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Many preppers gather into groups of like-minded people to provide skills and equipment they themselves don’t have. One position or skill that is often overlooked is that of the “Information Specialist.”

“Someone who wants senior command should cultivate a lively curiosity. Technical competence (survival skills), even tactical competence (planning and execution of survival and military skills), isn’t enough. Strategy depends on intelligence (access to knowledge [books, articles, blogs, databases, maps, military intelligence, etc.]), and that depends on asking the right questions.” ~ “Winning Colors” by Elizabeth Moon (Comments in parentheses by the author of this article)

There is a great deal of information that is available to preppers publically and legally today that most likely won’t be available after the SHTF. Useful information that may help you survive and prosper during those bad times.

About the Information Specialist series

This article, the first of nine parts, does not discuss the basic prepper subjects of food (seeds, planting, growing, harvesting, cooking, saving, plus hunting and fishing), water, clothing, shelter, defense, first aid and medical, transportation, skills, gadgets, etc. This information is readily available in books and blogs. Prepper gadgets are available from numerous sources.

These articles will discuss the many sources of “important facts (that) are well known or may be gathered from public sources. This form of information collection is known as open source intelligence.” (Source). We will be discussing Internet sources of information, with links that you won’t find anywhere else, all free and legal.

For the purposes of discussion in these articles, there are two kinds of information. “Survival Information” (parts 1 – 6) and “The History of Technology and its Use in the Restoration of Civilization” (parts 7 – 9).

First are news and disaster warnings to let you stay up with what is happening now.
Second is information and gadgets that you can collect now that would be of use to the prepper now and after the SHTF. This includes maps, information about people and places local to you, in your state and nationally, radios, etc.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

3 Places Preppers Would Never Think to Scrounge For Survival Supplies

March 14, 2018

3 Places Preppers Would Never Think to Scrounge For Survival Supplies

This is a segment that you can take for ideas and build off of for yourself. Survival is all about improvisation, and adaptability: those who adapt to the situation have a better chance at making it through the tough times. This is a different kind of segment, though. The information here is how to make it on what you can scrounge in the wintertime. Sounds simple, right? It isn’t.

We Live in an Imperfect World That is Not Prepper-Friendly

The reason is the “perfect” world we live in does not present you with many opportunities to train. For that matter, there isn’t a lot of encouragement either. Certainly, no one will encourage you: not your family members, your neighbors, or community in general, let alone the government…local, state, or federal. That’s not “life.”

No, most of these guys just mentioned are only concerned with you playing to the system by getting up in the morning, going off to your work (to earn taxable income) so that you can pay your taxes, consuming foods, materials, and other necessities (with taxes), driving (using fuel that’s taxed) home…the one with your mortgage and property taxes, that have, well…a nice, “established” way for you to keep your lawn, grounds…you know…how to live, right? In an acceptable manner, right? A small cog in a giant machine, working and consuming until it’s time to call your number in. Then your money and property… what you have left, that you paid taxes on all the way? Time to tax it again until the government (kicking and screaming) magnanimously gives what’s left to your heirs.

The Only One Who Will Help You Succeed and Excel is You

As a general reminder, you never know when the next emergency will happen, so make sure you have the basic necessities to get through the most unpredictable situation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

11 Emergency Food Items That Can Last a Lifetime

March 13, 2018

11 Emergency Food Items That Can Last a Lifetime

Did you know that with proper storage techniques, you can have a lifetime supply of certain foods? Certain foods can stand the test of time, and continue being a lifeline to the families that stored it. Knowing which foods last indefinitely and how to store them are you keys to success.

The best way to store food for the long term is by using a multi-barrier system. This system protects the food from natural elements such as moisture and sunlight, as well as from insect infestations.

Typically, those who store bulk foods look for inexpensive items that have multi-purposes and will last long term. Listed below are 11 food items that are not only multi-purpose preps, but they can last a lifetime!

1. Honey

Honey never really goes bad. In a tomb in Egypt 3,000 years ago, honey was found and was still edible. If there are temperature fluctuations and sunlight, then the consistency and color can change. Many honey harvesters say that when honey crystallizes, then it can be re-heated and used just like fresh honey. Because of honey’s low water content, microorganisms do not like the environment.

Uses: curing, baking, medicinal, wine (mead)

2. Salt

Although salt is prone to absorbing moisture, it’s shelf life is indefinite. This indispensable mineral will be a valuable commodity in a long term disaster and will be a essential bartering item.

Uses: curing, preservative, cooking, cleaning, medicinal, tanning hides

3. Sugar

Life would be so boring without sugar. Much like salt, sugar is also prone to absorbing moisture, but this problem can be eradicated by adding some rice granules into the storage container.

