The past 2 days have been spent working on my truck, and working on some jug lines for an upcoming camping trip. When I started thinking about how much time and effort I put into getting the juglines ready, I was a little set back.
After talking to my wife, I ...
In this article we are going to be looking at making noodles to catch catfish. This type of rig may not be legal in all areas, so check the local laws before you do anything.
Buy some noodles from the local china-mart. The noodles might be seasonal, and should be ...
Deer season is here, instead of grabbing a pack, throwing some random gear in and heading out to the woods, lets take a look at some items that should be considered. The way I look at it, your pack needs to contain everything you need to track a wounded deer, ...
A few days ago I asked the SurvivalistBoards Facebook group a question, "Name one thing a first aid kit is not complete without." Some of the answers were helpful, and some were not what I expected.
I would like to thank all of the subscribers for helping out with this list.
Anti-bacterial ...
This past weekend I decided it was time to organize the ammunition at the Bug Out Location. We had ammo stored in 3,,, 4 different locations, which made taking inventory a pain in the rear end.
My wife cleared off a wire shelf so I could bring it to the camp ...
There was a line in 28 Days Later that got me to thinking. Its after the group leaves the city and finds their way to the house controlled by the soldiers. The commanding officer takes Jim (played by Cillian Murphy) into a courtyard where an infected soldier is chained up.
The commanding officer tells the Jim that the infected soldier provides a lot of information. Jim says something along the lines of “what does he tell you?” The commanding officer explains that the infected solider will never raise crops, he will never raise livestock, he will never bake bread, he has no future. And eventually, he will tell me how long the infected take to starve to death.”
This brings up the question, post SHTF, how many people will “have no future”?
How many people will be unable to raise crops,
How many people will be unable to raise livestock,
How many people will be unable to hunt,
How many people will be unable to bake bread,
How many people will be able to adapt to a new lifestyle,
Its about 800AD, in what will later become Sacred Ridge, which is just south of Durango Colorado. There is some kind of dispute between 2 or more cultures and 1 culture is wiped out. Men, women, children,,,,,, everyone is rounded up, tortured, and killed. There is evidence that suggest that hands were removed from the bodies as trophies, and the huts the people lived in were burned after the slaughter. This is not the act of a single person, or a small group of people, this was the actions of a whole community.
What could have made one group of people turn on another group? Was there a disease that was blamed one something like witchcraft? Did 1 group of people think the other 1 had put a curse on them, or maybe poisoned them?
Lets fast forward to the Black Death of 1348 – 1350, in which killed millions of Europeans. As the usual scapegoat, Jews were rounded up, blamed for outbreaks of the plague, and were put to death. Some Jews met with grizzly, unspeakable deaths, such as being burned to death.
More recently, Cholera fears sparked an anti-clinic protest in Haiti. When Doctors Without Borders went to setup a clinic, the people became afraid and started throwing rocks. The situation got so bad that armed guards had to be brought in to protect the clinic.
Its just human nature to fear what we do not understand – thats the way its always been, and that is the way its going to stay.
The big question is, if some kind of plague (or some kind of disease) breaks out in the civilized world, will we react any different?
People in the 40s and higher should remember the fear that was being spread in the late 1980s due to HIV/AIDS. People with HIV were fired from their jobs, they were shunned by the majority of society. But the thing with HIV, the majority of its victims were gay. So if someone had a blood transfusion and caught HIV, they had the double stigma that they “must” be gay to catch HIV and the stigma about the disease itself.
I like to think that we live in an educated society, and that we can overcome just about anything. But after what happened with the gays and HIV in the 1980s, I wonder if our primal instinct for fear of what we do not understand, is stronger then our intelligence.
One of my favorite quotes is – “utilize available resources to achieve a desired goal.”
Resource – Pumpkin seeds from pumpkins bought for Halloween.
Desired Goal – stockpile seeds for a survival garden.
