check out my other blog at;

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Coming Up?

2011-02-05T20:28:00.001-08:00

In my last entry, a couple of weeks ago, I spoke of a possible civil war (if any war can be civil). This week I am going to present another scenario. This is a scenario that would entail martial law and that in itself would cause an uprising.

We have all heard that many people do not think that our pretendsident is qualified to be president of the United States of America. Many people believe that he was born in Kenya. I do not know that, but I do know that his father was a British subject thereby making Hussein Obama ineligible to be president. He can only be a pretendsident. The reason I know this is that he put that fact in one of his books. When it was found out the John McCain was born in Panama to U.S. military parents, he was thoroughly vetted. However, even though it was brought up before the election, B. Hussein Obama was never vetted. This is because the drive by media is in the pocket of the democrats and the unions and they would not let it happen. Since he has been elected, there have been numerous lawsuits brought against him. He has spent several million dollars making sure his records stay hidden. The government propaganda media, also known as the mainstream media, is still carrying his water as most of them view him as some sort of god.

The sad thing about the question of whether he is a legal American that has the right to be president is that the courts will not make a decision on it. Either they are being threatened or they are fasciunists like so many demlicans and some republicrats. There is no reason the the court should not rule that he must prove once and for all that he has the right to be where he is. Our courts are failing the citizens of this country by not bringing this to a close.

Now is when it is going to become a little tougher for him to run again in 2012. Several states are working on legislation that will make it a law that before being put on their ballot each candidate must be vetted and proved to be eligible to hold the office. That means that if B. Hussein Obama wants to run in 2012, and he is already starting his campaign, he is going to have to prove in those states that he is in fact eligible. That could just present a major problem for him. What do you suppose he will do if he is denied the spot on the ticket? Does anyone see the possibility that if or when he realizes that he cannot get on some states ballots, a major catastrophe will take place calling for martial law? Is this man capable of doing such a thing? I believe he is and I believe he will do it. B. Hussein Obama is such a narcissist that he will feel that he has to control America and will do anything to continue. His adoring, worshiping fasciunists and the major bowing, scraping, butt kissing media will portray him as a hero for doing it. You see, they will be able to remain in business as long as they toe the fasciunist line.

B. Hussein Obama is working as hard as possible to ruin this country as fast as possible. He has run the debt up to fourteen trillion dollars and talks about spending more this year. He calls it investment when it really is throwing money away. He has virtually stopped all drilling in the Gulf causing the loss of millions of dollars in lease money and also the loss of thousands of jobs. His government has not been selling leases to allow drilling on land either, also costing millions in lost revenue and more lost jobs. He wants green energy which cannot compete without government money and will not replace oil for many years. He is bowing to the wacko environmentalists. He also bows to the homosexuals, the unions and is in bed with the big Wall Street bankers.

So, if these states pass the laws to vet presidential candidates, look for a calamity of some sort to happen before the 2012 election. If it does, look for martial law. If that happens, what is going on in Egypt right now will look like a Sunday School Class outing. Be ready, and keep up with my other blog which will tell you more things to do to get ready. That blog is at:

http://www.sasl.blogspot.com

Financial or Catastrophe

2011-01-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

I have been writing about a financial and what we need to do to survive it. Now I have been getting some information from a fairly good source that we may be in for more than just a financial meltdown. I am no scientist, so what I am going to say here relies on what I gleaned from scientists and what NASA supposedly knows about and is preparing for.

What I am being told is that there is going to be major sunspot action in late 2011 and all of 2012 culminating in severe action late in 2010. Why should we be worried about sunspots? They can take out our entire electrical grid, our phone system, satellite communications and many other electronic items. It sounds to me that this would be a lot like the aerial nuclear blast I was talking about a couple of blogs ago. I am not sure how to prepare for it exactly, but I am going to do many of the things I talked about in that blog. Go back a couple of blogs and check that one out. This could be even worse if the sunspots take out our electrical grid or even part of it. We barely have enough grid to keep everyone supplied at the present time. If even half of it were taken out, the entire country would be in deep doo doo.

In one of the articles I read, the person writing it said that it could virtually cause a nuclear winter. It could cause flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes and virtually wipe out the entire country. This was his worst case scenario but even the possibility is enough to make on think long and hard about what to do.

Whatever happens, financial meltdown, sunspot catastrophe, or even war, we need to be prepared. I have written many things in past blogs and some of you may want to go back and check them out to see what I deem as being prepared.

Something I probably have not talked about enough is having enough medical supplies and equipment on hand. Now here I am not talking about a first-aid kit, even an elaborate one. I am talking about a full scale medical kit. I had started building one a few years ago but got sidetracked and never finished it. Now I intend to get back to it and should the events of 2012 that are predicted occur, I will be ready. Getting all of the equipment is expensive, but then it is our lives we are talking about.

First of all, anyone that is on prescription medications needs to have as much on hand as you can talk your doctor into. I know that there are some medications that you cannot stock up on due to certain laws. Anything that you can talk you doctor into giving you a year's supply for, do it. Everything else, do the best you can. Next, begin to study natural medicine and see if there is something that you can make up from nature that will take the place of your prescription. In future blogs I will be giving some recipes for a few items which I make. I currently do not make any internal medicine and will probably not give a lot of those recipes anyway because every person is different and will need to do some research on what they need. I will probably give some suggestions of what plants to look for but that will be about all.

Another thing you will need is a complete set of tools. You will need forceps, various tweezers, several types of scissors, suture equipment (needles, suture thread, etc.), dental pics and more. Remember, we are talking about caring for teeth, ears, eyes and all the rest of the body. I would purchase and put aside a couple pair of the cheap reading glasses for anyone in the family that has eye problems. Buy two or three each of several different strengths. Have tooth and gum medicine to control pain. They make a temporary filling that should still be available somewhere. If you know anyone in group that wears dentures or even a partial plate, have a denture repair kit in your medical kit. There are many other things that I could list and in future blogs I may from time to time list a few. What everyone needs to do is to try to visualize every medical problem that you may encounter. Eliminate the ones that you know you cannot help such as doing an appendectomy or heart surgery and for the ones that you could possibly take care of, get the right equipment and supplies.

There is something else that is very important. Make sure that you are in the best physical shape that you can possibly be in. Taking your age into consideration, try to get as physically fit as possible. If you are not now in good shape, there is no better time to start a training program than right now. I have already started mine and am trying to do three things. Number one, I am trying to lose some weight, number two, I am trying to gain some strength and number three I am trying to improve my endurance. If I can do these three things, I will be happy. At my age I know I am not going to get back to where I was at 35, but I can be better than I currently am.

We will talk more about all of this in my next blog entry. Until then check out my other blog.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Getting Ready

2011-01-11T18:50:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last posting that I believe we are in for a financial meltdown and that I am starting to get ready for it. I said that I would let you know what I am doing and what I believe every survivalist should do. So, here goes!

First you need to look at what the price of gasoline might be. If it doubles, will you be able to afford to drive your present vehicle? I do not think that I would be able to. Therefore, I am rebuilding an old motorcycle and keeping both of our bicycles in good shape. We live in the country about six miles from town and I believe that I could ride my bicycle to town to pick up a few items. For more than a few items or traveling farther I would use the motorcycle. When I talk about motorcycles, I do not mean some big Harley that gets the same gas mileage as a mid-size car, I mean one of the older cycles in the 50 to 175cc range. The one I am rebuilding is a 1967 50cc bike. It is a two cycle engine so it will have plenty of power to carry me and will get excellent mileage. It has a kick starter and a three speed transmission. That type of cycle, a moped or a 50 or 100cc scooter is what I recommend for a survival vehicle in a financial meltdown.

If the price of fuel doubles, what do you think the price of groceries will be? The farmers will need to get more for their crops and the truckers will need to jack their rates up just to cover the cost of fuel. That should make the cost of food skyrocket. As I live in the country I am planning a larger garden this year than I had last year. I am also going to use as many non-hybrid seeds as possible so I can save my own seeds. This will mean the following year I will not have to buy nearly as many seeds and by then we may not even be able to buy any. I suggest that anyone that has space for even a small garden plant one. Plant in containers on the porch or deck and plant in the house if you have to. Another thing that I am going to do to supply my food is to raise chickens. I intend to go to a small animal auction and purchase six heavy laying hens, one rooster and two bantam hens. Six laying hens will provide plenty of eggs for my wife and I and when we get ahead on eggs, we will put some under the bantams to hatch. Most breeds of modern chickens have had the hatching gene bred out of them. They will not set on eggs till they hatch. However, the bantams are still excellent for this purpose, which is why I am going to have a couple. The eggs that the bantams hatch will be used according to our needs. Some of the hens will be kept to replace the older hens, while any hens over six will be used for fryers along with the roosters that are born. The old hens that are culled out will be used for stewing and soup. In this way we can provide our own eggs and some meat. For those of you who cannot have chickens where you live, I really do not know what to tell you. Perhaps you could get someone who lives close to you but in an area where chickens are able to be raised and by purchasing more chickens than you need and the feed for them split the eggs and meat. We are all going to have to work together.

I am going to do an extra amount of fishing, hunting and wild plant gathering. Fishing and hunting can both provide meat and wild plant gathering will add to the gardening I am going to do. One of the things I am going to do with the fish and game I get as well as much produce from my garden is to can it. If all other fuels go up, you can expect the price of electricity to skyrocket right along with everything else. It may ever come to the point that some of us will not even be able to afford to pay our electric bills. That is one of the reasons that I am going to put less in the freezer and can more. Fruits and vegetables can be canned, meat can be canned and there are ways to can fish. I am also going to build a smoke house so that I can smoke some of my fish and possibly some meat. Some things can also be salt cured. Look back to the old ways and bring some of them back to life. What did people to to preserve their food before electricity? The fact that I am going to do more hunting and fishing and gathering is another reason that I want a bicycle and a motorcycle. I have several areas in which to fish within five miles from home. These places will be reached by bicycle. I have to go farther to do any hunting that I cannot do on my five acres, so that is where the motorcycle will come in handy.

While there is much more I will be doing to get ready, I am going to change the subject and talk to those of you who may live in cities or large towns or villages. If I were you I would be ready to move out at a moments notice. I feel that there is going to be widespread rioting and looting once the people cannot afford food and the government is not there to help them. Plan now to have a place to go. If you have relatives that live in the country or even a small town, that may be where you want to go. I have four children and five grandchildren along with a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law and they all would be welcome here if things got to bad where they are. If you do not have relatives strategically located, do you possible have a good friend that is. By offering to help them out they may allow you to live on their property. If nothing else, locate a spot in a national forest and set yourself for long term camping. Hopefully it would not be too long. At all costs, get out of the cities if you value your life. At least in the forest you could gather enough food to live on. If you have been reading this blog for a while you may have noticed that I talk a lot about having food set aside for this type of situation. If you do not now have a supply of survival food, go back into my past blogs and see what I believe you need. Then if you need to cut out and live for awhile away from everything, you will be prepared. Being prepared for whatever comes up is what survivalism is all about.

There is much more that I am going to do, but that will have to wait for my next post. I will give plans for security, medical and several other things. Stay tuned and in the meantime check out my other blog.

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Coming Soon

2011-01-05T20:21:00.000-08:00

As this is a survival blog, I sometimes write about what I see upcoming and what I will be doing about it along with what I believe that everyone should be doing. Have I been wrong about what I think is upcoming? You bet I have and yet I have never lost money or gotten behind because of the preparations I made. What I try to do is to keep things on a reasonable level so that if what I believe will happen, actually happens, I will be prepared. If what I believe will happen does not happen, I will be no worse off than if I did not prepare. The secret is living a survival lifestyle in the first place. This may mean that you will have to change some hobbies for other ones. Say you love golf and have never fished. As a survivalist fishing is one way we prepare to obtain food. This means you may have to give up golf or at least cut back and take up fishing. What I see in the near future is a worldwide financial meltdown. I am not alone in this but most people think we that see it coming are nuts. A couple of big financial planners seem to think the same way I do and some of what I have gleaned was from their writings. Much of it was what I came up with just by watching how things are going. I will go through a few things that I see and then if there is enough space on tonight's blog, I will get into what I am about to do. If the blog gets too long my plans will have to wait until next week.

The first thing to look at is the national debt. It is very nearly fourteen trillion dollars and growing every day. Every day we borrow more and more money, most of it from the Chinese. The only reason the we have been able to get away with it thus far is that the dollar is the world trade currency and we have the printing press for that money. What do you suppose would happen if another currency became the world trade currency? We would then have to purchase that currency so we could trade with other countries. If you think that another currency taking over for the dollar is far fetched, it is not. The world bank has floated the idea of a currency that would be used ONLY for trade. Several European and Asian countries got together for a meeting without the U.S. to talk about how they could structure trade without using the dollar. China and Japan and China and Russia are close to starting to trade in each others currency. One of the thing that dollars being the official trade currency does is keep the price of gasoline lower than it would otherwise be. That is why, although we are paying about three dollars a gallon, that is the cheapest of any industrial country, with most of them ranging in the four to eight dollar range. Already Iran, Kuwait and Qatar have ceased to accept dollars for oil. If a few more countries do this you will see our gasoline prices spike to at least seven dollars a gallon.

We already cannot pay off our debt because we are running yearly deficits and borrowing more and more to just run the country. As we all know, "You cannot get out of debt by borrowing more money." This is one of the reasons the other countries in the world are looking for something other than the dollar to do business with. If that does happen, and I believe it will, the U.S. will have to really crank up the printing presses. When they do that inflation will skyrocket like no one alive has ever seen in this country. We have all heard about it happening in other countries, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Germany and several others, but it can never happen here. WRONG!!! It can and will happen and when it does the government will have to pull the plug on a lot of the "entitlements" that we now have. Let's face it we have thirteen percent of the population on food stamps. Large percentages on other government programs like medicaid and rent assistance along with a ton of other ways that people are living off other people's money. We are fast approaching the point where if everyone was taxed at one hundred percent of their income, we will not be able to even pay the interest on the debt. What happens then?

I am looking for the dollar to lose its standing in the world. It is already losing it in some countries. The largest bank in Mexico will no longer take deposits in dollars. Countries where tourists are used to spending dollars are no longer taking them either. Some countries are not even exchanging dollars for their own money. China is getting rid of dollars as fast as they can and China is the largest holders of dollars in the world. Here in the U.S. there are places that are now accepting the Mexican peso and the Euro. There also a number of states that are printing their own money. This is not illegal, but a lot of people do not know that. Our monetary laws allow the making of private money as long as we do not try to pass it off as official U.S. money. Also, you do not have to accept U.S. currency in payment for things that you are selling.

What do I think is going to happen? First the dollar loses its standing, next the feds crank up the presses and start printing money. Now things get out of hand because just the rise of gasoline will cause much inflation. Truckers will have to double and triple their rates for hauling food and farmers will either have to get a lot more for their crops or the will not be able to afford fuel and they will go out of business. This will mean that food will go sky high and there will also be shortages. That would mean the end of food stamps and all of the other entitlements and that would mean riots and anarchy. If that were to occur it would probably mean martial law. From there it is hard telling what might happen. It could mean all out war or most likely every person for themselves.

That is what I feel is going to happen. What am I going to do? I will let you know in my next posting. For those of you who also follow my fasciunism blog, this weeks will be a lot like this posting. You may want to check it though, I may have even more to say about what I feel is going to happen.

Check it out at: http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Ready?

2010-12-18T18:46:00.000-08:00

Are every one of you survivalists out there ready? Let's have a little review of things that you need if you are to be ready.

First of all we need to take a look at food. We all need two weeks of highly portable food, packed and ready to take and bug out at a moments notice. You may believe that you will not have to bug out as you live in an out of the way place. That is what I hope also. I live at the end of a dead end road with only one neighbor withing the first half mile. However, I still have my bug out gear ready. Along with the food you need some other supplies with that food. You should have a good sturdy knife in the gear along with a gun if possible. I have a take apart .22 auto pistol in my gear and that will be in addition to the hi-power bolt action rifle that I hope to be able to grab on my way out. That rifle is where I can get it quickly and there are 100 rounds of ammo right next to it. I also have 200 rounds of .22 ammo in my bug out gear. You will need at least a first aid kit in the gear and possibly a partial medical kit. That all depends where you intend to go if you need to bug out. You should probably have a sleeping bag or at least a good blanket and a tarp with the gear. A flashlight and some candles along with waterproof matches need to be there too. Some type of camp stove may be in order. I have a two burner folding Sterno stove and four of the large cans of Sterno. Actually you could do away with the Sterno as these little stoves can sit right on a bed of coals from a small fire. You may want to include a compass with the gear as well as some survival fishing gear.

That is about the extent of my bug out gear. If you are somewhat more sure that you will have to bug out (if for instance you live in a larger city) you may want to add various other items. Also, if you do not intend to return to your present location it would be a good idea to have much more. At that point I would have items that could go into the trunk of my car or my SUV or pickup. However, I would still have my two week bug out gear packed and ready.

Next, you need to have a supply for if you are going to stay where you are. Even if you know you may have to leave for at least a while, you still should supply your needs for a two year period. For those of you who may have cabins in the woods or some other remote place, much of what you are going to store should be there. You are going to need to find a spot to store your two year supply whether it be in your home or in your cabin. For those of us in the northern half of the country, we need to make sure that our food does not freeze.

When you are thinking about your two year supply, do not just think food. Think things like toilet paper, women's sanitary needs, shaving equipment and other incidentals. You may also want to stock up on vitamins and supplements. Most of them have a two year shelf life so if you are taking certain ones now, get a two year supply and just keep using the oldest in your stash and replace them as you use up a bottle. I would suggest that you keep at least multi-vitamins on hand. I also take C, E, A & D, B-Complex and several supplements. That is just me, many of you will not want to do that. I do not have a full two year supply on all of my vitamins and supplements, only C, & E and the multi. Another thing to do is to try to have any prescriptions you may take as far ahead as your doctor will allow. The ones I take I have from six to fifteen month ahead. You may want also to find out what natural supplement you could use to replace your prescriptions with.

You should also have a good supply of arms and ammunition on hand. Some of this should be well hidden yet fairly easy to get at. I am intending to do another column on what I believe is the weapons and ammo to have on hand. I may have done one early in this blog, but feel it may be good to revisit that problem.

There are many more things that I feel that we should all have on hand such as silver or gold for trade. I also believe that having a large stock of ammunition on hand might come in handy as barter goods. You should know something about wild plants for both food and medicine. You should also know how to hide your stores and equipment without breaking the bank. I have written a book titled "Stash-It", which contains much information about hiding your goods. It sells for $8.50 and if anyone is interested, leave me a note in the comment section of this blog and I will get back to you.

Until next week check out:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Food

2010-12-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

I know that I was talking about EMP last week and there is more I could say. However, there are other things that need attention. I feel that you could handle EMP by using Faraday boxes and being careful, so I am going to a different subject. I will try to get back to EMP in a future blog.

What I want to talk about this week is food. You see, our government and other global elites are attempting to take over the food production and starve a good share of the world. This is fasciunism rearing its ugly head in the most hideous way. If you know what senate bill S510 is you will realize that it is a bill to control all food production in this country. It was shot down due to the fact that it originated in the senate and any bill that requires funding cannot be originated in the senate. So as usual, the democrats are using a dirty tactic to get their bill passed. They are attaching it to the budget extension bill and using that to get it through. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Here is an interesting fact. Monsanto, the huge global agribusiness company has recently bought Blackwater. That is the mercenary group that got in so much trouble in Iraq. What in the world does an agribusiness company need with a group of mercenaries? could it be because they are they are creating seeds that are so genetically modified that they will not produce seeds? Once you harvest your crop, you will have to go back to Monsanto to buy more. They call this the "terminator" seeds. Apparently they intend to destroy and control all of the food supply world wide and make farmers come begging for more seed. There is a good possibility that these seeds will produce food with decreased nutritional value.

I believe that this is a fasciunist plot to control the population. Once again it is government and business getting together to control what we can do and how we can live. As a survivalist, it think that we all need to purchase garden seeds that are open pollinated and not purchase any hybrids. If you have never gardened, start this year. Plant as little or as much as you have space for and learn to save seeds. I am going to purchase all heirloom seeds this year. These are all open pollinated and I can save seeds and grow another crop next year.

Many of you reading this may live in apartments or areas where you cannot have a garden. Start some plants in containers. If you have the right size containers you can grow just about any vegetable that can be grown in a garden. Now is no time to hesitate. Things are moving faster and faster and it does not look good. I have written much about the idea of having a two year supply of food stored. This is what I am still recommending. When a company like Monsanto gets their own mercenary group, it is time to take notice.

If S510 should pass, the fasciunist government of this country would have control over all farming operations. This includes the small family farms, part-time farms, small truck farms and anyone that sells their product on the market. It would mean an end to farmer's markets and sales of produce and eggs at flea markets. This is why it is imperative that every survivalist starts now to produce some of their own food.

There is also another thing that those of you who may live in apartments or other areas where a regular garden can be grown. Go out and learn how to find, harvest and use wild foods. This is something that I do even though I have my two year supply of food. There are many things that you can find in the wild if you study on it and then go out and look. If you get lucky you may even find an apple or plum tree where there once was a farm that no longer exists. I have an apple tree in the wild and for the past two years my wife and I have picked apples there and made apple sauce from them. Do anything you can to make sure that you will have a food supply when things really get bad.

See you next week. Until then check out:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

EMP

2010-12-02T18:05:00.000-08:00

Like on my other blog, I have been on a long hiatus from writing. Most of what kept me away from my blogs is finished now and I should be able to get back to a once a week entry.

EMP or electro-magnetic pulse is something that could happen if a nuclear bomb were exploded in the atmosphere. By exploding a two megaton bomb at an altitude of two hundred miles over Kansas, the EMP would cover the entire continental United States. What would happen is that most of the electrical plants would be knocked off line and also most of the telephones and TV and radio would be affected. The pulse from EMP goes into the power lines, phone lines, etc. and follows them to points of beginning or end. In other words, if a pulse got into an electric line to which you are hooked, it could go one way and take out the power plant and would also come into your home via the electric wires and take out whatever you had plugged in at the time. Think of the chaos this would cause over the entire country.

If another country wanted to start a war with us, a large nuclear device exploded above our country would be a good way to begin. A nuclear blast would put out a large amount of electronic energy which would get into all of our electronic equipment. There are differences of opinion on how some things would be affected. Some believe that most cars on the road would be affected and come to a stop. They also believe that it could affect airplanes and that they could fall from the sky. Trains and buses would also be affected under those circumstances. The military hardened most of its equipment back during the cold war. However, since the end of the cold war they have been pretty lax about keeping it up. That means it is hard to know how well our military could react to something like this. Homeland security, both state and federal agencies, have done very little to either get a handle on this project or to notify the public about what could happen and how to prepare for it.

While I do not know how to harden equipment to withstand EMP, I do know how to protect some of your equipment: it is called a Faraday Box. A Faraday Box need be little more than a cardboard box into which you put a radio of something else you wish to protect. You then cover the box with aluminum foil. The box must be completely covered with no seams showing and no open areas. The aluminum foil will stop the EMP pulse and the cardboard will insulate it from the metal. You could use an old ammo box as long as you put cardboard on the bottom and the item being protected was not touching the metal of the inside of the box.

My suggestion for all survivalists is to put a few items into these Faraday boxes and store them for the possibility they will be needed. A short wave radio, a CB radio, a regular AM and FM radio (or a combination type radio). You might also want to put in an older computer hard drive if you think that you would need one. I do not believe the phone lines will be up very soon so I do not have one. You will need a good supply of batteries to power all of your equipment as there may not be electricity for quite a length of time. If your cars are all newer and have all of the electronic computers and gadgets to keep them running, you will want to put a complete ignition setup into a Faraday Box so that if ye EMP takes out your car you can get it back on the road. However, if the EMP takes out the electricity, you may not be able to buy gasoline anyway. I have a 1967 small motorcycle that would use very little gas and would allow me to get around.

You are going to make up your own mind what you think you will need as the power comes back on. Those of you who may have the old vacuum tube radios are lucky, all you need to do is keep them unplugged when not in actual use.

There are more things that I could say about this but I will wait until my next post. Until then check out; http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Chickens

2010-04-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

The title "Chickens" may seem kind of strange for a survival blog, however, that is what I am going to be talking about this time. I believe that anyone that has the location and the opportunity should raise chickens. This is an idea that came to me within the last couple of weeks. I have raised chickens in the past and found that it is not difficult.

