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Have you ever known someone who has a glum outlook on life? Maybe that isn’t the right term, how about fatalistic? I have some people in my life that I call ‘Eeyores’ from Winnie the Pooh. I don’t really call them that but you know what I mean by the term. Eeyore on the surface seems depressed and resigned to whatever fate brings his way. Rather than object to any of his circumstances, Eeyore says “its ok. I’ll learn to live without it” in a very somber tone that sounds as if he is half asleep.

What in the world am I talking about a cartoon character for? There are so many people who have the same attitude when it comes to great tragedies or crisis. If you try to talk to them about Prepping so that they are better able to weather any type of calamity, they will sometimes answer that they would “rather die” than live in a world that you describe. It is amazing to me that so many people would simply die rather than try to live and struggle to survive.

Even animals instinctively want to live and will go on living as best they can until they breathe their last breath. Oh sure, I know someone is going to send me videos of depressed monkeys or something but as a general rule, animals don’t know how to do anything other than try to survive. Why are humans so much more willing to give up when faced with adversity? What is it about crisis or the threat of a bumpy road enough to make some people throw their hands up in the air and simply quit?

What makes someone quit?

I’ll state right now that I am no Psychiatrist, but we have all faced periods in our life when we quit something. It could be as simple as a diet, an exercise program or smoking. It could be we quit running when we hit a wall – the key is that all of us have quit doing something. We are all quitters, well technically speaking. Becoming a Prepper doesn’t mean that you will never quit. It doesn’t mean that you won’t at some point in the future meet an obstacle you can’t overcome or confront a situation that offers you no chance at winning. Being a prepper simply means that you are joining the fight and you are going to give it your best shot.

Extrinsic motivation occurs when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity in order to earn a reward or avoid a punishment. The opposite of Extrinsic is Intrinsic Motivation. Intrinsic Motivation involves engaging in a behavior because it is personally rewarding; essentially, performing an activity for its own sake rather than the desire for some external reward. This is where I look at both of those terms and see how prepping falls into both camps.
If my hypothetical TEOTWAWKI event is a global economic collapse that thrusts the entire world into something worse than the great depression, I would have an Extrinsic Motivation to avoid going broke, to find a job, to provide for my family. By the same token, I would feel personally rewarded if I was able to survive during a depression while still taking care of my family. Whether the motivating force is external or internal I still am motivated to some action.

Do the people who sit there, who might even be members of your own family and say they would rather die than go through another depression know something you don’t? Unless they lived through the first great depression I doubt it. Even if they did live through the first one, their age might be a huge factor in whether they had the strength to live through a hypothetical second great depression in the first place. No, what about perfectly healthy people who right now say they would rather die than go through something like that? What makes them tick? Why would anyone quit before they ever started trying?

You have to have hope

I think that there are so many people out there who very simply don’t have hope. For whatever reason – maybe they had a bad childhood, or someone has let them down too many times or maybe everything they have tried hasn’t worked out. Some people just don’t have any hope in themselves. They don’t believe they have whatever it takes to make it through tough times. Either that or they know right now that they hate more than anything pain and discomfort and would rather end it all than go through something horrible.

One of my fears and I am sure it is shared by every parent is that something would happen to one of my children in a SHTF event. I take prepping personally because it is one thing if your child dies tragically in a freak accident; it is another if they die because you didn’t do something right. Prepping for me is a never ending act of trying to take advantage of anything I can so that I am able to provide for my family should a crisis visit our street. I don’t know what will happen, but I know that whatever I can do to protect my family I will. That is my hope that they will all be safe. My hope is that I will have made the right preparations or that I am attuned to what is going on well enough to see danger approaching and take the right steps. My hope is that we are lucky. My intrinsic motivation is that my family, myself included live no matter what we face.

Could we all end up with some crisis that takes lives on a scale so epic it completely eclipses the horror of all the great tragedies in the past combined? Maybe, but that can happen regardless of what I do. My hope is that everything I am prepping for now will make things better regardless. Maybe when it is all said and done I will die during or because of the event I am trying to prep for. That’s OK because we all die eventually but I’m not going without a fight. It isn’t like I want to die; I want to live for a very long time. I would even want to live through some great tragedy even if, God forbid some of my family did not. Like I always say, I never hope to find out.

Preppers are motivated by external events to protect their internal interests. The simple act of prepping means you have hope. When I talk about prepping for some event, those Eeyores will say how I have some pessimistic view of the future. “Why do you always think something bad is going to happen”? I don’t want anything bad to happen, but it does. You can’t stop bad things from happening and the answer isn’t to give up. Prepping is all about believing that you can make it through. Prepping shows that you have hope that the skills and steps you are making now will help you later. Prepping isn’t pessimistic worrying about the future. Prepping is an act of defiance against potential tragedy, it is looking rough days in the face and saying “I’m not afraid of you”.

Will anything bad happen like the global economic depression I mentioned or wars, famine or disease? I don’t know. I honestly hope they do not, but I am going to prep like they are. My family deserves that and they are my motivation and hope.

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Have you ever known someone who has a glum outlook on life? Maybe that isn’t the right term, how about fatalistic? I have some people in my life that I

Pop quiz. If you had to leave your neighborhood and the route you normally take was blocked would you have an alternate way out? What if the alternate was blocked? What if all roads out of your neighborhood were blocked by military check-points? Would you have a backup escape route or would you be trapped staring at the lights ahead wishing you had made it out sooner?

Most days when I am driving home from work my mind is on autopilot. I make the turns I normally make, engage my turn signal at the proper time and generally drive the correct speed without even looking at the gauge on my dash. I do this not because I am a robot, but because I have done this so many times the actions are ingrained into my muscle memory. I am sure it is this way for many of you who drive to work every day.

But have you ever stopped to think of your escape routes during an emergency? What if the normal paths you take aren’t available? What if you aren’t even able to take your vehicle? Does your bug out plan allow you to get creative or are you hoping for the best? For those of us who live in more rural/suburban settings, driving our vehicles everywhere is almost taken for granted. We rarely get out and explore the world outside of these paved streets but knowing what is out there could be the key to your survival if you find yourself depending on alternate route options. Knowing your area by foot could save your life in the right circumstances.

Going off-road

Knowing the roads out of your neighborhood is pretty simple and I would bet that most of us have that down already but could you go off-road if the way was blocked? Could you cut across a field or through the back of a neighbor’s yard to get out to another road? Have you ever considered that at all? In a recent post I mentioned the need for a bug out vehicle that had the capability to go off-road and this is a good example where that could be necessary. Maybe it isn’t the road out of your neighborhood, but it is a major road that you would normally take to get out-of-town and it is blocked. A line of cars stretches before you and you can see a roadblock ahead. What do you do now?

Ideally you would have considered all of this well in advance. I routinely go for walks through my neighborhood. Usually I stick to the roads, but there are also trails near where I live so me and the survival dog will check those out from time to time. I live on the outskirts of a decent sized city right in the middle of too many and too few people. A few miles in either direction puts me solidly into rural farmland or the congestion of downtown.

I know the best option is to move but I am where I am for now so my prepping so far has been looking at ways I can avoid getting stuck in a trap should something block our access out.

A creek might make vehicle traffic impossible but it is an alternate way out on foot.

Identify any natural boundaries that could block you in

The area I live in has mild hills around. There is a pretty good-sized creek on my southern border that I would be able to cross on foot if needed, but I also know areas where the banks are low enough to allow a properly equipped 4 wheeler to cross also. Getting across the creek is one obstacle that could give me an alternate way out if all the other methods were blocked.

In addition to the creek I have property between me and all of the major roads. Some of this property is fenced, but bolt cutters would allow me to cut through any fence if needed. Once on the other side of the fence, I could follow woods through other yards to come out well down the road, potentially avoiding the road block. There are other routes that could take me through public land where radio towers are mounted, possibly down power line right-of-ways to make alternate tracks out of the area.

