Murphy’s Law exists. We all know that. Entropy is a thing, and things tend to break down when we least expect them to.
It’s for this reason that the old prepper adage was coined, “Two is one, one is none”. This is why we look at having backup gear and creating backup systems, is it not?
Because if your one and only flashlight gives out on you while you’re in a disaster setting in the middle of the night, guess what? You have no other means of giving light. Once SHTF, that can very easily mean the difference between life and death.
And while having backup equipment and alternate systems is a fantastic part of prepping, another key factor is to avoid choosing bad equipment in the first place. The problem, however, is that sometimes it’s not apparent that something is a bad piece of equipment until it’s too late.
Related: 13 Weird Survival Tools Every Prepper Should Stockpile
So, to help you avoid these types of situations, let’s take a look at five tools and types of gear to avoid when disaster strikes.
Rubber Duck Antennas
As a ham radio operator, I absolutely detest rubber duck antennas.
I do think that they have their place (inter-squad comms, where your entire team is less than 1km from each other), but as a whole, your best bet is to upgrade the stock antenna on your UV-5R as quick as possible.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
First, if you end up in a WROL situation, your rubber duck will not allow you to get your comms anywhere near as far as you would like. You’ll be stuck with a very limited degree of range for the sole reason that your antenna isn’t made for better.
Secondly, your rubber duck is an omnidirectional antenna. This means that it’s going to be broadcasting your transmission in all directions around you. In some situations – such as if you’re lost and desperately need to find help – this is perfectly acceptable.
Related: How To Turn Your CB Car Radio Into A Powerful Transmitter
However, if you’re in a situation where you need to ensure that your comms are secure, using an omnidirectional antenna is a surefire way to end up being intercepted and likely plotted on a map as well.
So, do what you can to avoid rubber duck antennas.
Use This Instead
Instead, I highly recommend either investing in, or learning how to build a Yagi antenna. These are directional antennas, meaning that they broadcast your transmission in one direction only.
Aside from greatly improving your comms security, these also drastically improve the range of your transmission.
Non-Rechargeable Batteries
Battery-powered devices are great for grid-down-type events. They still work, giving you light, heat, AC, and a host of other benefits that you wouldn’t have were you solely dependent upon the electrical grid for everything you use that requires electricity.
The only problems are the batteries themselves. Aside from being incredibly expensive, I’ve found that virtually all batteries out there have a rather obnoxious short shelf life.
This means that you may spend $300 on disposable batteries such as AAs, D, and C, and have them sitting on a shelf for a couple of years before the doo-doo hits the fan, only to discover that they no longer have a charge.
While yes, you should be properly rotating your stock, the fact of the matter is that shelve lives can absolutely stink. I try to buy Duracell when I have to buy non-rechargeable as they seem to last longer.
However, what happens once you burn through your battery stores? If you don’t have some means of getting new electrical power, once you run out of batteries, you’re out of luck as well.
Related: Rescuing And Restoring Almost Dead Lead-Acid Batteries
Use This Instead
Rechargeable batteries are the way to go, bar none. I changed my mind on this topic after reading Jeffrey Yago’s Lights On. What Yago recommends are the following (and I concur):
• Two sets of rechargeable nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries for each battery powered device. These will store 2-3x the energy levels of older nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries and can be recharged over a thousand times before they go bad. If financially possible, LSD NiMH batteries are even better. They’ll hold 90% charges for over a year, and 75% charges for up to two years.
• Rechargeable battery chargers – These are readily available in a large number of sizes online.
• A fold up solar charger – These can greatly improve your ability to always have electricity on hand and are useful for charging items such as laptops and cell phones that don’t have removable batteries.
Generators
Though I have succumbed to the temptation here myself, in hindsight, I truly think this is a bad purchase for a TEOTWAWKI-type event.
Here’s why:
To begin with, generators require gas – something that’s going to be incredibly hard to find in a largescale disaster situation. Though there are options out there that also utilize propane – which really does give you a lot more options – within the span of a week, you’re likely to have a very expensive hunk of metal sitting outside your back door.
You’re probably going to want to save whatever gasoline that you do have on hand for your vehicles as well. Your ability to move long distances quickly with heavy loads is likely to be more important for your safety and well-being than keeping your fridge cool will be. Just something to think about.
Related: If You Have A Generator, Do This Immediately
Secondly, generators make a ton of noise. You can easily tell which of your neighbors have a generator any time that the power goes out simply because of the sheer amount of noise that these things create. In a true scenario where it’s hit the fan, all this does is broadcast to the rest of society who has electricity (and likely other goodies too).
Use This Instead
Rather than rely upon generators and gasoline for your electricity, I highly recommend doing what you can to switch over to battery power now while it’s still possible. That means finding eight to sixteen 12-volt gel batteries that you can make an off-grid battery bank with.
That’s not all you’re going to need for such a solution, however.
You’re also going to need to ensure that you have a proper inverter (to make your 12-volt DC battery voltage into 120-volt 60-cycle AC to power any devices you have that won’t work with 12-volt DC), and the appropriate cabling, wiring, and fuses that you would need to keep such a system up and running.
Related: How To Turn Used Car Batteries Into A Survival Power Bank
Canister-Fueled Camping Stoves
Yep, I’ve got one of these too, and once more this isn’t a good bet for when it hits the fan.
While these work great for while everything is still “normal” – they’re quick to ignite, they cook pretty quickly, it’s easy to adjust the flame, and gas is pretty much everywhere – if you have to rely on these in a grid down situation, you’re going to be screwed.
What happens when you finally run out of fuel? I’ll tell you what happens. You end up eating a lot of cold meals, and a lot less meat.
Use This Instead
I highly recommend looking into the purchase of a rocket stove for your prepping cookware. A rocket stove is easy to ignite and all it needs are combustible materials to work. So as long as you can find plenty of twigs, leaves, and dried grass, you’re in business.
I’ve looked through the market rather extensively when it comes to these types of stoves, and I can say that the three best options out there are the following:
• The Minuteman Rocket Stove – I think this is the best all-around stove. It’s highly portable, can be left in a BOV and forgotten about, can store fuel inside of it, and is tough as a tank.
• The Minuteman K Stove – This is a fantastic base camp model. You’re not going to be hauling this out in the woods with you (it’s too heavy), but this would work fantastic at your survival retreat and in cases where you need to cook large meals for a lot of people.
• The Rocket King Mini – If you’re going to be out in the bush with nothing more than what you can carry on your back, I believe this is the option that you need to go for. The whole thing packs up flat and weighs less than two pounds. That’s hard to beat for when space and weight are coming in at a premium.
Magnesium Fire Starters
One of the core skillsets of a prepper is the knowledge of how to start a fire. It’s because of this that the survivalist market is saturated with different types of fire starters.
If you’ve been into prepping for any length of time whatsoever, you likely have one of those little magnesium fire striker keychains laying about somewhere.
I really don’t like these. Here’s why:
I firmly believe that these are some of the worst commercial fire starters on the planet. I do more busting my knuckles than fire starting when I use them, they’re hard to direct the sparks with, and attempting to hold onto that little metal strip is like trying to play guitar with a dime.
It’s flimsy, annoying, and leaves you wanting to throw the whole thing into the woods.
Use This Instead
I have two alternatives that I greatly prefer over those cheap little fire strikers. The first is yet another Minuteman product (no, I’m not affiliated with them in any way).
• The Minuteman Forever 50 Fire Striker – This is easily my favorite fire striker on the market. I actually have something to hang onto while I’m using it, it produces a ton of sparks, and it’s easy to direct the sparks exactly where I want them to be as well. I often start fires after just the first strike with these guys. Seriously, they’re fantastic, and you’ll agree with me.
• Bic Lighters – While not the coolest item on this list, it’s hard to go wrong with a steady collection of cheap Bic lighters. For just $5 you can get about six of these things and then stow them all over the place. They’re incredibly handy, they’re cheap, and they’re teeny too. This makes them a great addition to your EDC, and an easy way to start a fire on the fly.
Final Thoughts
There’s an old English proverb that goes, “I’m too poor to afford cheap tools”. As a whole, I think the same principle applies to a lot of different aspects of prepping as well.
However, sometimes even the expensive items (like a generator) can be deceiving in their usefulness.