Uses: sweetener for beverages, breads, cakes, preservative, curing, gardening, insecticide (equal parts of sugar and baking powder will kill cockroaches).

4. Wheat

Wheat is a major part of the diet for over 1/3 of the world. This popular staple supplies 20% of daily calories to a majority of the world population. Besides being a high carbohydrate food, wheat contains valuable protein, minerals, and vitamins. Wheat protein, when balanced by other foods that supply certain amino acids such as lysine, is an efficient source of protein.

Uses: baking, making alcohol, livestock feed, leavening agent

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Selco: What We Ate and How We Got Food When the SHTF

March 12, 2018

Selco: What We Ate and How We Got Food When the SHTF

Editor’s Note: If a disaster is bad enough and lasts long enough, it isn’t going to take long before there is no food to be had. In this interview with Selco, he shares his real-life experiences and explains how people kept from starving to death when there was no food in the stores. ~ Daisy

How do you get food when there are no stores?

At the beginning of everything, most of the people did not have any significant “stash” of food in their homes.

In other words, the majority of common folks had food a or couple of days in their pantry and that was it. There were exceptions to that because the process of collapse did not happen in a few hours (in terms of suddenly there is no food in the stores).

When the chaos started, people looted stores after a short period of everyone buying things in a panic. Still, the majority of folks did not manage to get a decent stash of food from stores. Some did not want to believe that they were gonna need a stash. Others did not want to go out and participate in looting because it was dangerous. But I think the most obvious reason was that all food from stores was taken very fast.

In beginning period of SHTF, events unfold at a very fast pace. Actually, events go one after another so fast that if you find yourself lost in one event at the end of several events, you ask yourself, “Why in the name of God I did not go out and buy a whole bunch of food while I still could do that?”

Was gardening an option? If so, how did people protect their gardens?

Yes, it was an option, but the percentage of food from a garden was low because of a few reasons.

It was a city, without enough land for significant food growing, and the second reason is that even people who had some land (small gardens near houses) needed time to grow food there.

People usually did not grow food there in normal times, flowers, tea, maybe some particular kind of tomato, salad greens, and similar.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Barter For Survival: Top Ten Barter Items Every Prepper Should Have

February 20, 2018

Barter For Survival: Top Ten Barter Items Every Prepper Should Have

Save

Barter items for survival – What would you have to trade in a survival situation?

Any conversation about prepping first starts with the “the best survival gun” followed by “bugging out vs hunkering down” and then on to “the best retreat location” and then to “what to have on hand for barter… well today, I’m going to answer that question.

The first thing to consider is what items do people need and use every day, followed by will they need these items after a long-term disaster and if so will those items be readily available when the resupply lines are cut. If not, then would those items be easy to make from other common items?

These are the questions I asked when putting away my barter items – those are included in the list below in no order.

1. Ammunition

While I don’t advocate bartering most ammo after a collapse simply because that ammo could be used against you. Stop and think about it, if a person needs to barter for ammo in the first weeks and months after a collapse then it’s evident that person has not prepped and will need other stuff, stuff they figure that you now have and there is no guarantee that they won’t use the ammo that you traded them at a later date to kill you and take your preps for their own use.

The exception that I make with ammo for barter purposes is for shotgun ammo. I’ve stocked up a large amount (500 rounds) of 12 gauge birdshot in #6 and smaller shot sizes for barter purposes. Sure birdshot can kill someone, however, it’s low penetration and short-range make it one of the least threatening ammo types that can be stocked up and used for barter purposes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Wilderness Survival: Bushcraft Projects To Practice With Your Kids

February 20, 2018

Wilderness Survival: Bushcraft Projects To Practice With Your Kids

Should SHTF day come, kids may very well have to depend on what you teach them now, as that knowledge may be the only thing that keeps them alive.

Be it only for a short while, as they are separated from you or a prolonged time because of some misfortune that befall you, that knowledge will be one of the most important legacies you can leave them.

As always, you will need to judge the maturity of your own children and teach them age-appropriate skills. This may not be the same for all children, even within the same family. My father gave me my first pocket knife when I was about seven, and I have carried one ever since.

Of course, that was in a time when it was not considered criminal action to take a pocket knife to school. Today, you have to be more careful, as the schools are not as understanding, with their “zero tolerance” policies.

Making Signal Fires

You’ve probably already taught your children how to make a fire, as that is one of the first bushcraft skills most people work on. But do your children know how to use that fire as a signal fire to call for help if they are lost in the woods?