None of this is rocket surgery it just takes the normal plans we might make when we are preparing our families for some evacuation need and takes them a step further. Each of us can get out of our car and spend a couple of hours every month or so surveying our neighborhood. Maybe you don’t have creeks and woods to worry about; perhaps your neighborhood is alleys and blocks of large buildings. There will still be options if you are looking the right way.

When was the last time you took a closer look at your immediate surroundings? Do you know who has fences in their yard and who doesn’t? Do you know who is rarely home or who leaves their trash cans by the road for a couple of days after pick-up? Do you know the area around your neighborhood from an aerial perspective? Google Earth or even Google maps is a great way to pretend you have your own drone and you are conducting surveillance of your territory. Start in on your property and zoom or pan out to see details you might have missed driving by. This information could give you options when it looks like there are none.

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Pop quiz. If you had to leave your neighborhood and the route you normally take was blocked would you have an alternate way out? What if the alternate was blocked?

 

Communication is imperative in survival situations. This article attempts to cover some of the basic pros and cons of various forms of communication and introduce the reader to some additions that should prove helpful in crisis and bug-out situations.

TWO WAY RADIOS: can come in handy when a group is out of direct visual range, they are simple to use and relatively lightweight. However, they can also give away your position. Not only are they noisy but the messages can be intercepted, and interference created.

Uniden Submersible 50 Mile FRS/GMRS Two-Way Radios with Charging Kit – Dark Grey

CB RADIOS: are a favorite for long distance truck drivers and can be used over short distances to converse when two way walkie talkies may not be an option. They can be mobile (in a vehicle) or stationary. Anyone on the same channel can hear the discussion, so definitely keep that in mind. Use coded messages, preferably phrases that sound like normal conversation, to ascertain if any allies are in your vicinity.

Uniden 40-Channel CB Radio

HAM RADIOS: are not as common as two way radios and CBs. They are more complicated to use, and in many areas you need special licenses to operate one with any significant level of power. They provide some added security because they are less likely to be used by amateurs. They are also a good way to transmit Morse Code. In a SHTF situation, where current regulations are no longer regarded, these will allow you to contact others across much greater distances.

Baofeng UV5RA Ham Two Way Radio

HAND SIGNALS: have long been used by military forces to quietly communicate in tactical situations. This is both a benefit and a drawback. They only work if you are in formation and everyone has a clear line of sight. Many people already know some of the gestures, and for those that don’t, there are countless YouTube videos that demonstrate them and their meaning. Therefore, if you are inadvertently seen, you are also relaying your exact moves to the onlooker, potentially compromising the location of the rest of your team. A way out of this problem might be to create some variations that only your group is aware of. A particular motion that alerts your team that you have been seen, followed by whatever signal you want the opposition to think you are going to do next. This may work if you already have an agreed upon protocol for the scenario. Another option might be to completely switch them around, and create some of your own. Additionally, if you have a group of ten people, and only fully trust five, these unknown signs can be used to indicate when it is time to desert the others.

MORSE CODE: is one of the best forms of communication. Although the code itself is universal, the language you use is not. If anyone intercepts a message of “frog legs” they probably won’t know that the meaning might be to stay away from the pond, it has been compromised. The messages can be transmitted over airways, by light signals, or even in writing, or in the arrangements of rocks and sticks along a path. The real disadvantage of Morse is the level of difficulty. Learning the code is not for the faint of heart, or the memory impaired. I recommend creating short acronyms and memorizing them. BLB=bug out location B. NGC= no go, the area has been compromised etc.

SMOKE SIGNALS: can be a good way to advertise your location, if that is what you want to do. The color of the smoke, and the frequency and pattern of puffs can also be used to relay messages, but again, this only works if you don’t mind letting everyone know where you are.

COLORS: such as flags, can be used in lieu of hand signals when traveling in formation. Ribbons, paint, and chalk can be used to mark trees, buildings, or other landmarks as needed. Marking bags and gear by color can also be useful in case you quickly have to decide what to grab.

ANIMAL CALLS: are an alternative that can work well in a rural setting. Invaders may mistake them for the real thing, and/or be unfamiliar to the patterns of the native animal calls. In this manner you can effectively send basic messages across hostile territory without detection. Be sure your pattern is different enough from native species that you don’t misinterpret a real duck call as a message from your other party.

BOOBY TRAPS: that alert you to intruders are always a good idea. Some can be set up in such a way as to be widely seen. I’ve read of people who attach a charge to their trip wires that can set off a small firework. Marauders do not always have the intention of a hostile takeover, and there may be other bands of unpleasant characters wandering the area. Now everyone knows the location of the prowler. If you are forced to camp out and build a fire, keeping some black powder and smoke bombs on your person can be helpful. If your camp is ambushed, quickly throwing both into the fire creates a wall of smoke and flares, thus producing a useful diversion as well as an audible distress signal.

GRAFFITI: is a common sight in most urban areas, as it has long been used by misfits and gangs for marking territory (hence the name “tagging”). Knowing the meanings of certain tags can be useful. Having symbols of your own is also beneficial. In a situation where graffiti is popping up everywhere, a simple character hidden in a midst of urban art can communicate to the others in your party. Avoid using words or marks that are too obvious or easily counterfeited to avoid being led into a trap by imposters.

Hobo code.

HOBO CODE: is the simple pictographs etched into old telephone poles and drawn on buildings and railroad ties that vagrants who hopped trains utilized to identify if there were camps nearby or known friendlies/hostiles in the area. Many train station museums have examples of these signs and their meanings. Not many people are familiar with it, giving it a certain appeal. If you do attract actual wanderers, be sure you are set to deal with either hostility or recruiting them into your ranks. This is a possibility for those who have a loose association with other preppers and are only interested in full collaboration during an invasion or other ‘worst case scenario’. If you have such a set of connections, than learning this code will help these smaller cells find each other and form a more cohesive resistance.

RENDEZVOUS: points or another plan of action for when contact is lost should be a central element of all communication plans. Everyone in your group (be it your family or your entire neighborhood) needs to know how to reach one another in an emergency, what the signal or code means, and what to do if they lose contact. Practice makes perfect.

This is only a preliminary list, and is not meant to be all inclusive. It is important to assess your individual circumstances when developing your plan. Take into consideration which methods you have easy access to and can rely on.

Happy Prepping!

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  Communication is imperative in survival situations. This article attempts to cover some of the basic pros and cons of various forms of communication and introduce the reader to some additions

 

It’s that time of year again; time to over eat and over drink, and wonder where on Earth 2016 went? So I write out small lists each year at this time and hope to focus on them. For literally nearly twenty years I wrote “get a degree” before getting one so it works but you still have to act on it. At my age time (52 or 364 in dog years) speeds up and the SHTF becomes harder and harder to physically deal with and life is busy so who has time for SHTF? Anyway the Government will save me or I will die in the nuclear fire-ball so why bother? Still, assuming you, like me, find these common arguments against prepping to be illogical then maybe you can add some good prepping resolutions for me in the comments?

Resolution One – Make sure I prioritize skills over toys

My Meetup Group is a decent source of fun, free, and often prepping activities. Lots of hikes to do and who knows I am loading the ruck with weight as bug out or bug back practice?

This one is hard for me as I work too much (two full-time jobs) but bills need paying, career needs growing, and I do not have much time. I have health care covered but everything else is weak. Some really are weak. What to do? I have bought a planner for 2017. I am going to find things to do and go and do them. My Meetup Group is a decent source of fun, free, and often prepping activities. Lots of hikes to do and who knows I am loading the ruck with weight as bug out or bug back practice? Good to use the legs and shoes and clothes outdoors. Not much foraging until later on in the year but I plan to take full advantage of these hikes and free skills meet ups. Groupon often has decent cheap day events in martial arts, archery, and even survival. I have used both these sites before and really need to do this more often. There are many great people in my area offering great skills. Even actual prepping groups offer free meetups to learn and try skills. The Ontario Preppers Network is a solid and well led organization in my area yet I am always working weekends so never have attended. That has to change I think!