How to go about it is what I have been working on for my own flock. Also I have been working on how many and what type. Anyone can raise chickens if they have some room and the area where you live does not have an ordinance against it. Even many smaller cities and especially towns and villages allow a few chickens in the backyard. For those of us that live in the country, we have a lot less to worry about.

Here is what I have come up with and what I am going to do. There is just my wife and myself to feed so I feel that six laying hens will be about right. That should give us between two and three dozen eggs per week in the summer (too many) and about a dozen to eighteen eggs per week in the winter. I am going to find a small animal auction or a poultry show at which to purchase my chickens. I intend to purchase full grown hens of about a year to two years old. This is when hens are at their peak for laying. I intend to buy a larger breed of hens in the range of Rhode Island Reds or Brahmas. I will get to why I am purchasing the heavier breeds in a moment. I also intend to purchase a rooster and either one or two Bantam hens.

The reason for the rooster is to make sure that the eggs are fertile. The reason for the Bantam hens is that most hens will not set on a nest and hatch eggs out and Bantams will. During the summer when there is a surplus of eggs, I intend to have the Bantam(s) sitting on eggs and hatch perhaps as many as fifteen or even twenty-five chicks. Each year I will replace the three oldest hens in the flock with three young hens which I have raised. The hens that I replace will be butchered and used for soup. The rest of the young chickens will be raised to the appropriate size; some for fryers and some for roasting. Being able to have a good roasting chicken is the reason I am going to the heavy breeds. Also, many of the heavy breeds lay brown eggs and we prefer brown eggs.

I intend to build a small chicken coop and have a fenced yard for them to get their exercise in. I intend to keep a supply of lawn clippings in the yard for them to scratch in and also to put all table scraps into the yard. Mixed with the manure that they lay down, this will make excellent compost for the garden each time it gets too deep and I have to clean it out.

There you have it; all of your fresh eggs, three soup chickens and possible fifteen fryers and five roasters. The fryer and roaster mix depends on your preferences. I will probably have to purchase some laying mash, but between the lawn clippings, garden waste and table scraps, that should be about all they will need. I believe this is an excellent way for a survivalist to have some of their own meat. If things get really rough, you would not even need the laying mash. All that would do is to cut down slightly on the egg production. Probably the best animal that a survivalist can raise for food.

Until next time check out my other blogs:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://www.realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

Medical

2010-03-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

With the advent of Obamacare, we need to also prepare for medical problems in our survival planning. It has always been necessary to have enough medical supplies and to know how to use them, with Obamacare in force it is even more important. One of the things I believe we all need to know now is how to find herbs in the wild and how to grow those that we need to grow. Here I am talking about medicinal herb, not the culinary type. You should know the culinary type also for your food supply, but the medicinal type are even more important.

I currently make a salve and ear drops. I did not get a start until last fall and I need to wait for summer to come and the herbs to start growing again. Actually, when making my salve, I had to purchase the comfry roots I needed. I also needed to purchase some beeswax to make it the consistency I wanted. I had the lard and the plantain that I needed and cannot grow the comfry until this year. Even then, you cannot use comfry roots until the third year. This means I will have to continue to purchase it until the plants that I am starting this year are ready.

There are many things that you can make that are totally safe and that will alleviate many of the problems that we may have. We also need to purchase as much first aid and medical equipment as possible. I am not sure at this point what is going to happen with our drugs and other medical supplies. I know that many medical devices are going to be taxed to make them much more expensive. If you feel you are going to need any of these items, now is the time to purchase them.

You should have a personal first aid kit for each member of the family. These kits can be the ones you purchase or you can make your own up. Even if you purchase one, you will need to add some things to it. You should include a few pills of any prescription medicine that the individual is taking. There may be other items such as a certain over the counter allergy pill that a person needs. This is one of the main reasons I make my own first aid kits up.

Every family should also have a very complete first aid kit or a medical kit. This should contain many items like sutures and special bandages along with medical tools. You will probably want to get only as much as you feel comfortable using. You may not feel ready to care for a bullet wound, but think about what you will do if some one receives on. You may want to study up on these things now so that you are ready if it happens. If it never happens, the knowledge will not hurt. This is true for learning about herbal medicine also. You may never need the knowledge, but if you do it will be too late when the ship hits the sand.

More next week. Until then check out my other two blogs at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://www.realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

Set

2010-03-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

Grab your butt with both hands and hang on, this is going to be a wild ride. Pretendsident Hussein has just driven the first wedge between the people of this country and the going is going to get rough. This health care bill has divided the country and his next gambit will finish the job. Now that he has a health care bill passed he is going to work on an immigration bill. He needs all of the invaders that are currently here to become citizens before November to have people to vote for the democrats. If he gets his way look for a civil war to start. Now is the time to get ready. As usual, I hope I am wrong but even if I am there will be no harm done by getting ready.

Now is the time to make sure you will have enough food for an extended period of time. If things get bad there will probably not be any deliveries to supermarkets and they will soon run out of food. Stock up as much as possible and if possible make plans to grow as much of your own food as possible. I will be growing less items in my garden this year but will be growing more of what I do grow. Staples like beans and tomatoes and other things that will keep like carrots and turnips. I am also planning to do some seed saving this year so that I do not need to purchase seeds if things get really bad. If you want to do this you will need to purchase heirloom seeds and not hybrids. You would probably do well to either purchase a good book on seed saving or look up as much as possible on the Internet and print out the information you need. There could be power outages or other interruptions of the Internet. Actually the FCC is currently looking for a way to give the pretendsident total control of the Internet if something like that would happen.

Just as soon as your food plans are complete, make sure your home defense plans are also complete. You are going to have to be able to protect your family and your property. This will be especially if you decide to grow food and are in a spot where people can see what you are doing. Try to camouflage your garden if it is in a place where you think the wrong people may see it. If you are lucky like me, you live at the end of a dead end road and very few people even come this way. You also need to make sure that you have enough firearms and ammo to ward off any dirtbags that try to get into your home to rip you off. You may also be in an area where actual rioting and fighting are going on. In that case be sure you can protect yourself and your family.

Try to have backups for everything that you consider necessary. That includes water, cooking methods, heat if you are in an area where it is needed in the winter, electricity, natural gas, etc. etc. You know what you believe is necessary and you also know your family. You know how they will handle such a situation and what they will need to survive.

More on this subject next week. Until then check out:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://www.realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

Ready

2010-03-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

Welcome to what I think is one of the most important times in the history of the United States. As I stated last week, I believe that martial law is coming and we need to be ready for it. I hope I am wrong and if I am I do not feel that anyone will lose anything by following my advice. My advice is to get as ready as possible to live without the rest of the world.

First I am getting my firearms ready. Now, there are a lot of people who say that you should hide all your guns just in case of martial law and the government coming for them. I have one problem with that thinking, "What am I supposed to do to protect myself if all my guns are hidden away?" My suggestion is to hide several guns but to keep several handy. If you are a person with only one or two guns I really do not know what to tell you. I guess I would say to deep the guns where you can get at them quick. My suggestion for those with multiple guns is to hide a .22 rifle, a 12 gauge shotgun, a pistol or two and a battle weapon. By this I mean a center fire rifle that you could use a a main defense weapon. It might be an AR 15 an AK 47 or some other weapon. It could be a .308 semi-auto or even a 30-06 bolt action. My feeling about battle weapon is to use whatever you have and are totally comfortable with.

How do we hide guns ? Well, one of the things that I think is best is to first put them in tubes made from PVC pipe. Then you can bury them without them rusting. Grease them up good first and put a desiccant pouch in with the gun. Make sure you put your ammo for that gun in the same tube as the gun or another shorter tube that is buried right next to the gun. Digging up a buried gun and not having the right ammo for it would be a kind of useless exercise.

For any interested I have written a book called "Stash It", which I sell for ten dollars. This book gives many ways to stash many things. If anyone is interested, leave me a not at the end of a post and I will get back to you. I believe that I have written in previous posts about what type of guns and how much ammo you need. I will cover that again in a future column, For now, just worry about getting your guns into a safe place with half of them hidden if you have enough guns.

That is all for now, see you next week. Until the check out;
http://www.therealamericanpolitics@blogspot.com

It is Coming

2010-03-06T21:29:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not keeping this blog nor my other blogs up. During the last few months we have been having some family health problems, (not me). There have also been some other issues which took a lot of my time. I feel that most of that is behind me now and I will be able to once again be able to keep all readers informed weekly as to what is going on in the world of survival. My posts may be a little shorter than in the past, I am hoping by keeping them shorter, I can be with you more often.

First of all I would suggest anyone join the "Well Regulated Militia" or some similar online group. Find a group like "Midwest Alarm and Muster" and join that also. We need to have a line of communications open at all time. When the ship hits the sand, it may come on very suddenly, not giving us much of a chance to get ready to defend ourselves and our loved ones. For those of you who do not read my political blog at http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com this week I wrote about why I think our pretendsident is pushing through all of the things that the people do not want. It is to get us angry enough to start an uprising and give the fasciunists a reason to call for martial law.

We have been through much of this before and I think all of you know what to do. I am currently ordering my seeds for my garden. I want them here early so that when it happens I do not get caught in the rush of all the rest of society fighting for what is left. I am currently buying heirloom seeds and very few hybrids. In this way I will be able to save seeds. I am currently getting all of my debts under control. In fact I am eliminating as many of them as quickly as possible. Hopefully the only thing I will owe by the first of July will be my mortgage. I wish I could get rid of that too, it is just not possible at this time.

I am currently also upgrading all of my self-defense weapons as well as my hunting weapons. I am cleaning up my fishing tackle as well so that I can get as much food as possible outside regular channels. I also have a list of places to pick berries and other wild food. The upgrading of my weapons is a serious matter as I feel that they will probably be needed. Next week I will take you into what I am doing and how I am going about it. Until then you might want to check out my political blog at:
http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Communication

2009-10-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

This is something that many survivalists overlook. With the coming of the cell phone, many people tell me that they think that is all they need. They laugh at short wave, CB and other two way radios as old fashioned and out of date. One of the scenarios that I have talked about many times that would take down this country the quickest is for a scattered group of terrorists to take down a bunch of our communication towers at one time, leaving this country in bad shape. I also do not like the fact that my cell phone message goes to a tower, then possibly to another tower before it gets to the person I am talking to. This makes it easy to intercept and listen to the messages. Even a natural disaster such as an earthquake, tornado or hurricane can take down enough towers to make cell phone usage impossible. An earthquake that takes down a bridge while you and your mate or another part of a survival group is on one side while you are on the other can make communication necessary. If that earthquake also takes down all of the surrounding cell phone towers, your cell phone will not do you much good. So, what is a survivalist to do?

First of all, I am not against cell phones. My wife and I each have one with our own phone number. We use TracFones. This is one of the prepaid services. We use this service for two reasons. Number one, we are not heavy users of our cell phones using them for emergencies and when we are out of town or on the road. When I am on a trip for hunting, fishing or to check out survival sites, I call in each night. Other than that we may not use our cell phones for a month or more at a time. Number two, I find that I have coverage in many spots where other cell phone users cannot get a signal. I am not sure why this is except that I know that TracFone uses any tower in the vicinity. Everyone should have a cell phone in this day and age as one of their means of communication. We also still keep our land line as our main phone system.

Having said that about cell phones, like anything else survival, you need an alternative. I know that CB has gone the way of the Dodo bird except for long haul truckers to ratchet jaw while they are on the highway. Having said that, it is still an excellent way to keep in touch and I have a 40 channel base in my house with a "Big Stick" antenna. I also have a hand held unit and two mobile units. While I do not have my mobile units in any of my vehicles at the present, I have them fixed so that I can have them up and running in the either or both vehicles in about a half hour. I have magnetic base antennas for both of them. That way when not in use, no one needs know I have them. The CB's are what my wife and I will rely on for up to five mile communication if our cell phones should ever fail.

We also have a good set of two way radios, that are good out to about a mile. These are what we use to stay in touch with one another here on our rural property. We use them for when I am out cutting firewood or out in the woods looking for edible plants. We also use them for communication when I am out working in my shop. They have call button and several channels. They are Midland LXT310's. I also have a multi-channel five mile range radio that has the same channels as the radios that my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids use. We use it hunting but it can have many other uses. I have one more five channel hand held that I got when I was testing radios for a survival group. That was back when I was writing my monthly survival newsletter.

While I do not yet have a short wave transmitter, I do have a receiver. I hope to be able to get to a swap meet and pick up a cheap transmitter and then get a license. However, even now, with the receiver, I can get messages and relay them by other means.

We cannot forget the computer as a means of communication. However, like the cell phone, we already know that terrorists from other countries have hacked into our internet connections and can get all of the information. Having an encoding system on your machine will help a lot but codes can be broken. Also, taking out communications might include our computer network as well as cell phones.

This may sound like overkill and it probably is. The reason I have so many layers of communications is that being a survival adviser, I try things out and then I just wind up keeping them. Each survivalist needs to decide what they need. Just make sure you have at least one method of communication besides your computer and your cell phone.

Until next time SURVIVE, and check out my other blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

H1N1/Health Care

2009-10-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

I am not as worried about surviving Swine Flu as I am about surviving the cure and now the national emergency declared by our pretendsident. I do not give advice as to whether to take the swine flu vaccine, all I can say is that I WILL NOT take it. With the declaring of a national emergency it is a possibility that the flu could become mandatory. If that is the case I think that things could get messy. They could get messy enough that martial law could be declared. I still believe that is what is going to happen. If not for the swine flu for something else. One more question I would like to ask. If the swine flu pandemic is a national emergency, why is not the HIV/aids pandemic an emergency. There are more people with HIV/aids in this country than there are people with swine flu. There have also been many more deaths from aids than swine flu. Is it because HIV/aids is a politically correct disease and swine flu is not? While HIV/aids is widespread among many types of people, it is spread by homosexuals, the group of people that are treated as better than the general population. They want special privileges for making a stupid lifestyle decision.

But to get back to the subject at hand swine flu and health care in general. My take on all health care is to stay the heck away from all doctors. Actually for myself, I get my health care from the VA and have to be checked over twice a year to keep in good standing. However, most of my health care is taken care of by myself with vitamins and supplements. Each winter I increase supplements that boost the immune system. I have never taken a flu shot in my life and do not intend to. I may get a mild cold during the winter but not usually.

As I believe I have previously written I am now getting back into herbal medicine. I have currently made an ear medicine and a salve. I would advise anyone to get some knowledge of natural healing. You do not need to get into it as deep as I am, but have an idea in case our fasciunist pretendsident and his fasciunist friends in the house and senate pass a bill that we cannot live with. If you are my age or have a disability, you may not get any health care at all. They just want to give people like us a couple of pills and tell us to go away and die. That is why in the spring I will be planting an herb garden and making even more of my meds.

So my survival advice on this subject is to learn about any natural ways to protect your health. If you are on prescription medicines right now, see how far ahead you can get your meds for. If you can have a years worth on hand that is great. If not, try to get six or even three month supplies at a time. Then try to find out if there is some natural supplement or herb that will do somewhat the same thing as the prescription you are taking. Either start getting that now or be ready to do so when the ship hits the sand, and it will. There are many books and much on the internet about all of these subjects so I am not going to go into specifics. If you need to know about one or two things in particular, just Google them and you should have all the info you need.

Until next time; SURVIVE and check out:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Bug Out Time??

2009-10-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

There is currently a lot a talk going around about a possibility that some of us may have to bug out. I am for staying put in an emergency unless it becomes a dire emergency. That is, if you live somewhere that is somewhat safe in that emergency. As a survivalist, we never know what the emergency will be. Should it be something like a forest fire, a hurricane or something similar, it would behoove us to move out. If you live in a fairly large city and rioting or other looting and anarchy takes over, it would also behoove you to move out. Those of us who live in smaller communities or in rural areas should plan on being able to protect what is ours and stay put in most circumstances. In that way you could continue your gardening, hunting, fishing and other food gathering in an area that you are very familiar with. However, having said all of that, it may still become necessary for us to bug out. So, how should we prepare to leave and find safety?

There are several things to look at here. First, are you going to be leaving by automobile or on foot? I personally am set to do either. I live in the country, six miles from the closest community and that community is under 1,000 people. I have two packs, one for myself and one for my wife, packed and ready. These packs contain enough for us to live for at least two weeks and much longer if we are able to procure some wild food. These packs contain all light weight food that does not need refrigeration and will keep for years. Most of it has been repackaged in vacuum sealed bags. That way each one can contain exactly what we want. There is a lightweight tarp to be used as a shelter, sleeping bags, first aid kit, a couple changes of socks each along with a change of under garments. Add one flashlight, one wind-up radio, any medicines that are necessary. a candle lantern and candles, a Sterno cook stove and several cans of Sterno, a mess kit each with eating utensils, a waterproof container of matches, a compass, a plant identification book and anything else that you feel is a necessity. If you are packing for two you will need to decide how to divide up the gear. My wife has had four back surgeries so I carry about two-thirds of the gear. You may also want to hang your knife and a machete along with your canteen on your pack. You will not want to keep the water in the canteen as it will get stale. Fill these just before you bug out. While I may have missed some things that others think are necessary, the items mentioned will get you through. Two other things I keep in my pack is fishing gear and my .22 pistol with 100 rounds of ammo. While a pistol is not as good as a rifle, for packing I prefer it. It is light and easy to pack and I practice with it enough to know I can take small game with it. A take down .22 rifle would also do. My fishing tackle is a collapsible rod and ultra-light reel along with a small box of hook, sinkers, spinners and not much more.

Should I be able to leave by motor vehicle, I have a pop-up camper that is ready to go with enough gear in it to last at least ninety days. I still try to keep the food light weight so that I do not have too much to pull. I add a medical kit rather than a first aid kit but other than that I go with what is in the pop-up. My camper has no electrical hook-up but is run on four 12v batteries and propane. It has a heater in it so that I can go winter or summer. I have a small 12v refrigerator so we can take a few things that need refrigeration. However, most of what I take is things I have purchased in the grocery store or things that I have dehydrated and vacuum packed. With a camper you can take just about anything you think you might need. This includes more guns and ammo and more fishing equipment. I store my two packs in the camper, so I can either use that stuff also or if I have to bug out from the camper at a later date, I have them.

The next thing to know is where you are going to go. Have some type of plan in place so that you are not just wandering. Practice now by backpacking, even in the winter. It may be winter when bug-out time comes. This goes for the camper or any auto bug-out; know where you are going to go. With both types of bug-outs you may want to even have a backup plan. If the area you prefer happens to be unsecure, you should have a plan in mind.

All of these thing are moot if you can stay put. However, being a good survivalist means being ready for anything. Being ready to bug out is just one more part of readiness. It may help you to

SURVIVE.

Until next time check out my other blog at: http://www.realamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Food

2009-09-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Right now, before we need it is the time to think about survival food. I sincerely hope I am wrong but I believe that we will need a good supply of food for what is going to happen in this country.We are probably going to see one of two possibilities. Either we are going to see a hyper-inflation or we are going to see martial law. Either way, food is going to be a valuable commodity. If it is hyper-inflation, having a good supply of food on hand will save us a lot of money. If it is martial law, they will probably try to ration the food that is available. This brings us to the point of what type of food and how much.

First, I never recommend MREs or similar meals. I have a couple of days supply of MREs on hand and that is for a true emergency of short duration. I might also add that I got them free in a trade. There are currently too many meals in the supermarket to pay a premium for food that, to me, does not taste very good. One thing that you can do is to dehydrate your own food. I am just getting ready to do some apples. These are apples that I found on state land that were free for the picking. When I am done I will have very little invested in my dehydrated apples. I will soon be doing tomatoes which I grew in the garden. I will also do bananas and pineapple, but both of these I will have to purchase. Bananas and pineapples just do not grow well in central Wisconsin.

I own both a solar dehydrator and an electric dehydrator and I will probably use both as long as the weather allows me to. Later this year, after hunting season, I also hope to be making jerky. Now for just making enough to use right away, just storing your dehydrated foods in a jar works fine. However, when looking at long term storage, you cannot beat a good vacuum sealer. I have been using one for over ten years now and find it was well the money we paid for it. Actually I am on my second one and still no complaints. I have used mine, not only for food, but for ammo and many other things. I used it for seeds and if I had silver or gold for investment and survival, I would use it for that also.

When you think about food, think about what you can get for free. As I mentioned, I got my apples free this year. We now have about thirty jars of applesauce. We also have about twenty jars of elderberry jelly from elderberries we picked along roadsides. We also have blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in our freezer and they also were picked wild. Then there are the fish in the freezer and hopefully several different types of meat will join those fish. Now I know that fish and game do not come exactly free, but if you do your hunting and fishing close to home so that all you need to buy are your license and ammo or bait, it can still be reasonable. I paid seventy dollars for a shotgun forty years ago and I am still using it. That comes out to less than two dollars a year and that is not bad.

But back to the problem of food. I believe that everyone should have a two year supply of food on hand at all times. These should include cold cereal, instant hot cereal, rice, powdered milk, dry beans, macaroni, (or noodles or both), instant potatoes, sugar, salt and pepper, and many of the new ready to heat and eat packaged meals. Along with your dehydrated foods and any food from the wild you can have an excellent variety. There are many things that I could add and you may add them.

Now all you need is a safe place to store all of that food. It will not do you any good if martial law is declared and they set a maximum of a one or two week supply is all that is legal. You will not want them to find your food and confiscate it. There are many ways to secrete food and I do not have room to go into all of them. I do have a book out titled "Stash It" which sells for $8.50 plus $1.50 shipping and handling. This gives many good ways to secrete not only food but any other valuables, such as guns, that you may not want in plain view. Anyone interested in the book can leave a comment at the end of this blog and I will get back to you.

Until next time: SURVIVE and check out my other blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot. com

Herbal Medicine

2009-09-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

I am going to be doing a few blogs on herbal medicines. I may not do them in a row but will be adding to your knowledge from time to time. The more I study Obamacare, the more worried I become. I hope that it does not pass, but if it does, we need to be prepared. This is especially true if your are a senior citizen or someone who is partially or completely disabled. If you fit into one of those categories, you will told to go sit in a corner and die peacefully. The VA is already counseling returning vets and other older veterans on allowing themselves to die or even how to obtain help with suicide. I never thought I would live to see the day in America when things like this would even be thought about. I am going to put about four or five herbs in each blog that I do on this subject. I am going to start with the most common plants and work out from there. If anyone has any questions, just leave them at the end of the latest blog entry and I will do my best to answer it. I learned some of what I know from my mother and have been using that knowledge for many years. Other things are things I have learned along the way.

These may sound like common weeds and they are. The different thing about them is that most of them were brought over from Europe and cultivated here in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, specifically as medical herbs. the first one I am going to talk about is DANDELIONS. That is correct, that common yellow flower that people do their best to get rid of. Everyone knows what a dandelion looks like so I will not describe it. For one thing the dandelion is a gentle laxitive. The young leaves eaten in early spring are considered to be a very good tonic. The root has been used in Europe for diabetes. In the spring the root contains levulose, a sugar easily assemilated by persons with diabetes. In the fall this sugar changes to insulin, which is the starch that is used in handling diabetes. The leaves are also considered good for building up the blood and curing anemia. You can also grind the root and add it to coffee to stretch the coffee grounds and it also is an antidote to some of coffees detrimental effects.

Next we have PLANTAIN. These are also a weed that most people with lawns try to get rid of. They are the ones with the wide flat leaves near the ground and later get a large spike which somewhat looks like a minature cattail. The tiny seeds from these spikes can be used as a laxitive. The leaves themselves have a healing way about them and draw out infection. When I was about ten years old I stepped on a rusty nail and drove it almost through my foot from the sole to the top of the foot. It went in so far that you could see the pimple of it on top of my foot. My mother pulled the nail out, went out and got a plantain leaf, put a little lard on it to keep the wound moist and put it over the hole in the bottom of my foot. She wrapped it with gauze to hold it on and that was all there was to it. No tetnus shots, no antibiotics, nothing except the plantain and lard. In a couple of days I was completely healed and had no sign of infection.

