Sunday, October 19, 2014
Clothing
When it comes to clothing, this is going to be very area, climate and seasonally specific so it makes it sort of difficult to do the broad strokes version. I previously mentioned hiking clothes specifically. Hiking clothes are excellent choices for several seasons and climates because performance-wise they are breathable, they are designed for excessive wear 'n' tear for days, even weeks on end between washes and still cover your skin to reduce sun exposure. When combined with long johns or a fleece, they are easily adjusted to autumn and winter uses as well.
Overall, clothing when Bugging In isn't as important as when Bugging Out because you aren't living out of a backpack... you're living out of your closet and dresser like you always have. Even with that said, it's still in your interest to stretch out the amount of times you wear your clothes to minimize your washings because that will cost you water.
While Bugging-Out, the clothes you wear can make a world of difference to everything from comfort to your health. If you decide for some reason to wear cotton or wool directly against your skin, you'll find yourself chafing constantly and the smell will be atrocious quickly. You want to think layers. You'll want a base layer that you can stack on top of. The base layer should be something breathable and lightweight like polyester, polypropylene, or some of the 'tech' clothing designed for sports. I've heard people discus their preference for silk as well.
The outer layers can contain cotton or wool, but I still personally stray away from cotton unless you're in the desert or a dry climate. Wool socks, fleece sweaters, gortex... there are plenty of choices and resources to reach upon that you'll have to evaluate. Having the right tool for the job is important even with clothing. If you are spending the winter in Chicago you'll want something wind-proof vs Portland which you may opt for something waterproofed. Rain gear like a poncho may even be an appropriate consideration to think about.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
Sandy
Stories are already coming out about how bad things are throughout Jersey and New York, and I have every expectation that they will get worse. There are lots of people who mocked the preppers and survivalists that are now starving there, and diving into dumpsters for food.
Is it crazy now? Think about this for a second. You have a few extra blankets, a couple weeks of food... are you at the mercy of FEMA or Mayor Bloomberg who decides to be the picture of an elitist and divert relief resources to support a race? Don't be at the mercy of unions who think taking credit for helping is more important than timely help. If you have a generator or a gun to protect yourself from Wolfpacks now roaming the destroyed areas, are you better off... or crazy?
I'm not trying to rub it in anyone's face, by the time you read this, Superstorm Sandy will probably be long since over, but go back. Look at the misery and despair on those people's faces who did nothing to get ready for something bad. It only takes 3 or 4 days without power, food and water for people to become the best and worst of themselves.
Do yourself a favor. Do something to get prepared.
Is it crazy now? Think about this for a second. You have a few extra blankets, a couple weeks of food... are you at the mercy of FEMA or Mayor Bloomberg who decides to be the picture of an elitist and divert relief resources to support a race? Don't be at the mercy of unions who think taking credit for helping is more important than timely help. If you have a generator or a gun to protect yourself from Wolfpacks now roaming the destroyed areas, are you better off... or crazy?
I'm not trying to rub it in anyone's face, by the time you read this, Superstorm Sandy will probably be long since over, but go back. Look at the misery and despair on those people's faces who did nothing to get ready for something bad. It only takes 3 or 4 days without power, food and water for people to become the best and worst of themselves.
Do yourself a favor. Do something to get prepared.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Information
Here are some tools and misc. information that you may find useful in your planning and preps:
Free resource that can help you get your finances in order:
https://www.mint.com/
Article from the Alabama Prepper's Network:
Top 10 Survival Downloads You Should Have
Categories:
Uncategorized
by admin
The following article has been generously contributed for your reading pleasure by Rourke at Modern Survival Online. We strongly urge our readers to take Rourke’s advice and download or print (or both) the following guides, which are available 100% free. Ideally, retain a paper copy if you have a survival folder, and save a copy to your reserve USB drive, which should be a component of your bug out survival bag or stored at your bug out location.
There are tons of good downloads in the Survival Database Downloadsection of this website. For this article – I have selected 10 that everyone should have either printed and put away, or placed on a USB drive – or better yet both.
So – let’s get to it:
#10. FM 4-25-11 First Aid (2002) – Military First Aid Manual.First aid information is a must – get training before you need it – use this manual for reference.