Resolution Two – Organize My Preps

I do go through my bug out and get home bags frequently but in all honestly most of my none food preps are shoved in a cupboard. In the Summer I laid everything out in the basement and saw huge gaps I was utterly unaware of. I bundle the extra hard gear and tools into a tote box and buried that at my cottage on the next trip. That reduced my prepping supplies nicely and has given me a lot of useful things in the ground at the cottage. If the forest burns down I will still have those tools and gear and frankly they were just lying in a cupboard so win, win.

Having gear stored in one location is nice, but not always possible.

Still I do not use excel sheets or compulsively label and organize so this area will be a challenge. I need a bunch of decent tote boxes and to devote a day to sorting and storing the remaining gear. As I said I am not a list person so a permanent marker will be used to write the contents on the lids. This should work.

Resolution Three – Finish the Winterization Project

Being close to moose country it is easy to get decent winter clothing at reasonable prices and is vital as a prep. I’d say it is the key part of shelter up here in southern Canada as physical shelters might not be that warm in January. I have focused on it in 2016 and I am happy yet the gaps remain. I do not have decent boots only one pair of okay ones. I do not have decent trousers just okay ones. Worse I realized my girlfriend’s survival clothing it not decent at all. This has to be fixed and fixed quickly.

My hope is to go to the cottage next winter and leave the power off and even snow camp next to it to really try out the gear.

I will soon have a three-layered ground system for myself and my girlfriend to sleep on and the sleeping bags, liners, and wool blankets seem decent. My hope is to go to the cottage next winter and leave the power off and even snow camp next to it to really try out the gear. Minimally I intend at least one overnight in February by myself to try this system out.

Resolution Four – Food Prepping beyond One Year’s Supply

Some things people find easy and for me food prepping is the one area I am good at. I label, bag, and store great foods, in good variety, and can eat them all and create okay meals. As a new prepper in 2015 I realized the few tins of baked beans I stored under the stairs in the UK in 1980 for the nuclear war with Russia would no longer given me much psychological comfort. I read and thought and saw that the 72 hours (one to two weeks) the Canadian Government recommends would be of little use in a major regional or national SHTF. By adding to the groceries and using cardboard boxes we soon got to six months and I am happy to say now have a further six months in buckets with small Mylar bags inside them.

What I want is a ten year supply for two people.

Still this is not the supply I actually want. What I want is a ten-year supply for two people. For me trying to survive a nuclear war and resultant nuclear winter is worth the attempt. That should cover most SHTF scenarios. So I am at 10% of my goal here and I am not leaping into prepackaged survival foods to finish it. As a vegan for the last six years (I knew you’d ask lol) I understand the importance of variety and minimal processing. This will be worked on in six months amounts. 12 five gallon buckets are about six months’ supply for the two of us. By year’s end I’d like at least at three-year supply but I’d like five years’ worth.

Ball Mason Wide Mouth Pint Jars with Lids and Bands

Gardening is something we have been doing for the last five years and really enjoying it. A third raised garden is planned in the spring and a lot of five gallon buckets are getting buried in that one. Tarps, nails, and cords need to be bought and boxed to rapidly secure the soil in the three raised gardens from external elements in SHTF. We will continue to experiment with seed varieties and planting times.

Sprouting will continue but I am finding after five years the mason jars and lid grills are looking a bit done in. It will be time to add to that supply in the spring when I order sprouting seeds which are mainly stored. I order twice a year. Sure many seeds will dead in SHTF but even a few viable ones can be sprouted, eaten, and even planted. As I add to the store every year I am content to have some expire but will keep them and see if I can grow something in SHTF.

Seed saving started in 2016 and we are going to continue that in 2017. Black walnut processing also started in 2016 but the squirrels got every one of them as they dried out. I now have net bags to suspend from the ceiling and anti-squirrel coverings!

Resolution Five – Get More Personal Security

For me this means personal strength and endurance needs to get back to near the levels they were in 2007. Then I had been a sub three hour marathoner for years and had raced over one hundred ultra-marathons even wining a few smaller ones. Since then I have gone to seed and added about 60lbs (I am a fat vegan 5’10” and 228lbs). 2017 is the time to fix that as I think I am over my burn out. Start small and keep going. My body needs to be sharper than my mind and I do not think starting an exercise regime in SHTF is smart.

For me this means personal strength and endurance needs to get back to near the levels they were in 2007.

Complete building my long bow kit and practice it. Consider a machined bow as well. Get more arrows and heads and learn more about archery in general.

Go and buy wood boards and cut them to size to cover the insides and outsides of the down stairs windows. Label, store, and have them ready to nail up in SHTF. Overall I consider this to be a major concern and one that I have simply been ignoring.

Keep talking to and enjoying my neighbors as they might well be a very valuable resource for me in many scenarios.

Resolution Six – Fun stuff

You have to have fun, right? We are focusing our summer on making sure we can both attend the Annual Preppers Meet  as I attended on my own last year and found it a lot of fun and met a lot of interesting people. If things work out we can go dog free to the cottage for a week and kayak and camp around Haliburton as I have always wanted to trip along Canoe Lake. Take the BioLite on the next unpressured dog walk into the forests around us and brew some tea. Get the girlfriend to build and light a few fires as she is fire phobic. Stay open; keep reading Final Prepper; and watching YouTube when on night shifts. Use my hands rather than my mind at every opportunity and generally focus on my weaknesses more than playing to my strengths.

Have a great New Year

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  It’s that time of year again; time to over eat and over drink, and wonder where on Earth 2016 went? So I write out small lists each year at this

Morgan Carter made it back home to his family in Florida after the collapse in Going Home, the first book in this four part series called “the Survivalist Series” and we now get to see how this story finally ends. Forsaking Home is the last novel I believe in a really great story about Morgan Carter, his family, friends and a few military operators in a post-collapse world. We reviewed the first book in the series, Going Home in December and when I was offered another chance to review the latest in the series I was naturally interested.

Forsaking Home – A Novel

Forsaking Home like all the other novels in this series falls squarely into a category I call Prepper fiction. Prepper fiction usually has a few key components; a disaster, a hero and someone they care for, a bad guy and a lot of discussion around how the hero navigates life after the disaster. Prepper fiction for me is incredibly interesting because it provides a narrative around events that I think are possible and highlights how the author envisions certain scenarios playing out. Naturally, I as a blogger who writes about all things Prepping get to distill the author’s story through my own filter and take elements out that make sense, discount items that I feel aren’t realistic and more or less get to watch someone war-game potential disasters under the guise of a good read.

The key element that I think everything else hangs off of is always some form of catastrophe that precipitates a collapse of society. You have to have a big event to put people in these dire circumstances and set up the conflict that our hero has to deal with. In this series, the catastrophe was an EMP. The EMP that disables Morgan’s car is never fully explained although it is alluded that this may not have been something that caught our government completely off guard. Cue the ominous music.

Forsaking Home brings us back to Morgan and his group at the cabins by the river. We learned at the end of the previous book that Morgan and Thad’s traveling buddy Jess who joined them on the first book’s trek through Florida immediately after the collapse is now in a DHS Resettlement (FEMA) camp and Sarge and his buddies plan to change that scenario quickly.

A. American’s characters in these books are very believable and the story moves along nicely. There aren’t any unrealistic scenarios with gun-fights and ninja back-flip moves against overwhelming force. A. American seems to be very interested in sharing his experience in the form of tips and tricks that almost anyone can use if we are faced with a similar situation. There is a larger story that has plenty of action, but interspersed throughout the novels are mini how-tos on everything from making squirrel snares, cooking gators and frogs to fishing. While I love huge gun-fights, they are obviously sensational and Forsaking Home seems to give you just enough action while at the same time relaying information to the Prepper they can file away for later recall. Knowing how to set snares for example could save your life.