Next we will talk about CHAMOMILE. This is a low growing, lacy plant with tiny yellow flowers. This is the one that usually grows on the edge of driveways and heavily travled paths. The more you walk on it the more it seems to thrive. Even getting run over day after day by cars does not seem the hurt it. A tea is made from the flowers and is said to be very calming. At one time it was even used as a nervie against hysteria. These flowers need to be dried before using them. A poultice made from the dried, remoistened flowers will aid in healing inflammations and also earache. Washing your face and hands with an infusion from the flowers is said to keep bugs away from you. I do not know, I have not tried it.

The last herb for this entry is the WILLOW. This is a rather simple one. The inner bark from the willow contains the salicylic acid that was the forerunner of the asprin. Thereby, the inner bark of the willow tree is an excellent pain killer. It works in the same way as asprin but does not have the side effects. It does not thin the blood the way asprin with its artificial salicylic does. there are several other uses for willow but I will leave them for another time.

As for today, I am going to leave it there and let those of you who have never used herbs become acquainted with these four. When our pretendsident tells us to go away and die, we can all be ready to take care of ourselves. Remember SURVIVE!!!

Check out my other blog at: http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Practice, Practice, Practice

2009-08-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

Now is the time to practice your survival skills. I believe the time is at hand when we just may need to use them for real. As I write this, my wife and I have just finished the freezing of five quarts of blackberries we picked today. We previously picked and frozen raspberries and blueberries. We are involved in doing as much living off the land as possible. This for the time when it is really needed. Now, if we do not get what we need, we can just go to the store and buy it. I believe that the time is at hand where that will not be possible. I will go through some of the things that we are doing to get ready and you may be able to pick up some pointers from what we do.

First let me tell you that we live on five acres, six miles from the nearest town. The town has a population of 888. This means that we are in a fairly remote area. This is the type of are that I believe all survivalists should be. However, I know that it is not possible so you need to do the best you can wherever you are. On our five acres we have many oak trees. This will give us acorns to make acorn flour from. It looks like a good crop this year so I intend on doing so. There are also many hazel nut bushes and that also looks like a good crop. These can be eaten as nuts for protein or ground up for flour to be mixed with the acorn flour. We have enough raspberry bushes on our land that we picked and froze about six quarts. I have several choke cherry trees but it does not look like there are going to be many, if any, fruit on them this year. Then there are the common weeds that grow on everyone's lawn. So far this year we have eaten dandelions, plantain, stinging nettle and Canada thistle. Some of these can be used for medical purposes as well as food.

With all of the nut trees, I have many squirrels, rabbits, deer and turkey using my property. I have a tree stand, a ground blind and a portable blind to hide while hunting. I hunt deer with a crossbow, a rifle and black powder. This gives me the possibility of getting three deer. Add to that a half dozen squirrels, a couple of rabbits and a turkey and you can see that I will lack for meat this winter. I also have an occasional raccoon and I intend to trap them, sell the hide and eat the meat.

Besides the wild food, we have a good sized garden. I have a rhubarb patch that produces each year and have just started a strawberry bed. We try to grow as many vegetables as possible. We can and freeze much of what we grow. We have canning equipment and backup cooking area should we be without electricity and have to can what is in the freezer.

As you can see, we can do pretty well just on our five acres. However, we live three miles from a state park, twelve miles from a national wildlife refuge and have several bodies of water from which to choose. We pick blackberries and blueberries on the nation wildlife refuge and also do some hunting and fishing there. All in all, my wife and I can live off the land fairly well. I am always looking for food when I am in the woods. When I am hunting I find berry picking spots. When I am berry picking I find hunting or fishing spots. You need to always be aware of your surroundings and constantly on the lookout for food sources.

I intend to stay put in the event of a survival situation, however, should the need to move out I am ready to do that and live off the land. Keep your eyes open all of the time. You never know when you will find another food source. I was investigating some public land our Department of Natural Resources controls and found an apple tree that had once been on a farm that has long since been abandoned. The apples actually look fairly good, at least good enough for apple pie and apple sauce. These are the things you want to do if you are going to be a true survivalist.

The Boy Scouts of America have a motto the says; BE PREPARED

I believe that at applies to survivalists as well. PRACTICE, PRACTICE,PRACTICE and you will be rewarded when and if the time comes. Besides the wife and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Check out my other blog at: http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Medical Kit

2009-07-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today I am going to talk about putting together a medical kit. I believe I started this once before, but never completed it. This will be more than a simple first-aid kit, it will be a little more comprehensive than that. You will not be able to do the work of a doctor, but you may just be able to treat most minor injuries up to and including gunshot and knife wounds.

TOOLS: Curved tweezers, straight tweezers, curved forceps, surgical scissors, curved dental pic, curved and straight suture needles, suture thread, oral thermometer, disposable razor, G.I. can opener, eye patch, plastic eye cup, glass eye cup, emergency space blanket, extractor kit for snake bites plastic finger tip protectors (3 different sizes).

BANDAGES, ETC: 4"x4" sterile pads (10), 3"x3" sterile pads (3), 2"x2" sterile pads (10), 3" gauze bandage (10 yds.), 2" flexible gauze (3.5 yds.), adhesive tape (.5"x5 yds.), clear 1st aid tape (1"x10 yds.), 1st aid tape (2"x5 yds.), gauze finger bandages (2), 3/4" band-aids (40), cotton swabs (24), sterile cotton balls (10), butterfly closures (10), ace type bandages (2), facial tissue (15 two ply), toilet paper (small travel roll).

CLEANING & DISINFECTING: 1st aid disinfectant spray, tincture Merthiolate, petroleum jelly, antiseptic-premoistened towelette, bar of soap, covered soap dish, eye wash, eye drops.

PILLS: Aspirin (100 tabs.), Excedrin Rapid Release/extra strength (100 caps.), Dristan for allergies (48 tabs), Sinus tablets (24 tabs), Primatine for asthma (48 tabs), Dramamine for motion sickness (12 tabs), Rolaids (24 tabs).

Misc: Icy-Hot rub (3 oz. tube), Hydrocortisone cream (1 oz. tube), Blistex lip ointment (1 oz), lip balm (2 tubes), nasal spray, instant cold pack, cough drops (2 kinds 15 tabs each kind), insect repellent (minimum of 40% Deet), after bite sting reliever, witch hazel (8 oz), aloe (cream, jell or liquid), pepto bismal (small bottle) water purification tablets (100).

That is what I keep in my medical kit. Besides that I have small, personal first-aid kits for everyone in my crew. There are many more things that could be added if someone in your group has the knowledge to use them. What I have listed here is what I feel that everyone should know how to administer. There is one more important item that should be put into your kit. That is your prescription medications. Only you know what you need and you should know how many you might need. I personally also keep some vitamins and supplements that can replace some of my meds if I would happen to run out. Those who feel they may wind up taking to the woods or have a place in that type of an area should learn all they can about using natural medicines. There are many plants that are excellent substitutes for what we buy in the store. I Hope to do a blog soon on some of these that I know. SURVIVE!!!

Until next time check out my political blog at: http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com.

Medicine

2009-07-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

This time we are going to talk about medicine. What I mean is that I think that we need to cover the topic of prescription medicines and what we would do if a time came that you could not get them. Many people in today's world, especially those of us who are considered to be past middle age, are on prescription medicines. Heart and cholesterol medicines are the most common and pills to cure depression are right up there. What happens if the SHTF and you cannot get your regular medicines? As I have alluded to in the past, I have done a quite a bit of research on the use of vitamins and supplements in place of prescribed medications. There are natural vitamins and supplements for virtually anything that there is a prescription pill for. The only other way is to get as far ahead with your pills as possible. Get them by the three month supply if possible and try to keep a couple of prescriptions ahead. This is not always possible, which is why I am suggesting vitamins and supplements. Even though you stay on your prescription now, you may want to stash some vitamins and supplements away for emergency use. Now let us take a look at some of the ones that I know about. All of the vitamins and supplements that I name here I have taken or am currently taking.

First we will look at the heart. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other heart related problems. Garlic is one of the best supplements for the heart. Garlic both lowers blood pressure but also lowers cholesterol. If I took no other supplements, I would include garlic in my survival supplies. The one vitamin that is good for the heart is vitamin "E". Vitamin E has other uses but is a help for the heart. Fish oil is another supplement that is good for keeping a healthy heart. Niacin, Iron and Hawthorn Berries are three more heart health supplements. Some of these supplements I would advise even if you never had a heart problem. Just as a preventative you could take these as they will not hurt you and may help. Here again, garlic is the one I would take other than vitamin "E".

Keeping your immune system in shape is important. This allows you to fight off things like the common cold, flu and other immune system attacking viruses. Here you also have multiple choices. Cod liver oil is one choice as is zinc. There are also two vitamins that are essential to immune system health. These two are "C" and "E". Cod liver oil contains vitamins "A" and "D" and I believe that these are better taken into the system than the vitamins in tablet form. During the summer I take enough cod liver oil to gain 100% of my A and D, 50mg zinc, 400iu vitamin E and 1,000 mg vitamin C. In October I double that and continue the double dose until the end of March. I never get flu shots and have never had the flu. Even my colds are less severe than some of my friends.

Those of you with joint pain from arthritis or some other natural cause might want to try Glucosamine-Crondroitin. If you have liver problems try Milk Thistle. To keep your metabolism up take a good powerful B-complex vitamin. Depression calls for St. Johns Wort, while allergies call for bee pollen and/or honey. If your memory is not too good you may want to try Ginkgo Bilboa. One thing that I feel that a survivalist needs is good night vision. I use a Billberry/Lutein pill to keep mine up and it seems to work for me.

As you can see, this is quite a list and it could be longer but I hesitate to recommend something I have not personally tried. Besides the vitamins I take, which I have listed earlier, I take a multiple vitamin/mineral pill. I feel that these vitamins and supplements have kept me healthy and feeling younger than I am. So, by all means, keep on your prescriptions and try to have somewhat of a supply ahead. At the same time begin planning for the worst case scenario. If you are taking the vitamins and supplements having a two year supply on hand at all times is the best way to go. Most have at least a two year shelf life, so if you have a two year supply on hand you can just keep taking them to rotate your stock. When you finish a bottle, buy a new one, put the new one in storage and use the oldest one from storage. This should leave you in pretty good shape.

Remember, the healthier you stay in a survival situation, the better off everyone around you, (yourself included) will be. We owe it to ourselves to be at our best in a survival situation.

Until next time check out my other blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Groups

2009-07-07T20:24:00.000-07:00

I said last time that I was going to describe my packs. Before I get into that, I would like to suggest that now is the time to possibly join a survival group, a patriot group or best of all a militia. Be sure that whatever club you join, that it is legal and a group that will look out for each other and the country. My suggestion would be to check out your area and find out if there is a militia group near you. Make sure that it is legal and not just a bunch of nuts that will get you arrested if anyone finds out about it. Patriot groups and survival groups are also excellent. The thing is that they should be trying to better this nation and their area and be willing to assist each other in a survival situation. If you can find nothing near you, try the Internet. Be careful as there are a lot of strange clubs that are listed under the heading of militia. I am involved with one of these sites and would recommend it to everyone. "The Well Regulated American Militias" is the title of the web site. http://militias.ning.com is the URL. There are groups to join on the web site and many states have militia groups on the site. Think about it, you may need a militia to survive.

Now to the promised pack contents. This week I will cover the food, which is enough for two people for fourteen days. Everything on this list was purchased in a supermarket. There are no freeze dried foods and no MRE's. The reason I did it this way is so that I could rotate my food in the packs by eating it and replacing it. As I started this process in January of 1989 and have had the packs ever since, you can see where even freeze dried food would go bad in that time. Most food companies will tell you that their food should not be kept over five years. I do not believe that it will go bad in that time, but after a while, even freeze dried food begins to deteriorate. Some of these items, such as the cold cereal, were bought in large boxes and split into individual portions. Anything that would not crush was vacuum sealed and things like cold cereal were put into zip-locks, expelling as much air as possible. Let us go on to the list.

Two people, fourteen days: breakfast: 10 individual pkts. instant oatmeal (flavored). These were repackaged into vacuum sealed bags. "Five days." ten individual pkts. of cold cereal (types that could be vacuum packed). "Five days." Four pkgs. toaster pops (in original packaging inside individual zip-locks). "Two days". Two pkgs pancake mis (add water only) (Repackaged into vacuum sealed bags). "Two days".

Lunch: Six pkgs. oriental noodles, (original pkgs). "Six days". Twelve individual pkts. cup-o-soup (original pkts.). "Six days". On other two days eat lunch from snack foods. Dinners: Three pkgs. Mac and cheese, (vacuum sealed). "Three days". four pkgs. Rice-a-Roni (vacuum seal) "Four days". Two cans luncheon meat (spam) (take out of can and vacuum seal it). One pound Velveeta cheese (vacuum) two pkgs. dried toast, two pkgs dried beef, one box instant potatoes. These items to be used to make dinners other seven days.

Snacks and drinks: Thirty sticks jerky, four lbs. dried fruit, eight granola bars, eight one ounce pkgs. raisins, forty-eight tea bags, ten one quart pkgs. instant milk, one jar bullion cubes, jar instant coffee, jar of Tang, one lb. margarine, one lb. sugar, salt and pepper. All items in jars and cans to be repackaged into vacuum sealed bags.

This was my total food supply for two people for two weeks. While it may seem kind of repetitive and not exactly gourmet food, remember it is for two weeks and it is to survive not to savor. This food was split into the two packs as equally as possible. That way if we got separated, we would both have enough to eat. I am going to leave it at this point this time. Next time I will get into what else to add to the packs. Until then check out my political blog at: http://www.theerealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com.

Possibilities

2009-06-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

I believe it is time to once again look at some of the possibilities that may make going into the survival mode a necessity. While many of us try to live a survival lifestyle, most of us do it for a reason. We each have our own most likely scenario. In this column, I would like to go through some of the most likely scenarios that I see at this time. Many times the scenario we think is the most likely will cause us to slightly change how we are preparing. This will be a look at several possibilities and you can make your own judgement.

First and foremost there is the possibility of a major depression. Some of the financial columnists I read are suggesting that we may be headed for a depression to make the so-called "great depression" look like the good times. What they see as so major is the fact that many of them are forecasting hyper-inflation along with a financial depression. This would cause real problems and would also probably cause rioting in the streets. If the government could not satisfy the people looking for handouts, it could get very messy. If it got too messy I would expect martial law to be declared.

Now for just a common old depression you would need your two year food supply and some seeds if you have an area to grow your own. You would also need some silver or gold (I prefer silver) to do business with. This would be especially true if the hyper-inflation came along with it. If you expect martial law you will need somewhere safe to hide a portion of your food and you will also need a lot of ammo. You will probably need a place to hide your firearms and your ammo as they may decide to confiscate all guns and ammo. If you live in a city of any size, you will probably want a place to bug out to. Have a safe route laid out in advance so you do not need to start studying a map when it is time to leave. You also will want to have a couple of backup routes just in case someone is trying to limit your travel. That could very well happen in a martial law situation. You will need to know routes on little known, little used roads. Once again, the time to find these routes is now. If you live in a city and have a bug out location, now is the time to do some exploring of different routes to that location.

No matter where you live, if there is a depression with hyper-inflation, you will probably need to protect yourself. One of my current suggestions is to join a lawful militia group. If there is none close enough to you then you are just going to have to try to take care of yourself and your family. This type of a situation would bring out the many who are too lazy to look out after themselves and would be looking for a handout. The problem is I do not believe they would take no for an answer.

If things get too bad and you have to leave your safe house, you may want to be up to date on wild foods. I still have a set of packs packed and ready for moving out at a moments notice. I have one for myself and one for my wife. Mine is a little heavier than hers as I tried to pack as much into mine as I feel I can handle. With what is in these packs I feel that we can live for two weeks using nothing except what we are carrying. By supplementing what we are carrying with wild food, there is no limit as to how long we could survive. I have enough ammo in the packs for a lot of hunting and some for protection. I would be carrying a centerfire rifle and a heavy caliber handgun. My wife would be carrying a twenty gauge shotgun and a twenty-two pistol. All ammo would be in my pack.

I think I will leave it here for today and come back to it next time. I will describe my packs and possibly touch on another scenario or two. Until then SURVIVE!! In the meantime check out my blog at:
http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Shape Up

2009-06-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

There is something that many people (including me) forget about at times. That one thing is keeping in shape. If you are out of shape when you need to take to the woods or any other event that would tax your energy and strength, you are not going to survive. I am not talking about going hog-wild and lifting weights, running ten miles a day and doing all kind of other exercises. I am simply talking about being in good enough shape to be very active if the need arises.

Where do you start? That depends on your age and your present shape. It also depends somewhat on your health. If you have a bad heart, back trouble or some other health problem, there will be some things that you cannot do. If you do have health problems I would definitely suggest checking with your doctor on what is okay for you to do. He may even give you a list of exercises that are okay for you to do. Many writers advise anyone over forty or over fifty to go to a doctor and get a checkup before starting any exercise program. Personally, I am going to leave that up to each individual. I am well past retirement age and do not check with my doctor each time I want to change (especially increase) my exercise program. I feel that I know my own health and that there are things that I can do and things that I cannot do. I would not think about running a marathon but think nothing of walking at a four-mile-per-hour clip for half an hour.

So, what do I consider a good exercise program? That depends on your age, present health, weight and desires. By desires I mean how fit do you want to get? My first choice for any exercise program is walking. Younger people may want to jog or run. I do not believe in jogging or running as I feel it is hard on the knees. However, I would never discourage anyone who wants to run from doing it. Personally, I walk three times a week, (Mon., Wed. & Fri.) for one-half hour each time. The only running I do is, once a week during my walk I will do wind sprints. I will walk for five minutes then run for fifteen seconds. This is done to improve my breathing. the fifteen second run is a sprint. I go all out and then slow back to my regular walking speed. I do most of my walking on an unpaved road. What the road amounts to is driven down sand. It is a railroad access road that runs along railroad tracks near my home. I do some walking on blacktop, but never on the day that I am going to run. I think that hard surfaces are especially hard on the knees.

I also try to ride my bicycle at least once a week. My wife and I both have mountain bikes and like to go out to a nearby national wildlife refuge and ride on gravel roads. We ride at a leisurely pace and sometimes ride for a couple of hours. We do stop occasionally to take a drink of water or to observe some wildlife. However, it is still good for the heart, your breathing and your legs.

As I managed to pick up a middle-age pot belly when I was in my mid-fifties, I try to do some sit-ups or other ab tightening exercise on Tues. and Thurs. If I do not get to them every time it is no big deal. I live on five acres and stay active gardening, cutting and splitting (by hand) firewood and other physical labor around the place. These are the only things that I do to stay fit. At the present time I am about ten or fifteen pounds overweight. This seems to happen every winter as I am not as active and every summer I take it back off.

To give you some kind of an idea as to the shape I am in, this past month (May 2009) I climbed a local bluff. It is about a half hour climb and a little tricky in places. I forgot to take my GPS so I do not know how high it is but as far as we know I am the oldest person to climb that bluff. I went up with a forty year old construction worker/contractor and his thirteen year old son. They both had been to the top previously, so they knew the way up and which crack and crevices to use. I totally enjoyed the experience.

The only other exercises that I do is some stretching exercises. I normally stretch before I go bicycle riding and before I do my sit-ups. I do not normally stretch before going walking but probably should.

There you have what I consider survival exercises. One thing that could be added if you have the time and inclination and that is to take up a martial art. It does not matter which one. What matters is that you have a good teacher and that they keep you fit and limber. When I was a little younger I did some martial arts work and it kept me in good shape. You can also do as much more than I do as you want to. I consider what I do as a bare minimum, but it is all I have time for.

Until next time "SURVIVE" and check out my other blog:

http://www.therealamericnpolitics.blogspot.com

Practice, Practice, Practice

2009-05-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

This week I am going to talk about some things that we all should practice. However, first I am going to do something I have not yet done and that is let you know where you can purchase some of my books. I have a store on wigix.com and in my store, among other things, I sell several survival books which I have written. When you get into the wigix site, go to stores and then you can go to "Steve's Coins, Books and More". Within my store is a shelf titled "Survival Books". This is where you would go to purchase these books of mine. There are several of them that I consider very valuable to the survivalist. Now I suppose that I got the commercial out of the way I can get down to business.

There are many thing that we should practice to be ready for a survival situation. Many of them are things that we do not do in our day to day life. We do not want to wait on learning to do these things and to do them well until the survival scenario is upon us. I am going to list a few that I think are the most important. I am not listing them in any particular order so you can give the most practice to the ones that you feel that you are most likely to need in a survival situation.

Fire making is something that everyone needs practice with. Being able to start a fire under any conditions, with or without matches is a very basic survival need. Having a fire may keep you from succumbing to hypothermia or other problems. It may also be needed to boil water to purify it. When practicing fire making, start with a method that you feel you can handle and when you get good at it move on to another method. My start was the flint and steel method. One of the reasons is that once you know how to do it, you do not really need the flint and steel. A fire can be made using the pack of a knife against a rock found on or near your fire site. The best way to make a fire is still with matches. Make your own waterproof matches by dipping them in melted wax. Not only will the wax keep them waterproof, it will flare up and keep the fire longer. You may want to move to a fire bow or maybe a magnifying glass or your eyeglasses. Whatever you do, keep practicing until you have no problem. Try starting fires in the rain or snow. Practice every situation you can come up with.

If there is one number one thing to know it is where to get water. You can live a long time without food and fire is great, but you cannot live long without water. Try making solar stills in various areas. Get good at it and it will provide you with a surprising supply of water. Try to harvest dew. Learn how to spot where a small stream may be, by knowing the lay of the land and the types of trees and bushes that grow around them. Learn what type of water and snow you can obtain and how to purify it. Remember to shake up the boiled water to give it some flavor back. Find out which plants in your area contain the most moisture. Water is very important, practice ways of obtaining it.

Gathering food is another thing to practice. Here I am talking about not only hunting, fishing and trapping, but also growing your own and saving seeds and hunting wild plants that are edible and very tasty. There are many excellent food plants growing wild over most of this country. However, you need practice so that you can identify them and not get plants that are possibly poisonous or possibly just not healthy. I continually practice the art of finding wild plants. It is a rare week that goes by that we do not have some wild plant for at least one meal. For hunting and fishing there are many methods of obtaining fish and animals in a survival situation. At the present time many of the methods that I know about are illegal. In a survival situation these methods will be morally acceptable. Check you fishing, hunting and trapping laws in your area and practice all of the ones that are legal. You will want to practice especially the methods that are, if not completely silent, at least very quiet.

Now the one that everyone thinks of when talking about practice: shooting. This is something that we cannot get too much practice at. I know that many of you that have to pay to use a range and then spend a bunch of money on ammo may have a hard time. However, there are ways around this problem. I will be the first to admit that I am lucky. I have a 100 yard range on my property. I also have an area where we can throw clays and practice with the shotgun. I do most of my practicing with a .22 but at least once a month take a centerfire rifle out and shoot that. This, I feel, is a necessity if you want to stay proficient with firearms. I try to practice for at least one hour each week. I shoot the .22 for about a half hour or until I get about 100 rounds through the gun. I then shift either to the centerfire rifle or to one of my handguns. Here again, most of my handgun practice is done with a .22. The .357 comes out about once a month. Now for those of you who do not have all of the amenities that I do here is another idea. Get an air rifle and an air pistol. With these you can shoot in the basement, the garage, the backyard or even the living room if the woman of the house allows it. This will keep you proficient at aiming, trigger release, etc. I use air guns in the winter when the weather is too cold to go out every week.

I am going to leave it at that. I could go into a lot of other things like knife throwing, boomerangs, bows, crossbows, throwing stick and other weapons. However, I believe that you get the picture and can decide what you want to practice. Just remember, practice. practice, practice at what ever you feel you need to be proficient in. Until next time, remember to check out my other blog.

http:www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Staying Well

2009-05-08T21:04:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I covered the swine flu pandemic on my other blog; http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com. Since that time I have learned more about this disease and feel that I should cover it again in this blog. I am not going to go into as much detail as I did in the other blog, but feel people should know what is going on. For a little deeper look at it got to my other blog.