Wash the seeds to remove any pumpkin residue – to help prevent mold growth. Then let them dry for a week or 2, put them in a paper bag, and put the seeds in the freezer. Be sure to mark the date on the paper bag.
You may want to do a sprout test – take 10 seeds, get a cookie sheet, put a hand towel on the cookie sheet, put the 10 seeds down, cover with towel, and pour some water over the towel. Keep the towel wet for about 5 days, and see how many seeds sprout.
However – due to evaporation, the towels might stay cool. If the temperature of the water and towels is say below 70 degrees the seeds may not sprout. So keep them in a warm place. Doing a sprout test only works if you can keep the towels and water warm enough to fool the seeds into thinking its spring time.
I keep my seeds in a plastic tub, which is kept in the deep freezer.
Its one thing to have a remote camp that you and your family visits on the weekends, its another thing to have this camp prepped and ready to go for a disaster. Having the camp prepped means the difference between having a bug out location, or having a weekend get away. One of the comforts of modern life we take for granted is the ability to cook. We walk into the kitchen, and turn on the oven, stove, microwave, crock pot, or toaster without ever giving it a single thought – until the power goes off that is.
What are your plans for cooking with no electricity? Some people might have a grill on the back porch, some people might have a wood burning stove, with others may have no cooking options at all. Some people might have natural gas – but natural gas requires pumps to be working between your house and the natural gas supplier. When those pumps stop working, the natural gas stops flowing.
Lets divide cooking into three layers:
Personal cooking
Family / Unit cooking
Communal cooking
Personal cooking – this is a small camp fire, or maybe a single burner stove, something just big enough to cook for 1 or 2 people. Examples could include a Vargo stove, camp fire, Coleman 533 dual fuel stove, single burner propane stove,,, something just big enough to cook for 1 or 2 people.
The first episode of “The Walking Dead” aired last night on AMC. And I must say, I was impressed. Unlike a lot of other zombie movies out there, The Walking Dead is not a 90 minute movie, its going to be a series. This gives the producer time to develop relationships and build characters to a greater degree then what could be done in the limited time frame of a 90 – 120 minute movie.
At first I thought The Walking Dead was a mix of 28 Days Later and The Crazies. The main character is a cop – like in The Crazies, and he wakes up after the situation has developed – like in 28 Day Later. But instead of being in a major city, this is a rural community.
The story unfolds, the main character meets other people, makes some friends, and tries to find help in Atlanta, Georgia. A lot of people may not understand why Atlanta, Georgia is important – the Centers for Disease Control main office is in Atlanta. So it makes sense that if someone wanted to find out information about a new outbreak, Atlanta Georgia would be the focus point. The CDC address is 1600 Clifton Rd. Atlanta, GA 30333, and is listed on the bottom of the CDC website. I was not paying attention to the street signs last night, so I don’t know if they showed Clifton Road.
So far The Walking Dead seems to be holding true to the classic zombie style movie. To kill the zombie, you have to destroy the brain or remove the head. Unlike in Shawn of the Dead, we Americans use baseball bats instead of cricket bats.
Instead of people having AK47s or AR15s, they had what you might expected to see middle America – a bolt action rifle and some pump shotguns.
Lets stay tuned for next weeks episode to see how things turn out.
Interested in winning a Berkey Water filter? Then check out this thread on the forum – Berkey water filter contest.
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That is 28 prizes, 28 chances to win.
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For those of you that have never seen a Berkey water filter, here is an example of a Royal Berkey from Directive21.com
This article was originally posted by Heckler&Coke on the Survivalist Forum. Special thanks the Heckler&Coke for giving permission for this article to be reposted here.
As some of you may know, I recently got a AK74. It’s the Century M74 sporter. I got this one locally for about $400 out the door with a sealed case of 5.45 mil-surp, and 4 Bulgarian 30 round magazines after some haggling. It seems to just be relatively new Bulgarian parts kits built on a proper Nodak spud receiver. Big plus there imho. Also, worth noting, they seem to be assembled pretty well for Century.