There is only one type of incident in the book that some might consider macho and I won’t give it away except to say that Morgan is faced with a threat that must be dealt with. In a society like they have in Forsaking Home, where there is no law enforcement, Morgan’s reaction is quick and violent. If I were in the same scenario, I would have done the same thing. Rather than make a larger spectacle than is needed, A. American deals with the subject quickly and without a lot of posing, preaching or drama and I think that is how it should be.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the entire series and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Prepper Fiction. The story is wrapped up nicely at the end and for me, the whole read was very satisfying.

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Morgan Carter made it back home to his family in Florida after the collapse in Going Home, the first book in this four part series called “the Survivalist Series” and

An EMP is a just one of the threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. A EMP (electromagnetic pulse) can be caused by an high-altitude nuclear weapon that will interact with the Earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetic field to produce an EMP radiating down to the Earth and create electrical currents in the Earth. A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack without having a high level of sophistication. The concern of EMP attack is such a fear of national security, there has been a congressional committee to discuss this threat. “Commission to Assess the Threat to the U.S. from EMP Attack”.

CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS RESULTING IN EMP

In July of 2012 a coronal mass ejection took place.   A “coronal mass ejection” or C.M.E. is a massive burst of solar wind and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona or being released into space.   This was reported to be the most powerful CME discharge ever recorded from our sun.  The 2012 discharge missed Earth.  However, if this C.M.E. had occurred only a week prior; it would have struck our planet and subsequently led to a complete technological disaster according to researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder.

To put into perspective the size and enormity of this event lets consider it’s speed (force) only. The typical C.M.E. from our sun take between 2-4 days to reach Earth.  The coronal event in 2012 would have reached earth in just 18 hours.  It’s estimated speed was approximately 7 million miles per hour!

While there are systems in place that are designed to warn us of solar flares and CME activity… It’s unclear on whether the teams tasked with monitoring the NASA “Solar Shield” would have been able to alert emergency services in time.   The speed of this event was faster than anything previously seen in our modern space age.

Policy makers haven’t taken this near miss seriously despite the fact that a senior member of the Congressional Homeland Security Committee warned that there is a 100% chance of a geo-magnetic event capable of crippling electrical grids across the globe.  Certain government organizations have deemed this the “KILL SHOT”.   If such an event were to take place it would take up to 18 months before power could be restored to the grid.  If such an event were to occur, it’s estimated that 9 out of 10 people would be dead within one year.  Once the electrical grid goes down, commerce systems will no longer function, food production, farming and delivery will grind to a halt almost instantly, water treatment facilities will cease to work and millions of diabetic citizens will perish from the inability to keep insulin cold.  The ramifications would be serious and almost immediate.

EMP MYTHS

When discussing what measure can be taken to guard against an EMP; it’s first necessary to get rid of a few myths.  It’s essential to understand the nature of EMP and how it works.

One major myth or misconception is that an EMP is similar to a powerful bolt of lightning. While the two (lightning and EMPs) each produce similar results; an EMP is actually more like to a super-charged radio wave. Any bright ideas about using lightning-rods, lightning arrestors  or any such grounding techniques will undoubtedly fail in protecting equipment from EMP.

Another false concept is that EMP “out of the blue” can harm your body or cause major damage to your brain way lightning strikes can.  The EMP levels created by a nuclear weapon would be so minimal, they wouldn’t pose a serious health threat to plants, animals or man.  This is assuming that the EMP isn’t concentrated.

EMP can be concentrated. EMP occurs when it is “pulled in” by a stretch of metal. EMP would be dangerous to living things in this case.  It could become concentrated by exposed metal girders, telephone lines, long antennas or anything similar.  Avoid being very close to such concentrations in event of nuclear war.  A minimum distance of 8 feet from such stretches of metal is recommended for nuclear-generated EMP.

Concentration of metal, wiring etc…  is the main reason that most electrical equipment would be destroyed by the EMP.  It’s not that the electrical equipment itself is really that sensitive, but rather the massive electrical surge would be so concentrated that anything working on low levels of electricity would be completely fried.

So What Can I Do to Prepare For An EMP?

Protecting Small Equipment

A Faraday box is the easiest way of protecting most small electrical equipment that can be unplugged from the power source.  A Faraday box is a metal box designed to divert and soak up the EMP. If the object placed in the box is insulated from the inside surface of the box, it will not be affected by the EMP travelling around the outside metal surface of the box. The Faraday box simple and cheap and often provides more protection to electrical components than “hardening” through circuit designs which can’t be (or haven’t been) adequately tested.  Many containers are suitable for make-shift Faraday boxes: cake boxes, ammunition containers, metal filing cabinets and so on.  Despite what you may have read or heard, these boxes do NOT have to be airtight due to the long wave length of EMP; boxes can be made of wire screen or other porous metal and be equally effective.  The Faraday box is a great solution assuming that you aren’t using the equipment when the event occurs.  (not likely)  It is highly advised that you prepare a “back-up plan” Faraday box filled and ready for such an occasion.  Shortwave radio, weather radio, small television, spare telephone and anything else you may need after.  Do remember that the power grid will likely be wiped out so anything you keep will have to run off of a fuel powered generator.  You should be focused on staying informed but not needlessly entertained.

The only two requirements for protection with a Faraday box are:

(1) The electrical equipment inside the box can’t touch the metal container. Insulating with cardboard, rubber, plastic or even wads of paper are acceptable methods.
(2) The metal shielding must be continuous. There can be no large holes or gaps in the shielding.

Grounding your Faraday box is not advisable. Although EMP and lightning strike are very different in the big picture; a good example how NOT grounding your Faraday box is beneficial would be to look at lightning strikes on a flying plane.  These strikes seldom fry the electrical components or occupants because the metal shell acts as a large Faraday box.  Since the plane isn’t grounded, the effects of lightning strikes are minimal.

Certain electrical parts are incredibly sensitive to EMP.  these include IC circuits, microwave transistors, and Field Effect Transistors (FET’s). If you have electrical equipment with such components, it must be very well protected if it is to survive EMP. Once again A Faraday box is the best solution.

There is a short list of electrical equipment that is innately EMP-resistant.  This includes large electric motors, vacuum tube equipment, electrical generators, transformers, relays, and the like.  This kind of equipment could possibly survive a massive EMP surge and would likely to survive if a few of the precautions discussed below were taken in their design and deployment.  Battery operated equipment will also be impervious to EMP.  If you don’t want to buy a wealth of batteries for every appliance you own or use a radio set up with longer than 30-inch antenna, then you’ll need to use equipment that is “hardened” against EMP.

Larger Equipment Hardening and Protection

If you must operate ham radios or the like during a nuclear attack; there are a few methods which will help to protect electrical circuits from EMP.   These various vary in design as there are multiple ways of neutralizing the effects of an EMP.  Design variations include the use of tree formation circuits (rather than standard loop formations);  the use of self-contained battery packs; the use of induction shielding around components; the use of loop antennas; and (instances of solid-state components) the use of Zener diodes.  Implementing these design elements can eliminate the chance an EMP surge from power lines or long antennas damaging your large equipment.  Another useful strategy is to use grounding wires for each separate instrument which is coupled into a system an EMP system so that it has more paths to take in grounding itself.

On a different note, here’s some other self-sufficiency and preparedness solutions recommended for you:

The Lost Ways (The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us)
Survival MD (Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation)
Backyard Liberty (Liberal’s hidden agenda: more than just your guns…)
Alive After the Fall (Build yourself the only unlimited water source you’ll ever need)
The Lost ways II (4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis)
The Patriot Privacy Kit (Secure your privacy in just 10 simple steps)

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An EMP is a just one of the threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. A EMP (electromagnetic pulse) can be caused by an high-altitude nuclear

Every parent wants the best for our children but even if your kids don’t have a career as a high paid athlete, find fortune running the next tech firm that makes billions of dollars or invents the cure for cancer, we do all want them to be safe. Safe is a funny word and it can be viewed in lots of ways.