#9. Guide to Canning – Being able to preserve crops to be able to provide for yourself and your family long after the growing season is over is important. This guide will help with that.
#8. Rangers Handbook (2006) – Crammed with info on demolitions, booby traps, communications, patrolling, tactical movement, battle drills, combat intelligence and much more
#7. Where There is No Dentist – The author uses straightforward language and careful instructions to explain how to: examine patients; diagnose common dental problems; make and use dental equipment; use local anesthetics; place fillings; and remove teeth.
#6. NATO Emergency War Surgery – While this is certainly not a manual that would stand alone in most persons emergency/disaster library, it is an absolutely necessary resource if you expect to handle any type of trauma where immediate comprehensive medical care is not available.
#5. A Guide to Raised Bed Gardening – This is not an “all knowing” gardening book – however it provides a lot of information to the “urban gardener” before or after TSHTF. Best to get the experience and knowledge of gardening NOW rather than later.
#4. FM 3-06 Combined Arms Operations in Urban Terrain – Combat techniques covered in the manual which may be very valuable in a “Roadwarrior”-type world.
#3. 1881 Household Cyclopedia – A massive resource of information that much of it has been lost over the past 203 generations. From Angling to Knitting – its here.
#2. FM 21-76-1 Survival-Evasion-Recovery (1999) – Excellent manual geared towards the soldier that finds himself behind enemy lines
#1. FM 21-76 US Army Survival Manual – From Amazon.com: This manual has been written to help you acquire survival skills. It tells you how to travel, find water and food, shelter yourself from the weather and care for yourself if you become sick or injured. This information is first treated generally and then applied specifically to such special areas as the Arctic, the desert, the jungle and the ocean.1970 Military Issue Manual. General Introduction and Individual and Group Survival Orientation Navigation, Finding Water In All Parts of The Globe. How To Obtain Food, Start a Fire and much more!
Well, there’s my list. Best of all – they are all 100% free. So, feel free to download them all.
Rourke
Free resource that can help you get your finances in order:
https://www.mint.com/
Article from the Alabama Prepper's Network:
Top 10 Survival Downloads You Should Have
Categories:
Uncategorized
by admin
The following article has been generously contributed for your reading pleasure by Rourke at Modern Survival Online. We strongly urge our readers to take Rourke’s advice and download or print (or both) the following guides, which are available 100% free. Ideally, retain a paper copy if you have a survival folder, and save a copy to your reserve USB drive, which should be a component of your bug out survival bag or stored at your bug out location.
There are tons of good downloads in the Survival Database Downloadsection of this website. For this article – I have selected 10 that everyone should have either printed and put away, or placed on a USB drive – or better yet both.
So – let’s get to it:
#10. FM 4-25-11 First Aid (2002) – Military First Aid Manual.First aid information is a must – get training before you need it – use this manual for reference.
#9. Guide to Canning – Being able to preserve crops to be able to provide for yourself and your family long after the growing season is over is important. This guide will help with that.
#8. Rangers Handbook (2006) – Crammed with info on demolitions, booby traps, communications, patrolling, tactical movement, battle drills, combat intelligence and much more
#7. Where There is No Dentist – The author uses straightforward language and careful instructions to explain how to: examine patients; diagnose common dental problems; make and use dental equipment; use local anesthetics; place fillings; and remove teeth.
#6. NATO Emergency War Surgery – While this is certainly not a manual that would stand alone in most persons emergency/disaster library, it is an absolutely necessary resource if you expect to handle any type of trauma where immediate comprehensive medical care is not available.
#5. A Guide to Raised Bed Gardening – This is not an “all knowing” gardening book – however it provides a lot of information to the “urban gardener” before or after TSHTF. Best to get the experience and knowledge of gardening NOW rather than later.
#4. FM 3-06 Combined Arms Operations in Urban Terrain – Combat techniques covered in the manual which may be very valuable in a “Roadwarrior”-type world.
#3. 1881 Household Cyclopedia – A massive resource of information that much of it has been lost over the past 203 generations. From Angling to Knitting – its here.