This is one of the reasons that it’s so important to be proficient in your preps. Know what you have and train with it regularly. It’s only by doing so that you’ll come to have a fuller understanding of what you truly have there in front of you.
This in turn will help to show you where you need to improve, where to quit wasting money, and the like.
Are there other tools and gear that you should avoid like the plague when disaster strikes that we didn’t cover in the list above?
Have you any experience with anything that we did list? Let us know in the comments below!
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back up after back up and then you better back up them with more back up.
better get it while you can
“every day not prepping is a day of not living”
thank you, good article
made me think
You know that’s ? percent RIGHT ON, brother!!!
rocket stove >>> you don’t use a fire and cook outside for the exact same reason you gave for using a generator >> except you get starving people instead of envious neighbors looking to power up the cell phone …
stockpile fuel and the accommodating cooking apparatus to cook covertly inside – save the rocket stove for later when the conditions allow for that kind of cooking situation ….
Nice thing about the rocket stove is that it burns so hot that its literally smoke free except maybe when starting. And since the fuel is usually kindling size or smaller it gets to the smokeless stage a lot faster. The only thing you cant hide is the smell.
smoke isn’t the problem – having a fire probably won’t be a problem >> about 10 days after the market got looted & burned – the average US home is eating the stale corn flakes from the lost box in the back of the cabinet …
if you want any kind of hot food for the next month – you better be ready to hide the cooking from people that have nothing else on their minds – and after that you’ll have to pick your battles with the survivors that didn’t starve …
solar oven
When the city is burning no one notice your little rocket stove.
and when the fires die down and the desperate and craven are out searching they will see your rocket stove fire, unless you can manage to hide it, and also the resulting reflections and shadows, from view.
Won’t matter much your already dead if your still in the city.
Raven, unless you are a complete hermit so far out in the boonies that no will go there, or can remain covert for weeks and months on end, eventually you will be noticed also, then the question becomes, do you notice them?
Dz….
Its a prepper site and the goal of preparing is to get out of the city and into the boonies. You’ll find yourself free
Raven: and if locals out in the boonies don’t accept you? Anyone can make friends, but it’s not the same as being accepted into a community.
Large-scale solar or windmill commitments are Scrounge magnets.
Noncomputer vehicles.
Uncontrolled lighting.
Prep Bragging.
No computer cars ……
Yeah the majority of you can’t change a tire much less tune a carb.
Emp won’t necessarily mean death to everything electionic
Ever notice how fast gas stations are empty after a pipeline issue or major storm warning?
EMP might not kill your car but I bet lack of gasoline will.
The Just in time system is a “cost effective”, “Profitable” system designed to kill you in an emergency.
Skills AND Tools please. I can own a set of tin snips and plenty of tin cans but the learning curve AND the many injuries with out EMS makes that a foolish idea.
Having some skills in tin-smithing to continue the idea BUT No Tools makes my skillset nearly useless.
Having a can of “Survival Seeds” (Blind trust they are useful for your area and of what you will-need to eat) but no real experience growing food in YOUR AREA is almost silly.
For the non-gardener just learning how to chit potatoes (look it up, easy) and start a crop, learn to hill the crop for protection from sun turning your potatoes green and dangerous to eat AND to increase the amount of potatoes you get from each plant is a useful skill set.
Reading something from the internet doesn’t replace learning NOW while the grocery store still accepts your Credit Card how to deal with poor drainage, over watering, drought, rodents, weeds (some you remove, some you remove and use for mulch (if they don’t have seeds ready) some you remove and eat (like Lambs Quarters).
Gardening skill is LOCAL.
tactical: Yeah, I miss my old Fairlane and IH pickup.
Raven, with your ability to read minds and judge other people without any real knowledge of them, I am amazed you’re not running a circuit through the casinos, followed up with some major hedge fund investing…
Good article, thank you! I just bought 2 of the “Forever 50” Minuteman Fire Starter – one for a gift & one for me! Question though…what about solar generators? Once charged, they can be used inside. I enjoy your articles as well as the comments. Thanks for helping us newbies who are trying to learn from those of you who really know how to take care of yourselves.
Junk solar generators are not worth it.
You’re going need to spend 15k for a setup that runs a freezer a few lights and. Constant pressure well
Not true…
A water well dose not need constant presser. A well dose not work that way.
When you energize the well motor and the pump starts to pump thru the pump pipe, that is what keeps a water well “tank” pressurized.
Not constant power.
Only three things get you water out of the ground
Push pump.
Suction pump.
Electricity. only to get water, then turn the power off until need.
Or get a wind mill.
Good solar generators are worth it.
RT – All depends on where one lives I.e., latitude and longitude. Where I live, I consider it a waste of money as it may only be beneficial for a few months out of the entire year. If I lived in Southern CA or AZ it might be a totally different story.
Well its easyier to reply to this….
Look you’re little solar generator will not be able to handle the load a standard well demands. The constant pressure setups use a considerable amount of less energy and…. they adjust based on load and demand of the user at the source .
The solar generators are nothing but a product for campers and people who RV. The recharge rate is slow and if your recharging to slow you can damage the batteries .
Solid solar setups cost a lot of money and its not cheap. You will have on a low end almost 7 grand in batteries for a smaller setup alone.
If you want to keep your lifestyle in the full grid then your correct. If you’re wanting to stay above living a pre-electric 1800’s lifestyle then solar is a good idea. Yes, it’s hard and expensive to replace all you can afford grid power with solar but intelligent use of solar power can give you lighting, a viable alternative to a hand pump, small power tools, fans DID I MENTION FANS? When you need cooling and moving your wood stove heat around, even some refrigerator action.
Looks to me like they are going to hunt you down or drone you for not getting the vaccine before the systems go down.
Yeah but with the looks here … Most of them already took the vaccine and live in the city so its not much of a issue.
Israel is talking doing a 4th booster. Others are saying all the vax does is making a person a super-spreader. But, never get between a socialist politician and a nickel in the sewer. They’ll gnaw off your arm trying to suck it out of the used toilet papers. If push comes to shove, I’ll take the vax, but they’ll have to move the yellow armband out of the way to do it. niio
If you use the promo code “Aden” at http://www.minutemanstove.com, you will save 10% off your entire order. We make the
Minuteman rocket stoves and Firestrikers. Come check us out
Fuel driven stoves for short term blackouts. Rocket stoves for long term. Even a house that has burned to the ground will have lots of usable fuel for a rocket stove.
Rather than frying food in a pan outdoors, consider boiling it with a lid on. Based on first hand experience in a large SoCal type fire in our town I can attest that with all the smoke that will be in the air after a EOTW event, unless you are frying bacon outdoors, you won’t be able to tell where the smoke is coming from. Everyone will be burning something, fecal matter, garbage, heating water for washing, cooking, sterilizing medical instruments etc. etc.
Smoke is an interesting phenomenon. One foggy night just after the fire, but when the air had pretty much cleared of smoke I went outdoors and was overwhelmed with the odor of smoke. I frantically searched all around for the source of the smoke but couldn’t detect a glow anywhere. I phoned the fire department and reported the smoke and shortly two firemen arrived on my doorstep. They stood sniffing the air and said what I was smelling was atmospheric smoke. The warm weather we had accompanying the fire had heated the smoke and it had risen into the air so that it was above our normal breathing level but the cool air the fog brought in, cooled the smoke and so it had fallen down to where it was perceptible again. The odor of smoke was so strong that I had to wear an N95 mask while outside in order not to have a coughing spell.
It won’t be as if one were out in the woods and had the only fire around. That’s the real problem. Fire will be everywhere. Once a fire starts no fire department is going to respond. In the Thomas Fire which is what I described above, when the fire hydrants went dry the F.D. packed up and moved out of the area. They let the houses burn. No shovels and throwing dirt; no brooms beating at the flames, no tanker trucks bringing water from the adjacent city, just packed up and left.