No, when I am talking about safe, I mean safe from truly bad people. I am not talking about some scraped knees or even a broken arm from a skateboard accident; I am referring to horrible acts that parents everywhere fear deeply, even if we don’t dwell on it too much. One of my frequent prayers is that my family is safe when I am away or not with them. I don’t worry excessively but there is that tingle in the back of your mind when you think about how horrible you would feel if something bad happened to one of your precious offspring.

Praying certainly is something we can all do and I don’t mean to get off on a tangent here at Final Prepper. I believe in prayer, but there are other steps I think we can additionally take to help our kids be better equipped to deal with some of the unfortunate aspects of life today. The more we can help our kids with information I think, the better we can prepare them to act when it counts. It may not do anything, but it could be the one thing that keeps them alive. Have you thought about equipping your children to survive?

Equipping them with Knowledge

I think that one of the simplest acts we can do as parents is talk to our children. This is a fine line we walk as parents though because I don’t mean that we should make them fearful of their shadow. At the same time, different children at different ages can handle varying degrees of information so without painting with too broad a brush I think it is perfectly fine to give children information about the world, appropriate to their age that could help them if they were faced with a dangerous situation. Like most parents, I am sure the old “don’t talk to strangers” and “never get into a car with anyone” come to mind and these are perfect examples of the type of instructions I am talking about. We usually start off with this type of information when the children we have raised are away from us and I don’t think this makes them overly fearful; it just gives them some advice for their safety,

As children get older, they are able to handle more information, concepts and theories and depending on how things are in your family, they may be exposed to more news which seems to constantly deliver something to worry about. As it relates to your children, you can share your knowledge with them about threats. What you expect them to do in various situations and some of those may even be counter to what they are told by the authorities over them at various locations. For example I told one child of mine to run like their lives depended on it if they were ever in a situation where someone was shooting and none of their family was near obviously. If they were in school or the mall, they are to run until they get far away from that building. This might rub someone the wrong way, but I think it is crazy to hide while someone walks slowly around shooting everyone they find. Running puts distance between you and who is shooting at you and I want all of my children to do that if possible and they are in the same situation.

Another aspect of knowledge could be simply how to get from wherever they are to your house or a safe location. Have you ever had your children tell you which way to turn as you were driving in order to get back home or to their school? This might sound foolish, but we must have watched every single episode of Bear Grylls TV show Man VS. Wild with our kids. They can all make fires, build shelters and know the basics of a boatload of survival concepts. They aren’t going to parachute into the Alps of course, but if they are watching TV at least it was something I could say exposed them to methods they could use if they found themselves in a survival scenario. Hopefully that counters all the Hanna Montana they saw…

Equipping them with Confidence

This is something I need to do more of but as often as I can, I try to reinforce with my children that they are not helpless. Just because their age or size limits what I or society will let them get away with, that doesn’t mean that they can’t do great things. Your children need to have confidence in their abilities. This could be physical abilities like athletics, but I am talking more about the ability to deal with situations that are or should be out of their league. What will your child do if they become lost? Will they wilt and sit in the floor crying (age appropriate again of course) or would they use the knowledge you have shared with them above to stop and think about how to react to this situation they have found themselves in?

Confidence can be learned in a lot of ways and some parents might even be teaching your kids without even thinking. Confidence can be things so small you might not even consider them like ordering at a restaurant. Can your children clearly and confidently make decisions and communicate those to a stranger? Do you ask them what they would do in certain circumstances to test them?

Confidence is usually increased in an environment in which children aren’t coddled. It may seem counter intuitive to want to protect your children so much but at the same time letting them go to see how they do when they are on their own. Remember that your job is to raise healthy, mature adults who are going to go out into the world and make their mark. At some point they are going to need to rely on the lessons they learned, mostly from you about how to act and what to do and confidence could be the trait they have that gives them the power to get up and move as opposed to freezing in panic.

Equipping them with Tools

One of these days I am going to write an entire post on a Kids EDC kit even though there have been a lot of people who already tackled this subject. Children are a little more difficult to plan an Every Day Carry kit for two reasons. The first is that they can’t usually carry the fun tools that adults can like a concealed weapon or a knife. Can you pack fishing kits and Band-Aids in your kids school pack? Sure, but how helpful would this really be.

The second reason in my case anyway is that no matter how much thought and effort you put into creating supplies they can use, it would get lost, used and not replenished or forgotten. The one day there is an emergency, their survival gear will have fallen out in the library or left at some friends house. That being said, there are some things you can give your children to give them an edge that might not be so easily left.

There are bulletproof clipboards you can purchase that could save them from a bullet or knife. Granted, they would have to have this either in their hands and have the presence of mind to use it, or tucked away in their pack. The pack would additionally need to be on them for this to work, but if you are buying a clipboard anyway this one might be a good option.

Another option would be a bulletproof backpack. Infidel Body Armor sells backpacks with a built-in compartment for body armor panels. With this on, your kids could be saved if someone was shooting at them. Again, something to consider.

In conclusion, just because our children are small or at least not adults, that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable. Size and age are only one measure of what a person can do, but it is their inner strength that can make them accomplish anything. Are you nurturing these abilities in your child?

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Every parent wants the best for our children but even if your kids don’t have a career as a high paid athlete, find fortune running the next tech firm that

I do hunt, and I do fish, and I don’t apologize to anybody for hunting and fishing.

I went hunting for the first time this year. I have been waiting for deer season to open up in my neck of the woods and finally got my chance to get out there and try my luck at bringing home some meat to fill my family’s freezer. The weather didn’t want to cooperate, never does really, but regardless of the conditions not being ideal to the deer hunting experts, I decided to trudge out to the stand anyway and see what I could get.

Over the course of the next few days I had several experiences that seemed designed to humble me first and to point back to the often discussed scenario of bugging out into the woods, which reinforced for me anyway how this might not be as great of an idea after TEOTWAWKI as you hope. For those of you who plan on grabbing your overly equipped bug out bag when the next crisis or SHTF event happens and walking into the forest, let me share a couple of lessons learned while hunting that happened to me.

Your pack is heavy and noisy

Starting out, I needed to refill my feeders. Where I live it is legal to bait deer and this is usually done by putting corn in feeders that the deer can nibble on whenever they like. This gets them in the habit of coming to your location repeatedly. You can optionally hook up a good game camera and see who is visiting your feeders. For me, at this stand the only things I caught on the camera were raccoons who I am sure appreciated the free meals.

I had been filling my feeder up for a few weeks before hunting season began and wanted to top it off. This involves me walking with a 50 pound sack of deer corn approximately 1 mile into the woods next to my stand. I accomplish this by putting the bag in an old Army Alice pack I have because the large middle compartment holds the heavy bag nicely.

The Alice pack itself is actually pretty light and this was my very first bug out bag due to the cost. You can find military surplus packs on E-Bay for around $60. Rothco makes a new knock off of the bag that will set you back closer to $95 on Amazon. When I filled my pack up the first time with all my gear and took it for a hike I immediately started to rethink my bug out bag, but for hiking the occasional bag of deer corn down the trail it is perfect.

What I remembered again after walking with it is that 50 pounds is not light but that isn’t as heavy of an amount many preppers plan on hauling. On top of that, the pack itself squeaks when I walk. The pad that goes on your lower back rubs against you with that weight and makes a squeaking sound. Almost like someone with cheap shoe inserts or a mild but persistent case of gas. Granted, the noise probably wasn’t so loud that I would alert anyone further than several hundred feet but it was a consideration with the Alice pack.

 

When you bug out into the woods, you will likely want to keep as low of a profile as humanly possible and the last things you need are to be encumbered by so much weight that you can’t exit the area quickly or worse, making farting sounds as you run off through the woods with your cheap military surplus pack.

Lesson Learned: Don’t put too much gear in your pack that carrying it is a burden. Sound check your pack by using it on a real world hiking trip. Does it make noise or are you silent but deadly? Sorry, couldn’t resist.