#2. FM 21-76-1 Survival-Evasion-Recovery (1999) – Excellent manual geared towards the soldier that finds himself behind enemy lines
#1. FM 21-76 US Army Survival Manual – From Amazon.com: This manual has been written to help you acquire survival skills. It tells you how to travel, find water and food, shelter yourself from the weather and care for yourself if you become sick or injured. This information is first treated generally and then applied specifically to such special areas as the Arctic, the desert, the jungle and the ocean.1970 Military Issue Manual. General Introduction and Individual and Group Survival Orientation Navigation, Finding Water In All Parts of The Globe. How To Obtain Food, Start a Fire and much more!
Well, there’s my list. Best of all – they are all 100% free. So, feel free to download them all.
Rourke
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Documentation
K, by now, you've probably got some water, some food, some supplies and a good idea about priorities. I would hope so, I've been gone a while... you know... life gets in the way like that. Which is exactly the point, my priorities came before this blog. But, now I'm caught up for a bit and suggest the next step. Back-ups and Documentation.
I was on the fence between this and home protection. I decided to go with back ups because a house fire or water line break is more likely than a violent home break in or societal collapse. If you are a home owner, you want a fire proof safe and hard copies of all your important documents like your car and house deeds, etc... but, also, technology being what it is, you can grab a 32 gig thumb drive and move all your important family pictures or digital files like digital reciepts and what not. Like, I have one drive in my fire proof safe, one at my dad's and one at my mom's. I back them up about every 2 months... well, I back one up and then rotate their locations, so I suppose at anyone time, the drive at my house is 4-6 months out of date. They have all my pictures and I've gone through the process of digitizing all my physical reciepts.
There are also online back up sources that I personally haven't tapped into yet, but probably will eventually. If anyone has any info on the pros and cons, I'd love to hear it in the comments section. I suppose I have tested the online storage a bit with Zune Marketplace (stopped buying physical movies and started buying a license right from Microsoft so I can download or stream the movies and they take up no more physical space), and I love it.
All of this makes you more mobile, which is a good thing. Obviously, if you are creating a homestead, you probably aren't thinking of mobility, but if you lose your job and the only place you can find a new job is North Dakota (or if you are in North Dakota, the only job you can find is somewhere else, like Texas), then the ability to pick up a safe or thumb drive, and go and you have all your important documents is extremly important.
Aside from documentation of your assets, you can also create a physical inventory of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). This could be with books like Surviving The End of the World As We Know It, Rainwater Harvesting, or your own binders with How To's on skinning animals, purifying water, nuclear disaster actions... whatever you think is important to have if you don't have access to digital media for a while.
I was on the fence between this and home protection. I decided to go with back ups because a house fire or water line break is more likely than a violent home break in or societal collapse. If you are a home owner, you want a fire proof safe and hard copies of all your important documents like your car and house deeds, etc... but, also, technology being what it is, you can grab a 32 gig thumb drive and move all your important family pictures or digital files like digital reciepts and what not. Like, I have one drive in my fire proof safe, one at my dad's and one at my mom's. I back them up about every 2 months... well, I back one up and then rotate their locations, so I suppose at anyone time, the drive at my house is 4-6 months out of date. They have all my pictures and I've gone through the process of digitizing all my physical reciepts.
There are also online back up sources that I personally haven't tapped into yet, but probably will eventually. If anyone has any info on the pros and cons, I'd love to hear it in the comments section. I suppose I have tested the online storage a bit with Zune Marketplace (stopped buying physical movies and started buying a license right from Microsoft so I can download or stream the movies and they take up no more physical space), and I love it.
All of this makes you more mobile, which is a good thing. Obviously, if you are creating a homestead, you probably aren't thinking of mobility, but if you lose your job and the only place you can find a new job is North Dakota (or if you are in North Dakota, the only job you can find is somewhere else, like Texas), then the ability to pick up a safe or thumb drive, and go and you have all your important documents is extremly important.