The number three is the international signal for distress. Three blasts on a whistle, three gunshots or three fires indicates that someone needs help. To make the fires visible for a longer distance, it works best if they are smoky fires. All it takes to make smoky fires is to put fresh, green branches on them.

The water in the branch will evaporate as water vapor, giving the appearance of white smoke.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Pendulum – Part One

February 18, 2018

The Pendulum – Part One

Retreat to High Ground

Missing in the mix of hundreds of bug-out stories is a forth right and candid self appraisal of lessons learned containing practical experience along with deep humility and honest self examination. High Desert expressed a willingness to share his and his wife’s adventure with TwoIceFloes and we eagerly embraced the opportunity to post his story as a three part series.

It was the summer of 2011, and for all practical purposes it was smooth sailing. My wife and I often commented to each other how drama and stress free our lives had become. Unfortunately we were blissfully unaware of the squall line rapidly approaching from behind.

The epiphany struck us like a bolt out of the blue. But rather than providing clarity and calm, this profound revelation was a violent tempest. The following six years brought dramatic shifts to our belief systems, state of mind, living conditions and more – dramatically swinging the pendulum back and forth before finally compelling us to seek balance and peace of mind.

We were not significantly affected by the financial crash a couple years prior (2008-09) partly because we both had home-based businesses in niche markets which provided a lower middle-class income. But a more important factor was our lack of debt. Not one to “keep up with the neighbors”, we lived comfortably but always within our means.

We had previously paid off the mortgage, both of us owned older used vehicles and we never charged purchases we couldn’t afford to pay off at the end of each month. We had some meager investments, but fortunately years earlier we had moved into the right neighborhood. Meaning over the years, our neighborhood had evolved into one of the hottest residential markets in the Metro area.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is New Zealand A Doomsday Preppers’ Paradise?

February 16, 2018

Is New Zealand A Doomsday Preppers’ Paradise?

Earlier today, we reported that Peter Thiel, the Bay Area’s most prominent conservative and one of President Trump’s most outspoken supporters from the LGBT community, announced that he was relocating to Los Angeles – and taking his investment firm with him – because of the famously intolerant culture in Silicon Valley.

The announcement of the move conjured up images of street harassment for Thiel, who is loathed in Silicon Valley and by the mainstream media because of his role in bringing down Gawker as part of a nearly decade-long revenge plot…

Interestingly, the Guardian also happened to publish today a profile about Thiel’s decision to build another potential domicile much, much further south: In New Zealand, where it was reported last year that he had become a citizen in 2011, and later that he purchased a large tract of land nearly the size of Manhattan that used to be a sheep station on New Zealand’s southern island.

Of course, the wealthy have many options for doomsday preparedness, as we’ve noted time and time again – from personal bunkers to memberships to luxury post-apocalyptic communities.

But New Zealand represents something different: A sparsely populated island with plenty of resources – essentially clay for wealthy capitalists to mold a new society from the ashes of the old after the collapse sets in…

But while Thiel’s New Zealand investment was more of a novelty news story in the US, in New Zealand, it has become a major scandal, sparking a national debate over how much leeway wealthy individuals should be given to become citizens and provide property.

And Thiel isn’t the only one: The Guardian points out that several other wealthy Silicon Valley figures have also taken an interest in the country…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Our Dependence on Global Shipping Will Come Back to Bite Us

February 14, 2018

How Our Dependence on Global Shipping Will Come Back to Bite Us

If the general public understood how vulnerable our reliance on global shipping made us, they’d all become preppers overnight. Trucks, planes, and cargo ships are responsible for just about everything modern life depends upon. This reliance on global goods and long-distance shipping puts us all at risk.

Our Dependence Upon Global Shipping

Modern shipping keeps us clothed and fed. It brings us necessary medicines, fuel to the pumps, and delivers chemicals necessary to municipal water treatment plants. It is truly amazing how seamless it all appears to the average consumer, especially considering shipping’s global scale.

That is until there is a problem. Problems can be anything from a trucker’s strike to a plane crashing to a cyber attack shutting down the largest global shipping company.

Global shipping is a necessary evil in a world where we rely on global goods. When companies take their manufacturing operations overseas, the first thing we think of is lost jobs. But, we also put access to those goods at risk. Some of these risks include:

Relations with China breaking down over North Korea.
Hackers taking down software (navigation, customer orders, inventory tracking, systems diagnostics, etc) on ships, planes, trucks, and at ports and command centers.
An EMP causing all electronic systems to cease working.
Employees of shipping companies across an industry going on an extended strike.
Deteriorating domestic infrastructure interfering with the delivery of goods.
War/terrorism anywhere in the world causing delays and lost shipments of imports/exports.