You aren’t guaranteed that big game you plan on eating

This next lesson is very embarrassing to relate but for the sake of sharing information I will. I had an opportunity to shoot deer the other day. Two actually, but I didn’t bring home any meat. How is that possible?

I had just sighted my rifle in so I was pretty confident with zero, but there were two other factors that I think worked against me. Both issues in retrospect were completely my fault. I shot the first deer after three walked into my clearing. This deer didn’t fall; she walked around and eventually lay down. I thought OK, I hit her but it must not have been a good shot placement. I assumed she would die relatively quickly and didn’t go down to dispatch her humanely because there were still two other deer down there.

I took a second shot (yes the other two deer stood there while I reloaded my muzzle loader) and the same thing happened. The deer ran just a few feet, but didn’t fall, just walked around for a while and eventually took to lying down. By now I am thinking I am the worst shot in the world but soon another buck came in and ran them all off.

I climbed down and found two blood trails proving that I did hit them both, but obviously not well. I followed the first trail until it ended. I looked around for a long time but couldn’t find where it went. The second trail I followed led me to the deer lying in a creek bed. I had shot it exactly behind the front leg but just a few inches too low missing the heart. I pulled my pistol to finish it quickly but the deer was lying on large rocks which I was afraid my shot would ricochet. Thinking the deer was too weak to move, I grabbed it by its legs and pulled it onto the bank where the ground was better suited for a backstop or so I thought. When this happened, the deer jumped up, bolted out of the creek and ran off through a thicket like its butt was on fire. I never picked up another blood trail or found it again.

Dense woods seem to provide cover, but they also conceal others too.

I was shooting a black powder rifle and had shot this maybe half a dozen times the weekend previous. I put the rifle away without cleaning it because I thought I would just be using it again to hunt in a couple of days and a thorough cleaning could wait. I remember loading the rifle and not being able to seat my round down as far as I thought it should go. It seemed to stop though and I guessed I must be imagining things. Later I learned that my powder and sabot were about 6 inches higher up the barrel from where they should be. This most likely impacted the velocity of the round as my shot hit lower than needed to cleanly kill the animal humanely.

Now, you can say I should have performed better maintenance on my weapon and that is certainly true. You can also say I should have practiced shooting more to be a better shot and of course that is also true, but here is just one example of how I missed what I was shooting at and what could have been dinner, disappeared forever. It can happen to anyone. Even if my weapon was clean and I hit a better shot, deer can still run off and you might not be able to find them no matter how hard you look.

Lesson Learned: Cleaning my weapon might not have been the culprit but I am sure it didn’t help. Make sure you have the supplies you need to clean your weapons and the discipline to clean them after every trip to the range. More so if you know you will be shooting them again and accuracy is important. Accuracy is always important.

Noise travels far

Another lesson is that noise travels pretty far in the woods. As I wait for deer to magically appear in front of me, I hear shots all around me at various intervals. I know that the shots are more than a mile away at least, but if you were trying to keep a low profile, shooting a rifle could easily draw someone to your location.

In addition to gunshots, we hear cars, trains, chain saws, squirrels and just about anything for at least a mile out there in the woods as I sit quietly in a tree. The leaves render almost any movement impossible without creating a lot of noise. If you were in a similar situation, noise discipline would be important and still hard to maintain perfectly. Other environments like the desert or mountains that have less leafy foliage would be easier to contain noise at least when you are walking, but you still have that as a consideration.

The further you go away from civilization, the less likely you are to hear the ambient noises I do, but you are still able to pick up sounds around you. The less noise you have surrounding you the more you will hear.

Lesson Learned: I am not going to be able to sneak my family through the woods without being detected most likely.

You might not be as hidden as you think

My deer stand isn’t camouflaged. It is a ladder stand that sits up against a big poplar in woods that are reasonably thick with other trees. When I got down to follow the blood trail the first time, I left my daughter in the tree. I walked around for probably 20 minutes looking for tracks and got probably 500 yards away from her at the furthest point.

The further I got away from her, the harder she was to see. I know right were my stand is, but the cover of the forest made it very hard to make her out and eventually I couldn’t see her at all. She could see me though and watched me through the binoculars until I went over a ridge. She also saw (and heard) me coming all of the way back in and I didn’t see her until I got close enough that she could have hit me with a rock.

The same thing happened with deer. When I saw one approaching I would let her know but she wouldn’t see them until I pointed them out. Movement is what alerted me to their presence well before they ever made a sound. Just by sitting quietly and watching, I could see movement when it came into my field of view. Even the quietest person in the world will need to move and it is when they do that you can be spotted.

Lesson Learned: The saying can’t see the forest through the trees is applicable here. I couldn’t see one object because of the dense forest. Heavy wood cover can work for you and against you. Someone can spot you much faster than you can see them if they are moving and you are still.

That’s been my experience in the woods so far this week embarrassing as it is. Do you have any lessons for people who plan to bug out into the woods?

On a different note, here’s some other self-sufficiency and preparedness solutions recommended for you:

The Lost Ways (The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us)
Survival MD (Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation)
Backyard Liberty (Liberal’s hidden agenda: more than just your guns…)
Alive After the Fall (Build yourself the only unlimited water source you’ll ever need)
The Lost ways II (4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis)
The Patriot Privacy Kit (Secure your privacy in just 10 simple steps)

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I do hunt, and I do fish, and I don't apologize to anybody for hunting and fishing. 

It should go without saying that James Wesley Rawles has had a significant impact on the prepper and survivalist community. His daily blog www.survivalblog.com draws over 84 thousand unique views each month from the US alone and the years of information contained in its pages have informed millions. In addition to his blog, Mr. Rawles is a busy speaker sharing his knowledge and experience as a former Army Intelligence officer at prepper conferences all over the US as well as a writer. He has written 5 books already and another title is in the works.

One of the very first books I read as I started getting into what has now been labeled as prepping was How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It. This book helped me foundationally start to look at some of the problems I was identifying in the world and how to plan to survive. Shortly after I read this book, I purchased Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse. I am not a fast reader by any stretch because my reading time is almost exclusively reserved for when I am ready for bed and want to get a chapter or two in before I crash.

Patriots was such an excellent book, and I just so happened to be on vacation that I finished it in a couple of days; in between seeing family and eating too much. I was so enthralled with the story of the Grays and their survival group in Idaho. I learned so much from this book and it captivated me with the portrayal of an economic collapse and the fallout from that event in the US. I have since reread it because in the realm of prepping this is great fiction right up there with Alas Babylon and One Second After.
I was approached by the publisher of Mr. Rawles latest novel Expatriates a few weeks ago to see if I was interested in reviewing this book as well so naturally I took them up on it and I just finished last night.

Expatriates, along with two other books, Survivors and Founders aren’t continuations of his original novel Patriots. All of the books in this series are told contemporaneously.

Expatriates

It is hard for me to separate this book from Patriots or Survivors since they are all about an economic collapse called “the crunch” but this novel is set in Australia and the Philippines primarily. There are a lot of characters and the story shows how several sets of people deal with the changing realities of life where the formal US government has been dissolved. If you are interested in reading about surviving on a boat or Nautical Survival, this book will offer you a lot of interesting scenarios.

Expatriates paints a different picture of a collapse than I have been considering but it is one that is probably more likely. Instead of something as dramatic and instantaneous as ‘collapse’ sounds, there is more of a slow slide into a different reality. The food isn’t gone the first day, people can still purchase fuel for a time and life goes on for years. His timeline approach for each of the areas allows his characters to live out the problems Mr. Rawles must envision if a similar future visits our shores.

The story is full of a lot of details about elements in the story unique to the location. From weapon specifications to mining operations and local customs, Expatriates weaves a story that tries to immerse the reader in the lives of each of the characters and finishes with a major confrontation and a satisfying ending. If you like prepper fiction then I am sure you will like Expatriates. Now that I finished this latest book, I want to go back and read Patriots again, but I have too many other books on my nightstand.