Aside from documentation of your assets, you can also create a physical inventory of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). This could be with books like Surviving The End of the World As We Know It, Rainwater Harvesting, or your own binders with How To's on skinning animals, purifying water, nuclear disaster actions... whatever you think is important to have if you don't have access to digital media for a while.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Knowledge and Skills
Ok, you've covered the big 4, stocking water, food, amenities and you've created a list of likely situations that will affect you and started preparing for them, now what? If you haven't already, now is the time to go beyond stocking and learn how to purify your own water, grow, find and kill your own food and find alternatives for a amenities.
Gaining the knowledge and developing the skills necessary is really the gist of almost everything else in survival and preparedness. The amount of things you can learn and skills you choose to develop are literally endless, and that's daunting to many n00bs to survival prep. In fact, it's the focus on these things that people inevitably overwhelm themselves and think it's impossible to be ready. I plan on going into this crazy bucket of skills as best I can and having others help write articles to populate this blog with that info, but it's important to be realistic.
Gaining the knowledge and developing the skills necessary is really the gist of almost everything else in survival and preparedness. The amount of things you can learn and skills you choose to develop are literally endless, and that's daunting to many n00bs to survival prep. In fact, it's the focus on these things that people inevitably overwhelm themselves and think it's impossible to be ready. I plan on going into this crazy bucket of skills as best I can and having others help write articles to populate this blog with that info, but it's important to be realistic.
Starting with the next blog post, this blog will take a direction that focuses almost exclusively on knowledge and skills because outside those 4 basic building steps we introduced with stocking, everything else is about knowledge and practice. For example, you can spend all the money you want on an amazing gun, but if you don't know much about it, how it works, how to fix it in a jam, how to maintain it, what it's most practical applications are, and how to shoot it indoors effectively versuses outdoors effectively, you're more dangerous to yourself than anyone you might use it against. There's an old adage, 'Fear the man with one gun'. It refers to the idea that he is so familiar with his gun that it's second nature to him. But, you can apply this thought to all major skill-sets.
So, starting now, I will put out an open invitation to any contributors who would like to help develop this blog. If you have an area of expertise and you would like to share that knowledge, please feel free to write an article about it and send it to me. I'll post the article here with you as the contributor, attribute it to you and your website if you have one, and if you become a regular contributor, provide you with free advertising space on this page.
Prioritizing
It's easy to flip on the news and see whatever current disaster is in the news and freak yourself out into preparing for that one very unlikely scenario. Right now, as of this writing, it is the Japan earthquake/tsunami/nuclear plant meltdown/severe cold/no food situation. A quick StartPage search (mypreferred search engine, for reasons we will get into A LOT later in the progression of this blog when we start talking about digital security) revealed to me that there is a Nuclear Power Plant 30 miles northwest of my location (St. Clair County, IL) on the New Madrid fault line. It would be easy to convince myself that I need to save up iodine tablet and b12 and blah blah blah... but really, what's more likely? An earthquake AND nuclear meltdown or the loss of my job? It's important to not get carried away. Be practical and evaluate your local conditions.
For example, here's a way to approach what takes priority. I've already stocked against a potential job loss but I live close to a flood plane outside of St.Louis and we've had a particularly heavy winter. The likelihood for flooding this spring is higher than it would normally be. So, my focus for spring of 2011 is to make sure I have the ability to get up and leave should this become a problem. A bug-out bag, or a bug-out cooler or a stocked bug-out location at a family members or friends are things I should be trying to put in place. In your area, the circumstances may be different. Think about the things that could effect you and prioritize them based on likeliness. This will help you organize your next preparations.
Since I cannot tell you what situations are most likely to affect you personally, this will be a short post. Things to consider when prioritizing this list of most likely scenarios is:
Your lifestyle. Is it excessive? By this, I mean are you living beyond your budget? Is your financial situation fixable (even finances are involved in prepping... it does you no good to max out your credit cards buying food and water and then have a hurricane take it all away and leave you with no means of purchasing food and water wherever you evacuate to)? Do you go out a lot (this could increase your likelihood of being mugged, what can you do to prepare for or prevent that)? Are you a hermit? Are you paying for things that you don't necessarily need to pay for?
