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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Why do some people live their lives filled with hate and anger? These are the people that explode in a fit of rage at the slightest thing, like a time bomb waiting to go off at the slightest bump in the road.
Why do some people gloat in the misery of others?
Why do some people try to keep others down? By “down”, I mean down in every, shape, form and fashion. Whether its emotionally or financially some people seem to get a thrill out of providing misery in the lives of others.
Why do people hold onto feeling of anger for years, even decades after the fact? Its as if their lives revolves around hanging onto those bitter feelings.
Why cant people treat others with respect and dignity?
Treat others as you want to be treated, but I think haters want to be treated bad. Its like they feed on the anger and bickering.
Why do some people find fault with others? Its like they look for fault part of the time, they find fault all the time in everything others do.
With no much anger in the world, why cant we live in peace and harmony? Why cant people be left alone to live their lives as they wish, why cant people live their lives without worry of criticism and conflict.
Why do some people feel they have to push their opinions and beliefs on others?
There is a certain person I know who believes her religion is the only religion, and because of her religious beliefs she is rude to everyone else. What gives that person the right to look down on others because of their beliefs?
Despotism is when certain groups of people do not get respect due to certain factors, such as race and religion. In nazi germany jews did not have the same rights as other people. Whether we want to admit it or not, the nazi beliefs are alive and well, just in a different form. Instead of a government sponsored program, people practice what the nazis taught in their everyday lives.
Haters are the people who say “I am going to teach that person a lesson”, when the other person has done nothing wrong.
Haters are the ones who plot and plan how to make the lives of others miserable.
Haters are the ones who gloat in the misery of others.
Haters are the people who are filled with anger, and for no reason.
Now for some relaxing music from one of my favorite bands.
Crutch, a respected member of the forums posted a video where he talks about making wine and squirrels. When the squirrel is let out of its cage, it tries to take a drink of wine.
For most of the developed world, safe drinking water is something we take for granted. We turn on the faucet and nice clean water comes out. We have fresh water to brush out teeth, to take a shower, to wash our hair,,, and our other everyday needs.
Then along comes SHTF / TEOTWAWKI, and guess what, no more nice clean water.
Over the years I have read a lot of articles taking about the most important survival gear items. the list usually ranges from antibiotics to water filters. To me, and my personal opinion, the most important thing during a survival situation is safe drinking water.
Without safe drinking water, life as we know it can not exist.
Lets talk about 3, 4 or even 5 days after the city water gets turned off, people will be drinking out of rivers, creeks, ditches, streams, ponds, lakes,,,,, anywhere they can find water.
Most the most part, people will try to purify the water by boiling it, or using a water filter, or running the water through a shirt or cloth to remove the heavy particles,,,. I guess a major problem lies in urban dwellers who have limited access to fuel for fires to boil water.
Lets move forward 2 – 3 weeks, people start getting sick, people start dying from waterborne infections. Dysentery kicks in, and people start dying from dehydration.
Forget raiders, forget looters,,, once people start drinking untreated water, the whole game changes.
Boiling water – that topic should be common knowledge. So lets talk about stuff that is not discussed very much.
I am thinking of getting a SteriPEN and leaving it at the bug out location, along with some 32 ounce water bottles.
Run the creek water through the Royal Berkey, fill up a 32 ounce water bottle (or canteen), after the water is in the bottle or canteen purify the water with a SteriPEN. I might even buy 2 or 3 SteriPEN, one or two for home and one or two for the Bug Out Location.
On the SteriPEN website, the company has a long list of certifications from laboratories. The rating is something like 48 seconds of exposure for 16 ounces of water, and 90 seconds for 32 ounces of water.
The reason why I suggested 32 ounce water bottles – each water bottle would take 90 seconds of exposure, and 32 ounce water bottles are common. You can go to just about any sporting goods store and buy 32 ounce bottles.