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It should go without saying that James Wesley Rawles has had a significant impact on the prepper and survivalist community. His daily blog www.survivalblog.com draws over 84 thousand unique views

In the Prepping community there are some topics that draw familiar responses from people of all walks of life. Naturally I am guilty of throwing out my own clichéd responses to these core concepts from time to time – hopefully with enough of my own opinion in there, also hopefully unique enough to warrant someone spending five minutes to read or share what I have written. This either draws a lot of comments or none. You can tell how controversial your post is by looking at the comments section and we have some great readers who are very experienced and just as opinionated if not more than I am. When an issue is drawing a lot of comments there is a great debate going on that is usually pretty civil and always interesting.

One of the debate threads or concepts that I frequently see has to do with this prepper mantra that Skills are better than stuff. For those who haven’t heard of that phrase before, it is simply the idea that you can have all of the supplies in the world but if you lack the knowledge of either A) how to use those supplies or B) alternative ways of accomplishing the same thing without those supplies, you are in a worse position.

On the surface this makes perfect sense. Let’s take a firearm for example. You can spend $1200 on the best AR-15 in the world, tricked out with the best weapon light, laser guided night sights, the best AR-15 scope, complete with the best camo paintjob. In the end, that AR-15 might be the most awesome weapon in the world and end up costing you more than most of our first cars. That Rifle represents “Stuff”.  But, if you don’t know how to hit the broad side of a barn with that expensive piece of metal and plastic, are you better off? If you can’t effectively clear a jam, reload under high-stress environments and accurately engage targets out to at least 100 yards (Skills), what good is it? What good are you?

Skills are an important part of being prepared for any situation.

In the example above, you would be much better off with a relatively cheap, hand me down .22 rifle and the skills to shoot a target and hit it accurately in a variety of situations. The prepper who can do that will spend less and be better off relatively than the prepper who spent thousands in this case. Additionally, if you can effectively shoot that .22 you would probably be able to use any weapon to a better degree than the prepper who simply bought their way to the highest levels of tactical nirvana.

Are Skills better than Stuff

In many cases it is clear to see how having skill is a particular area is highly advantageous over simply having the means to buy stuff. We use this argument all of the time to temper the thoughts of some preppers that feel compelled to wear out their credit card to get the latest prepper gear and supplies and go from zero to prepped in a single Amazon.com transaction. Skills are better than stuff in many cases, but is that a universal truth like some preppers seem to rely on when admonishing their fellow preppers?

Before I get into that side of the argument let’s take a look at a few skills that I believe we can universally agree are wise for any prepper to have in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. Todd Walker over at Survival Sherpa exemplifies the best part of the Skills mindset for me and his articles are full of amazingly creative and practical tips for making do without many of the conveniences we rely on. Our “Stuff”.

The bottom line is that if we did go through TEOTWAWKI, I would want a guy like Todd on my side. He has great articles that speak directly to skills such as:

Daisy Luther is another blogger you likely already know over at her site, The Organic Prepper and she also has great skills based articles like:

And there are hundreds more skills based articles out there in the world of Prepper Websites. There are millions of them. How to make a fire, how to forage for wild berries and how to tan hides, build shelter or create your own water filtration system to homeopathic medicine. Skills are important and some skills can’t be easily replaced, but I maintain that some “Stuff” isn’t easily replaced by skills either, so we should find a balance.

Living with nothing more than the essentials for survival is tough.

When Stuff is better than skills

If you strip any “Survival Expert” naked and throw them into the woods on their own – I imagine most will be able to “Survive” but unless you are planning on being naked in the woods, why wouldn’t you try to increase your advantages in any place you can?

Canning is a skill that is handy even now when the grid is still up.

Going back to my earlier example with firearms. The Skills purist might say that you don’t need a modern firearm if you have the skills to build a bow. You don’t need to stock up ammo if you can make arrows, a spear or a flint knife. I will concede that knowing how to do that is valuable, but limited knowledge in a lot of scenarios. The average person isn’t Robin Hood so the idea that you will easily defend your family from marauders with guns while you are hiding in your debris shelter doesn’t seem realistic to me. Could it be done by some? Sure, I guess but we are talking about millions of people who read Prepping blogs like Final Prepper. Do you think we should all take a wilderness survival course and not put away any provisions?

“Your supplies will run out”! and I completely understand that argument too. Even if you have stored years’ worth of Freeze-Dried foods in your underground bunker, eventually it will run out. Wouldn’t the person who can forage for wild food, trap animals with snares and “live off the land” be better suited for a TEOTWAWKI world? It sounds compelling, but I don’t necessarily agree completely with that line of thinking in all cases.

I know food, ammo, batteries etc. are finite and they will run out, but living off the land is hard, prone to injury and leaves you exposed to more (elements, people, fallout?) bad things than the person who is trying to hunker down and live off their supplies for as long as possible. You may survive off the land if you walk out there in good weather, with nothing but your 10 C’s for survival,  in good health – provided there aren’t millions of others trying to do the same thing. Surviving isn’t the same as thriving. I know we humans have been on this planet for a long time, most of that time has been without any of the stuff we rely on now. However, we didn’t live as long, had much harder lives and there weren’t as many people on our big blue dot as there are now.

Skills also can’t replace communication like radios, at least not in anywhere near the same effectiveness. Sure you can learn how to train carrier pigeons, but C’mon! Who is going to do that? Skills are also not going to help you whittle a power supply out of a piece of Hickory so wouldn’t Solar panels be a good use of Stuff in a survival situation? What about light? Sure you can make a fire with your bow saw and create a nice torch with pine resin but is that better than a tactical flashlight with rechargeable batteries and a solar charger?

Just my thoughts and I am always curious to hear yours. I believe there is a balance to be found between skills and stuff. I think you need to have both in good measure. What do you think?

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In the Prepping community there are some topics that draw familiar responses from people of all walks of life. Naturally I am guilty of throwing out my own clichéd responses

Starting a blog requires a lot of things. Hard work, perseverance and luck play their own parts in unequal amounts. When I started Final Prepper , one of the first bloggers who was kind enough to link to our site was Dr. James Hubbard from his extremely informative site The Survival Doctor. Dr. Hubbard has been a family doctor for over 30 years and he has been sharing valuable information on his site since at least 2011 so I was honored when we were asked to review his first print book, First Aid: Fundamentals for Survival. First Aid is an extremely important topic and Dr. Hubbard covers a wide range of issues daily on his blog.

Having reference materials in the form of printed books is something that a lot of peppers’ and survivalists recommend. I personally think that every prepper should have their own survival library of books and reference manuals because there may be a day when you can’t get on the internet. There may come a day when everything is fine, but you are miles from a computer and that is when a pocket reference guide like this could save your life.

The book from Dr. Hubbard goes through the basics of first aid from the perspective of someone who can’t call 911. This book won’t teach you how to perform surgery but I think that is what makes this so great. I have several first aid books that go into ridiculous detail on surgery and while I can see the value in that reference if I have all of the supplies and time to learn
everything in there, a book like Dr. Hubbard’s, Fundamentals for Survival cuts to the chase and gives what I think is the most pertinent and important information that the average Joe can learn and use without a lot of fuss to save treat common ailments  that you could find yourself facing in a disaster or even a backyard accident.

 

 

 

 

What I liked

This book is the best I have seen so far at just giving what I consider is the basics of first aid. It is aptly titled “Fundamentals” and Dr. Hubbard has a way of making everything seem very simple, plain-spoken and logical. I really like the way that he gives me what I had searched everywhere for and that was what I needed for a first aid kit. I have several, but they were purchased and I had to build my own kits augmenting them from other kits I purchased. There didn’t seem to be one perfect first aid kit, that didn’t have a ton of Band-Aids as the bulk of the supplies. Fundamentals For Survival breaks the supplies you need down into two categories. Long term Storage and supplies you would need training for. Dr. Hubbard gives you a list and counts of exactly what you need to purchase so you can take this with you to Wal-Mart or go shopping at the local drug store if needed to get most everything you would need (without 200 Band-Aids) for your personal home first aid kit. Like I said, this is all very clearly written with just enough detail to make it easy to follow.