Now maybe some other fire departments wouldn’t do a Hank Snow but I think the local F.D. is not some unusual example. In either an EMP or a CME, transformers will be exploding; overhead lines will be melting and molten copper will be falling to the ground and fires will be so widespread that no fire department, assuming they can respond, will be able to respond to every call. The best guesses and yours is as good as mine is that they will try to protect hospitals, and government buildings and everything else will be tough luck. So for a long time, there will be so much smoke in the air I believe that cooking outdoors will go largely unnoticed unless one is cooking something with a powerful order that carries a long way such a frying bacon — or barbecuing steaks on an open grill. Forego that pleasure and drop the meat into already boiling water for a few minutes to cook it. Instead of frying an egg in bacon fat, hard boil the egg. You can even heat stones outside, carry them inside to heat water and do your cooking inside with hot stones heating the water. That’s the way the original locals here heated water for cooking. They were skilled basket weavers but not so much pottery makers (Predictive still strikes. That came out battery makers until I corrected it). Hot rocks dropped into a water tight basket made a cooking vessel. Boiling water won’t set a reed basket on fire and will cook food.
LCC: Tell them how to resue a Bic. You converted me, wow.
A good, tight weave of several thicknesses of material, and several kinds of material (tillow and grass) will swell up enough to hold water. It may not for long, but it works. Locals here liked pinyon pine pitch to coat the insides of water jugs made of basket material. Come to think of it, Tony Hillerman wrote a story about a murder that involved missing buckets of sap. But, a raw animal hide cased off the carcass works well. I once won a bet I could boil water in a styrofoam cup and it wouldn’t burn. It also worked with large cabbage leaves and nopal pads. When I tried to get bets up I could burn water, I was laughed at. Army is like that 🙂 niio
LCC;
Same goes for generators, until the tanks go dry. Anyone with a large store of fuel will stand out then.
Post-Wilma, my entire town hummed with generator noise for a couple of weeks starting at sunset. Same for the smells of outdoor cooking. But most had power by week 3, and gas was pretty easy to get. I wouldn’t want to be Mr. Generator Buzz at midnight 2 months into SHTF, though. I’m far less worried about cooking fires, as you say.
Big Tee: This is strictly for fuel because it can be toxic: If you have an old pressure canner and a way to make wine or beer (rotting fruit works best here), there’s no reason for your tanks to go dry. We used to reseed the mash with fresh yeast and get a second batch (using old oak barrels to ferment each time). Once that’s done, the pigs got a treat. Yeast is 35% protein and with the ‘beer’ flavor, they loved it. If you know anyone who make ensilage, ‘water’ coming off it can be as high as 20% alcohol. It’s good for fuel but has a lot of mold in it, and can be dangerous to drink after distilling. niio
You can also boil water in a paper cup. Try it over a camp Fire some time. I have done it repeatedly to show family and friends. The enthalpy of water is so high that it absorbs the heat from the fire before the paper can catch on fire. Pretty cool science!
The only question I have about using chargers and rechargeable batteries is differences in current. While a .5 amp charger will eventually charge a battery that needs 1 amp to charge, the opposite doesn’t work. a 1 amp charger will burn out a battery that can only take a .5 amp charge. I know that may not be exactly correct, but I do know if you supply more power than the device can accept it will burn out the device. Also with some devices with motors, too weak a current will cause the motor to burn out. So how does one go about determining that the charging device on sale for only $9.99 plus shipping will charge the flashlight with a built in battery? I have a headlamp that fits on a hat brim that is so handy it has changed my thinking about rechargeable batteries but does the USB plug automatically allow only the correct current to flow? Do all USB plugs use the same current? So if your solar charger has an outlet USB plug, automatically all devices with a USB plug will get the correct current?
LCC,
USB outlets should all have the same output, 5 volts approx. Amps vary, but volts should remain constant. I paid about $20 for a smart charger, mine is a Sunjack, it will charge all the smaller dia. batteries. I have a few “solar” power packs that are handy, you can plug in cell phone and will act like a aux battery or just charge. Their “solar” charging works, I tested. It is very slow. I purchased a $220 (120 watt) folding solar panel. This works great, I can charge two power packs at once, several a day on a sunny day, it will also charge my laptop (19 volt). I have about 20 18650 batteries that all my flashlights use, I have a battery day that I top off the batteries, say once a month or so. I will not be in the dark. I have a hand crank radio and several solar hand lamps that would light a tent nicely. They can even charge your cell, in theory (once) . They are great lamps, I was using daily and would last more than a week on a charge. They would charge in the sun, but slowly, I found it better to charge all with my “big” solar panel. You will want to try and use all your preps in advance and be creative. I hope this helps…..
Dennis
Some bad news. ClergyLady’s husband, Bill, passed away yesterday. She’s doing well, but her sons are in the hospital, one with chest pains, the other still stuck in the Philippines with a serious leg infection. both are getting better, but she would appreciate your prayers for her and the boys. niio
@ Red
Thank you for letting us no. sad
red;
Please tell her I offer my sincerest condolences.
i am so sorry to hear that, thank you for letting us know. please tell her she is in my prayers.
This site has an extensive archive, Clergy Lady has posted for a long time, always shown up as a person of wonderful heart, praying for her kids and for her loss.
Red,
Thanks for letting us know this news. I’ll keep Clergylady and her family in my prayers.
Shouldn’t of gotten the vaccine
I know what you’re trying to say, Raven, and perhaps you had good intentions. Covid is on everyone’s mind right now. But maybe next time try and be a little more tactful with your comments. You’re assuming ClergyLady’s husband passed away of covid related complications. Red said nothing about covid. It would have been much better if you had passed on expressions of sympathy and love for ClergyLady and her family. That would have helped her much more instead of that unthinking comment you made. We’re supposed to be a community and family here. Family doesn’t do that to each other. Peace brother.
Raven tactical;
You’re a giant a****** who is someday going to choke on that prideful attitude of yours!
You can’t even support a person here who has lost a family member, can you? A person who has offered practical advice and helpful commentary, as well as being supportive herself.
I would admonish you to feel some shame for your lousy, selfish and self aggrandizing attitude, but I know that I am wasting my time because you are either too self absorbed to notice or too much of a malignant narcissist to care about other people’s opinions or feelings.
Go crawl back under your rock and stay there – this is an online community for the exchange of ideas, information and mutual support. Not the “Raven Tactical Sarcasm and Self Promotion Site”, and you don’t get to bully people here by making “jokes” that only you think are funny.
Raven you really are an idiot.
Thank you for letting us know, red. ClergyLady; my sincerest condolences to you and your family. Sending you love and positivity.
red ant Tespect? You need to sgow respect for us mature ladies. We were raised in a time when a gentleman didn’t cuss in front of a lady. Your profanity laced post is disrespectful and the profanity is unnecessary. You could have made your point rithout it.
@ raven
NO you are WRONG. Just have some respect.
@ sherry Litten
Sorry for my mouth running. Respect Yes, but when some one says crap like that, a real man will stand up and say something. That’s me…
Did you post back to the one that had NO respect for saying that…
For ClergyLady:
While almost all of us have suffered great losses in our lives, we have never been able to find the right words that will help ease the emotional pain that others feel during their sad times. “I am sorry for your loss” is a canned response intended to show that we are thinking about your loss and praying for you, but it sometimes comes across as nothing more than words.
You DO have my sincerest sympathies for your loss, and for your children that are having health issues. But, like I stated, these are just words that do not convey my desire to give you a soft shoulder to cry on, or to just sit idly by in a chair to absorb your pain. Just remember, even though you may be by yourself, you are not alone as long as you have your Ask A Prepper family standing with you.
May my heart go out to ClergyLady.
I feel i know her and hope for the best for all of her family.
Dear Clergy Lady, With sincere condolences on the loss of your husband. At times like this we always need remind each other that “Those who believe in the Lord, never see each other for the last time.” May God Bless You and your family.
I have canister-fueled stoves. But they’re for short-term power loss and not considered a durable asset here.
My suggestions-
Fishing Kits, when there’s no place to fish.
Empty Fishing Kits, when there ARE places to fish. Bush hooks get protein.
All American solar oven….. would walk circles around the rocket stoves.
I think both have a place. If I want to heat up something quickly, a rocket stove serves better than the All American solar oven. I can also haet up the contents on the rocket stove and use the solar oven as a haybox.
If I’ve got enough sun and time, then a solar oven is great.
A parabolic solar cooker could replace a rocket stove on sunny days, but at night or on cloudy days, the rocket stove would work better.
LRaven: No smell of smoke is a definite plus. Rocket is for the shelter, for heat at night. a little cedar wood will drive off bugs. niio
As long as it’s a nice hot sunny day.