First of all; I have a funny feeling that this strain of flu is not something that occurred naturally. When you look at The DNA sequence of this strain of flu, it makes on wonder just how it could have occurred naturally. This strain of flu has elements of DNA from: avian flu, human flu Type A, human flu Type B, Asian swine flu and European swine flu. Now you tell me the probability of this happening, five different flu strains from four continents combining and spreading from human to human like wildfire. To me it looks like a case of a bio war project which either escaped or was intentionally released. Also, regular flu season is about over and this strain of swine flu is affecting young adults rather than the very young and the very old.

All of that being said, I would like to take a look at what can be done to protect ourselves. I am well past the age where I am told that I should take a flu shot every year. The only reason I see to take a flu shot is to help the drug companies make a bigger profit. Right now the government is paying drug companies to come up with a new serum and they are rolling out all of the flu cures that they can. I have never taken a flu shot and I do not intend to. The best thing that can happen from a flu shot is nothing and the worse thing is that it can give you the flu. In all of the years that I have been told that I should get a flu shot, I have never gotten one and I have not had the flu.

Here are some things that I do to stay well. I am not a doctor or other medical practitioner so I cannot tell you that you should do this. All I can do is to tell you what worked for me. First of all I drink an eight ounce glass of a honey, cider vinegar and water mixture. One tablespoon of vinegar, one tablespoon of honey and eight ounces of water. I put the vinegar and honey in a glass and add hot water. After the honey has dissolved I add cold water and drink the tepid mixture. I take a complete natural multi vitamin with the minerals included. Besides this I take natural vitamin C. All the vitamins and supplements I take are natural so I will not bother saying it each time. From Oct. 1st to Apr. 1st I take 2,000 mg per day. The rest of the year I take 1,000 mg per day. I take 800 IU of vitamin E from Oct. to Apr. and 400 IU the rest of the year. I take 50 Mg of zinc daily, 5,000 MG of garlic daily and enough cod liver oil capsules to get about two hundred percent of my A and D. From Oct. to Apr. I also take echinacea, altering the amount by how I feel. All of these are helps to the immune system and i have found them to be effective in my life. With this new strain of flu, there are two other supplements that I do not presently take but am thinking of starting. One is aloe vera and the other is cayenne pepper. Both of these also help the immune system.

Doing what I do I keep the government out of a little bit of my life and I stay well. I also do not have any of the stuff that is in the serum in my blood stream. I do not want to get in the habit of depending on a government to take care of my health. What happens in a survival situation when there are no serums available? The way I do it I am protected and can keep a large enough supply on hand to go through a fairly lengthy survival situation. Most natural vitamins and supplements can be kept for at least two years.

Another disease that affects many survivalists is Lyme disease. This is brought on by deer tics. I just received some information from a survivalist who has suffered from Lyme disease on what to do if you cannot see a doctor or if you are in a survival situation. Keep some Doxycycline on hand and if you have to take a deer tick off of yourself take two pills the first day. Then cut back to one a day until you feel that the danger is over. At least Lyme disease is not a government caused illness.

There you have what I do about a couple of ailments in a survival situation. I will be writing more about health issues in the future. For now that is all I have.

Check out my other blog at; http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Get Ready NOW

2009-04-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

The time is here to be ready for whatever the people pulling the strings on our government are going to attempt. You have all probably heard that our Director of Homeland Security has put out a paper that has probably two-thirds to three-fourths of the population of America listed as terrorists. I know that it is a watch list and says that these people are possible terrorists but knowing Washington D(istrict) of C(rime) they have already made their decision: we are terrorists.

Do you believe in the 2nd amendment? Are you pro-life and against abortion? Do you want illegal immigration (invasion) stopped? Are you a veteran returning from war? Do you believe the IRS should be abolished? Do you believe in state's rights? Do you think taxes are too high? Do you distrust the federal government? Do you believe in the Constitution of the United States of America? Any one of these make you suspect of being a terrorist. If you are like me and can truthfully answer yes to all of those questions, we must all really be terrorists. Even though we know that it is a lot of bull, we have to start getting ready for the government's next step. I waited over a week to write this as I had hopes that our pretendsident would make her apologize and withdraw the paper. He has not so I am of the opinion that he is in complete agreement with her. Remember, our pretendsident is the one that called most of us "bitter clingers" when he was campaigning. So what to do?

First of all make sure you are ready for anything. That could be anything from bugging out to holing up in you house or retreat to having to protect yourself from the scum of the earth or our government gone mad. Have your pack ready to bug out. Have a couple of weeks of food, some extra clothing, a first-aid kit, lots of ammo, some silver for bartering, a full line of camping equipment and possibly your handgun in the pack at all times. All of these things should be ready, even if you have no intention of leaving your abode. You never know when things are going to change and you just may need what is packed because it is easier and safer to move on. You should also make plans as to where you would go in the event of a catastrophe that causes you to bug out. Putting your pack on your back and leaving will not do you any good if you do not have any idea of where to go. Check out all National Forests, State Forests, National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges and even County Forests in your area. Many of these areas do not allow camping, but in an emergency I would use any of them. National Forests are about the best. Go deep into the forest and leave as little sign as possible. Now is the time to look for that really good campsite that you could ride out the storm in. Depending on how many there are in your group will determine how many and what type of firearms are needed.

The next thing to do is to make your present abode or your retreat as safe, as well stocked and as defensible as possible. A two year supply of food is not too much to have on hand. A complete medical kit is needed as is a complete armory of weapons and ammo. Have a supply of both ammo and silver or gold for barter. Do not forget to stock things like toilet paper and other necessities. Make sure you have a safe water supply. If you have a well on your property, make sure you have a hand pump in case the enemy is able to take out the power grid. We know that both Russia and China have hacked into our power grid and know how to shut it down.

Make sure you can defend your home or retreat. I will not go into it this week but sometime in the next couple of weeks I will make some suggestions on some defensive tactics. Another thing that each of us need to consider is moving from where we are to some place more receptive to our thinking. Idaho and Montana are two states that come to mind. I have never suggested moving unless you live in a large city and I have never given much thought to my moving. However, with the way things are going, I have been giving it some serious thought. More on the subject next week.

Until next week check out my other blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Ready, Set, "Survive"

2009-04-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

The time is close at hand. We are just about to drop into the deepest depression that this country or the world has ever seen. I say that, hoping that I am wrong but fearing that I am right. If you watch any of the MSM (mostly stupid media) or as some call it the main stream media, you will see tent cities composed of homeless, jobless people in various cities across the country. Unemployment is reported by the MSM is at about nine percent. In reality it is at about double that or eighteen percent. More people are losing their jobs and their homes every day. The rate of foreclosures has not let up. Over one-third of the houses that have been foreclosed on are not salable. They have been trashed by the owners before they left or by the squatters that come in illegally and live in them for free. These houses are in such bad shape that the are not eligible for a mortgage. This means that they will have to be razed and the banks will have to take the loss. Why do you think that the banks are still not making loans? Although you would never know it by the governments figures, inflation is rampant. It is now running at about three times what the government figures say it is. Social security has been frozen for the next three years. How are seniors supposed to keep up with inflation if they are limited to the same income for the next three years. I feel that within the next three years prices of food, gasoline and heating fuel along with electricity rates will at least double.

I think what I just said is the good news. The bad news is that many people are not going to take it laying down. People today are conditioned to have their wants met instantly. They are not going to like going without. Many of them, especially those in larger cities, are going to get what they want by any method they can. This means at the point of a gun, burglary, murder or any other method of obtaining everything they "think" they are "entitled" to. This is going to cause those who have something to defend themselves and that my friends is when the trouble starts.

Right now is the time to stock up on ammo if you have not already done so. If you have not purchased ammo lately, you will be surprised at how bare the ammo shelves are. A lot of people have already began to stock up. It started right after the election when they felt that the office of the president and the entire democrat controlled congress would start to put more restrictions on ammo and higher taxes. They also felt that we would probably lose some of our second amendment rights. I presume there are more and more guns along with the ammo buried somewhere in this country. I do not tell people what to do with their guns and ammo but secreting them is not a bad idea. When the food riots start, when the burglaries start, when the armed robbery of many more people starts, that is when the U.S. military will be illegally called in to control it. The only way it can be legally done is to declare martial law and that is not out of the question.

As a survivalist, are you ready to protect what is yours? Are you ready to face a person or a group of people who are armed and mean to have what they want from you? Are you ready to shoot back if they are shooting at you? That is a terrible thing to think about, but it may well be reality. Do you have the skill with firearms or other weapons to protect yourself and your family? Are you in good enough physical shape to do all that will need to be done? And do not think that just because you live out in the country that you can raise your own food and be safe. With the ease of movement roaming gangs will be all over and when they realize that country people raise their own food, they will soon find that too.

If all of this sounds scary to you, I am glad. While I hope that I am wrong, I feel that I am not. The government will try to hold things like this from happening but I do not know how long they can keep borrowing money and throwing trillions of dollars at a failed economy. If they had let it go in the early nineties, we would have had a major recession and would be doing well right now. If they had let it go in the late nineties or right after the turn of the century, we would have had a major recession or maybe even a minor depression. By propping up the economy each time, they just made the fall that much farther and that much harder.

My best survival advice at this time is to make sure you have enough guns and ammo. You may want to get some extra ammo just in case you need it for barter. You also need to have a store of silver on hand. This may be the only money (along with gold) that is any good. Make sure you have a two year supply of food on hand or the ability to grow what you need. Seeds will last a couple of years (five if you vacuum seal them) so stock up on seeds also. If you depend on city water have water stored because you do not know what will happen to the water supply. Have some way to do without electricity if you have to. If our liberal politicians get their way the price of electricity will at least quadruple in the next several years. In other words what I am saying is be prepared to live on your own. Prepare to be totally self-sufficient.

For those of you who have valuables that you would like to protect, whether it be your silver, your guns, your ammo or your food, I have written a book which tells you how to do that without investing in a lot of safes and other expensive storage. The title of the book is "Stash It", subtitle "The art of hiding your valuables". The book is eight and one-half by eleven, has 38 pages and is plastic comb bound. While it only has 38 pages, every page is packed with information on secreting things. The price is $8.50 and for readers of this blog I will ship for free. Leave a message in the comments section with your email and I will get back with you.

Stay abreast of what I think of politics with my other blog:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Are You Ready, Mentally?

2009-03-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

Last time I talked about physical readiness, this time I would like to talk about mental readiness. I have talked about it before, "survival is a state of mind". I have talked about the people that were put in a survival situation with everything one would need to survive and died. I have also talked about the people that were thrown into a situation where there seems no way that they could have survived. Some of these people make it and people are awe struck. What is the difference between the two types of people? Mental attitude! It is very simple that if you have the will to survive you have a much better chance.

What is the right state of mind? It is the state of mind that says that no matter what happens there is a way out. It is a never say die attitude. It is knowing that you can and will go on no matter what. I have written before about people that tell me they would not want to live after a major disaster such as a nuclear strike. They would prefer to die in the strike than to live and see what is going to come out the other side. To me this is pure foolishness.

Everyone is a survivalist, it is just a matter of how much of a survivalist you are. There are very few people that would just step out onto a busy street and cross it without looking both ways for cars. There are very few people that would continually run through stop signs or red lights, even if the police did not catch them. People wear seat belts and take life preservers or jackets in a boat. There are people who would not think of riding a bicycle without a helmet that tell me they are not survivalists. While some of the things we do such as the seat belts or the stop signs are law, most people would do them anyway. That is the survival instinct in all of us. Personally, I am a very poor swimmer, so it would be foolishness for me to be out in a lake a half mile from shore without a life jacket on. Most people that say that they are not survivalists do not realize all of the things that they do every day to survive. People who do not practice good safety are said to have a death wish. Is is not a death wish to hope that you would not make it through a nuclear attack?

There are things that separate us, the die-hard survivalists from the rest of the world. All that it is is the fact that we carry the survival mode a little farther than other people. We want to be the ones that are left alive when everything goes down. I have never heard anyone who survived a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, flood or other natural disaster wish that they would have died in the disaster. Yet, what is the difference between one of those disasters and a man made disaster?

If a war ever comes to America (and it probably will in time) would all of these so-called non-survivalists just walk out and step in front of a bullet or an enemy tank? I do not believe so.

Now that we know that there would be many people that would all of a sudden become, maybe not survivalists, but people that wanted to continue to live. These people would not be survivalists, they could be a drag on other survivalists. This begs the question: "Do you have the mental capacity to be a true survivalist?

Here are some of the things I think need to be done to mentally be ready for a survival situation. First, you have to think about scenarios in which you could be thrown into a survival situation and what you would do about it. You have to be ready to cope with the problem you see as the most likely to take place. For instance, if you live in Florida or one of the east coast states, you would get ready to survive after a hurricane. You know it is invertible that there will sooner or later be a hurricane and you would make ready for it. I do not understand people that live where they have hurricanes virtually every year and yet these people are not ready for them. When the hurricane hits, they want the government (you and me the taxpayers) to take care of them. I live in the north central U.S. so there are things I am prepared for. We have ice storms so I have a generator in case the electricity goes out. I also am prepared for the occasional tornado that comes through this area. I am prepared for the major snow storm and I burn wood a supplemental heat. The wood heat would keep me going through a long electric outage. I have battery operated radio, battery light, kerosene lights, both radio and flashlights that need neither batteries nor electricity. I have the ability to cook (two camp stoves one LP and one white gas). some people (non-survivalists) might call all of my preparations paranoid. I call them smart. I hope I never need to test my ability to survive, but know that if I must I can.

I will talk a little more about this next time. Until then SURVIVE!!!

Check out my political blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Are You Ready Physically?

2009-03-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

Check out your readiness. Are you ready and if you believe you are, what are you ready for? We all need to check our readiness occasionally. It can be so easy to get a little bit lazy and start forgetting some things. One of the things that we get a little lazy about is our physical readiness. Face it, it takes a healthy person to be able to take to the woods if necessary. I am not saying that we should be Marine Corps ready, but we should be in good enough shape to deep going day to day under some not so good conditions. This is another reason that I am so high on the value of storing the correct type of food for survival. The kind of food you have to survive on will determine how we feel and how much energy we have.

First, let us take a look at exercise. As I stated, this is not the Marine Corps so we will not have to do calisthenics. That is unless you want to. There is nothing wrong with calisthenics, it is just that they take up time and may not always be necessary. One of the things that you should try to do is to walk, jog or run at least one half hour each day. Pick the one that serves you best and stick with it. I personally am a walker. At my age my knees will not stand the pounding and besides, doctors tell me that walking is better in many ways than running or jogging. Now, if you are a jogger or a runner, I would not suggest you quit, it is just that for those who are doing none of it now, walking is probably the best. You also need some type of exercise program that will keep you physically fit. This does not necessarily have to be set exercises, it can be different types of work. For instance, I like to split firewood by hand. We burn wood all winter and I split all of it by hand. There are always a few that I cannot split and those I just set aside. When I get enough of these, I go and rent a log splitter and do them.

Now that spring is here I will be starting to garden. This is also an excellent exercise. The wife and I have a fairly large garden and do much of the work by hand. This kills two birds with one stone, first you get the exercise and second you get a good supply of food. Another thing I do at this time of the year is begin to ride my bicycle. This is another excellent form of exercise that is not hard on the knees. From April to about October I alternate every other day: one day I bike and the next day I walk. I spend a half hour on each thing and it works out very well. One thing I do is to take Sunday off. That is I take it off as an exercise. Many nice Sundays my wife and I go to the National Wildlife Refuge or a State Park and ride. This is a much more leisurely ride than my exercise. However, it does improve overall health.

Another thing that I do is go to the Gym once a week. Fifteen minutes of weights, fifteen minutes of treadmill, stationary bike, etc. and then to the pool for a fifteen minute swim. Going more often would be better, but my schedule prevents much more than that.

You need to look at your weight and your diet. With the obesity problem in America, there are many people who are overweight. As a survivalist, you owe it to yourself to be at your bet weight or at least close. I could stand to lose ten pounds to be at my absolute best for my age and my height. However, I do not consider that to be too bad. You need to eat a healthy diet if you are to be a good survivalist. That proper diet will keep you going in a survival situation. Having a craving for burgers, chips, fries, soda and other things will not let you have a comfortable survival when all of these things are unavailable. so now is the time to get your eating habits in order.

That is basically all there is to it. Get plenty of exercise, build both you muscles and your stamina and eat sensibly and you will soon feel better about facing a survival situation. Actually, there are many more things you could do on your way to a healthier you, but this will get you started and you can decide how far you want to go.

Until Next Time SURVIVE!!!

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http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Ammo Supply

2009-03-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

I do not thing that any two survivalists agree on the amount or type of ammo that should be kept on hand. I have my own ideas and when I tell other survivalists, I usually get told that it is way too much or not nearly enough. That will give you an idea of the different thinking on the subject of ammo. The guidelines that I am going to lay out here are what I consider an all around average. Each person can adjust to what I say according to how much shooting they do, both in practice and in hunting. The figures I work with give ammunition a five year shelf life. I realize that some ammo will last much longer as I have used ammo that was ten and even twenty years old. However, that being said, five years is probably optimal for all ammo. Using the five years figure and the amount of practice that I do and that I recommend, I work out the numbers. So, let us look at some figures and see what you think.

Let us look at the shotgun first. For this I recommend 2,100 rounds. This may sound like a lot, but it really is not. I have gone waterfowl hunting and gone through two boxes in a day, that is fifty rounds. I have also thrown clay targets with my grandsons and gone through five or six boxes in a day, that is 150 rounds. Also, you need to split these rounds up by different types and here is how I would do it. First I would get 1,200 rounds of bird shot, 2s, 4s, 6s and 7 1/2s. I would add 400 rounds of 00 and 000 buckshot. Now add 500 rifled slugs and you have your shotgun shells in order.

Now for the center fire rifle I recommend 2,000 rounds. This is to be your main defense gun and also your hunting rifle. However, I see the shotgun more as a hunting weapon than the center fire rifle. I would probably split the center fire ammo into two different bullet weights. For instance using a 30-06, I would opt for 125 grain and 180 grain bullets. the 125 would be for defense and the 180 for hunting. If you do not intend on doing much hunting with your defense rifle (as I do not) one bullet weight is all you need. Never have more than two bullet weights as remembering point of impact of several bullet weights is rather difficult.

Next we will move on to your handgun. Here I drop down to 1,500 rounds. Here there are so many handguns, both wheelguns and autos that it is hard to say what type of ammo to have as far as bullet weights and whether you want jacketed or hollow point, etc. For instance, if you are a wheelgun fan and have a .357 you may want some jacketed hollow points and some solid lead. You would also do well to have some .38 special ammo on hand for some of your practice. For a .357 you could also add some bird shot and multi-ball loads, but these should be in addition to your 1500 rounds.

When we come to the .22 rimfire it is the hardest one to advise for. If you are like me, the .22 will be the most used weapon in your weapon battery. If you have both a rifle and a handgun you will be using up a lot of ammo if you practice regularly. I do not think that any less than 3,000 rounds should be kept and I might go as high as 5,000 rounds. There are a couple of reasons for the large amount. First, they are the least expensive for practice. Second, in a survival situation they can be used for barter to those dummies that do not have enough. Third, the .22 makes a fair hunting round. And finally fourth, in a pinch, they can be used as a defense round. I would split the ammo this way, two-thirds solid point and the other one-third hollow point all in the long rifle configuration. Make sure you check out the trajectory of both the hollow and solid point as they are different.

By now you may be wondering where the heck am I going to store all of this ammo. I store mine in surplus ammo boxes. I prefer the .50 caliber boxes as they hold a fair amount of ammo and are still not too heavy. If you are going to bury your ammo for safe keeping I would still suggest these boxes, but I would suggest that you take the ammo out of the original boxes and vacuum seal it in good vacuum bags with a label inside of the bag giving the specs and the date it was purchased. Now if the seal on the lid is tight, they are as good as any storage unit you can find. There are many other ways, that is just one that I prefer. If you are not going to bury any of

your ammo, leave it in the original boxes with the date on it or vacuum seal them the same as if you were going to bury them. Rotate your stock by practicing with the oldest ammo first and adding as much as you shoot up in practice.

There you have my plan for ammo. You do not need to purchase it all at once, but get started and keep adding until you get to the ideal. See you next time and in the meantime SURVIVE!!!

Check out my other blog:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Survival Hunting

2009-02-23T20:47:00.000-08:00

Survival hunting, like survival fishing, is not about the sport of hunting. The whole concept of hunting changes when it means whether you eat or not. Again, as with fishing, I am going to be talking about things that are now illegal. I will not even tell you which of these many methods of taking game for food I have personally tried. I will tell you that I know enough about all of them to tell you that they work.

First, there is some argument about whether you should use a bow or a gun for most of your hunting. While the bow is silent, many times you need to follow a wounded deer for a mile or more after shooting it. This can cause you to be seen by other people. While the gun does give away your presence, if only shot once it is very difficult to tell exactly where the shot came from. If you are really good with a bow and limit your shots to a distance where you know you will get a good clean hit, a bow is an excellent choice. I use a crossbow, so I have a little advantage in that I have a scope sight on it and tend to be more accurate than I ever was with a compound. I still keep one of my old recurves as a back-up. The down side of a crossbow is that they are noisy and clumsy to carry in the woods. If you are able to sit in one spot they are excellent. You can even try other methods of hunting. I have taken more than a few rabbits and squirrels with air guns. Air guns have come a long way since the days of my Red Ryder BB gun. Now I will not even look at a air rifle unless it is a single stroke cocking gun with at least 1,000 FPS. Another weapon I have used to kill squirrels with is a slingshot. I have worked with a boomerang and throwing sticks but have never hunted with them. In an emergency, a spear can be used to bring down game, especially small game. While all of these options are there and should be considered, a firearm is still the best way to procure game for food.

Like I stated, this is not sport hunting. If you see a grouse or a pheasant sitting on the ground, that is the time to shoot it. While when sport hunting that is considered unsportsmanlike, in a survival situation it is considered smart. I would do as much hunting as possible with a .22 rimfire. They make the least noise and you can bring down most food type animals with a .22. Many people will tell you that the .22 is not powerful enough to kill a deer and I will tell them that they are just flat wrong. While you must be closer and be able to place your shot exactly, I know of many deer that were shot with .22s. However, if you were to try to shoot a black bear or any North American animal larger than a deer, I would not trust the .22 to do the job. I presume that a perfectly placed shot from close range would bring the animals down, but I would not trust it except in dire emergencies.

I believe that most survival writers lean toward hunting the big game animals too much. I would stay with the rabbit and squirrel sized animals and also the many birds that are large enough to be worth killing and cleaning. All of these can be hunted with the .22 or maybe a .410 shotgun. With the .410 you get a little more noise than the .22 but you get a chance at wing shots if you jump a grouse or pheasant. You can also get slugs for them and some of them will handle a .44 bullet when used as a single shot. With that, the only thing you do not get is a rifled barrel. If I had to pick one gun for all of my hunting I would pick a over and under with a .22 rifle on top and either a .410 or a twenty gauge underneath. With the twenty gauge, you get and excellent deer gun when used with slugs. You also get a gun that is a little better at hitting flying targets. However, that being said, I would still opt for the .410 due to the reduced noise factor.

You can bait many animals to come to a certain spot on a regular basis. However you need to have what they like to eat for bait. While it is illegal now, I would not hesitate to do it in a survival situation.

So there you have a few tips on survival hunting. I could write more and have written much more on the subject. However, I like to keep this blog fairly short. My next entry will have to do with the amount of ammo you need to gave on hand. Until then SURVIVE.

Check out my other blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Hunt, Fish, Trap

2009-02-14T21:18:00.000-08:00

The three ways to provide meat. First the easiest and best way to procure food is to go for fish. The type of fishing you will do in a survival situation is not anywhere near the type of fishing that is done now for sport. I have never been a true "sport" fisherman. It irritates me when people tell me that I should throw every fish I catch back for the next person. I do catch and release only when I am sure that I can get enough to fill out my bag limit. Say the bag limit on a certain species is five fish. I keep four and then catch and release until I get the one I want to fill out my bag limit. I do not believe in playing catch and release and then going and paying six or eight dollars a pound for fish in the supermarket. I also go after many fish that there are no limit or a very high limit on. Panfish with limits of twenty-five or bullheads and carp with no limits. As I stated in the last post, I have learned how to use even what are considered trash fish and make them not only edible but delicious.