What I didn’t like

I honestly couldn’t find a single thing I didn’t like about this book. The size is perfect for shoving into a backpack or even a side pocket on your cargo pants and the cost is very reasonable at Amazon when I checked.

If you don’t have a decent first aid guide and have been meaning to pick one up, I think you will like Dr. Hubbards, First Aid: Fundamentals For Survival. If you have the complete Merck manual sets and all the surgical instruments and training of a doctor, this isn’t for you. It is a great resource for the rest of us.

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Starting a blog requires a lot of things. Hard work, perseverance and luck play their own parts in unequal amounts. When I started Final Prepper , one of the first

We never know how we are going to go out of this world do we? None of us ever know what will happen tomorrow but we plan and scheme anyway. I know that I can’t say with any certainty what the future holds for our world, but I like millions of others are planning for days that aren’t what we consider normal. Final Prepper has been dedicated for a year now to discussing events that could impact you in ways that seriously affect your daily routine. When what you are used to; running out for coffee in the drive-through at Starbucks, turns into a horror movie and you find yourself running for your life.

There are a million conversations being held right now on the Internet about what is coming and how you need to prepare for this contingency or that. I think there are some events or situations most of us can logically say are possible just from the simple standpoint of nature and how these events have happened so often in the past. We have earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and wildfires every year in the US alone. In other countries we have disease outbreaks, revolutions, wars, ethnic atrocities, humanitarian problems and economic turmoil somewhere virtually all the time. It isn’t unrealistic in my mind to envision any of those things happening at virtually any place on our planet.

There are commonalities with planning for disaster in what you prepare for and the steps you take to mitigate any risks you might face. These common elements seem to be able to stand on their own regardless of the scenario you are planning for. Take food for example. You never hear of any plan to survive that doesn’t involve food at some point in some form. This could be storing food so that you have it in case you are unable to get to the store or the store is out of food. Knowing how to find food in the wild even if the wild is your neighborhood is another way we address the issue as are hunting, growing a garden and even scavenging.

There are some elements of prepping or survival skills that we don’t focus on at least in the immediate short-term. Is this because we see their value as being less or we anticipate having to use these skills or items less likely than others? To frame this discussion I wanted to take a few basic criteria that should be common to any disaster and match them up to see what if anything was missing. The basics are food, water, shelter, security, electricity and health. I have 5 example scenarios to look at.

Global Pandemic – The hypothetical scenario is a highly contagious illness that is spread around the world with a high mortality rate. The disease kills millions but the highest percentage of people survive and may not even experience any effects.

  • Food – Food should not be an issue because even with sickness of such a wide spread, food should still make it to markets
  • Water – Unless the disease is waterborne, water supplies would be fine, but may need disinfecting.
  • Shelter – No impact outside of possibly not wanting to be in contact with sick individuals.
  • Security – The pandemic could cause panic and looting until the effects are under control.
  • Electricity – Like water, this utility shouldn’t be affected.
  • Health – This is an obvious hit in that hospitals would likely be overwhelmed with the sick. Routine injuries or illnesses may not be able to be treated.

EMP – The hypothetical scenario is that EMP devices are detonated over the US causing a complete collapse of the power grid. Not all electrical devices are compromised, but no power is flowing from the electric company.

  • Food – Food would easily be affected because of refrigeration and electricity needed to prepare the food. Your refrigerator would be useless, but food could still be cooked using fire or solar heat. How would you store your food though? Would grocery stores still be able to receive shipments of new food? Would the manufacturers be able to produce new food? Would pumps be able to pump gas? Would cars or trucks work to deliver the food?
  • Water – Water should not be impacted if it is in a freshwater source like a well, but how would you get it? Water is pumped to your house and if the power is lost to the pumping stations, the tap would shut off. No water to drink, bathe or flush the toilet with.
  • Shelter – No impact at all with a traditional EMP.
  • Security – I predict an electric outage would be catastrophic in the minds of people. Widespread looting and violence would happen almost immediately I think and you could quickly see a need to defend your home and possessions.
  • Electricity – Unless you had back up sources of power like generators or solar panels secured in Faraday cages you would be out of luck.
  • Health – There are highly inflated (in my opinion) estimates of the numbers of people who would die if we lived through an EMP. I have heard crazy numbers like 30 million people and I just don’t believe that. Would there be deaths? Sure, we have a lot of people on life support or who are old, frail or in poor health. They would seem to be likely candidates, but I can’t see millions of people dying simply because we had no power. Could I see some dying in violence? Sure, but not that many. I think more people than you would expect would be living just fine and they would be bored, scared and hungry.

Economic Collapse – The hypothetical scenario is the market crashes over a period of days or weeks. All banks close and most everyone’s money that was tied to dollars or any other fiat currency is lost. The only people who will hold anything of traditional monetary value would be precious metals.

  • Food – I think the first way food would be impacted is that you wouldn’t have enough money to purchase any food. The inflation would make buying food, even if you had money all but impossible. Food riots would eventually happen and then all the available food would be gone anyway.
  • Water – Water should not be impacted if it is in a freshwater source like a well, but in extreme circumstances, infrastructure would break down if there was nobody there to run the systems or fix them. If nobody was being paid, this could affect your water. If you couldn’t pay for water it would be shut off.
  • Shelter – No impact at all unless they want to foreclose your home because you can no longer afford to pay for it.
  • Security – I predict an economic collapse would have results to the American psyche comparable to an EMP. Widespread looting and violence would happen almost immediately I think and you could quickly see a need to defend your home and possessions.
  • Electricity – Just like water, this resource would only stay maintained with money and your ability to pay for it.
  • Health – I think routine healthcare would be moderately affected, but injuries requiring something more than a cane or an ace bandage would be out of the realm of possible for most people. Could your Obamacare cover that broken leg? Maybe, but you would have to wait 6 months to get someone to look at it and another 3 to get a cast put on it.

Zombie Invasion – OK, zombies are all over the world now for some reason. We’ll say it was a disease that most of the planet gets, but you and your survival group and a small percentage of others are immune.

  • Food – You are food for zombies so if you want to find human food, it will most likely be scrounging in homes or businesses to see what you can come up with. With the right set up you could start growing your own food and raising animals again, if you have the knowledge of how to do that.
  • Water – Water should not be impacted but you may not have it running from the tap. You would need to find a well or some body of water because anyone running the pumping station is dead or has left a long time ago.
  • Shelter – There would seem to be plenty of options for shelter in a zombie invasion, you would simply need to reinforce it and make sure zombies didn’t know you were in there.
  • Security – I am pretty sure this would be the main focus of your day; killing zombies and running for your life or simply carving out a retreat somewhere and trying to rebuild civilization.
  • Electricity – Solar panels would seem to be the best option in this scenario and they are in a lot of places. They are all over the sides of highways now running lights.
  • Health – Without modern medicine, we will all be living a different life. Getting sick has a new meaning when you can’t see a doctor, get an x-ray or have someone with skills take a look at you.

So what was the point of that little exercise? It was to get you thinking about a couple of things. First of all, each scenario left you dealing with different problems all within the context of the 6 basic survival needs. Do you have those covered? Have you considered the possibilities of any other events like this? Secondly, there are a lot of things we talk about that wouldn’t even come up in those examples above. For instance, starting a fire with a fire plough or making cord out of your braided strands of hair. In all of those hypothetical examples, you would still have access to most common survival skills, you could scavenge for equipment and supplies. What seemed to be important in all scenarios is Health. Have you received any first aid training? Do you have any survival medicine guide books? What about first aid supplies or fish antibiotics?

We tend to think about needs from a small perspective and hopefully this post gave you something to think about differently. I like to look at my preps from the standpoint of a lot of potential situations to see where I have blind spots. Maybe this identifies some for you?

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We never know how we are going to go out of this world do we? None of us ever know what will happen tomorrow but we plan and scheme anyway.