Big Tee: Small hooks work well to bait birds. Just file off the point of they’ll get an infection. If a predator comes on the birds, they might be able to escape it, not be killed off. Another reason, birds like turkeys tame easily. Once there’s a few hanging around, they attract more to live nearby. Same with feral chickens. Quite a few people keep them just by feeding something every day. some folks in town (a large village) keep rabbits like that. The rabbits run loose but always come ‘home’ for the night. About the only thing they get is a little grain, water, and a salt block. niio
Thank you, Red! I never thought of using hooks that way. I have been gathering a number of the smaller hook sizes lately. I’ll keep this in mind. We don’t have turkeys, but we do have ducks, geese, pigeons, and doves. Though, I am plotting to move where there’ll be wild turkeys ASAP. I’ll be sure to pick up more hooks. Currently, I have them for two reasons-most any body of water will have very small fish, which I can use as bait for larger prey, or eat them myself if need be. They also work on a few species which have small mouths relative to body size.
Good article, oughta sell a lot of Minute man strikers, got to have a fool proof way to get fire.
I always have Scripto lighters, a bit more durable than Bic, but any lighter of that sort will fail below 32F, the water in the gas freezes. The night I discovered that was a long cold night.
Carry your lighter in your armpit or inside your trousers in your belt line. If you wear tightie-whities you can put your lighter inside your t-ws and it will be warm enough to light. Ladies can put their lighter in their bras or in their version of tightie-whities to keep their liquid fuel lighters ready to go in an instant.
If those areas of your body are cooler than 32°, you’ve got more serious problems than just a Bic lighter that won’t work.
Assuming your Bic style lighter won’t ignite the fuel in the lighter, if it still makes sparks, one can use the sparks to ignite some tinder to start a fire. You do have some ignitable tinder in your get home bag or bug out bag, don’t you? That’s why I like Zippos. One can store a significant supply of flints in the base of the lighter. I know some people have a tendency to dump too much lighter fluid in the Zippos and it leaks out. That’s because they are not smokers and don’t use their Zippos many times a day. If you were a WWII vet or a Korean War or even a Cold War vet and used a Zippo to light all the cigs you smoked, you knew how to fill a Zippo so that it didn’t leak in your pocket. After three or four times of having a large wet spot in the crotch of your trousers, you kinda caught on. Also the attendant rash in a sensitive area that some developed from too much fluid in their Zippo tended to enforce the lesson. A can of Zippo lighter fluid doesn’t weigh very much and it makes a splendid fire starter, even in freezing weather. Sometimes you just can’t beat old fashioned technology. Even on the march down from the reservoir the Zippo still lighted cigarettes and started C-ration boxes on fire to heat the rations. For those not familiar with that particular bit of Marine Corps legend, it was during the Korean War when the 1st Marine Division together with TF Drysdale fought a tactical withdrawal from the Chosen Reservoir against very large ChiCom forces in incredibly cold weather. I originally used overwhelming ChiCom forces”. That was the mistake the ChiComs made. Although they had in excess of four division of troops facing a barely reinforced Marine Division, the Old Breed Division fought them to a standstill and successfully withdrew the intact Marine Division and Task Force Drysdale, a U.S. Army composite unit.
LCC: Zippo is a great company. Mine is a jet lighter made by them. Had to buy the butane innards separately. I can be doing 80 MPH on I-10 heading to Phoenix with a 40 MPH westerly at 3 AM (and did) and still light the smoke.
BTW, I’m still trying to figure out why the girls had to fly to Phoenix (120 miles away) and not Tucson, 45 miles away. Something about not realizing Tucson really is big enough to have an airport… Nah, I have no clue and J-9 (AKA K-9 for that time of month) just gave me her ‘look’ when I asked. As wise folks in the UK say, women, ‘oy. niio
Some very good points were made by the author. But take note, the cost of a bank of gel batteries, an inverter, a solar charge controller and solar panels can add up to more than what an average (5,000 watt) genset would cost. Neither is cheap and both have pros and cons. Pick your battles.
Solar isn’t cheap and the myths people have about it is astounding .
Can’t find your post…No problems, I do not want to pop you in the face. A good jab, verbal, deserves a good one back; that’s a family thing done for fun. But, agreed to the rest of the post. niio
Make sure you understand how your household insurance policy may be effected by installing solar panels on the roof of your home. Also, If your home does catch on fire, and you have your roof covered with solar panels, don’t expect the local fire department to aggressively fight the fire. Remember that they want to go home at night.
Why does everyone assume it goes on the roof of a house
LRaven: closer to the sun? ! 🙂 niio
For what it’s worth, if you’re interested in how I have planned for the future relating to power or anything prepping, just let me know. Cheers,
Another excellent rocket stove is made by Silverfire. He’s got a couple different models that can be used more at a base camp that use little fuel. The model called the Hunter heats up pretty hot for a half hour then will let you simmer things for another hour or two. It also will provide a bit of heat for you. Rocket stoves typically don’t warm a person very much, but they do have a place as they are portable and don’t take much fuel.
I agree with LCC about cooking / boiling food in a pot or Dutch oven with a lid rather than frying, grilling, or roasting over a fire. We can always smell when any of the nearby neighbors are cooking outdoors, especially when grilling.
If we lose electricity and/or our piped in LP gas, we have a small single burner camp stove that uses small butane canisters, two propane fueled camp stoves designed for use with the small camping propane bottles, and we bought an adaptor to connect them to the larger refillable propane bottles we use for our outdoor grill. I also bought a couple of the small fold-down-flat rocket stoves for the bug-out bags, but would definitely use them while bugging-in if we ran out of propane.
My recommendation for learning how to use striker type fire starters, including the cheap $5 – $10 dollar flint, magnesium, and ferro rods, is to learn how to hold both the rod and striker, how to actually scrape quickly instead of “striking”, and also experiment which angles and motions produce the desired results. I learned to create enough sparks using the classic “hold the rod still and scrape down with the striker”, but by more experimenting have found I get more control and more sparks by holding the rod as close to the tinder as I can with the striker pressed down on it, then pulling the rod up into the striker, which is reverse of the classic “hold the rod still and scrape down with the striker”, but this took a while to figure out how to make it work, You should also experiment and learn which tinder materials you can easily obtain and prepare properly, and then practice, practice, practice until you can produce a fire from sparks anytime, anywhere. I did and I can start fires using dryer lint, fluffed cotton ball or Q-tip cotton, frayed and fluffed cotton materials such as from old rags or clothes, extremely dry wood very finely shaved and then crushed even finer, extremely dry grass and or leaves crushed and frayed so it will catch sparks, and so on, all with and without anything like Chapstick, Vaseline, or wax added as an accelerant, The best waterproof fire starter “tinder” I’ve made myself after watching several video’s on YouTube are cotton make-up remover pads dipped in leftover candle wax re-melted in a small can (such as from canned tuna or chicken), then placed on parchment paper and pressed down to remove excess wax, let cool completely, then break into halves and fluff up the broken edges a little so it will catch sparks easier. These worked even better when I took a “half” and folded it into a 90 degree wedge so it stands up like a tiny tent with the fluffed edge above the surface and burns like a tiny candle. You must have all the additional fire building materials on hand when you light one because they only burn for a minute or two I have several “waxed cotton pad halves” and a ferro rod with striker in ziplocked bags in each of our bug-out bags, as well as in the console of my truck. You can always use a knife or other steel type metal with an edge as the “striker”, I tried both my everyday carry knife and a pair of scissors and both produced sparks better than the strikers that came with the rods.
We live in Southern California with very few tress or natural vegetation to use as fuel so I just bought a solar cooker online to try, but I have never used one and don’t know of anyone else that has. Does anyone have experience using solar cookers? Any advice?
Has anyone bought, built, or have any experience with the H2o Dynamo?
if a SHTF occurs, you must always maintain situational awareness and make decisions as you go regarding what you should or should not do at any given time. Our plan A is to remain in place and hunker down, constantly accessing everything we can, and remain as obscure as we can manage. If things get so bad we decide to bug-out, we have a few tentative plans but will have to decide at that time our best course of action, such as which direction to head, how to travel, what are we able to take with us, and so many other things to consider it’s impossible to honestly state all the specific details in advance – just prepare for a lot of variations so you have more options available to you when needed.