That is only the first thing to remember in a survival situation. You may also do some things that are not legal now. In some states trot lines and limb lines are not legal or you need a special license. In a survival situation, a trot line with a half-dozen hooks on it, set out overnight is an excellent way to provide food. A half-dozen limb lines can do the same thing. the nice thing about these methods in a survival situation is that you can go out after dark and set your lines when no one can see you and you can pick them up before sunrise and still not be seen. Dip nets, gill nets and seines can all be used in a survival situation. I would not use a gill net now a they are not very forgiving of any type of fish. However, I would not hesitate to use one in a survival situation. there are fish traps that you can buy or build. All you need to do is to use a minnow trap as a pattern and make the trap and the entrances bigger to catch bigger fish. Spears are another way to obtain fish. You can wrap twine or vines around your hunting knife to fix it to the end of a long pole and use that in a pinch.

One thing about every one of these methods, they are all silent. That is why I prefer fishing to hunting, When hunting you are apt to be heard and others may want what you kill. With fishing, by being as careful as possible not to be seen, no one knows what you are doing unless they just happen to stumble on you or your gear. Another silent method of obtaining meat is trapping.

We are not talking about trapping in the way it is understood now. We will not be trapping for furs or for sport. We will be trapping for sustenance. For this type of trapping you can use foot hold traps, body grip traps, snares, cable restraints, deadfalls, pit traps or live box traps. It all depends what you are going to trap. You will not be going after big game like deer or bear, but small game like rabbits and squirrels. You may also want to trap birds like grouse, ducks or geese. There are two animals that are now trapped for their fur that make excellent table fare. These two are beaver and muskrat. When I was a youngster and did a good amount of trapping we used both of these animals for food. They are both vegetarians and both members of the same family as the rabbit and squirrel. While killing a deer or bear sounds much better, remember that you may not have a way to preserve that much meat in a survival situation. To me it makes more sense to catch each days meat as you need it and not have any of it go to waste. If you are fishing and trapping you should be able to keep you and your family in meat on a regular basis. Add to this some wild plants and you can have a fairly good diet.

Here is a tip I give anyone wanting to put together a survival kit. Be sure to include a couple lengths of fishing line in about eight or ten pound test monofilimant. I also suggest that you include a length of fifty pound test. This fifty pound test would be used in making a snare. For you fishing line you would include several hooks of different sizes and a few split shot. that is all you really need as you can cut a pole near the water and dig bait on the spot.

Next entry I will take up hunting. Until the SURVIVE and check out:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Keeping Going

2009-01-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

Last time I talked about what I feel is going to happen and how anyone who has not started to prepare should do about it. I strictly covered food in the last post as I believe it is the most important item that can be prepared for. I personally feel that a portion of that food should be hidden as when (not if) martial law is declared, it will be illegal to hoard food. At that point the government will decide what hoarding is. I have heard different numbers thrown around with most of them being between three days and two weeks.

I am going to talk a little more about food here. What I want to talk about this time is the gathering of wild food. This can mean anything from gathering plants for salads and vegetables to getting meat for the table. First of all, no matter where you are there are edible plants to be gathered. If you live in a city, you can find parks where there are private areas where a person can gather plants without being seen by the authorities or other park users. Even your own yard has many edible plants if you do not poison everything with commercial weed killers and fertilizers. Dandelions and plantain are two very common plants that many people call weeds that are very palatable. Young dandelion leaves and young plantain are both excellent salad greens. Dandelion roots can be dug, dried and used as a coffee substitute. I currently have a couple containers of acorns in my freezer. I am going to shell them and grind them up and in the spring when the dandelions start I am going to gather some roots and dry them. I will then mix the two and make an excellent coffee substitute. I do not remember the percentage of each to make the mixture, so when I experiment and find it again I will put it the recipe in a post on this blog. My advice is to go on line and find out what plants are in your area that can be eaten and then either purchase a good field guide or check one out of the library and go out and see what you can find. You may not want to pick these plants at this time but you need to at least be able to identify them when the time comes.

Hunting, fishing and trapping are also things that you should be able to do. Most areas have some fishing areas available. Many of these are close at hand. Just because the only thing that are there are carp or some other so called "trash fish" do not overlook them. Carp, suckers and many other non-game fish are excellent eating if prepared correctly. I normally go out and catch a few carp in the spring for pickling and smoking. However I have fried, broiled and baked them and they are not that bad. In Europe, carp is the number one game fish and is eaten all of the time. Another thing that can be done about anywhere to put meat on the table is hunting and trapping. Two of my grandsons live in a city of some sixty thousand and trap squirrels and rabbits all of the time. They do it with a live trap right in their own backyard. When I lived in a suburb of Chicago I regularly shot squirrels in my back yard. How did I do it? I used an air rifle. There is no noise and if you are careful, the neighbors will never know what you did.

There are a lot of ways to obtain food in the wild. Those of you who can get out and get hunting in the rural areas can provide most of your own meat. I know that even now my wife and I live mostly on venison. We cannot afford to purchase the expensive meats in the store. If you live in the country you should be living on rabbit, squirrel, venison, grouse, pheasant and any other wild game that is in season. You should also be picking and eating as much wild plants as possible. Getting used to eating that type of a diet now will only help you when it becomes a necessity; and it will.

When it comes to fishing, all you read in the outdoor magazines is catch and release. Well, I like to catch and eat. That is one of the reasons that I do not go after the popular game fish. I go after white bass and other smaller fish that are easier to catch and people expect you to keep. That way I can put some in my freezer and not have to pay six dollars a pound at the supermarket. As I said earlier, carp is not a bad fish to eat. Besides smoking and pickling them I can some of them and can then use them for fish patties and similar recipes. That is one of the secrets of survivalism, using things that so-called normal people do not think about using or feel that using some of them is beneath them.

I hope this week's entry gives some of you some ideas. That is what I am attempting to do, plant ideas so that when the time comes you will have the survival skills you need. Now, before they are required, is the time to practice those survival skills. Trying to learn while you are starving is not the thing you want to do. Next time I am going to go a little deeper into hunting and fishing and perhaps a little on trapping. Until then: practice your skills and "SURVIVE"!!!!

Check out my political blog at:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Now What?

2009-01-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

I think that now is the time to start thinking about what your will do when the SHTF. While there is much more I could say in the "Stash It" series, I think it is time for other thoughts. First of all, I feel that we are headed for the greatest depression that the world has ever known. I also believe that it is going allow our government to attempt to take over the country as a dictatorship. We will not be asked what we should do, we will be told. At the end of this post I will leave the link to my "Fasciunism" blog, which is my political blog. You may want to go to that blog to get a more in depth of what I see on the horizon. I will cover it somewhat here but more as what to do when (not if) it happens..

Hopefully anyone who regularly reads this column will be ready for whatever comes. Here is what I see. BO is being crowned King of these United States. Everyone is bowing and scraping to him. No one dares say a bad word about him or they will be termed a racist. He talked about "Change" all through his campaign. Look at the cabinet and advisers he has picked. Does that look like change? He has appointed every Clinton retread that is available. Where is the change in that? I know who is pulling his strings and what is going to be attempted. George Soros is the money man behind BO. Soros is a one world government person and will do whatever he can and spend as much of his billions as he needs to to accomplish the task of turning this country into a third world dictatorship.

First, do not take any of the jobs that BO is making. These are make-work jobs to get you indebted to the government. Remember the government's Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules". This is just another way of redistributing the wealth. Remember seeing the

TV footage from China of the thousands of people diligently sweeping streets? Well that is the kind of thing that is going to happen here. BO is going to be like FDR on steroids. He is going to implement a national health care system on the order of Canada's. Canada has some of the best health care in the world; right across their southern border. That is a fact. I have spoken to Canadians who come to the United States every year to get the care they are denied in Canada under their national health care system. Enough already about what is going to happen, we need to look in this blog at what to do. As I stated, you can go to my other blog to get more political information.

First of all: Do you have enough food to last for at least a year if martial law is declared and the shelves in the grocery store are suddenly empty? Do you have enough ammo to take care of any needs when BO and his new gun-hating attorney general make the ammunition so expensive that only drug dealers will be able to afford it? Do you have a supply of silver or gold and other barter goods? Do you have as good a supply of your medical needs as you can get? Are you prepared to defend yourself from roaming gangs, be they government or other? Are you prepared to leave your home and go someplace safe if need be? These and many others are questions you need to answer. They could be the difference between you becoming a slave and living free and possibly even between life and death. That is what I am going to talk about for the next couple of weeks.

Let us take them in order, food first. I feel that every true survivalist should have at least a one year supply of food on hand at all times. A two year supply is even better and that is what I strive for. Now if you have that much food on hand and Martial Law is put into effect you will very probably be accused of hoarding food and that will be made illegal. That is one of the reasons I have been doing all of the entries on "Stash It": you will need to hide your food supply. You will want to hide it where you are able to get at it any time you want it, but others not privy to your hiding places will not think of looking. A couple of places would be the second water heater I talk about and another place would be in a refrigerator or freezer laying on its back, buried in the ground. You are going want to have some freeze dried meals and also you can do as I do and dehydrate fruits and vegetables yourself. Then you will need to package them in vacuum sealed containers to store for a length of time. You may also want to plan for not having electricity. BO is bound and determined to shut down the coal industry and if that happens there is no way that enough electricity can be generated to satisfy the country. In that case any frozen food you have will need to be canned or dried. Be prepared to do those things very quickly before the food spoils. If you have an electric stove, have a backup for that too. I am not going to get any deeper into the food subject as I have covered it in past posts. One thing I would like to add before I close this week's entry is to be ready to grow at least some of your own food. Even if you live in an apartment in a city, there are things that you can grow indoors. I may do some entries in the future on that subject. For now: PREPARE and SURVIVE.

Political blog link:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

Stash It - 6

2009-01-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

CLOSETS: Building a false wall or ceiling in a closet is one of my favorite ways of hiding weapons, long guns in particular. A closet that has a considerable amount of space to one side of the door is best for a fake wall. It is difficult to tell from the outside of the closet exactly how much room should be inside the closet, One thing you do not want to do though, is to make the storage area too big. This might bring the size of the inside of the closet to someones attention. I try to store my guns against the wall flat when I use a false wall. My widest gun is a bolt action that measured about three inches across. You can save some room by removing the bolt or leaving it in the open position. I make a one by four frame around one end of the closet. I net put a one by two across the back wall at the height that the barrels will be. Into this one by two I drive a nail for each gun barrel to lean against. These should be wrapped with tape or cloth to keep them from marring the barrel. If your closet has a high enough ceiling, you can put a one by four shelf directly above the barrels of that line of guns and set another row of guns on top of it. When I did it, I simply installed some hooks for my handguns and then put up a shelf for ammo. Now you will need a sheet of sheet rock, painted the same color as the inside of the closet. This sheet needs to be cut to the exact size of the inside of the closet. Now, if the end where you are putting the storage unit has a closet rod connected to it, you will need to cut the sheet in two at the level of the rod. Next cut half circles in both pieces so they fit tight against the rod. These sheets can be held in place by using either the magnet or spring-clip type of cabinet door catches. You will probably need four for each piece. If you are not cutting the sheet for a closet rod, you can get by with just four. Now if you are working around a rod, get a closet rod holder to match the one on the other end of the rod and attach it to the wall you just installed. If it is completely round you will need to cut it in half and install it in two pieces. you may want to install a piece of dry wall tape across the crack, making sure to only attach it to one of the pieces. What you want to do is anything to make it look like the rest of the closet. To open the unit, the best way I found was to install two hooks on each half of the sheet and hang a couple of ties or belts on each hook. Then you can simply grab the hooks and pull out the section you want. The same method could be used for a one piece wall.

Another method of utilizing a closet is to install a false ceiling. This is the method I used in one apartment I lived in. Nail a one by four to each wall with one edge against the ceiling. Now you need to come up with a way to attach your guns or other valuables to the ceiling. I simply located a couple of the ceiling joists and installed a series of screw eyes. A would put one gun against the ceiling and mark the spot for the screws. After installing the first set of four, (one for each side of the stock and one on each side of the barrel), I placed the next gun in the opposite direction, (first barrel pointing right, next barrel pointing left), and installed one screw eye at the stock and one at the barrel on the outside of that gun. I kept doing this, reversing every other gun. I secured the guns to the ceiling by tying a piece of nylon cord from screw eye to screw eye. Get good sized screw eyes, because as you will notice, each will be supporting the end of two guns. Now get your piece of sheet rock and cut it to fit snugly between the walls and install some cabinet door catches and you can snap it into place. Yo facilitate getting mine out. I simply drilled a small hole in one rear corner. the hole was just large enough to get my index finger in and pull. The hole was not noticeable unless you were looking for it.You can also attach trim to the new piece of sheet rock to make it look even more natural. When I moved from the apartment, I simply took my guns and replaced the false ceiling. I am not sure whether the landlord ever found it or not. I just know that when he inspected the apartment prior to returning my deposit, he did not mention it.

Other ideas next time. Until then SURVIVE. Check out my other blogs.

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Stash It - 5

2008-12-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

The next unit I would make would be a water heater safe. That is correct, I said a water heater. This is about the only other appliance in the home that is insulated. They can be a little hard to work with and a little inconvenient, but they work. Once again, there are a fair amount of homes that have more than one water heater. Get an old water heater, the larger the better, remove the top and take out the water storage tank. You may want to keep this tank to store water for survival situations. You can now set guns around the inside or put just about anything else into the unit. The problem with storing small items in this unit, and that includes ammo, is that it is a long reach to the bottom. If you are going to store these types of items in a water heater, you may want to build a set of round shelves that will just fit into the unit and can be pulled out as one piece. Try to reattach the drain spout to the bottom for a realistic look. Also, set this unit close to your regular water heater and run a couple of dummy plastic pipes up into the plumbing to give it a further look of authenticity. Again, use your imagination for other ways to convert water heaters.

Now it is time to take a good look around the house and see where some good places to hide things might be. I cannot know all of the areas because each house is different. What I will try to do is to give several ideas and hopefully, if none of them will work in your house, they will get the seed of ideas started and you can find and design your own. However, I believe that you will be able to use one or more of my ideas.

I have used many different types of "around the house" storage. This is partly due to the number and various types of dwellings I have lived in. Since getting into the survival movement back in the early seventies, I have lived in three different apartments, six different houses and spent six months living in a pickup camper.Through all of this I have managed to store my firearms and any other valuables safely. The most difficult was while I lived in the pickup camper, followed by a one room efficiency apartment. All of these and one of the houses were rented. This meant t6hat I could not do a lot of cutting or building. However, in one apartment I did put a false ceiling into closet. Owning your own home make it much easier. You can add and build just about anything you want. I am going to leave it here this week and I will start with closets when I make my next entry. Until then, SURVIVE.

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Stash It - 4

2008-12-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

Before leaving the freezer, I should mention that you may need to install a light inside. Freezers usually do not have interior lights. You can use just about any type of fixture that will fit and not be in the way. Just drill a hole in the back of the floor of the unit big enough for the original cord to go through. Run the cord in from the outside rear and connect it to whatever you have installed for a light. Should you decide not to have a light, (you can always use silica granules) run the cord in and install the female end of an extension cord. this will allow you to keep it plugged in without any danger from shocks. This would also allow you to put a small lamp in if necessary.

When using a refrigerator with a top or bottom freezer, you will need to do a little extra work before installing the gun racks. Most of the ones I have seen have a tin or plastic liner held in by a number of screws. Take the screws out and remove this liner. Now you are going to have to cut a slot across the back of the compartment. With the top freezer, the slot will need to be about four to six inches wide. the bottom freezer type will need a width of eight to twelve inches. With the bottom freezer the stock will go through the slot and the guns will rest on the floor of the freezer compartment while with the top freezer, only the barrels will stick up into the freezer compartment. Now if you like, you can slide the liner back in as far as it will go without interfering with the guns. Mark and cut off what is sticking out. Now put it back and screw it in. This will give you extra storage space for ammo or whatever else you may want to use it for. That is about the only difference there is between a single door unit and a two door. The only The only problem you may have with a side by side will be installing the locks. I find the best place to install them is in the top and bottom of the doors.

Using a large chest type freezer presents some minor problems. While they usually have the most insulation and are an excellent choice, they can be a little less convenient. The guns will all be laying down so you will have to build your gun racks accordingly. The unit I saw that I liked the most held ten rifles and a number of handguns. this person had screwed three one by twos to each of the long walls of the freezer and two to each of the end walls. He then screwed sheets of pegboard the exact size of the inside walls to these one by twos. Using padded peg hooks and reversing each rifle, he did not have much trouble getting his guns in. The end pegboards were used for his handguns. His ammo and other accessories were then set on the floor in the center of unit. The inconvenience here is, he needed to remove quite a bit of gear to get to some of his guns, especially those close to the bottom. He installed his light right in the center of the lid. All in all, it was an excellent storage unit.

The only difference you will find when converting a refrigerator or freezer to other storage uses such as tools, silver, gold, jewelry or other valuables is how you want to convert the interior. The rest is pretty much the same, get the freon removed if possible, remove the compressor, leave the outside as normal looking as possible, build the type of shelving needed for what you are storing and install locks.

Before we leave the subject of refrigerators, I am going to make a couple of suggestions that may sound silly on the surface, but may make more sense when you think them through. first, if you have a small safe or fireproof lock box, think about keeping that in a refrigerator. No, it will not help the fireproofing, but I cannot think of too many crooks that would think about looking there. Second, and this one really sound silly on the surface, keep your refrigerator out on the porch in plain sight. Think about it, in most areas you must have the doors of old refrigerators removed or chained and padlocked. Put what ever you are going to store into the unit, move it onto the porch, wrap a heavy chain around the doors, put a good solid, well built padlock on the chain and face the door toward a wall. Who in their right mind is going to steal a junk refrigerator. I suggested this to an apartment dweller who had no room and wanted the refrigerator storage. He had some tools and a few valuables he wanted to store. I have not seen him since, so I do not know for sure if he did it and whether he liked doing it that way.

Until next time SURVIVE!!!

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Stash It - 3

2008-11-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

The first thing you are going to need to do is to disconnect the compressor unit. You are either going to have the freon removed or be very careful working with the unit. A number of years ago, I had a freon line rupture while I was working on it and happened to breathe in some of the fumes. I thought I was going to die. Until a couple of years ago it was legal to just drain the freon out yourself. Now it is illegal, you need to get someone who has a unit to recapture the freon. I will leave it up to you as to, if or how you are going to get the freon removed. those that choose not to get the freon removed will need to disconnect all of the electric lines going to the compressor. Save the plug-in cord as you are going to need it. Yes, it will be plugged in just like a working refrigerator. You will also want to leave the cooling coils on the back of the unit to keep it authentic looking. So, if you have removed the compressor, just cut the line to the coils and leave the coils in place. You can take it off for working on the unit but you should replace it. The electric cord will be used to power a ten watt light. This is to keep the humidity down in the unit and deep anything from rusting. If you are using a freezer that does not have a socket in it for a light bulb, you should install one. You can put a switch inside the unit to turn it off and on, if you do not think you need it all of the time. The only other thing that you need to do, is to drill some holes to ventilate the inside. Otherwise you will wind up with that musty, closed refrigerator smell in it. You need to drill about for or six holes across the top of the back wall and the same amount across the bottom of the back wall. I normally use about a three-eighths inch drill bit and drill four holes each, top and bottom. I like to drill my holes from the inside and deep them so that the coils hide them from the outside. You can see why I suggest getting rid of the freon. It is easy for the drill to poke a hole in a coil. Then you get rid of the freon in a way that is not pleasant or legal. You can cut some one inch squares of old aluminum screen and super glue one over each hole to deep insects and small rodents out of the unit.

Now you are ready to build the inside of the unit to hold whatever you are going to keep there. For rifles, I just glue a one by two to the back of the unit. I notch it to accept several gun barrels before gluing it in. If you want to deep a lot of guns in one unit, you can notch and glue a short one by two on each side also. This will usually add about four guns to the capacity. The one by two will have to be glued by the edge, so that it sticks out the two inch way. You might not trust the glue. In that case screw a couple of small angle brackets to the back of the unit, just under the one by two. You can also pad the slots with felt or tape. All you need to finish the inside is to glue a piece of carpet to the bottom of the inside to keep the guns from sliding. Now you will need to install some locks. I prefer using the small cylinder locks. This is the type used by companies when they install locks on their freezers. Yours may already have one on it. If not, you can usually go to a junk dealer that deals in junk appliances and pick them up for almost nothing. That is a good idea, if you can find any with keys. New ones are only a couple of bucks each, so you just might want to go that route. I like to but two locks on the large doors, one near the top and one near the bottom. On a two door refrigerator, I put a third one on the freezer door. Before installing these locks, I take them apart and change the pins around so that one key will open all of the locks. These locks are fairly simple and anyone with a little mechanical knowledge should not have any trouble with it. One unit that I helped on, the owner put two padlocks on the main door and a cylinder lock on the freezer door. We screwed one of the hinged tongues to the center of the inside top of the door. We put it in such a position that the tongue stuck into the freezer. The other one was screwed to the bottom center of the door, so the tongue would go under the unit, into the area where the drain pan should be. We put catches in the freezer and under the unit. We then installed a cylinder lock in the freezer door. To open the main door you had to unlock the freezer door and remove the kick plate from the bottom. To my way of thinking, this made it to inconvenient. You also needed two keys, one for the upper door and one for the two padlocks. However, it is a feasible and safe solution. I gave this example to show that solutions are only limited by your creativity.

Until next time "SURVIVE"

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Stash It - 2

2008-11-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

Tools are another thing that many crooks look for. For these, they usually hit the garage first, then any other area where there might be a shop or work room. Tools are a very valuable item to some crooks, so you should make every effort to make them as inconspicuous as possible. You may want to consider splitting up your tools and secreting a portion of them. In this way, even if part of the tools were found, you would still have some left.

the next thing to know is that crooks like to stay on the first floor of any building they are robbing. This is due to the fact that most houses have only one stairway leading upstairs. Crooks do not like to be where there is only one way out if they are discovered. They will go to the second floor if there is nothing worthwhile on the first floor. Basements are even less liked by crooks. Unless a basement has exceptionally large windows, or an outside entrance, they have no place to go if discovered. The best basements for storage are the old style, with the small windows and having only one entrance from the inside of the house. The two places that crooks hate most are crawl spaces and attics. Here again, there is normally only one entrance and most of the time that consists of a small trap door of some type. They both also tend to have very low clearance, which means a lot of crawling around to find out what is there. The scum that would rob you find that too much like work. They would get a real job if they wanted to work that hard.

Home Made Storage Units

One of the best things to use when making up your own safe type units are old refrigerators or freezers. There are several reasons for this. First: they are somewhat fire resistant. They are about the best insulated appliance in your home. While they will melt and get ruined if the fire gets hot enough, they are at least some protection. Second: so many people have multiple refrigerators and freezers nowadays that it does not look out of place to have more than one. Third: you can install locks in the doors without looking suspicious, as many can be purchased new with locks. This is especially true with freezers. Fourth: unless a crook is hungry or thinks you might have a lot of expensive steaks and lobster in your freezer, most of them will not even bother trying to look in a refrigerator or freezer. Here is one of these time that you might want to think kitchen. You need a large kitchen to accept a second refrigerator, but if you have room it is an excellent choice. Basements, rec rooms and utility rooms are also excellent choices. These are the places people are most likely to keep an extra refrigerator for their beverages. The garage is also an excellent place to keep an extra refrigerator or freezer.

An upright freezer works best for guns. They are usually tall enough to take most rifles in an upright position. This is also true of the side by side double door refrigerator freezers. The double door refrigerator freezer with the freezer either on the top on on the bottom can also be utilized as a gun cabinet, it just takes a little more work. Some of the smaller sized apartment and dormitory type refrigerators and freezers can be used for handgun storage as well as ammo storage and the storage of other valuables. Large chest type freezers can be one of the safest storage units, it is just that to be done right, they are a lot of work. When done in the correct way, getting at the guns can be a little inconvenient. As you can see, just about any type of unit can be used for some type of storage, and in today's environment where you normally have to pay to have your old refrigerator or freezer hauled away, why not take advantage of its secondary uses?

Until next week when we start building the gun safe: SURVIVE!!!