Your career. Is it stable (someone in IT will have a more stable job than someone in say, banking... as of the time of this writing). Do you have the capacity and/or time to get or create an additional income? Do you have stuff you don't need and have been meaning to get rid of that you could sell to create an additional 'rainy day' savings?
Your location. Do you live in the city, the burbs or something more rural? If you're in the city, what's the crime rate? What's the history of riots like in your area? What are the economic conditions in your area? Are you in a company town that is facing a potential closure? What sorts of natural disasters do you experience on a seasonal basis? A yearly basis? Are their other disasters in your area's history? What are the energy considerations like in your area?
Once you've prioritized a list of most likely scenarios, think about necessities vs. luxuries. You can organize your list of what-to-get and what-to-do's around this so you don't overwhelm yourself and start developing simple plans of action based on this knowledge.
If you find this overwhelming, that's ok. There is a simplified and very effective method for preparation that sounds very silly, but actually works. Just prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse. I know, it's ridiculous, but think about what that includes: food & water incase you have to hide indoors... which is the same in case of a flood, civil unrest, joblessness, a blizzard, power outage, etc... weapons to defend yourself, the same as mass civil unrest, power outage, police state conditions, etc... medical equipment to protect yourself from infection like a pandemic, biological terrorist attack, etc... And frankly, it's a lot more fun to plan for a zombie attack that try and plan for each and every possibility in your area. It makes the process of learning about preparedness more entertaining and less stressful. Check out Zombie Squad if you think this could work for you.
Good luck if you choose to accept this mission. This message will self destruct.
For example, here's a way to approach what takes priority. I've already stocked against a potential job loss but I live close to a flood plane outside of St.Louis and we've had a particularly heavy winter. The likelihood for flooding this spring is higher than it would normally be. So, my focus for spring of 2011 is to make sure I have the ability to get up and leave should this become a problem. A bug-out bag, or a bug-out cooler or a stocked bug-out location at a family members or friends are things I should be trying to put in place. In your area, the circumstances may be different. Think about the things that could effect you and prioritize them based on likeliness. This will help you organize your next preparations.
Since I cannot tell you what situations are most likely to affect you personally, this will be a short post. Things to consider when prioritizing this list of most likely scenarios is:
Your lifestyle. Is it excessive? By this, I mean are you living beyond your budget? Is your financial situation fixable (even finances are involved in prepping... it does you no good to max out your credit cards buying food and water and then have a hurricane take it all away and leave you with no means of purchasing food and water wherever you evacuate to)? Do you go out a lot (this could increase your likelihood of being mugged, what can you do to prepare for or prevent that)? Are you a hermit? Are you paying for things that you don't necessarily need to pay for?
Your career. Is it stable (someone in IT will have a more stable job than someone in say, banking... as of the time of this writing). Do you have the capacity and/or time to get or create an additional income? Do you have stuff you don't need and have been meaning to get rid of that you could sell to create an additional 'rainy day' savings?
Your location. Do you live in the city, the burbs or something more rural? If you're in the city, what's the crime rate? What's the history of riots like in your area? What are the economic conditions in your area? Are you in a company town that is facing a potential closure? What sorts of natural disasters do you experience on a seasonal basis? A yearly basis? Are their other disasters in your area's history? What are the energy considerations like in your area?
Once you've prioritized a list of most likely scenarios, think about necessities vs. luxuries. You can organize your list of what-to-get and what-to-do's around this so you don't overwhelm yourself and start developing simple plans of action based on this knowledge.
If you find this overwhelming, that's ok. There is a simplified and very effective method for preparation that sounds very silly, but actually works. Just prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse. I know, it's ridiculous, but think about what that includes: food & water incase you have to hide indoors... which is the same in case of a flood, civil unrest, joblessness, a blizzard, power outage, etc... weapons to defend yourself, the same as mass civil unrest, power outage, police state conditions, etc... medical equipment to protect yourself from infection like a pandemic, biological terrorist attack, etc... And frankly, it's a lot more fun to plan for a zombie attack that try and plan for each and every possibility in your area. It makes the process of learning about preparedness more entertaining and less stressful. Check out Zombie Squad if you think this could work for you.
Good luck if you choose to accept this mission. This message will self destruct.
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