Prepare, Access, Adapt, Overcome, and Survive. Those that do may very well Inherit the Earth.
dz: For fire starters, I cut newspaper into 1/2 inch wide strips the length of the page. I roll them tightly and put a rubber band around the roll. I then soak them in water overnight, let them dry out thoroughly and then soak them in old cooking oil. It doesn’t matter what kind. An experiment I did a couple of years ago and reported the results on this forum revealed that all the oils burned very similarly. Any difference was imperceptible while visually observing the burning qualities.
After they have thoroughly absorbed oil, in perhaps a month or whenever I get around to it, I store them in a short glass jar with a metal screw on lid. Paul Newman’s salsa is a perfect example of the type of jar. I like glass and metal lid to cut down on the chance of accidental ignition. One can overcome the tendency of glass to break on impact by wrapping the jar in a piece of a padded shipping envelope that Amazon or other on-line vendors ship in.
To use a tinder, I tear off a strip about six inches long and ignite it. It will burn for several minutes. I haven’t timed it as that would require that i carefully measure the strip and time it with some timing device. If you are that interested, I suggest you perform the experiment and report your findings here.
If one strip isn’t sufficient to get my fire going the way I want it is easy enough to tear off another stip and ignite it with what is left of the original strip etc etc etc until you have the roaring blaze that you shouldn’t have because it throws off too much smoke and you can’t cook over it anyway and if you use a roaring blaze for overnight warmth you won’t get any sleep trying to gather enough wood to keep it roaring.
I have never had to use more than one strip to start any fire. I suppose if the wood were quite wet I would have to use more but the flame lasts long enough to get any reasonable fire structure going. I haven’t tried, but I suppose the strips would be sufficient to start a Swedish torch where one cuts two saw cuts into a thick log at right angles and ignites a fire in the saw cuts. However, I haven’t tried it so can only speculate.
this is a link for lots of videos how to make the cotton make-up pad fire starters
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=making+fire+starters+from+make-up+pads&qpvt=making+fire+starters+from+make-up+pads&FORM=VDRE
dz: It is my understanding that the H2O dynamo is nothing more than a dehumidifier. My daughter has two in her house and they do generate about a quart of water a day in the fog belt of NorCal. She is vague about how much electricity they use in order to generate that amount of water. That is the extent of my experience with them, but I wouldn’t depend on them as a reliable source of water. If you live in Barstow or Indio, forget about using a dehumidifier to supply water. If you live by the beach in SoCal they might work. The relative humidity in Los Angeles last week was a soggy 4%. Good luck trying to extract that 4% from the atmosphere.
LLC, thanks for confirming the H2o Dynamo is what I thought, just another dehumidifier. These won’t work as a viable water source for us down in San Diego County – not enough humidity, except for the very few occasions we actually get rain, about 10 inches a year total,
Sounds like this advice is for urban people who really instead should move vs trying to figure out which rocket stove is safer to use outside
Raven, you may have not noticed but people live in all sorts of different locations and environments, have different levels of knowledge, skills, abilities/disabilities, and therefore need to adapt their preparations to fit their situation. Most people cannot afford to just pack up and move, so they try to prepare accordingly. Maybe you should expand your awareness and assessment skills, and use those skills in everything you do, including posting on websites..
dz: Totally agree. Even if we can afford to move, sometimes familial responsibilities preclude doing what we ardently desire. In addition if everyone in LA moved to smaller communities even in CA, there isn’t enough building going on to accommodate that size a mob. Many towns in CA and I am sure in other “woke” communities have building restrictions to limit the number of “flatland furriners” from moving in. The community I live in and all the communities with one or two exceptions in this county have such growth limiting restrictions.
Folks in adjacent states are already complaining, and rightly so, that Kallyfornicators are driving up housing prices and creating housing shortages, so suggesting that folks move to the country is short-sighted and ignores the realities of life. Typical of folks who can only compose one coherent sentence with the rest being blather.
dz – Absoultely, and with everything going on today, it is difficult to find a new place to live. Landlords are fearful of accepting new tenants when nobody has to pay rent anymore, and banks are leery of extending credit to home buyers making it almost impossible for some to get the financing they need to purchase a home. In some markets, unless severely discounted, many homes remain on the market for a very long time. In others prices have skyrocketed making home ownership unaffordable to most.
tactical: There’s a site, City Prepper, that teaches urban survival. While a lot of each city will go up in smoke, many city people were raised how-to in things like cooking without a stove, in an apartment, and so on. Rocket stoves are popular in 3rd world countries and easy to use, easy to control.
As dz pointed out, we come here from all walks of life. Parks departments with at least some inkling of intelligence are replace old trees and flowers with edible plants and so on. It was customary in 3rd world nations to do that, to provide a nice place to stop and enjoy things and grab some fruit or nuts while there.
Works for a hurricane but shtf…. good luck… history is not a friend to those in the city
tactical: You might be surprised 🙂
I also subscribe to Homestead Survival, and it’s sister site Urban Survival, and Self-Sufficient Projects.
https://homesteadsurvivalsite.com/
https://urbansurvivalsite.com/
https://selfsufficientprojects.com/
I searched for “CityPrepper” and this a link to one that looks interesting
https://www.cityprepping.com/blog/
and SHTFplan.com
https://www.shtfplan.com/
dz: There’s now a lot of them. Ask City Chick and Miss Kitty. niio
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmb2QRAjdnkse21CtxAQ-cA
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/city-prepping-different-country/
Want to move. Planning to move. Saving to move. Finally talked the wife into it. That’s not been easy. We’re both locals to where we live. We’ll be moving to a place where, regardless of which we choose from our list, we won’t know a soul. In the meantime, we try to stay as ready as we can in case disaster happens here and we haven’t left yet. I’ve talked to many people in a similar condition. We would have left already, but we had family members to watch over until recently, and fell on hard times toward the end of that. We’ve also watched land prices triple, which has been a lot of fun.
It’s seldom easy, or simple.
It is always good to read articles packed with information that causes one to pause and reassess ones situation and what they are focusing on. This article did that for me. I for one, believe that something is always much better than nothing and would not pitch something because it may not be the perfect solution or fix if it still works. Instead I would fix it by having back up! Unlike Marie Kwondo, a popular and highly-espoused clutter blogger guru here in the big city, I firmly believe that more is more and less is less when you do the math.
These days in Texas, at any one time, there are over 100,000 single family houses under construction. Towns and cities are growing like fairy rings, suburbs overrunning the exurbs, people trying to get out of the city bringing the city with them. Trump started his wall on the wrong border, I fear the coming California refugee crisis.
Unfortunately, the California refugee crisis is already upon us here in Texas!
Couple from PDRK down the road from me, when they first moved in they complained to their neighbor about the smell of his horses. City people are afraid of snakes, spiders, and possums and never even heard of bull gnats!
You too? California? Really? You haven’t seen anything yet!
JH – California? Really? The real problem is the US Border is open and the wall wasn’t finished even though the contracts and funds were in place to do so.
JH – That is happening all around here too! Welcome to the Third World. They will all be moving in soon as the Dems believe that the cities like NYC, especially the outer boroughs are what the country should aspire to be! Trump cancelled the affordable housing mandate forcing local governments to plan and build low income housing in every neighborhood. Biden reversed that! He is also making sure that Texas gets its fair share of Afghans, and Haitians too. You haven’t seen anything yet!
My German ancestors came to Texas as refugees from civil war in Germany, they were on the side of freedom and democracy and lost. Freedom loving Texans lynched a lot of these Germans during the Civil War for being opposed to slavery. My Irish ancestors came here because Ireland ran out of taters and everybody was starving. They were hated, treated the way everybody wants to treat Haitians and Afghans these days. My experience has been that refugees from anywhere make good Americans so long as we don’t act like Europe where they are isolated in ghettos and exploited for cheap labor.
Good Americans and good friends can disagree, I’ve seen it done!
Lol. Yeah but Islam doesn’t belong in western culture
L Raven T – Nothing like seeing your beloved Christian holidays removed from the public school calendar to make room for Muslim holidays. Nothing like having Sharia Law enforced in your local playground. It’s always intimidating when they remove the US flag on Muslim holidays. As for Haitians, wonder if JH knows why there are no people of European decent living there? They killed them all.