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Stash It

2008-11-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Much of a survivalist's gear is valuable, plus most of us have many other things around the place that we consider valuable. I spent most of the eighties living in and near Chicago. Living fairly close to gangs, scum and other criminal types got me started think seriously about security. I started doing things to secrete anything that I felt was tempting to the low life element. At the time I was also doing some photography work for other people. I was taking pictures of their valuables for insurance purposes. I helped several of these people to set up storage for some of these. I also personally needed to secrete my own things such as: cameras, guns, survival food, ammo, etc. No storage system is totally one hundred percent foolproof. the best we can do is to make our equipment as hard to find and as difficult to abscond with as possible. This is what I hope to be able to help you with.

There is no way for me to know any other person's reason for wanting to store things in hidden locations. You my not want your neighbors to know what you own, you might have a very real fear of being robbed by some of the scum that roams the streets in today's world, you may even have a fear of government agents coming snooping. the constitution of this great country guarantees each of us the right to privacy. I do not believe that any government agency, be it the BATFE, IRS or any other alphabet agency has the right to snoop into my personal belongings. As long as the items are constitutionally legal, and I came by them legally, it is no one else's business what I own or where or how I store it. some people my call this paranoid, and if it is, so be it. All I know is that I will probably have more left after a robbery or any other type of home invasion, than the people that are laughing at me now. I do not feel that we can any longer trust anyone: neighbors, acquaintances or anyone else except our closest family and friends. After many of the horror stories that I have read, I especially do not feel that we can trust many, (if any) of our government agencies. The thins that I will be describing in the next few weeks will suffice for storage of most valuables that most of us own. I am personally using some of these ideas at this time. Others I have used in the past while still others were designed for people other than myself. Some of these Ideas you may have heard of elsewhere and some may be new to you. A couple of these ideas were published in a newsletter that I published from 1989 to 1991. All of them will definitely help the average person, without unlimited resources, to protect their valuables. Not too many people that I know can afford a safe for their small valuables, a gun safe for their firearms and possibly another large safe type unit for cameras, electronic equipment, etc. Besides, if you bought all of those large safes, where would you keep them that would not be conspicuous? I try to come up with solutions that will eliminate that problem. First, let us go through a house as a burglar, or anyone else that is trying to find out what you have, without tearing up the entire interior, would. This type of person has a pretty definite idea of where to look for certain things. It seem that most people in the world follow a pattern about where they store things. Take things like jewelry and coins; the first place one would look would be in the bedroom, followed by a den of office with dining and living rooms coming after that. If the believe that you may have a safe they may try the den or office first and then the bedrooms. Speaking of safes, behind pictures and behind books in a built-in bookcase are two of the first spots that are checked. Checking for a floor safe comes next. Cameras and certain other valuables follow about the same path as do firearms. With electronic equipment it depends on what they are looking for. Living rooms, dens, family rooms, then dining rooms with bedrooms coming in last is the rule. However, if they are aware someone has ham radio equipment or some such other valuable electronic equipment, they may look to the den or office first. You will notice that nowhere in this list is the kitchen mentioned. That is because people rarely store any valuable items in the kitchen. Keep this in mind when planning your storage. One of my methods is to store things in unexpected places.

Until next time: SURVIVE!!

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It Is Coming

2008-10-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

Since my last entry a week ago, things have not gotten any better. Our president and our congress are doing their best to turn the USA into the UCSA; The United Communist States of America. I am going to get off of the subject of wilderness survival and go into my ideas of safely hiding things. Much of what I will be writing for the next several weeks will be taken from my book "Stash It". The reason I am going in this direction is that I believe this is the time to stock up on food, silver, ammo, etc. However, having said that, I have to believe that when push comes to shove, our government will call a state of emergency and will attempt to confiscate anything we have stored. They will call it hoarding and by executive order make hoarding illegal. There is also the possibility that people that do not know how to survive will be around looking to steal what you have. So, I will be spending a number of weeks on safely hiding what you will need to survive.

Storing and securing survival gear. Much of a survivalist's gear is valuable, plus, most of us have many other things around the place that we consider valuable. I spent most of the eighties living in and near Chicago. Living fairly close to gangs, scum and other criminal types got me started thinking seriously about the security of my possessions. I started doing things to secrete anything that I felt was valuable enough to be tempting to the low life element. I also wanted to secrete many things from any government types that decided that confiscation was on their mind. At the time I was also doing some photography work for other people. I was taking pictures of their valuables for insurance purposes. I helped several of these people to set up storage for some of their valuables. Now I decided I needed to hide much of my own belongings such as; cameras, guns, survival food, ammo, etc. No storage system is totally one hundred percent foolproof. The best we can do is to make our equipment as difficult to find and as difficult to abscond with as possible. This is what I am going to try to do in this blog, give you the ideas that can save your belongings.

There is no way for me to know any other person's reason for wanting to store things in hidden locations. You may not want your neighbors to know what you own, you might have a very real fear of being robbed by some of the scum that roams the streets in today's world. You may even have a fear of the government agents coming snooping. The constitution of this great country guarantees each of us the right to privacy. I do not believe that any government agency, be it the BATFE, IRS or any of the other alphabet agencies has the right to snoop in my personal belongings. As long as the items are constitutionally legal and I came by the legally, it is no one else's business what I own or where or how I store it. The way the constitution is being ignored today, I no longer trust anyone. Some people call this paranoid, and if it is, so be it. All I know is that I will probably have more left after a robbery or any other type of home invasion than the ones that are laughing at me now. I do not feel that we can any longer trust anyone' neighbors, acquaintances, government or anyone else except our closest friends and family. After reading the many horror stories, I am especially wary of any government agency. The things things that I will describe in the next few weeks will suffice for storage of most valuables that most of us own. I am personally using some of them at this time. Others I have used in the past while still others were designed for people other than myself. Some of these ideas you may already have heard of and many will probably be new to you. All of them will definitely help the average person, without unlimited resources, to protect their valuables. Not too many people that I know can afford a safe for their small valuables, a gun safe for firearms and possibly another large safe for cameras, electronic equipment, etc. Besides, if you bought of of these large safes, where would you keep them that the would not be conspicuous. I try to come up with solutions that will eliminate the problem.

Next week we will start looking at what the do, until then SURVIVE.

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Investing

2008-10-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Investing in the stock market at this time is one of the most stupid things a person could do. At least that is my opinion. I do not think that we have seen anything near the bottom of this market. As I wrote last time, if the bailout does not work we are in real trouble. We may be in a lot more trouble down the road if it does work. the reason for that is that the economy will go up again and when the crash does come we will have much farther to fall. Each time the economy should have gone into a deep recession, the powers that be pulled it out. Each time the government did not let the economy go, we wound up with more debt and more inflation. The inflation causes us to think that we are living higher than we are. We are living somewhat higher, but that happens only through debt. You cannot borrow your way out of bankruptcy, yet that is what our crooked government is telling us that they can do. This country does not have any real money. We only have what we borrow from the FED. They do not really have any money either. They create this money out of thin air and lend it to the USA. The taxpayers must pay it back with interest. We can never catch up because they just keep giving us more and more and we have more and more interest to pay. As I have said many times in the past, The Federal Reserve Bank is not federal, has no reserves and is not a bank. They are simply a clearing house for fiat money, money created out of thin air. They no longer even print much of that money as all they need is a computer entry.

If we should not invest in the stock market, what should we invest in?? That is a question a get a lot when advising people on survival. Right now the best investments you can make is food and ammunition. We are getting closer and closer to martial law. If the economy fails, we will be put under martial law to "protect" us. We are set up so that martial law could still be called before the election and the election canceled. This would take something dramatic to happen in the next two weeks. While it may sound like a stretch, it could very well take place. The shadow government has brought this country to the brink and it would take very little to push it over the edge. Another possibility is that the election will go on and if the wrong person wins, martial law could then be put into place, thus denying the winner the office. I do not believe that will happen as both major candidates are hand picked by the shadow government. So, what is a person to do??

First, as I have written many times, stock up on at least two years worth of food. Make sure that it is food that you enjoy eating and make sure it is food that will keep. The grocery stores are full of ready made meals that need no refrigeration and will keep for a long time if stored properly. Get a dehydrator and dry your own fruits and vegetables. Get a vacuum sealer and vacuum seal them. Keep them where they will not freeze but where it will be hard for the fasciunist to find them if they show up to make sure you are not "hoarding". If you have an electric dehydrator, go out and get a solar dehydrator, you do not know how long the electric company will be able to provide you with power. Plus, this will keep the electric bill to a minimum.

Ammo is the next investment to make. Make sure you have plenty of ammo for any weapons that you own. If you are going to keep some on hand for trade, here is a list of what I would keep. .22 rimfire, .308, 30-06, 12 gauge, 30-30, .223, .357, .44 mag. and 20 gauge. Hopefully you will have the weapons that some of these fit. For instance; if a person has a couple of .22 rimfires, a 30-30 and a 12 gauge those are the calibers that you would want to have extras of. That way if you never had to use them for barter, you could use them up yourself. One thing to remember about both food and ammo, you need to rotate your stock. You need to start using your oldest stock and replacing it with new. This requires some record keeping, but it keeps anything from going bad.

Next to money. I have written many times about investing in silver. The price of silver has been going down, but that is due to the government wanting it to go down. It is now at a price that you have a hard time even finding it to buy. Many dealers in silver bullion are not even selling it right now because of the depressed price. As the price dropped there was a run on silver bullion and now there is a shortage. I ordered some today through a company I deal with. I am not sure I will get it but I hope to. And, as I have always written; take delivery of the actual silver. Do not let it sit in a bank vault or in a brokers safe. When the ship hits the sand you just may not be able to get it quickly, if at all.

The last thing I will say this week is; "GET OUT OF ANY CITIES". If you live in a city, even a small one, move out if at all possible. This is especially important if there are a lot of homeless and welfare cases in your city. When the government quits giving them handouts, there will be rioting. The suburbs are a little better, but not much. You need to be in a very small town (5,000 or less) or out in the country. You need to be able to defend your area. I know all of this sounds like I am paranoid, and maybe I am. However, I would rather be a little paranoid and be ready that to have the sky fall on me and not be ready.

Until next time: SURVIVE

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Economy

2008-10-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

Throughout my many years of being a survivalist, I have prepared for many scenarios. The one I have prepared for the most and the one I always expected to happen is now coming. I have stated almost since I started advising other people on survivalism that the main thing to watch for was the economy to go south. The reason that this makes a real survival situation is that there is going to be rioting, looting and other nasty happenings. If it gets bad enough martial law will be declared. I began seriously telling people to look for the economy to go in the toilet as far back as 1989. I also said at that time, if we did not have a recession, when it finally came it would be much worse. there have been a half dozen times in the ensuing twenty years that we should have gone into recession. Each time the government worked it out so the recession would not happen. Now they are telling us that this is the worst situation this country has ever been in. It is at least the worst since the Great Depression. Once again the government is going to try to bail out the bankers and the economy. I do not believe it will work this time and if it does not, we are in for some real trouble.

The best I can do right now is to give the tried and true survival advice. For years I have advised all survivalists to have a two year supply of food on hand. It may be a little late to start, but if you do not yet have your supply, increase what you have as much as possible in the time left. Everyone that reads this blog knows what I have suggested for guns, ammo and other self-defense items. You also know my attitude on the bug-out possibility. If you fully intend to stay where you are, make sure that you can defend your home and everyone in it. Have back-ups for as much of your needs as possible. For instance, we now use electricity to cook. I have three camp stoves that will do the job if necessary. Two of these stoves are propane and the third is Colman fuel run. I have supplies of Coleman fuel and LP on hand. My heat will be all wood instead of the LP with wood back-up. We have enough canning equipment to can everything in our freezer if we wind up without electricity. I have a generator that will keep the freezer going until we get the canning done. For lighting I have a Coleman fuel lantern, two LP lanterns and numerous kerosene lamps. I also have a supply of kerosene to keep them going. I also have a kerosene cook stove and a kerosene heater. However, I do not believe that I have enough kerosene at the present time to use them.

So you see, while we may not live like we are now, we can still live somewhat normally. I have two small TVs that run off 12v batteries as well as two of the camping refrigerators which also run on 12v. Between my solar/crank up radio and my TVs I should be able to keep up on the news, such as it is. Do I want this to happen? No way; I would like to keep everything as it is now. The only problem is that it will not stay that way. If we are going to have a depression, now is better than later. If we wait until later it will just be worse yet. The economy has to be able to correct itself and the sooner the better. Had it happened back in the late 1980s or early 1990s it would not have been nearly as bad and we would not be looking at a major depression as we are today.

I am having a hard time writing this as I am waiting to see what is going to happen. My hope is that all of you that read this are ready. A true survivalist must be ready for anything at any time. I will be watching the economy closely and will put another entry anytime I feel trouble is coming.

Before I go, there is one thing I would like to remind everyone of. I have been telling everyone to buy silver as it is going to go up. Well it went down a lot since I began writing about it. What does that mean? Personally, I think it is time to buy. It is as cheap as it has been for a long time. If you can get it for 10% over spot, buy all you can afford, I intend to.

Until next time; SURVIVE!!!

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://www.realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

Money

2008-09-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Another time I am going to talk about something other than wilderness survival. In my last entry I stated that I saw the country going down the tubes. That was about two weeks ago and a lot has happened in that two weeks. If it looked like we were going down the tubes then, it is much worse now. More banks have failed, Wall Street is in a tizzy and Shrub and Paulson want $700 billion. Actually, there is no way that anything can be done short of a trillion. these are numbers I do not even comprehend. the time has come to start to really get serious about survival. You need to worry about not only your financial survival, but the very survival of your life.

Now is the time to hunker down and get ready. Do you have any money in the stock market? I do not and do not advise anyone to have any there either. Buy silver, buy gold, buy land, buy ammunition, buy food. These are the things that are going to put you through the upcoming depression. You read that correctly; I said depression, not recession. I have been preaching for over twenty years that the powers that be needed to let the economy go down. The sooner they would have done it the less it would have hurt. 1992 would have been a good time to let the economy fail. At that point it would have been a major recession or a very minor depression. There were also many other times since then that it would have been advantageous to let the economy go. Each time the downturn would have been a little worse than the time before, but we could have handled it. Each time the government found a way to prop it up and get us farther into debt. If they throw a trillion at it right now it will make it that much worse in a year or two.

I believe that they are going to do it because it is an election year. The rule of politics is going to overrule the rule of common sense. Of course in the District of Craziness the rule of common sense does not exist. Here is the scenario I see. Shrub and Paulson get their trillion dollars and bail the big lenders out of this mess. Early in the new presidency, an even worse event will take place and there will be no fix to it. That is when the whole ball of wax will fall and the ship will hit the sand. At that point there will be runs on banks, food riots and many other riots and uprisings all over the country. This is what you need to be ready for.

Now is the time to get out of the city and into a small town or the countryside. Now is the time to get your survival gear in shape and yourself as well. I have lost thirty pounds this year and am getting back to where I was earlier in life. I will be putting up more wood to heat with this year as the price of L.P. has skyrocketed this year. We are putting up more food and I am making more storage space. I am getting my ammo supply up to the max and doing all else to get my armament in shape. My pop-up camping trailer is loaded and ready to go if need be. However I feel that I can defend myself in my present location. My four grown children, their spouses and their children also know that they are welcome here and will be a great help in the defense of my area. There are many things in my past postings that you can go back over and look at. Learn as much as possible so that you can do as much as possible.

I may sound cruel, but those that do not prepare and are not ready to fend for themselves are on their own as far as I am concerned. The ones that expect the government or someone else to take care of them are not welcome around me. Those who are doing their best and need a little hand to make it can always expect my help. I know that this has been just a lot of rambling but I am trying to get my thoughts together and will have a much better entry next week. Until then:

http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

http://www.realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

Where Are We?

2008-09-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

I will get back to wilderness survival soon, but as a survivalist, I like to take care of the what is happening now. As I sit here typing this, we are watching our country go right down the tubes. We may not have to worry about wilderness survival unless martial law is put into effect and they come to arrest and imprison us gun owning survivalists. That is a possibility, but I do not think it has a real high possibility rating. It will probably be a little more like you will have to defend yourself against looters and other riff raff.

Here is what I see. I see the United States going completely bankrupt. Our government keeps bailing out banks and businesses and they have to borrow money to do it. That is kind of like having to rob Peter to pay Paul. They have just bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the amount is astronomical. They say it is to protect the average homeowner, but I do not believe that for just one minute. At the moment the government is able to manipulate the economy so that it does not look so bad. That will come to a halt when they have no place to get the money. This, being an election year, should be fairly safe. However, after the election is over grab your butt with both hands and hold on, we are going for a ride and it is all down hill. I truly hope that I am wrong about this, but it does not look like it. What to do?

As I have stated in the past, purchase as much food as you have money for and can store. At this time I am advising to have much of it either freeze dried food or dehydrated food that is vacuum packed. The reason I say this is I believe that at one time Bill Clinton sign a presidential order that in an emergency, no one could have more than a two week supply of food. By having much of your food freeze dried or dehydrated and vacuum sealed you can bury it and it will last a lot longer than canned or frozen food. It is also easier to hide than other types of food. While I do not like MREs or freeze dried food, I am putting some away just in case. At the same time I am dehydrating as much as I can as fast as possible. I am currently using a solar dehydrator and will be using an electric one as soon as the weather gets too bad.

Besides food, silver and ammunition are the next two things to consider. Once the country goes bankrupt and the dollar is useless, you will need silver or gold to do your purchasing. I prefer silver because you can get it in lower denominations, which will be easier to use. And ammunition, especially things like .22, 30-30, 308, 243, and 30-06 will be prime barter items. Plus, make sure that you have plenty for your own use.

For those who live in medium to large cities, I would suggest that you do your best to get out. Small towns or better yet out in the country will be the place to be. The farther from a large metropolitan area the better. Buy and acre of land or two acres or as much as you can afford. Even if you do not feel like you can move now, you will have it for a back-up.

I do not believe it will make much difference who gets elected, Hussein or McNasty, things are going to hell in a hand basket. I do not believe that it can be stopped, so all we can do is be ready for it and survive. I am not voting for either of them but will be voting for Chuck Baldwin who is running on the Constitution Party ticket. Voting for either party is voting for the lesser of two evils and I will not vote for evil. That is what I believe everyone should do. I do not know if the Constitution Party could pull us out of the mess we are in, but they would do better than the other two parties.

Keep you heads down and your guns loaded. Things are about to come to a head and all of you survival skills may be put to the test.

Until next time check out: http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com

and http://realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

Time to Invest

2008-08-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

I know that I have been off on a couple of tangents the last couple of weeks, but that is what survivalism is all about; being prepared for anything and changing course any time it is necessary. I am not really changing course, it is just that I believe a couple of things have become important.

First, there is silver. This past week silver on the spot market was hovering between thirteen and fourteen dollars an ounce. Anyone with even a little bit of money to invest should jump into the silver market right now. Anytime that silver is below twenty dollar an ounce, it is a super good deal. Under fifteen dollars is almost too good to be true. Other that the fact that the big bankers have been manipulating the price of silver and gold, silver would probably be about twenty-five dollars an ounce right now. I do not believe that they can keep the price down forever. I am buying as much as possible right now according to how much money I have to spare. Remember, when buying silver, buy the physical product and take delivery of it. Silver stocks are OK if you have a lot of extra cash, but silver coins and silver bars are what I recommend. Buy rolls or bags of non-numismatic coins dated 1964 or before and if you cannot find enough of the coins, buy silver bars. I have limited myself to one ounce bars. The only problem with buying silver is the problem of storage. In my book "Stash It" I cover many ways of hiding things. Anyone who would be interested in that book can just leave a comment at the end of the article and I will get back to you, as I do have several copies on hand. I also have several copies of my book "Sensible Survival Investing" on hand should anyone be interested. Just remember, I do not feel that the bankers can hold the price down forever and I buy any time silver is below twenty dollars and I have a little extra cash. I have been investing in silver for over thirty years and have sold and made money a couple of times and have never lost money on my investment.

The second thing I would like to talk about today is land. Any of you who are looking for a place to bug out to when the ship hits the sand or anyone who would like to buy a place far from a large city and move now, now is the time to do so. The real estate market is in the toilet and there are a lot of places for sale. I live in an area where there are a lot of vacation homes and there are a lot of for sale signs around the area. A lot of the people who have these vacation homes also have an adjustable mortgage on their primary residence. That means that they are trying to sell the vacation home top be able to keep up the payments on the primary residence. Another problem for them is the price of fuel to drive up here to get use of their property. Many of them live two to three hundred miles from here and getting here is no longer cheap. I see many properties around here where people used to come up three or four times a year at least and now have not been here at all this year. The places I see for sale range from vacant land to mobile homes to some nice year-round homes. If other areas are the same as here, this is the time to buy. I also know several real estate agents and they tell me sales are slow. That means that you can probably get the price down even farther than it already is. I would be careful not to get into debt too much with buying property. However, if you have been thinking about the possibility of moving or buying bug out property and you have the means to do so, I would say that there may never be a better time.

When you make an offer on a home or land, always make it considerably less than the asking price. My rule of thumb is to knock off ten percent if the price is less than $100,000 and twenty percent if the price is over $100,000. Thus on property with an asking price of $75,000 I would put in and offer of $67,500. On a property listed at $125,000 the offer would be $100,000. All they can do is to say no and usually they will put out a counter offer. In my life I have purchased five primary dwellings and three bug out properties and while I never got them for the first offer I made, I always got them for a lot less than the asking price.

These are the two things that I believe are important for all survivalists right now. With a presidential election coming up, it is hard to predict what is going to happen. I still am not sure an election will even happen. If B. Hussein O. happens to win, grab your butt with both hands and hang on, you will be glad you prepared.

See you next time. Until then check out; http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com
and http://www.realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

It May Be Time

2008-08-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

Things are not looking too good right now. It may be time to be ready to either hunker down and live of the land where you are or it may be time to get ready to move out. Take a look around you and you can probably see what I mean. The economy is in the toilet, the politicians are arguing about nothing, gasoline is still over $3.75 a gallon, the dollar is going up right now and gold and silver are going down. The stock market goes the opposite way it should. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac report that they lost millions of dollars and the stock market jumped a couple of hundred points. In normal times the stock market should have dropped. My thoughts are is that the government and big business are setting us up for a big drop.

It looks like there will be a war with Iran in the near future. One of the largest flotillas ever put together is either in or headed for the gulf to blockade Iran. This is not going to sit well with Russia or China, as both of them depend on Iran for trade. This whole idea could set off world war III. I am not the only one that is thinking that way, there are other writers on the web that agree with everything I say. If Israel is going to attack Iran they will want to do it now in case B. Hussein O. becomes president. He may not want to go to their assistance if needed. George W. Shrub would be only too glad to go to war for Israel as he feels that we should take down Iran anyway. Russia is already fighting in their former ally Georgia. Georgia has troops in Iraq and are now going to pull them out. This will leave us even shorter on manpower there. Afghanistan is not going well and we need more troops there. With all of this going on, we have a senator or two that have stated that Iran has committed an act of war and we should invade.

If all of this comes to pass, there is going to be warfare on US soil too. There will be terrorist attacks that will make 9/11 look like a holiday. When that happens, look for martial law to be declared. As anyone that has been following my blogs knows, I have been predicting this for some time. Now other writers are getting on the bandwagon. By declaring martial law many things could happen. Once martial law is declared the constitution is forgotten. While even now politicians do not pay much attention to the constitution they at least give it lip service. With martial law, even that will go by the wayside. This is exactly what the faciunists want, because they will be able to take over the country, (they think). All elections can be cancelled and Shrub could become dictator for life.

Like I stated, it may be time to hunker down or be ready to move. If you already live out in the boonies, you may want to get ready for whatever comes your way. Food, guns, ammo, water and anything else that you need to survive. You may need to protect yourself and your loved ones from all types of scum. If you live in a city, make yourself ready to move out at a moments notice. Even better if you can get out before it starts that would be better. If you have to stay, keep your things packed and ready to go. You may want to check back to my last several writings to see what to do to get ready. We may need a years worth of food on hand, it is hard to tell. It depends on how good a gardener you are and how good a hunter or fisherman. Now is the time to go back through everything I have written on this blog and see what you need to do. Once you have all your necessities in order, if you have any money left, buy silver. That is all I am going to say for this entry. I will be back here again as soon as possible depending on what happens. In the meantime, check out my other two blogs:
http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com
http://www.realenvironmentalism.blogspot.com

Wild Food

2008-07-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

In a way we are going to take a little time away from the wilderness survival topic. However, what I am going to talk about today is very important to wilderness survival. That topic is the finding and gathering of wild food. You will be able to catch small animals and birds and if you have a firearm with you, you will be able to take somewhat larger game. How large depends on what type of weapon you are carrying. You should also be prepared to catch fish if there is any water around. But first of all we need to look at plants, nuts and berries. In the spring, summer and fall, they will provide you the most food for the least effort.