16 ounces of water is not very much in the summer time. While out on the boat fishing or hiking, I can down 16 ounces of water at one time.
I have been stocking up on 32 ounce water bottles and canteens from academy sports and outdoors, the bottles and canteens are cheap and they are BPA free.
To help filter something like river water, use a shirt, sock (make sure its clean), piece of denim, bandanna,,,, some kind of cloth to remove heavy partials.
If you wanted to take things a step further, build a slow sand filter out of a 5 gallon bucket. Use the sand to filter out the heavy stuff and use the SteriPEN to further purify the water.
Lets talk about safe drinking water during a long term SHTF / teotwawki situation. When it comes to water, there is a saying I like to use, “without safe drinking water, life as we know it can not exist.”
During a long term SHTF / teotwawki situation, people will be taking water from creeks, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes,, whatever they can find and trying to make it safe to drink. Its important to know the most common types of infections, and how to remove / kill the organisms.
In this article we will be looking at the most common waterborne infections, their cause, and how to prevent becoming infected.
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went to Sams Club in Beaumont Texas. One of the main things I wanted to pick up was some freeze dried foods in #10 cans. The food is listed on the Sams Club website, so I thought the store would have some in stock. Guess what, the store did not have any freeze dried food in #10 cans. After walking up-and-down the isles, I finally decided to stop and ask an employee. I was told that the store had not got any emergency type food in a couple of years.
For those of you that do not know, Beaumont sits just a few miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. In the past few years Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike have made landfall close to Beaumont. Why wouldn’t a major outlet store sell some kind of emergency food in a Hurricane prone area? I think its a lack of forward thinking, and maybe even a lack of demand.
A couple of nights ago my wife and I went to Lowes in Jasper Texas, we were looking for some kind of can rotation system. Wal-mart in Jasper sells a wire rack for rotating soda cans, but a regular sized chili or soup can will fit in the rack. So my wife and I have been buying the wire-racks and setting up a can rotation system on a set of shelves.
What really surprised me was the Lowes store in Jasper does not carry any type of can rotation system. Why wouldn’t a hardware store that sells cabinets sell some kind of system to keep can goods organized?
Some kind of SHTF/teotwawki situation has happened, society has broken down, and the power has finally gone off.
Or, some kind of natural disaster has happened, power has been cut off and my not be restored for several days to several weeks. After Hurricane Rita, my family and I spent 18 days without power. So power outages are not reserved for a long term SHTF/teotwawki situation.
My light preps are kerosene, hand crank lights, solar lights and your regular LED lights. Each light source has their own advantages and disadvantages.
Kerosene
For over a hundred years kerosene has been used by mankind in lanterns. Kerosene stores somewhat well, depending on the type of kerosene that is being stored and what the kerosene is going to be used for. Overtime bacteria develops and feeds off the fossil fuel; when this happens the fuel will start to gel.
To get the most out of your kerosene, you may want to consider treating it with a type of diesel fuel treatment that prevents the growth of bacteria.
Kerosene lanterns pose a fire risk, especially around small children.
When my family has to use a kerosene lantern, we place the lantern in a bathroom so the light can reflect off of a mirror, and several inches away from the edge of the counter top.
When picking a lantern, be sure to take the size of the reservoir into consideration. The larger the reservoir, the longer the lantern can operate.
If kerosene is going to be included in your long term SHTF survival plan, keep in mind your kerosene is going to run out sooner-or-later.
Remember hearing something about a drought across parts of the US this year? If you buy anything with peanuts, you’re about to see the effects of a low harvest caused by the drought. Get ready for some high food prices, they are on their way.
Normally I do not subscribe to the doom-and-gloom predictions, but I am seeing it first hand.
Drought
Farmers here in Texas are losing crops, and having to sell their cattle because grass is not growing. Texas and Louisiana agreed to allow wide loads of hay to be transported between the 2 states. Here in Jasper County Texas, I see trailers loaded down with rolls of hay going through the city on a regular basis. Importing hay from Louisiana is one of the few options cattlemen have right now.