I have Muslim relatives. They fit themselves into society here but too many don’t. There are a lot of indications Mohammed was a Christian. He was expert enough in the Torah and NT he was a religious judge. Christians and Jews thought this because many became followers. That, after he was assassinated, the quran was added to. Copies written before his death do not contain jihad verses demanding war and forced conversion. Mohammed said, if you have a question about your religion, as a Jew or a Christian. All this and more makes modern Islam a sham, apostacy, and if you read Deuteronomy in respect to curses on nations for apostacy, you can see God’s anger in Islamic nations. niio
CC: No, Haiti has a small population of Euros. While there is a lot of bigotry against them, many people also remember that their ancestors fought just as hard to make a free Haiti. Black libs here hate them because Haitians here are very political and vote conservatively.
Dems force people to live in their own communities. it keeps them under control, but remember the rule of 3 that a Chinese immigrant told me. 1st generation is Chinese all their lives. 2nd generation is chinese American. 3rd generation loves baseball, beer, and farts a lot. Where libs aren’t in control, we’re still the melting pot.
There’s a joke about two brothers who came to NYC from India. Two brothers immigrated from India to NYC. They made a bet that each would be the better American in ten years. One stayed in NY the other moved to Texas. The one in NY moved into the Indian community with food he was familiar with, moves, plays, and so on. Both men were married to women from India. After ten years, the one in NY took his family to Texas. Both did well, made a good living, and had families. The brother from NYC had two children of who he was proud. Very polite, typical Indian kids. His wide even still wore her class symbol. Both were into local politics, the NYC brother a member in good stand with the dnc, the Texan a staunch Republican.
While he and his wife sipped tea, the Texan slapped is wife on the butt. “Baby, y’all fetch us a few brews.” Smiling his wife sashayed into the house, stopped, and gave her husband a lewd wink. She came out with half a case of cold Longhorn. The husband grabbed one and handed it to his wife, then took one for himself. His sister-in-law opened a can for her husband, then took one for herself. To the horror of the brother from NYC, kids of all colors and several languages ran cussing and screaming through the house, swam in the pool, grabbed food without asking, and raised hell.
The brothers stated to argue who was now the better American. A war started down at the pool, the Texan kids jeering one of the other kids. Beef barbecue in one hand, beer in the other, the Texan jumped up shouting, “Y’all best behave else you’ll go to bed after supper without no beer!” their mother bellowed, “I’ll tell the preacher about this!”
Which brother was the better American?
About illegal immigration, NO. EFFING. MORE.
niio
red, thank you for your statement about the Koran being corrupted, you have just supported my position when I posted all religions are based upon “The Words of Men” and is why I am Agnostic. I’m sure you noticed how many of the posters got all flustered over that. Do you think those people are being ignorant and judgmental, especially when they have no knowledge of WHY I am Agnostic and posted as I did? Did you notice no one even asked, they just started spouting nonsense and bible thumping. When religious leaders are approached by a child asking for honest answers and guidance, and then those religious leaders lie to and betray that child, what does the child think of religion after that? And then that child starts searching for answers about religion for any and all denominations he can find, and several years later has determined all are false and he has never found any valid answers concerning religion. The closest I’ve found is Zen Buddhism, but that is philosophical spiritualism, not religion.
dz: Your beliefs, or lack thereof, are yours.
Buddhism is all right but at this time, a lot of monks are teaching how to be like Jesus, who they call the only perfect man. Not to become Christians, but as a way off the worse punishment we can know, reincarnation.
A point of interest in Buddhism is it was founded in a slave city controled by Pesins but run by Jewish slaves (a fortress, a branch off of Nebuchadnezzar’s silk route). Pre-Islam there were 3 cities in Iran where no one was allowed to enter except Buddhist and Jews, and later, Christians. niio
JH – Except for the Irish part, we just may have a lot in common. But just wait! You’ll see. You’re about to learn an awful lot about both Islam and Voodoo. And you will be paying dearly for it all with your very own tax dollars.
My bigger complaint is all my tax money that was wasted on Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Judge: On the wars, yes, money was wasted. The dems started all of them and left repubs holding the bag. But, our time wasn’t wasted. Look at all the wars. How many deadly enemies are still enemies? Many of them when taken over by our enemies risked life and family to provide intel.
In a lot of Muslims nations, people are protecting Christians and Jews, something they would never have done were it not for us. Vietnam, Korea, and elsewhere are allies, defending us despite dnc contempt for them.
Al-jazeera bewailed that the population of Africa plunged from 50% 25 years ago to 20% and falling now thanks to the love and respect we showed them–when at war with Muslim nations.
Hitler loved Muslims enough so, all Muslim political parties made their nations into nazi nations. Dems love Muslims because Hitler did. The wars changed that. Americans changed that and that’s another reason dems hate this nation. niio
At the time my maternal grandmother emigrated from Ireland, Irish women were not considered suitable to work as upstairs maids. They could work in the laundry or in the kitchen doing scullery work but never upstairs. Irish men were considered very good for the stables or the kennels as they weren’t very much up the evolutionary ladder from animals and had good rapport with them that more civilized “races” couldn’t achieve. Nationality differences were racial differences, not nationality races. The Italian race was spurned. The infamous Sullivan Act in NYC prohibiting the carrying and ownership of firearms was aimed at the Italian immigrants. The Irish mob wanted to keep them from owning firearms. If you are trying to intimidate someone they intimidate easier if they aren’t armed with a firearm. The Irish had gained control of NYC by being on the police force which worked hand in glove with the the Irish criminal gangs.
Even in my youth, I can remember when Jack Kelly, an Irish Catholic who had made a fortune in construction, working his way up from hod carrier to owning a large construction company, bought a house on the Main Line. UhOh, there goes the neighborhood. An Irish Papist living on the Main Line. Horror of horrors! The next thing we know, there might be a Roman Catholic church built on the Main Line. You might not recognize who Jack Kelly was without a reference. He was Grace Kelly’s dad. His daughter later became a princess by marrying the Prince of Monaco. I’ll bet it burned a lot of Main Line butts having to curtsy to Princess Grace, an Irish Catholic, daughter of a construction worker, when they visited Monaco.
The big difference between then and now was that immigrants to the U.S. if they did not have a set sum of money with them and the amount slips my memory right now, had to have a sponsor who signed a statement that they would keep the newly arrived immigrant from welfare rolls for a period of not less than five years. My grandmother had to have her brother sign as her sponsor. As late a 1958 in order for my wife to obtain a permanent resident status “green card” I had to sign such an agreement, that I guaranteed that she would not become a welfare recipient for five years from the date of her entry.
I could go on for quite a while longer on immigration policy through the years but that is not for this forum.
LLC, in 1990, as a sponsor for my wife to obtain a permanent resident status “green card” I had to sign an agreement that I guaranteed that she would not become a welfare recipient or other burden to the government for five years from the date of her entry. This seems to apply only to Legal Immigrants, but the majority entering as ILLEGAL ALIENS are granted absolvement of legal processes required of those entering legally. This seems like blatant discrimination against the law abiding, so where are all the liberal “civil rights violation” lawsuits for discrimination of those being subjected to the actual US Laws compared to those violating our laws and are not held accountable? And yes, no matter what the Libtards claim, ILLEGAL ALIEN is a legal term for anyone entering the USA in violation of our laws governing entry.
Judge: I wasn’t aware Texan did that to the Germans for being antislavery. A lot of Germans came to Penna during their potato famine and they were no more racist than those who came over in colonial times, very open people, very good for the most part. It’s the same with the Haitians. The dms singled them out because Haitians, like Cubans, tend to vote RNC. One thing about all people is, they tend to stick with their own. It’s the kids that move on. Like a lady in Chinatown, NYC, told me, first generation is chinese till they die. Second generation is Chinese American. 3rd generation loves baseball, swills beer and farts a lot. niio
Churchlady:
I’m so sorry about your husband. I know that you have spent the best part of the last few years trying to keep him comfortable and happy. You did your best, and I know that he must have appreciated it even if he was unable to articulate it all the time.
Praying for you and your family, and for the speedy recovery of your kids. Stay strong, sister!