One of the things that I do each and every spring, summer and fall is to find wild plants that are edible. Some of them are actually delicious. In the spring I usually start with two old favorites of mine: dandelions and plantain. These are two plants that are so common that they are easily recognized and they cannot be mistaken for anything else. If you get these two plants when they are very young they make an excellent salad. Once they get a little older the need to be cooked like any greens. With both of them I like to cover with cold water, bring to a boil and then take them off the heat and drain off all of the water. I then put them back into some cold water and bring them to a boil once again. Add a little salt to the water and if you want to get fancy, you can add a little butter and you have an excellent meal. Well, not exactly a meal, but an excellent addition to any meal. I normally find these plants right in my yard. Just make sure that there are no poisons used on the area where you are picking these plants. In the spring I also have morel mushrooms on my property, so I get those also. On a camping/fishing trip I made a number of years ago, I went out trout fishing in the morning. I caught three trout, I found some watercress in the stream I was fishing and wound up finding some morel mushrooms on my way back to my camp. That was one of the best meals I have ever had. I fried the trout and morels in butter and used the watercress as a salad and I felt like I was living like a king.

I am not going to get too deep into plants because there are so many and some are only in one part of the country. I just want to show how easy it can be to live off the land. What everyone needs to do is to get a good field guide to edible plants in their area and study it. You may only want to try out one plant per month or maybe not even that many. Just remember, the more you try out now the less you will have to worry if it becomes a necessity. Cattails are one of the best food plants that you can find. Their root can be used like a potato, the stem can be peeled and eaten like celery and if the plant has the white fuzz on the upper part, this can be used as flour or to stretch flour you might have.

Summer is a great time for berries. So far this year I have picked wild strawberries, wild raspberries, wild blueberries and am waiting for the wild blackberries to ripen. I will also hopefully be able to pick some elderberries and some choke cherries. They come a little later in the summer or early fall. Then there will be the nuts. I will gather acorns and hazel nuts if I can beat the squirrels to them. The acorns will be leeched out to get the bitter tanic acid out and then will be ground up for flour. If I get enough this year I will be roasting some and roasting some dandelion roots and then I will grind both and use them as a coffee substitute. I have a spot where I can get walnuts and I will get all I can. They are a little difficult to shell, but at the price of walnuts in the store, it is well worth it.

Then there are strange things like Canada thistles. Using gloves I get one as large as possible and I take all of the leaves off and then I peel the outer skin off of the main stalk. Eaten raw with maybe a little salt on them they are excellent. Stinging nettles is another one that you need gloves to tackle but they are excellent table fare.

Something to look for in the wild is what appear to be old farmsteads. Here you can find apple trees, plum trees and many other domestic plants that have gone wild. The fruit may not be as large or as pretty as what you find in a store, but they can be tasty and healthy.

These are just a few suggestions on what to find in the woods. There are many more as I stated but there are many books out there that will give you all the information you need. You can also go on the web and Google wild plants for food and I am sure you will have plenty to keep you busy. If you have never done it, gathering wild plants for food can be a fun thing. You need to start right now and learn at least a couple of the most common ones in your area. Then go out and pick them and eat them. You may find, like any food, there will be some you will not like. You need to know this before the time comes when you may have to live off these plants.

We will get back to where I left off last time with the next entry. Until then Survive.

Wilderness Survival-4

2008-07-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

Back to the pack with which to head for higher ground as they say. We have pretty much packed everything but food. Food can be one of the trickiest things to pack. First, let me say that my pack is always ready to go. That means that any food that I keep in the pack needs to be long lasting and oblivious to the weather. It has to be able to stand one hundred degree heat as well as thirty degrees below zero. I keep my pack in my pop-up camping trailer. That way if I am already set up in a camp and that becomes dangerous, I can bug out directly from there. This is why I keep all non-perishable food. Those of you who keep your packs in the house or somewhere else where the weather will not hurt it may want to include different food than I have in mine.

This pack is one of the few places that I would recommend MREs or at least some type of freeze dried camping food. I actually have two of each in my pack, two packages of MREs and two packages of commercial freeze dried camping food. These are long lasting, last resort types of food. I feel that nowadays there are so many items in the grocery store that are dried and need only to be heated or water added that the need for the more expensive freeze dried food is unnecessary. Think of things you enjoy eating now. There are dried soups, boxed pasta meals, and many more types of food. I will say right here and now, anything that I purchase in a grocery store is usually repackaged. The reason for this is that I like to have everything vacuum sealed so that bugs do not get into the food and the food stays fresh longer. Another thing that I do is to dehydrate as much of my own food as possible. I currently own two dehydrators; one is solar, which I prefer using but the other is electric so that if the weather is not conducive to solar dehydration I can still make food. I do many fruits such as apples, peaches, pineapple and many more. I also do tomatoes and some other vegetables. I make jerky and vacuum pack that also. I make up trail mix that can be used as a light lunch. I have camped many times and had a couple of good sized sticks of jerky and some of my trail mix and found it to be an excellent lunch.

One of the reasons that I prefer to purchase items from the grocery store is that I can purchase things that I enjoy eating. That way you can take things out of the pack and rotate your food. Most items will last from two to five years. Check everything you buy and list it in a place where you will remember to use it up and put in new. That is the reason that I put freeze dried camping food and MREs in the pack; they last the longest, at least five years. I really do not know how long my vacuum packed food will last. I tend to use some of it when we go camping, even in the camper, and then replacing it when we get home.

I am not going to go into specific items for the pack. Everyone has their preferences as far as food goes and can make out their own list. Make up a two week menu and then begin to put that into the pack. Be sure to include things like instant orange juice powder, coffee, tea and other things to use to flavor water that may not taste too good. Also take salt and pepper and possibly other flavorings.

Some of you may want to know how I came up with the two week supply. First of all, it is about all that is recommended to carry in a backpack. Secondly, a two week supply of food should last a person well over six weeks. I once did a five week camping trip (combination of van and backpacking) which I began with a two week supply of food. As part of the trip was van camping I felt I could find a store if I ran out of food. By gathering wild plants and fishing, I came home with food to spare from my two week supply. This was after five weeks on the road. The time of the year was from the last week in April to the last week of May. I camped in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota so you know that the weather was not the most conducive to food gathering. Next week I will see if there is anything I feel I missed and we will perhaps build a personal first aid kit.

And now for the medical kit. First it think we should put in a bottle of water purification tablets. This is one of two or three bottles of these that I think one should have. Next some Tylenol extra strength, rapid release capsules. They can also be of the generic type as long as they are the equivalent of the Tylenol. A bottle of rubbing alcohol and a bottle of peroxide are next. Add a good pair of surgical quality scissors and we will be done for this week.

See you soon for more survival tips.

Wilderness Survival-3

2008-07-04T20:30:00.000-07:00

We are back to packing our pack. We will need two space blankets, which are only about four inches square when they are purchased and weigh next to nothing. If you choose to carry a sleeping bag or a wool blanket, they should be tied to the outside of the pack, either to the top or to the bottom of the pack. If you have a pack with a external frame, they usually extend enough past the bottom of the pack itself to tie the bag or blanket there. You are going to want a small first aid kit. This is not the medical kit we are making up but the small personal first aid kit. If several people are traveling and surviving together, one of you may want to carry the medical kit also. This is why I am using a surplus Polish Army Medical Shoulder Bag in which to set up my medical kit. If this is done, someone else may want to carry some of that person's personal items. For my personal first aid kit, I have one which hangs on my pistol belt which is something I always wear when backpacking. The large knife I suggested for the pack usually hangs on this belt also.

You will also need a compass, but I suggest that it goes into your pocket rather than your pack. That way it is always handy. You will also need some clothing. Socks are the most important item of clothing you can possibly carry. You will be on your feet, doing a lot of walking and having good, dry, well fitting socks is very important. I would carry four extra pair besides the ones you are wearing. Two of them can be cotton and two of them wool. Never wear the same socks two days in a row. Even if you have no chance to wash the ones you are wearing, air them out overnight and put a different pair on in the morning. Air them out the second night and then it is not too bad to wear them. The best policy is if there is water available, wash them or at least rinse them out. You will be packing a bar of face soap and this can be used to wash socks and shorts as well. You will need at least one change of underwear and if it is winter in the north a change of long johns. A couple of hankies will not hurt either. It is hard to get into the outer clothing, not knowing what type of weather each one of you will be finding. If you are in an area such as the south or southwestern United States, you will want certain things and people in the north will need different things. It will also matter if you are going out in the summer or winter and how long you intend to stay. I would have to know each survivalist's situation before I could make a good judgement. All I will say here is pack the clothing you feel you will need, but do not over pack. The pack will be heavy enough without adding extra, unneeded clothing.

Next week we will get into the food and miscellaneous items. Now let us get back to our medical kit. Remember this kit will be for taking care of you and others in your party when there is no medical help around.

Add you the last two week's list: Sweet oil for the softening of ear wax, an ear syringe to clean out ears, a bottle of boric acid to make eye wash and a glass eye cup. They make plastic disposable eye cups, but I prefer the glass ones as I can sterilize them and use them over and over. The last thing we will add this week is a pill splitter. This is especially necessary for a group having younger children who may need a half of a tablet of some type. Also, many prescriptions call for a person to take a half pill. I, personally am on three such prescriptions.

Back next week with another dose of survival.

Wilderness Survival-2

2008-06-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, let us start packing our backpack. One thing I should mention here while we are still at the beginning and some of you are possibly looking for that perfect backpack. I prefer a backpack with an outside frame. Many things can be hung on the frame outside the pack. Also the frame can be used alone to pack such things as a haunch of venison or other large items. If you already have a pack that you like and it does not have an outside frame, do not worry too much about it. Either use it as it is or make your own frame for the pack you have. One of my packs is an army pack for which I made a frame from 1 x2s and some canvas.

The first thing to have for your pack is a good large knife. This is one of the items that can hang on the outside of the pack. I like a good, well made, fixed blade knife for this purpose. You can still carry a sturdy pocket folder or even another smaller belt knife. I also carry a folding camp saw and a hatchet. I know it sounds like a lot but remember, you may want to survive for a fairly long time. We are also going to need a firearm and ammo. Here is where we get into some trouble of knowing what to take. My suggestion is a combination .22 caliber/.410 over and under. The reason I pick this weapon is that it can be had as a takedown weapon, both the .22 and the .410 are the quietest firearms of their style and we need quiet if we are going to survive. I also have a .22 pistol in my pack but that is a personal choice. By the way, a .22 will bring down a whitetail deer with one well placed shot. However, this can be tricky and should only be tried in a must survive situation. If you are going to depend on deer sized game for food it might be better to eliminate the .22 handgun and carry a .357 or .44 caliber handgun. My only reason for not doing so is that I would need another size of ammo and the noise factor, but it definitely is worth considering. I would carry a brick (500 rounds) of .22 ammo and about 100 rounds of .410 shells, with 25 of those being slugs.

Now that you have a good knife, guns, saw, hatchet what else do we need to survive. Well, how about something to start a fire with. First, I have a large container into which I have put about 100 waterproof matches. I do my own waterproofing so that I can save a little money. I simply dip the head of a strike anywhere match into melted wax and let it dry. If it does not look like enough was has stuck, you may need to dip it again. A point of interest here is that in my area of Wisconsin the only place that I can purchase strike anywhere matches is at an Amish store. You will also want another fire starter. One of the flint and steel or similar type starter is what is probably best. I also have a number of fire starting pellets with me. I make these by combining lint from the dryer with the wax I finished using for my matches. Do you actually need these? probably not, but having a couple with at all times could save you a mighty cold night or two.

An now back to the medical kit. We will need some 2 x 2 gauze pads and some 4 x 4 gauze pads. We will also need a roll of gauze for wrapping wounds and some heavy duty tape. Put in a bottle of eye drops and a bottle of nasal spray. Also, some cold tablets and some throat lozenges. I think that is enough money for this week. Next week more on survival and more on meds.

Wilderness Survival

2008-06-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

I titled this "Wilderness Survival instead outdoor survival because this is the one where you may want to go into the wilderness and disappear, at least for a while. This is the case of wanting to get away from whatever is happening. While most of us will never venture into true wilderness for any length of time, the time may come when some of us want to. To those that want to and can handle it, this could be one way to survive panics, rioting, martial law and other scenarios.

There are several things that a person could do. You could possibly take a van or a small camping trailer and drive it as far into the woods as possible. You would then need to do an excellent camouflage job on it so it could not be seen from the air and would be very, very difficult for anyone but you to find on the ground. I personally have a pop-up camper that I keep fully equipped. However, I do not intend it to be a wilderness camping unit. My idea, other than using it for pleasure camping, is to go to some remote state or national forest and camp should rioting or other panics occur. I would not want to use it for a hiding place during martial law or other time when our government decided to round up all survivalists and put them in a camp. For this purpose I have another camping method prepared. This is my backpack method of disappearing.

First you will need a pack that is large enough to hold a lot of equipment, but yet is not so heavy that you have a lot of trouble carrying it. I do not carry a tent in my backpack, I carry only a light five foot by seven foot tarp. I can use it as a lean to, a ground cloth or I can wrap up in it. You can obtain woodland camo tarps at a very reasonable price. I have been keeping a mummy style sleeping bag with my pack but in the name of weight and space I may switch to a wool blanket. If you wrap up in a wool blanket and also wrap the tarp around you, you can stand some fairly cold temperatures. I intend to test my theory out when winter returns to Wisconsin. Until then I will keep my sleeping bag with my pack.

Here is an idea which I know will work. I have not used it for many years but used it in my younger years. All you need to do is to pull up a pile of leaves and other forest floor debris into a pile about three feet wide, seven feet long and three feet high. Now if you crawl right into the middle of it you will stay warm in temperatures down to the mid twenties. With your wool blanket you could probably stay warm in below zero weather, I am not sure because I have not tried it with the wool blanket. You could also carry a couple of the small, cheap space blankets. With a foot of leaves on the ground, a space blanket shiny side up on top of that and the second blanket shiny side down then a couple of more feet of leaves and when you crawl between the two space blankets, I do not see ever being cold. This would allow you to not carry a heavy sleeping bag or even a blanket and it would also eliminate the tent. By the time I get the whole list ready for you, you may want to leave the tent and blanket home.

I will pick this subject up again next week, but now as I promised last week, we are going to start building a medical case. This is not going to be a first-aid kit not even a well stocked first-aid kit, this is going to be and honest to goodness real medical kit. You may be able to do much more than first aid with it. The reason for it is that if we head for the wilderness or even if we are stranded in our present locations, we may not be able to get to a doctor or a hospital.

First we need a way to carry all of the items needed and there will be a lot of them. I was going to use a fifty caliber ammo box, but decided that I would rather have a soft pack. I am ordering a surplus medical bag used by a foreign army. It has several pockets and looks like it will hold the many items I am going to put in it. I am going to try to limit the purchases to a half dozen per week to keep this within most of our budgets. This week, besides the container put aside or in the container if you have it: a box of regular band aids, hydrocortosine creme (1 tube), spray disinfectant, a bottle of one hundred aspirin and a roll of medical paper tape.

I will be continuing both subjects next week. Until then "prepare".

Outdoor Survival

2008-06-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

Surviving in the outdoors or the wilderness can be as simple or as difficult as you make it. Many people that have been lost in the wilderness due to a plane crash or some other disaster die of starvation near much food and water. Others in the same situation flourish. What is the difference? A large part of the difference is attitude and the rest is preparedness knowledge. I can teach anyone the preparedness knowledge part of it but no one can teach the attitude part. This is something that you have to work out in your own mind. How bad do you want to survive? What are you willing to go through? Can you think outside the box? All of these things only you can answer. If you feel now that you do not have the mentality to be a survivor, you can do some mental exercises that will help. Spend part of each day thinking about possible scenarios and what you would do if faced with them. You may even want to read up on it and see what you should do. The more knowledge you have the more confident you will be and the more likely to survive any emergency. So, let's look at some things to remember.

If you are going to be lost in the outdoors, this is the time of year to be lost. However, no one gets to pick the time they are going to be in a survival situation. However, here in the north the seasons of spring, summer and fall are all good for finding food to eat. In the spring there are many green plants that are not only edible, but tasty. Things like dandelions, plantain and other early spring plants are an excellent food supply and an excellent source of vitamins. Raiding birds nests in the spring will also provide food for a starving person. This is one of those things that one would not think about doing during normal times, but survival is not a normal time. During the summer and fall there are numerous berries and nuts along with many green plants to keep one alive. Up here in the north, winter would be the worst of all times to be lost in the woods. There is much less food in the winter than at any time of the year. However, even then there are things that can be eaten to stay alive. The inner bark of aspen and willow trees can be eaten, cattails can be dug and the roots eaten and there are other foods. Sometimes by digging around in the leaves and snow acorns or other nuts can be found.

If you are out on a hunting or fishing trip when you become stranded in the woods, you already have a good start on survival. Your gun or your fishing rod will provide you with food. The much more difficult thing is for someone who is in the woods due to a plane crash. You will not have a gun or probably even a knife with you as you are allowed to carry nothing like that on a plane. You are going to have to scavenge to find tools to keep yourself alive. If you are in a car that gets stranded in the wilds, you will at least have all of the tools that are in the trunk, tools for tire changing etc. All of these tools will help you to do the many things you need to do to survive.

Next week we will go a lot deeper into things that you should do and things that you should have if you travel. I am also going to start the building of a medical kit. This will be a complete home medical kit and not a first aid kit. Each week we will add to it until we have enough medical supplies to take us through any survival situation. We will add to it each week to keep it from costing us too much money all at one time. I am on a tight budget and I know many of you are too. One of the reasons for doing this is the fact that I no longer have a medical kit and need a new one. My medical got misplaced somewhere in the last move we made and I have been without one for several years. So each week the final paragraph of my blog will concern this kit.

Things To Do 2

2008-06-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

As I stated last entry, I believe that things are coming to a head. The terrorists are threatening to us WMDs and the financial world has not improved. We now have a man who is quite possibly a muslim (I believe he is) running for president running against a man who loves invading aliens and wants a one world government. All of these things are going to make this a very interesting summer to say the least. We are also having some severe weather and that is another thing to prepare for. In fact, this is one thing you should always be prepared for.

Preparing to survive tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, wildfire, hurricanes or other natural disasters is a little different than preparing for anarchy, war or depression. However, it is just as important if not more so. Natural disasters are happening in many places and they happen every year somewhere, so preparing for them is vitally important.

The first thing to do is decide what type of natural disaster is most likely to occur in your area. Here in the Midwestern U.S. a tornado is the most typical unless you live along a major river and then it could be a tornado or a flood. The west coast is known for its earthquakes while the east coast is known for hurricanes. Wildfires are mostly in the western U.S. but have also hit Florida and other states. Survival preparation for any of these pretty much follows the same lines.

The first thing you need is emergency radios to keep up with the weather. You also need an emergency radio for information gathering. Everyone, no matter where they live, should have a two week supply of food, water, toilet paper and other necessities. This should include a good first aid kit and your prescription medicine. If you live in an area where you are warned in time to evacuate, having a camper ready to go with all supplies in it is not a bad idea. You may also want a supply of candles, some batteries and battery operated lights, spare batteries for radios and other battery operated equipment. I have one of the emergency radios that can be run by winding a crank, by solar charging or by batteries. I believe that this is the best type of radio to have. You may want to bury much of your supplies away from the house in case the house is destroyed.

Firearms are another necessity as far as I am concerned. Disasters bring out the worst in some people. They do nothing to prepare and when a disaster hits they expect the government to help them. If the government is not right there the looting begins. These people attempt to steal what others have made ready. Other people are just nasty and see disasters as a good time to steal and do other lawless things. Having a weapon to protect yourself and your supplies is not a bad idea. What type of weapon should you have? I think that a shotgun is the best. Anyone in the family that knows anything about firearms can hit what they shoot at with a shotgun. If you are burying your weapon with your other supplies and do not have room for a long gun I would recommend a good sidearm, possibly a .357 or .45 caliber. Either revolver or semi-auto is fine, whatever you are the most comfortable. Do not forget to have ammo for whatever weapon you decide on.

Those are the basics that you need. I could go into a lot more, but for a short time after a natural disaster you can get by with this type of readiness. You may want to get involved in politics this year to try to keep the wrong people out of the white house and congress. For more political information, see my other blog at http://therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com. In the meanwhile I will try my best to get back to this blog next week.

Things to Do

2008-05-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

There are many things than need to be done in getting ready to survive whatever is coming. Not knowing what is coming is one of the problems. The thing each of us needs to do is to draw up a few scenarios in our minds and then decide which one or ones are the most likely in your mind to occur. As I sit here writing this tonite, with gas nearing four dollars a gallon and food costs rising rapidly, it looks to me like it is going to be a financial tsunami. There are more home foreclosures each day, the price of real estate is going down, which is rare and many other things are happening in the financial world. Jobs are going overseas and more and more people are unemployed. The government tells us that unemployment is going down but do not believe them. How do you explain the country losing thousands of jobs in a month, new people entering the job market and unemployment going down? I is simple; when your unemployment runs out you are no longer counted as unemployed whether you have a job or not. they base everything on unemployment claims and not on people that actually do not have jobs. Nor do the count the multitude of people that are underemployed. Eventually all of these financial woes will come to a head and the people will no longer put up with it. At that point there may be rioting, looting and other lawbreaking. This will cause the government to step in and probably declare martial law. I have spoken about martial law before and think it is the most likely survival scenario that we will face. If it is not the financial problems it will be an act of terrorism or something else, but the end result will be the same.

I have been advocating buying silver for a number of years. While it is more bulky than gold, I prefer it because it will be easier to trade with if need be. The dollar is in the toilet and something other that it needs to be in your possession. If you prefer gold and can afford it, by all means go for it. As I write this, silver is back below seventeen dollars and ounce and now is a great time to buy. Anytime you can get silver below eighteen dollars, buy all you can afford. The days of twenty dollar silver are numbered, so even if you never run into a survival situation you should never lose money on it. I have bought and sold silver for over twenty years now and have never lost money. I may not make as much as other investments on some occasions but I make more on others.

Food is a big item and the prices are going up fast. There are several reasons that this is the case. Number one reason is that the cost of transportation is skyrocketing due to fuel prices. As the cost of diesel fuel continues to rise so will transportation and thus your groceries. Now is the time to start raising your own food if you never have and to increase your home grown production if you currently raise some. It is also the time to go out and collect wild food. This includes both meat and fish and plants. This is something you need to learn if you have never done it. If you do not know which wild plants to gather, start to learn now. Buy a good book and go out in and area where you legally can pick wild plants and start. Gather some and take them home and eat them. Like any food you get from anywhere, there will be some you like and some you do not like. Sample them now so you do not get stuck with nothing but food you do not like but have to eat because you do not know of any other. Hunting, fishing and food gathering are all very pleasurable ways to spend time. the best part of it is that when you are done you have something to eat. Compare this to golf or any other sport where all you get is the exercise and it costs money to get that.

I will continue this discussion in my next entry which I promise will not be two months down the road. While it is no excuse, I got very busy and did not set aside time for my blogs. I will do my best not to let that happen again. I will do my best to try to do an entry at least once a week.

Is It Time??

2008-03-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

As I stated last week, I think the time is coming close. I believe that those who consider themselves survivalists and are ready will make out a lot better than their unprepared neighbors. Speaking of the unprepared, many of them will be looking for handouts from those of us who are prepared. It may sound cruel and un-Christian, but I do not feel that I need help anyone if it takes away from my survival. I will help anyone that wants to help themselves, but will refuse to give handouts to those who have come to depend on them from uncle sucker.