After the first day I realized without a heat shield the hand guard was useless, as the plastic literally began to melt during my specialized mall ninja training routine, so I just refinished some wood furniture I had lying around and slapped it on.
Bulgarian AK-74 with wood stock
My first impression wasn’t too good to be honest, and I was second guessing myself the whole time but as an AK fan I knew better than to reject it outright. These have the absolute worst AK furniture I’ve seen in my life. Cheap plastic, no heat shield, no hand guard bulge, heats and melts easily, and it has a cheap look and feel. The finish isn’t all that great either. It’s just a really flat grey pseudo parkerized finish. I’ve already scratched it up pretty good in a few hours of hard use.
Its gotten to the point where I am ashamed of my weight. In all, I’am about 25 pounds over my ideal weight and that is 25 pounds too many.
My great grandmother always told me to watch my weight, stay slim, stand up tall, and keep my back straight. I have let her down. Over the past 4 – 5 years, the sugar filled soft drinks, cheeseburgers and other fast food have taken their toll. Its time to fight back.
Instead of eating dinner when my wife and I get home, I am trying to replace that meal with something much lighter in calories. Wednesday morning my wife and I went to wal-mart and picked up a couple of the Jillian Michaels drinks – their like 150 or so calories and stocked full of nutrients.
When my wife and I got home from work yesterday, I drank one of those drinks and waited about 45 – 45 minutes or so. then my wife and I walked around the block for 30 minutes.
After walking for 30 minutes:
5 sets of curls, 10 reps per set
5 sets of 30 crunches on the sports ball
5 sets of 25 – 30 presses with the weight ball – while still on the sports ball
5 sets of 10 lunges – while I was picking up the weight bar for the curls.
5 sets of 10 – 15 squats with the weight ball
5 sets of 20 – 30 behind the head curls
Total workout time, about 50 – 55 minutes.
And this morning, I’am sore.
About 10 years ago my fitness regime consisted of 9 – 13 miles on the bike, about 20 minutes of weights and 4 – 5 miles of running. This would take about 90 minutes.
My goal is to lose 25 pounds in 2 months – deadline, January 1, 2011.
The story looks like its straight from a history book about the dark ages. Doctors without Borders tried to setup a clinic in Haiti to treat cholera patients. Instead of being welcomed by the local people, the doctors were met with fear, a small riot and rock throwing. The situation got so bad that armed troops had to be brought in to protect the clinic and doctors.
During the middle ages, people that did not understand the plague looked for groups of people to blame for the outbreaks. Finger pointers would pick someone in the village that had a bad reputation, brand them a witch for the outbreak of the plague, and burn them at the stake. An unknown number of Jews were murdered and burned during the Dark Ages for “supposedly” spreading the plague. There are stories of people being rounded up, locked in a barn, and the barn set on fire – because it was believed the people were witches, or were Jews and were responsible for causing the plague.
600+ years later, and people still express fear of diseases they do not understand.
The question is, if an epidemic breaks out in your area, will the locals understand the disease? Will they know how to prevent the spread of the disease, and will they welcome treatment? Or will they throw rocks at the people that are there to help.
One of the conditions that helps an epidemic spread is misunderstanding by the people. Karen might go visit her friends with the mindset that “its ok, Jill is not sick”. But what Karen does not know is that Jills mom works at one of the local Big Box Marts and has lots of face-to-face contact with people. Jill visits with Karen, and the family, and brings back an unwelcome guest in the form of a bacteria or virus.
Sean Penn talks about the Cholera outbreak in Haiti. By the latest number, over 250 dead and over 3,000 infected. Until people start getting safe drinking water, the problem is just going to get worse. Once Cholera gets into the drinking water supply, the water has to be chemically treated or filtered to remove the Cholera bacteria.
Cholera is a bacteria that causes severe dehydration and left untreated may cause death.
The question is, if a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti hit your area, how would you provide safe drinking water for you and your family?
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