Because of farmers selling off their cattle herds, the price of beef might be artificially low right now. If the sale of cattle starts to slow down, we might see the price of beef jump.
Young and old trees are turning brown and dying. Back in February of 2011 my kids and I planted some oak trees at the Bug Out Location. Due to the lack of rain fall, and not being able to make regular trips to the camp to water the trees, the leaves have turned brown and the baby trees might die.
Over the past year, maybe 2 years, I have been hearing about how certain groups are calling for sharia law to be imposed in places like London. The problem I see, London already has its own set of laws.
And I thought Catholics and Pentecostals were pushy with their religions.
It seems that Europe is going to be a battlefield of not only religion, but also for ideology. Our democratic society, our tolerance and our kindness is going to be our downfall.
Over the past few decades there has been a change of mindset that we (people of European decent) should be tolerate of others. But what happens when others are not tolerate of us? What happens when a group of people show up in a city, and say “we are going to establish our own laws”.
I wonder if Europe is going to be where some kind of religious holy war starts. In World War II there were the nazis; in the next war will religions be fighting against each other?
Back in the 1960s people in the US thought there was going to be a race war between the blacks and whites. The federal government passed laws, and those laws were enforced. 40+ years later, blacks and whites live in peace with each other.
But what happens when a group of people believe it is their destiny to rule the world? Instead of forming an army and conquering nations, people are mobilized and laws are changed. To change a government, all you have to do is change the laws.
The only thing I wish to see, if for religions to live in peace with one another.
About the author: Kevin Felts graduated high school in 1986. After high school, Kevin went to work in a welding shop that built ASME certified pressure vessels. In 1987 Kevin went to work for a company that built AMSE certified heat exchangers. After working 4 years building heat exchangers, Kevin moved from shop to shop, until he went to community college and went into computers. In all, Kevin has around 14 – 15 years experience in the welding field.
Think working in a factory is only for stupid people that can not make it in college? Think free trade is good? Think cheap products from china (or anywhere else) is a good thing?
Think again.
Besides economic stability, a strong manufacturing base can be retooled during times of war.
One of the problems with the USA, Canada,,, and the rest of the world, we have forgotten what its like to be in a “real” war. This war in Iraq is not a war where our cities are being bombed. We do not even have to buy war bonds like people did during WW2.
If the US went to war with someone like Russia or china, we have no steel mills, we have only a couple of ship yards spread out through the country to build ships with, most of our steel is made overseas, most of our welding tools are made overseas. The shipyards from the 1940s and 1950s have been demolished. All that remains in some locations is an open field. There “might” be left-overs from the old ships yards, but they are far and few in between.
A few weeks ago an article was posted about Storing SHTF Survival Gear, this is a follow up to that article.
The concept revolves around grouping similar items together. Such as the canned goods being grouped together, the fishing gear on the same shelf, or close to each other, cold weather items stored in a box, which is close to other clothing or ALICE gear.
To keep the grandkids safe, glass jars are stored in the closet. We do not want small children picking up jars of pickles and then dropping the jars on the floor. Not only would we be wasting food, but the broken glass poses a risk to the grandkids.
The shelves have been secured to the wall with 2 1/2 inch long wood screws. A 1/8 pilot hole was drilled into the stud in the wall, and then a screw was ran into the pilot hole.
Mountain house #10 cans and 7 year pouches are stored in a location close to each other.
Fishing Gear
One shelf is dedicated to fishing gear – lures, trotline string, hooks, extra spools of monofilament fishing line,,, stuff like that. To make sure small children do not get tehir hands on hooks and lures, the fishing gear is stored in a closet.
During some kind of long term SHTF survival situation, fishing is probably going to be the main source of food for anyone who lives close to a body of water. Since I live close to a river and a couple of large lakes, its in my best interest to stockpile all kinds of fishing supplies
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