Texas was the most segregated place in the world when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s. Blacks came into the white part of town during the day to work as maids and gardeners, when the sun went down they had to be back in their own part of town. The penalty was a beating combined with an indefinite stay in jail and, if you were unlucky, death. These days Texas cities are some of the most international on earth. There have been times sitting in my pickup at a stoplight I’ve been amazed at the mix of races, cultures, and religions I see mingling at work and in the stores. Every kind of Asian, Arab, African, Latin, Aussies Germans, Brits, Canadians, I drive past mosques, Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, Greek Orthodox Churches, Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, Scientologist, Hare Krsna, Synagogues. All the worlds cuisines, important to a big eater like me. One day I was looking around at it all and I wondered, where in the blankety blank world am I? Then I realized, this is America, America is the only place in the world all these cultures live together in peace. I know a lot about Islam and Voodoo (have to brag, when I was a young man my Mexican friends nicknamed me Chango), I think everybody’s fear of Haitians (when they killed all the white people it was slaves revolting against their masters, the most righteous murder there is), Muslims, etc… is a result of a lack of broad experience and a lack of faith in the power of the American Idea to turn all sorts into good citizens. If the Constitution was only written for property owning white male Protestants over the age of 21 the paper it was printed on would have been better used to wipe the Founders’ noses.
Despite the claim that Muslims only want to assimilate into the U.S. culture just like any other ethnic group, unfortunately, the Muslim-acknowledged leading interpreters of the Koran insist that it calls for the forcible conversion or enslavement or death of all non-believers. That is pretty inclusive. While the Roman Catholics have pretty much given up on auto-da-fe and burning non-believers at the stake and other religions have also pretty much accepted Irish Roman Catholics as actual members of the human race and perhaps suited for positions other than as kennel keeper or scullery maid and to a lesser extent that perhaps Asian folk are not some sub-human species unable to testify in a court of law in a matter involving whites and subject to being killed with no legal repercussions if the killer was white, it remains the 8th century tenet of Mohammadism that all infidels are to be forcible converted, enslaved or killed. That doesn’t quite fit in with how we are supposed to meld into a single society.
As long as that is a major plank of their agenda, then I am afraid I am not in favor of importing a large number of folks who hold that belief. I personally want a little stronger assurance than a statement that they don’t believe that, although they are devout Mohammadans.
Anyway, immigration policies and beliefs regarding immigration are not a topic for this forum, so we should move on.
LCC – Certainly I would agree except for the fact that I prep to secure my safety and the welfare of my family. In the news this morning, reported incidents at Fort McCoy Afghan Refugee Processing Center in Wisconsin of multiple child sex crimes and wife abuse eatings are very disturbing. The DOJ released a statement that federal charges have be filed. I can only imagine just how bad the situation must actually be for this news to be released to the public. Is this what the future holds for our communities?
Agreed, except to say all the political discussion used to bother me more, recently I read a 4 year old article in the archive and was surprised how far off topic the comments strayed. We have poked each other with all kinds of sticks, but most weren’t sharp and everybody has been polite and reasonable. So far as I know, that behavior doesn’t exist on the internet, so it’s pretty cool reading what everybody is thinking.
LCC: Muslims in the family are applauding you. Like it says, all it takes is one bad apple that rot the whole barrel and there are a lot of rotten apples invited in. One son-in-law was booted from 4 mosques in NYC for telling imams to stop lying about America, to stop demanding war against us. niio
There’s more. Today at Ft Bliss New Mexico Afghan Refugee Camp a female military solider was attacked by a group of Afghan men. These people can’t even wait to be processed to start attacking the female population of the United States. They have done untold damage to hundreds if not thousands of women and children I n the EU. Now, thanks to Biden, it’s our turn! Those of you who are not of the female persuasion are perhaps not as appalled and upset about these incidents as I am, but think of the safety of your wives, mothers, sisters, and helpless children, boys as well as girls. How do we prep for this when no one acknowledges that we are faced with a big problem?
Clergy Lady: As you know, ordinarily I am fairly articulate. However at times like yours, I am at a loss for words to adequately convey my feelings. I deeply appreciate your sense of loss but just can’t express what is in my heart to my satisfaction. My wife and I will be married 63 years in two months and at our age, the loss of a partner is never far from our minds. I know what a hole the loss of my life partner would leave in my life and I appreciate what a hole the loss of your life partner has left in yours. I hope your faith can sustain you to carry on despite your loss. Please keep posting and let us who have come to care for you and appreciate your struggles know that you are persevering.
I want to thank everyone here for the condolences. Bill died of pneumonia. From throwing up and aspirating a little till he was gone was under 24 hours. The hospice nurse arrived within a minute or two after he was gone. The nurse for our area quit last week. They had to find a nurse from the city to send out here. She got lost using GPS. It takes people to a neighboring property. I told Bill the nurse was on her way but lost close by. I walked out to the gate talking her in. When we walked in the house I knew Bill was gone. It was quiet. His breathing had been very labored.
Bill was a lifelong musician. That was his joy. He played piano, marimba, and percussion instruments. He was the drummer in bands from 1950s in high school till almost two yearsago. Dance, swing, country, jazz, and even a celtic bagpipe marching band where he played a marching snare. He turned down several offers to go to Hollywood. He did play in resorts in Palm Springs, CA. The last few years he played drums in the little band at the last church I pastored. I played piano, he played drums and there were usually 2 or 3 guitar players. I gave my old lap steel to a lady in the church and she played that with us. He enjoyed an eccIectic mix of music.
His 83rd birthday was this month. I’ll miss him but I’m also at peace. His suffering and frustration are ended. He couldn’t understand why he was in a hospital bed with rails. He wanted to get up and walk. He didn’t remember the fact that as soon as he’d stand up he be laying in the floor and I’d have to call for help to get him back in bed. Alzheimers is a terrible disease.
Those who pray I’d appreciate your prayers. I’m still working on how to make the mortuary happy. Nothing happens without prepayment.
I’m fine. And I will be better. Takes time.
By the way good article and discussion. I heat with a gravity fed pellet burning rocket stove. I can remove the hopper a n d feed tub and burn twigs and branches up to 2″ across and 3′ long. I cook all winter on the heat collector. Its plenty hot to fry a skillet of potatoes. In summer I cook some on a propane stove or my homemade wood burning BBQ.
I have multiple sizes of rechargeable batteries and multiple solar powered chargers.
I have 2 gas generators. 1400w and 9k. I also have solar panels, combiner, charge controllers, inverters, and 2, 90 ah deep cycle batteries and 9 100 ah deep cycle batteries. No I won’t be mixing sizes. Same with solar panels. No mixing. I have three different watt sets of pannels plus 20, 270 w Canadian panels ready to use. Some will be my new array and some will be solar generators for smaller applications. I bought books 9n so I ar and I’m learning. I used to help wire or rewire our homes and grew up doing construction with my dad. Not doing so much of it anymore.
Again thank you all for the kind words.
Red – From what I understand, and what has been reported, I t’s mostly Afghan refugees that have been the biggest problem in the EU.
CC: They are here, that’s all I can say. UK is controlled by liberals who grab ankle every chance they get, like the dnc does. What they do is allowed under Sharia Law! It more than bugs me the dnc allowed the Taliban back in civilization. Then abandoned Americans to die as they did.
niio
To our very dear and sweet clergylady.
I pray to my Father in Heaven that he will help you with your health, home and Father GOD watch over your child, bring comfort to her heart.
Father, if there is anything that she will need, please make a way, so that it can happen.
Clergy lady. this is a time when we will all come together and morun with you and your family. You know he is okay now and he is prepping for us now in Heaven.
Thank you for your wonderful and loving Husban, Bill..
Thank you for being you and your time that you have shared with us.
The issues at fort Mccoy are a drop in the bucket. People don’t care or won’t admit that Islam has no place in western culture.
Fort Mccoy has a become a shit hole.
Raven tactical – Thank you for speaking up and speaking out! People don’t want to sound as if they are not multicultural and that unfortunately provides the perfect cover. Doesn’t it? That’s what happened in the EU. Unless one has been exposed to the culture or is well read on the international news front, most folks here quite naturally view the world through our western values and will be stunned when the reality of Biden’s importation of 300,000 Afghan refugees sets in.
As former President Ronald Reagan put it: “Freedom is a fragile thing, and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance. It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”
That my friend is posted on my fridge!
Anti gun regan not surprisingly
Raven, please provide information and links to support your opinion Reagan was anti-gun.
