Sometimes, regular life gives you a chance to practice prepper skills. We recently got an opportunity to practice a sudden vehicular “bug out” without an actual SHTF. Many things went well: a few things will be better next time. It…
A battery bank is a hedge against power outages. Build your own for less than half the cost.
One young man that I know worried about being unprepared and jumped into prepping with both feet. After a while, he gave up prepping. He could not live his life (as a father of two small kids) in a constant state…
This third test of our Bug Out Bags focused on minimalism. What if we were bugging out on foot on a multi-day trek? Having our bags as light as practical would be important. Minimalist gear is lighter but how does…
Every now and then, someone in the American media rediscovers how vulnerable our modern life is because it is dependent upon grid power. Doug MacKinnon’s “Will you survive the coming blackout?” is the recent iteration. His article appeared on Fox…
A key component of the homestead’s preparedness is a water supply that is not dependent on the grid. A “dug” well is usually a detriment in the real estate market: not so, for me. That feature was a plus for…
After the Mad Max, kill-or-be-killed, zombie apocalypse phase of SHTF has passed, the survivors will not emerge equal. There will be the new “rich” (the preppers) and the new “poor” – those who survived with little or nothing. With the…
Could you burn coal in your wood stove as an alternate fuel? The answer is a qualified yes. As an experiment, I bought a bag of coal and gave it a try. Here is what I learned. First, a little…
It’s oft repeated in prepper circles that a big EMP would send America back to the 1800s. It if did, what would life be like? Some historical sources from 1810 provides some useful lessons for what being back in the…
Preppers build their survival kits based on what they anticipate needing if SHTF. So, when a friend gave me a set of USAF Survival Modules, I was intrigued to see what the Air Force thought their air crew would need,…