I wrote last week about having guns and ammo and knowing how to use them. I also stated that some of them should be hidden. I feel that many things should be hidden. This includes food, any silver, gold or other valuables that you have. Try to come up with hiding place that are unusual. I have written a book called "Stash it" in which I give many ideas for hiding items. Here are just a couple. Get a second water heater, one that is shot and is junk. Gut the inside of it leaving just the outer shell. Now you have a fairly large storage place in which you can keep guns, valuables, food or whatever you want to hide. The secret to using this is to set it next to your working water heater and hook pipes to it to make it look like it is a backup heater. A by-product of this is that if the tank you took out of the heater does not leak, you can use it for water storage.

Another thing to do for guns is to take an old freezer or even refrigerator and use that. Here again, many people have second freezers or refrigerators in their basement or garage. Fix the inside as a gun cabinet or a storage area, install a ten watt light bulb or a dehumidifier strip and run the plug for that out where the original plug was. Set it where ever you want it and plug it in and it will look natural. Many freezers have locks on them. If the one you are using does not, or if you are using a refrigerator, install a lock. You would be smart to install locks on any freezers or refrigerators that you may have in your basement or garage. People will be just as liable to attempt to steel food as anything. I have used a false wall in a closet and also a false ceiling. These are just a few suggestions to get you thinking. Again, if you would like to purchase my book, leave your email address and I will get back to you.

I have talked about it in other entries, but it probably needs saying again, "Be ready to bug out if necessary". I live in as safe an area as I could find. I live on five acres at the end of a dead end road with only one permanent neighbor visable from my property. I have a railroad for a property line on one side of me so no one can build there. the nearest village has a total of just over eight hundred people. Even with this amount of security, I have a plan for getting out if necessary. I have a fold down camper fully equipped to live in for an extended time that all I need to do is to back my vehicle up to it and hook up. During the summer I keep a full supply of food in it. In the winter we remove the food that will be ruined if frozen. That food is set aside and put back in the spring. We rotate this food with food from the house so that it never gets too old. We keep our bedding there along with emergency radio, first-aid equipment and all other items we feel we would need to live. The power for anything that requires power comes from three twelve volt batteries. I intend to install a solar battery charger on it this summer. Previous to the camper we had a tent and a couple of backpacks full of supplies. Not quite as comfortable by doable.

As I said, now is the time to ready yourself. I will continue writing what I consider pertinent information in each of my entries. PREPARE!!!!

Here We Go

2008-03-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

I am still predicting that we are going into at least a major recession if not a depression. The housing market is shot, the job market is shrinking, retail sales are in the tank, gas prices are over three dollars a gallon, the dollar is on its way to worthless, and I could go on and on, but I won't. I think that you get the idea. I am going to go through some thing that I have talked about in the past but some may have missed.

First of all, pay off any bills you possibly can. Get rid of as much credit card debt as possible and do not have a car payment if possible. If you are making house payments, these are the ones you need to keep up. Always make your house payment first along with electric, gas, water and any other bill that you need to pay to live where you want to live. I would advise anyone living in larger cities to get out if at all possible. If you do not get out now, you may never get the chance. I look for rioting, stealing and other violence in cities. People are not going to want to do without the way they did during the depression of the thirties.

There is something that bothers me even more. This whole recession/depression may be a well planned event. Should the country be thrown deep enough into a depression and the rioting that I expect would go with it, there would be an excuse to declare martial law. This would turn this country into a dictatorship. I have written about this before as that is one of the things I see as a real possibility. There are things you can do to protect yourself.

As I said, get out of any city if possible. Have a small piece of land on which you can grow some food. Learn to hunt, fish and find wild plants that are edible. Arm yourself and know how to use the firearms you have. You may have to provide the only protection you and your family will have. Look to my last two entries and start to purchase arms and ammo if you do not already have them. Invest in silver. Silver is better than gold as it comes in smaller units and will be easier to use for barter. Another barter item is ammo, especially .22 ammo and 12 or 20 gauge shotgun shells. These will be in demand and should bring a premium in bartering.

For those of you who may have survival land that you do not live on there are some things that you can do. Put in a garden on your survival property and tend it during the summer. I have written a booklet on "Survival Gardening" that is sell inexpensively. I also have written one called "Food for Survival". Anyone wishing to order these books, leave your email address in the comment section after this entry and I will get back to you. Make sure you have storage for your food supply. As I always state in my writings, a two year supply of food is best. Whatever you have on hand is good but work toward that two year supply. You may also want to hide some of your firearms as those who would rob you will want them. Besides, during martial law there is no way of telling what rogue government agents will attempt to do. Remember, during martial law the constitution is suspended. Even though the constitution is being ignored by most of our politicians, we at least have a semblance of it. Under martial law, even that will be gone. I will continue in this vein next time.

Guns & Ammo

2008-02-14T17:40:00.001-08:00

Back to our discussion on guns. Last post I suggested a 12ga shotgun as the first weapon everyone should have. If the gun will be used by a small framed youth or a small framed woman, you may want to opt for a 20ga. And if you are outfitting more than one person in the family, you may want to get each person the gun that fits them best. What I really want to talk about this time is ammo.

I am asked many times: "How much ammo do I need?" My answer: "Just as much as you can afford!" When the SHTF ammo will not only be useful for hunting and protection, there will probably be a market for in as a barter instrument. This is one of the reasons I suggest 12ga, it is the most popular guage out there. There will be many people who have a shotgun but were not forward enough looking to buy a supply of ammo.

Here are my suggestions. These amounts are for each shotgun in the household. If you have three shotguns, multiply by three. If you have both a 12 and a 20ga, you will need this much for each one. Number 7 1/2 shot, 200 rounds. Number 4 shot 200 rounds. 00 buckshot 200 rounds. Slugs 400 rounds. This gives you a total of 1,000 rounds of ammo for each shotgun in your household.

Now let us look at why I suggest these and how to keep them fresh. The number 7 1/2 shot is to be used for taking small game and possibly as a bedroom defensive load. It will do much damage at ten yards and yet will not ruin as much of the interior of your home. The number 4 shot is the one that could be reduced or even left out if cost is a problem. I use it for things like ducks and other fairly long range game taking. I would fill the other shot sizes first and leave this until last. Depending on what type of hunting you feel you will be doing will dictate whether you need it or not. The 00 buck is for takin turkey size birds and at close range even deer. The main reason I reccomend so much is that this is an excellent defensive shot. Outside of the house, at close range there is nothing better. This is especially true for many people that do not have a lot of time to practice with other ammo. 00 buck has a big enough spread to make hitting easier and each pellet is of a size that will do definate damage.

Now to slugs. This amount of slugs is primarly for people whose only weapon will be shotguns, but is not a bad idea even if you have a full collection of guns. They are great for hunting deer and black bear sized game. They can be accurate and deadly out to one hundred yards. This also makes them excellent defensive ammo. These will take more practice to hit consistantly but will give you an adequate defensive weapon. Not the greatest, but adequate.

Practice, practice, practice, that is important. There are two reasons to do a lot of practicing; one is to get to be somewhat of an expert shot, the other is to continuously rotate your stock so it does not get too old. If you have 200 rounds of a shot size, you only need to shoot up 25 (one box) every three month to rotate the complete stock every two years. This is not absolutely necessary as the ammo will last at least five years but I reccomend the two year rotation. You have three different sizes of shot so if you go out once a month and use up a box (25) of ammo, you will be right on target (in more ways than one). Get a trap thrower and work on moving target shots and do some hunting if possible. Both of these will better prepare you for what you may need to do later.

When it comes to the slugs you will need to use 200 per year to get the job done. This is not really a problem, at least for me. I feel that to stay proficient with a weapon you need to shoot that weapon once a month. That means that you only need to use up about 15 or 20 slugs per session. Before purchasing your complete 400 rounds, go out and purchase as many different brands as possible. Every shotgun is different and handles different slugs differently. Find the ones that are the most accurate at 25, 50, 75 and 100 yards and then go out and buy that brand exclusively. Continue to practice at those ranges until you are really good. You may even want to take your shotgun and go deer hunting. You might be surprised at how good a deer gun they can be.

Always rotate your stock. Date each box of ammo as you purchase it. When you use up a box of ammo, go out and buy a replacement. Always date the replacement and when you are going out to practice, always take the oldest date in you ammo stock.

Some of you may have seen different numbers in my many survival writings. I am not even sure what some of my archived columns state. The numbers in this post are my satest reccomendation based on much research i.e. other survivalists, writings, and my personal experience of shooting and rotation ammo. I hope I have not caused any confusion.

Some Weapon Advice

2008-02-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

I talked last about being ready, this time I am going to go a little deeper into one of the items I suggested, "guns". What guns? How many? How much ammo? Where to start? First to answer the question of how many guns, I believe in at least one for every adult and teen in your group. That should be a minimum. Beyond that you can go as far as you want. However many each person can handle and what you can afford. I know there will be people out there that will only be able to afford one gun per family. If that is the case, get that one gun.

What should that one gun be? Well unless you are a small framed woman or a small teenager, it should be a 12ga shotgun. This is probably the most versatile of all weapons. You can get bird shot for hunting and indoor protection. You can get buckshot for better protection but will cause more damage within a home and you can get rifled slugs for hunting deer sized animals and taking out an enemy at out to 100 yards.

What action should you buy? That can be a very serious question and can have several answers. First, it should be an action that you are comfortable with. One of the best would be a slide action (pump) with the barrel plug taken out so that it will handle five or six shots. A semi-auto is also an excellent choice. I peronally have several and one choice I made many years ago was bolt action shotguns. I have bolt actions in all of my weapons, from my .22 to my hi-powers to my shotguns. I did this many years ago due to the fact that they were cheap and at the time I was raising a family and did not have an excess of money. I am a person who believes that all of your weapons should be the same action. What that does is to allow you to concentrate on the target, not thinking about which action you are now using. With the price changes today and the lack of bolt action shotguns on the market, I would probably opt for semi-autos. Another reason I started with bolt actions is that they are one of the easiest to work on. You may be doing all of your own small fixes and you will want to be familiar with the weapon you are using. This is true for field stripping and cleaning. so buy whatever action you can afford and are comfortable with. If the only thing you can afford at this time is a used single shot, by all means buy one of those. Anything you have is better than nothing.

Now, whatever gun you have, get to know it and shoot it often. There is nothing more important than being totally familiar with your weapon. This is one of the reasons I preach to one action for all weapons. You become so familiar with a particular action that it becomes second nature to you. That is the way I was and still am with bolt actions. I have shot against both slide actions and semi-autos for speed and accuracy and have either beat or virtually tied most of them. That took a lot of practice and concentration. It can be done. Wen I was a kid I shot single shots and got pretty good with them. I once took two ducks out of a flock of nine. That is quick ejection and reloading. That is why I say, get whatever action you can afford that you are comfortable with.

I cannot stress too much the importance of practice. You do not know what you can do with a weapon unless you practice. With a shotgun, knowing where a slug is going to hit is important as is knowing what kind of slug is most accurate in your shotgun. This is one place that I still feel a bolt action is best and that is for the one gun person. You can get a bolt action shotgun with some rifling and with decent sights and even drilled for a scope mount. These are the deer hunting shotguns that are made for areas where high powered rifle are not allowed.

I have much more to say about guns in general and have not even touched on ammo but I am going to leave off here and continue with my next post. I will try to post at least once a week and more if I possibly can. I think the time is getting near and the information will be important for those who are just getting started.

Be Ready

2008-01-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

I think things are coming to a head right about now. I think the time to start getting ready is past, but for those that have not started, do no wait any longer. I hope I am wrong again, but I expect something before the end of the year. I am not sure whether it will be economic or another emergency, but something is going to throw this country into a panic. When I look at the direction this country is headed all I can do is pray. The only real hope we have is to have Ron Paul elected as president and the powers that are behind the throne are not going to let that happen. Therefore, it is time we batten down the hatches and prepare for a long time of it.

Today I am just going to go through the basics of what I think everyone should try to have ready. First of all a relatively safe place. Those of you in larger towns and cities may want to think about finding a place to go when the SHTF. For those of you who live in small towns or out in the country, make sure your place is defensible. Some of the things you should be thinking about is having enough weapons and ammunition for self protection and for hunting for food. You should also have a two year supply of food stored up. You may want to hide this if you have it, because if martial law is proclaimed, food will be confiscated. Also in the line of food, order or purchase seeds for a garden early this year. I will be placing my orders within a week. Even if you have never planted a garden, if you have the room, plan on one for the future. I have even gone so far as to purchase a small greenhouse to start my own plants and extend my season here in central Wisconsin.

One thing I would like to suggest and that is for survivalists to have a vacuum sealer. If you are not going to use garden seeds right away, they will last much longer if they are vacuum sealed. You can also vacuum seal much of your own food that you wish to store and vacuum sealing spare ammunition is also desired.

Have a multi-powered radio for listening to emergency announcements. Flashlights and a good supply of batteries is also a good idea. I have kerosene lamps and lanterns and a supply of kerosene on hand to cover in house lighting. I also have a supply of candles but feel that the lamps are safer and they give off more light. However, candles will do if you do not have the ability to store kerosene. A way to cook your food is another thing you should think about. Having a wood stove with some sort of a cook-top is always a good idea. Kerosene, LP or liquid fuel stoves are also good if you have enough fuel. Do not forget about cooking outside in the summer, either on charcoal or over a wood fire.

Having a supply of water on hand or a way to get it out of the ground if your electricity is shut off is another must. If you depend on city water, you may want to think about having a couple of large buckets or even a barrel of water as backup. If you live in the country, a well that a hand pump can be put on is the thing to have. Even a way to catch rainwater and purify it is in order if you have nothing else. A supply of silver coins are the best thing to have on hand for purchasing things from anyone if the economy goes in the toilet. Everyone recognizes silver coins and knows the intrinsic value of them. Paper money and modern coins just may be worthless. Gold is okay, but with its value being what it is, it will only do for major purchases. Another thing to keep on hand for barter is extra ammo. I believe the especially .22 rimfire bullets will be excellent barter material. However anything that you shoot may be good, as long as it is not an extremely rare caliber.

Speaking of guns and ammo, everyone in the family that is old enough to handle a weapon should have one for emergency. The one caveat I have is that everyone that has a weapon should be familiar with it and knowledgeable about it. Everyone should practice shooting as much as possible, I suggest at least once a month. Grabbing a gun in an emergency situation and not knowing how to use it or where it will hit is not a good idea.

One other thing that everyone must have is first aid equipment and medical supplies. If you are taking prescription meds, make sure that you have as many ahead as you can get. Some doctors will write prescriptions for three or six month worth of pills. If yours will have them do so and purchase the pills. You also need a complete first aid kit and possibly some other medical supplies. If you are on prescription meds for such things as allergies, you may want to purchase some over the counter meds that may not be quite as good but would do in an emergency. You also should have a supply of any vitamins and supplements that you regularly take.

This is just a short list of things that you should have for any long term survival. I will be adding to this in the future and will be suggesting other things. Stay tuned, be back soon.

The Economy

2008-01-17T19:25:00.000-08:00

The economy of this country is in the toilet. Since the first of the year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down by over eight percent. Housing starts are at a 27 year low, forclosures continue to increase, credit card holders are now getting behind in their payments and the price of food and fuel are going through the roof. All of this and we are still being told that we are not in a recession. I do not know what "they" want to call it, but "I" call it a recession. Washington is going to try to bail us out of this mess and it is just going to make it worse. All of the big banks are selling out to overseas banks. Soon the whole country will be owned by foreigners.

Hank Williams Jr. had a song out titled "A Country Boy Can Survive". That is about the size of the country today. Us country boys and girls can and will survive. Now is the time to make sure you are prepared to last out a recession, a depression or super inflation. You may even wind up having to survive two of them at once, such as a depression with super inflation. My feeling is that this may be planned and being put into place to take control of the country. This may be the catastrophe that the powers that be are setting up to declare martial law and take over the country.

What every survivor needs to do now is to go through all of their survival procedures and make sure everything is ready. If you now live in a city and need to bug out to safety to survive, are you ready to go? Is everything that you need to take along packed and ready. Is the place where you are going safe, as well stocked as possible and easily accessible to you? Those of you, like myself, who intend to stay put: do you have everything you need to survive. If they shut your electricity off, can you still get water? Do you have a source of heat if you are in a northern area? How about your cooking needs, how will you do that? Do you have enough storage area for everything you will need to store? Do you have enough firearms and ammo? Do you have hiding places for what you do not want the government to confiscate? Everyone needs to answer these and a lot of other questions if they truly are survivors.

Having non-electric or non-gasoline powered backups to much of your equipment is important. For instance: a wood stove for heat and part of your cooking. Propane camp stoves for the rest of your cooking. A couple of 25 lb. LP tanks will last a long time when you are just using them to cook. Do not forget to get an adaptor so you can run your propane camp stove from the tank. I currently grind my meat (venison) and fish with an electric grinder, however, I have an excellent hand grinder in storage. I also have a hand operated grain mill to make my own flour if push comes to shove. I currently use an electric dehydrator but have a solar one that I use when I have more than the electric on can handle. That would work just fine should the power be cut. I also have backups for most of my power tools. Bow saw for chain saw along with axes and mauls. Hand saws for Skill saws, hand operated drills, push lawn mower, etc., etc. There is very little I could not do with hand tools that I now do with power. As soon as spring comes I will be putting in a second well. This will not only be to water my garden, but if my electric well pump does not work I will have a hand pump on the second well.

These are things that I think need to be looked at immediately. I believe that if something happens for the elite to take control, it will come on quickly and those that are not ready will not have time to get ready. I will continue writing on this subject as long as things keep getting worse. If you want to follow my thoughts on politics go to my other blog at: http://therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com/.

Be back soon.

Investments

2007-12-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

The time to invest is right now. The thing to invest in is silver. Either silver or gold would be a good investment, but I feel that silver is going to out perform gold in the near future. That is because while they are both used for monetary purposes, silver has a much greater value in manufacturing than gold. This means that as more and more silver goes into the hands of investors and collectors, the price will be bid up. It will not only be the investors that will bid it up but the manufacturers. This makes silver the ideal investment at this time in history.

Another thing that I feel makes silver better than gold is the fact that you do not need nearly as much money to purchase an ounce of silver. In the range of fourteen to fifteen dollars an ounce, you can purchase about ten ounces for $150. On the other hand, that same $150 would only purchase one or two one-tenth of an ounce coins of gold. At the other end, when it comes to spending this investment when the dollar completely fails, the silver would be much easier than the gold. The one tenth ounce of gold would be worth somewhat more then seventy-five dollars and might be hard to get change for, and the one tenth coin is the smallest amount gold comes in. On the other hand silver can be had in coins right down to the pre-1964 dimes, which at this time is worth about one dollar and fifty cents. For everyday purchases (or barter) they would be much easier to use.

What to buy and how to buy it? The first thing you will probably want to do, if you have not yet started in silver, is to purchase some pre-1964 quarters and dimes. It is best to go to your local coin store or pawn shop as then you will not have to pay postage. If there is nowhere in your area to purchase them direct, then go mail order. You can go on e-bay and purchase them there or you can contact a mail order seller such as "Chattanooga Coin" and order from them. Either of these will require you to pay postage. Purchase in as large amounts as you can. If you can only afford to purcase a roll of dimes at a time, then that is what to do. If you can afford to purchase bags of pre-1964 coins that is better. The difference will be that you will actually paying less postage as you will only pay once for a large number of coins rather than many times for smaller amounts. That is one reason I suggest local if possible, especially at first and for small amounts. The next thing I will caution you is not to pay too large a premium over the spot price of silver. I will not pay over a ten percent premium on anything I purchase. I try not to even go that high if I am ordering by mail, so I can afford to pay the postage.

As I stated common pre-1964 coins should be your first investment. After that you may want to move into silver dollars, silver bullion rounds and silver bullion bars. The thing you do not want to do is to purchase numismatically valuable coins or any other fiorm of silver. While many people collect coins, silver and other, this is not what I consider as an investment. What I consider an investment are coins and bullion that I can spend on necessities when necessary. This is also one of the reasons that so far I have limited my purchases to one ounce units of bullion. Like gold, if you have a five ounce bar it will be worth seventy-five dollars or more and will be harder to exchange. However, having said that, once you have what you consider a adequate amount of coins and one ounce bullion, you may want to start adding five or even ten ounce bars. This will help on storage space and will accommadate paying out larger amounts. As I mentioned storage space that is what you need, space to store your silver. You do not want someone else holding your silver. Take delivery on any you purchase as soon as you purchase it. You do not know what may happen to a company, even a bank, that is storing any of your silver. Have a safe place to store the silver where it will not be found by a common thief. Hopefully you can store it somewhere, or in something, that will not be affected by fire. However, one thing about silver is that if it is in a fire all that will happen is that it will melt. It will still be worth exactly the same amount as bullion as it was in its coin or bar form.

As I stated, this is the time tio invest in silver. However, do not forget to invest in a couple of years worth of non-perishable food and also a good supply of ammo. These are both even more important than silver. They will keep you alive when you have no one to barter with.

Depression x 2

2007-08-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

In the couple of weeks since I have written a blog, several things have happened. The rate of foreclosures is still going up and the stock market has been very volatile. As I write this on the fourteenth of August the stock market closed today over two-hundred points lower for the day. Mattel, the countries largest toy company announced that it is making the second major recall of toys in the last two weeks. All of these toys are manufactured in China. Add these toys to the toothpaste, fish, pet food and other Chinese made items that have been recalled and you have some major companies taking a beating. They should have been smarter than to put all their eggs in one Chinese basket, so I cannot be to sorry for them. One thing I would like to advise all of you and that is to buy American as much as possible. I realize that it is virtually impossible to buy everything made in the USA, but many things can be had. While the big companies that moved all manufacturing to China may take a beating, I feel that we should all support any company that chose to stay in America. There is an excellent website that lists many American companies that chose to stay here and from whom you can purchase American made products. http://www.devy.com/made_inthe_usa.html. Try it, you just may find what you are looking for.

Now let us get back to what we are to do when things go down. This past weekend I had a chance to practice a couple of my survival skills. We had a bad wind storm which uprooted trees and took the power down for about sixteen hours. It went down in the middle of the night so I did not start getting things going until morning. The first thing I did was move my generator from the garage to the house and start it. I only plugged in the water pump and the refrigerator. I ran the generator for about an hour and then shut it down for an hour. In this way I could get the most out of my gasoline. This is the way I intend to handle a long term or permanent outage. I feel that by doing that I can get from fourteen to twenty hours of water and cooling from the seven gallon gas tank. Running the refrigerator every hour will keep it cool and controlling water usage will take care of that. Our freezer we just did not open. Next I went and brought in my two propane camping stoves. These are both two burner stoves and were the outage long enough they would be needed along with the three burner kerosene stove which I have. The reason for that is that if I believed that it was a permanent or long term outage, we would immediately begin to dry and can all of the perishable food from both the freezer and the refrigerator. As it was we determined it would be short term, so did not have to start that process. We also made sure that the battery radios and TV were all good to go and checked the kerosene in our several lamps and lanterns. We needed kerosene lamps in the bathrooms as they are very dark and I needed to shave and my wife needed to do her hair. All in all the sixteen hours went just about like any other sixteen hours of any normal day. I am more confident now that we are ready. This especially goes for my wife who was not a survivalist until she married me thirteen years ago and this is the first time we have had a actual trial run.

To pick up where we left 0ff last entry, let's look at another way to store things. Take an old refrigerator or freezer and bury it. Measure it, dig a hole that will allow you to lay it on its back and bury it with the door facing up. If you are just going to use it as a storage area, you can leave the door almost at ground level. If you really want to hide it and do not intend to get into it soon, bury it deeper. The way I would do it would be to bury it so that the door is about a foot to and foot and one-half below the surface of the surrounding ground. I would put three two-by-fours in front of the unit and three behind it. These would stick up six inches higher than the door of the refrigerator. I would cover the unit with a six-inch batting of insulation and put a sheet of plywood the exact size for the unit on the two-by-fours. The back of the plywood could be hinged to the three posts in back. Now you have space for six to twelve inches of dirt on top of the plywood, making it pretty hard for someone else to find.

This type of a hidden cache is excellent for anything that does not need air circulation. You can store guns, canned food, and just about anything that is vacuum sealed. Dried food and ammo should be in vacuum sealed bags along with other things such gold, silver or coins. You just need to use some common sense.

This is just one more way to be sure things are same from crooks and probably the government if martial law is declared. More on the subject next time.