Regan anti gun
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/true-arms-talks/
Raven, you posted: “Its a prepper site and the goal of preparing is to get out of the city and into the boonies. You’ll find yourself free.”
The only thing you got right is this is a prepper site, but you are totally wrong about the goal of prepping, and I am already free, and will fight to the death to stay that way.
In my opinion, any and all Prepper sites are to get people to think and take action concerning their own situation, and it starts with assessing your knowledge, skills, and available resources, how to apply them to your current environment, and determining what you need to improve on, then doing what you are able to accomplish realistic goals.
Prepare, Assess, Adapt, Overcome, Survive
Cities are nothing but death.. crime and taxes. Nothing good comes from living in town.
Go be free or die as a slave.
Nobody living in town will survive outside of 30 days in total shtf. …
Raven, you really are clueless aren’t you? We live on a 75’x90′ lot on a cul-de-sac in an area that is considered unincorporated San Diego county, with public utilities, and if everything was shut down I have enough resources in stock for my family to survive for three months or more without even having to venture out and forage for food or water. If we are approached by groups of marauders intent on raiding and pillaging, then it will become a matter of killing as many as we can as far away from our homes as we can, as in “reach out and touch them” with .30 caliber rifles, then the 5.56’s, then the 12 gauges and 9mm’s until we run out of ammo, then we break out the Molotov cocktails and road flares, and use hand held weapons for hand-to-hand if we are still alive after all that. Live free or die isn’t just a talking point for us, we mean it, and continue to prepare for it.
raven: There’s more crime per capita in the sticks than in the city. Rarely do criminals in rural areas get caught. In the city, cops are often right around the corner. Live in the country expect an average 45 minutes for one to arrive, if they can.
Half and then some of prepping things we have came from the city. I used to work out of Publisher’s row, Manhattan but was raised and lived in the country. I could take meat- and food grinders down, just junk where I lived, but worth 135 and up in NYC, and trade for equal amount in ammo, knives, and so on. And because even little shops stell tons each week, such things cost a lot less than buying local. Anything we needed or just plain wanted was there, and less than it cost at home.
City people are prepping. There are parks all over cities and many of them planted with food-bearing trees and edible ornamentals. Most cities have a permanent supply of water that will continue to flow even without maintenance for a decade or more. Electric may be iffy, but here in the southwest quarter of the country they encourage solar on every building. Geothermal for electric and fresh water are also important here. Even liberal politicians are telling earth-first loonies to lay off.
Red, DZ
Let see you think more crime happens in Rural community then a city(i would love those drugs your smoking)….. While i admit when things do happen. Like theft and other events… We don’t rely on the cops like you do. We handle the issues ourselves and often have the ability to figure it out. We typically work together regardless of political views.
Now while i think a park and growing food is a neat idea. You are missing the point of “population density issues”. You will have a large horde of people who never considered prepping and eating everything in that park in a matter of a few days.
This isn’t to insult your city lifestyles. you choose life of a leisure in the city while rural community have to put in the handwork . Prepping isn’t just some fad you can write about your rocket stove. It is a way of life for us.
Raven, I am country. I was raised rural on farms and ranches. I saw my first suicide when 5. First body parts when 11. you have no clue about living country. Stranger equal enemy and for a good reason, too many people know that criminals are hard to track because there are no witnesses. We always kept a gun by the door because even a neighbor can turn. I think it was old lady Hochstattler who took her dead husband to the butcher shop and asked them to make sure they smoked the meat well. She said he was a pig in life and treated him as one. A cousin was raided three nights in a row before his wife took a night off from work and hid. The kids were at their grandfather’s, and he was at work when she shot one of several people who broke into the house. You know nothing about country living.
Most people in the city have an easier access to canning material and freezers than we do. To get juice jugs and not pay a small fortune for them, we picked up several cases in a kosher store at a lot less than the catalog wanted. We also bought 3 gallon buckets of pitted sweet cherries, cases of citrus, and olives, and so on. Electric grain mills, ammo, weapons, blow pipes with hollow tips, and a lot more. All cheaper than buying via a catalog and no nosy cops worrying us about it.
I don’t have a city lifestyle, I was and am still country. The difference between us is, I see the advantages city people have and use them. I live miles from the closest city and trade there because to buy the same things here means paying twice as much.
red, it’s a wasted effort trying to explain anything to Raven, he thinks he can read minds and knows all about other people just because of a few posts on a blog, what an idiot he really is, not worth the effort. I think he mentioned something about wolf ammo, but his communication skills suck, so I’m not really sure. I do know I won’t buy the Russian steel cased ammo no matter how cheap it is, I’ll stick to brass casing and NATO standards for the 5.56.
dz: Look on it like a platform to speak from.
When in Army, over half of the men and women I knew were city people. They were more eager than many of us to learn firearms and survival. I learned quite a bit from them, too. Zipguns, blow pipes and hollow point darts, how to make a crappy cyanide (but it works!) from stone fruit pits, an Argentinian–raised in the city–who taught us bolos and we taught him how to make and use a leather sling. Too many people think A Country Boy Can Survive is our national anthem. It’s a cool song, but people like you and City Chick are respectable and worth listening to. niio
Lol dz and red
Appreciate the opportunity to educate you on country living. This thing called the internet and Amazon prime has made things a lot easier. Making trips to town our local small towns. Everything is cheaper less taxes and more abundance then big city living.
Poly wolf in a ar15 isn’t going hurt the damn rifle. It’s a excellent training round. Oh wait the key word was training. Sorry you might want to try that sometime. The accuracy is 2 moa on avg for poly wolf which is on par with nato standards.
I see you still have no clue about country living. Less taxes because there’s less work. Everything costs 10% to 30% more. Move back to the city.
Your house is a terrible place to fight from.
That stick house could get set on fire from a can cannon.
The min your opening the first can of beans is a count down to a starvation point. Your plan is to go looting when you run out if food. Nice plan and sorry your family will he dead
DZ you needed facts that regan was anti gun (he signed in the 1986 huges amendment banning machine guns) He during his time as Calif Gov signed in a bill banning open carry. Because he was a afraid of black people carrying guns.
He outspokenly supported the Awb and in a video told others you don’t need a ak47.
Raven, again you keep proving what an ignorant idiot you really are, you have no idea what my plans and abilities are, and yet you are pretending you can determine what will occur, and what the results will be. I am done trying to convince you to pull your head out of your ass and be honest, but that will have to start with you being honest with yourself, and I don’t think you are capable of that – too much ego, not enough intelligence.
Ego ? You shouldn’t fight from your house. Your house isn’t bullet proof. Unless you like your house shot up or set on fire. That’s a bad battle plan. But hey you do you and your family’s life is on you.
If you can’t comprehend that once you start eating your survival food. Without a way to replace it. Which BTW is no small task. You’re failing yourself and your family.
So its not ego… its simply just good logistics
My house is built of solid block. My town is built that way. People come here from Chi and inner city LA and most are preppers. This is Indian country.
Anything requiring commercial fuel sources will be a problem. Gasoline, propane, fuel tabs, sterno, etc. will run out eventually and stockpiling it ties you down to a specific location which could prove a trap for you. Using natural fuel sources are your best approach. Twigs, dead leaves and grass, tree bark, tree sap/resin dry wood even lint, fur, hair, dried dung, and evergreen trees provide natural fuel sources. Lighters, magnesium starters, matches, etc are fine until they are depleted, You need to learn basics like the hand drill, bow drill, or rubbing two sticks together, also there is flint and steel, rolling ashes in lint or cotton between two flat boards or stones, or a small magnifying glass, Often people say they will hunt or fish to survive. Maybe, if the situation is right but trapping and snaring are more likely to produce game. Traditional firearm hunting may not be an option unless you don’t care whether anyone knows where you are. Bow&arrow, spear, knife, slingshot, rock, club, etc. may be a safer option. Fish don’t always cooperate with your hook, line, sinker or fancy lure. Believe me as an experienced fisherman sometimes you come home empty handed. Fishing shows/videos only show you the wins. They cut the hours of empty hooks. Sometimes the bait fish are all you have at the end of the day. Can you walk out into your front/back yard and fill a bowl with edibles other than Kentucky blue grass? What grows wild in your yard that can feed you for a meal or a day?