Just a 24-Hour Delay Causes Shortages

A perfect example of this is shipping fresh food to Alaska all year long. Alaskan grocery stores do what they can to stock Alaska-grown items on their shelves, but due to the climate, Alaskans rely on imported produce and goods. The Anchorage Daily News reported on the impact of a single ship being delayed by just 24 hours for a repair.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

10 Prepper Uses for Safety Pins

January 30, 2018

10 Prepper Uses for Safety Pins

ReadyNutrition Readers, Skeptics, and Skeptical Readers, greetings! Let’s explain reasoning a little bit more in detail than regards the simple subject of this article. My intent as a writer has never been to delve into the “High-Tech” and pricey solutions to things that you may face.

Many survival magazines offer “Sales” rather than “Solutions” to your needs to prepare. In too many articles, people have lambasted me for suggesting low-cost solutions that are both “doable” and within the budget.

If you want secure communications, go ahead and suggest a SEAL Magnaphone with built-in scrambler, or a $15,000 current-gen pair of NVG (Night Vision Goggles), then go ahead and buy it. If your main goal with any article is to suggest something “better” than the advised thing, that’s great. The majority of the readers, however, are looking for simplicity combined with affordability.

Anyone can buy $100K worth of gear. Now, what does that person do when the gear is either defunct, “appropriated,” or unusable for one reason or another?

My work attempts to propose solutions that can be employed without bankrupting a person, and also some knowledge of what can be used when all of the laser sights, night vision devices, ATV’s, cameras, reticle-dot sights, and all else are just useless circuitry. Those days are coming: mark my words. In the meantime, we have to develop our skills and win with the tools that we have at hand.

10 Prepper Uses for Safety Pins

Safety pins. Simple little things, yet so much can be done with them. I highly recommend toting at least a half dozen with you of various sizes, large to small. They cost practically nothing. Here’s the tip: Take the safety pins: learn and practice what you can do with them.

We’re going to run a condensed, hardly-exhaustive list of uses for the safety pins. Here we go:

Temporary repair fasteners for clothing
Fishhooks
Probe-tool (medical use)
Lockpick

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the Collapse of Venezuela Really Happened: Part 2

January 19, 2018

How the Collapse of Venezuela Really Happened: Part 2

Finally!!!! After Jose left us hanging in Part 1 of How the Collapse of Venezuela Really Happened, he’s back with part 2. In the last installment, he’d been inadvertently swept up in a mob of protesters.

So, I found myself, at age 15 facing a mob coming right straight to me. And of course I did what anyone with common sense would have done: I left. Not running, because my parents always told me that whenever a bunch of people surrounds you, there are usually socially non-adapted thugs within it that will look to hurt whoever they can, and the more harmless they look, the better. These kind of sadistic individuals are in all countries, regardless the cultural or economical general level of it. Look at the hooligans in London if you don´t believe me.

I walked slowly, with the other friends I was with, and shaking myself like a jelly bowl of course, but never turning the back to the mob, and found shelter in a car parts shop owned by a friend of the family.

He came to the door, with the iron bar used to close the steel shutters in hand, just in case, (He is a pretty nice guy, he would make fun of me after years about how pale I was that day. God Bless him!). But the road direction steered away most of the people towards what would be the equivalent to the commercial district, with some large warehouses and bulk shops. Some of them told us not to follow, and to go home immediately. We saw in front of the boys of the high school we were going to, who came in the opposite direction to us, in a huge group and mixed with people of all kinds.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why (And How) EVERYONE Should Make a Survival Shelter Plan (+ Printable Checklist)

January 15, 2018

Why (And How) EVERYONE Should Make a Survival Shelter Plan (+ Printable Checklist)

The false alarm in Hawaii yesterday should be an enormous wake-up call. It should inspire everyone, everywhere to make a survival shelter plan.

While people who panicked are busy pointing fingers at the person who allegedly “hit the wrong button” and sent out a message warning of an incoming missile and to seek immediate shelter, where should that finger really point?

Hardly anyone had a plan for where they would take shelter.

For 38 minutes, hysteria reigned supreme across the island state after Hawaiians awoke to this message on their cell phones.

On the television, the following warning was issued:

Save

I can’t even imagine how it must have felt to think that your life was about to end in the next 15 minutes. In some places, sirens were blaring. People were screaming and crying. Stories across social media spoke of the terror.

Social media users posted videos, photos, and testimonials about residents hurriedly taking up shelter while thinking they were under attack.

‘I was sitting in the bathtub with my children, saying our prayers,’ Hawaii state representative Matt LoPresti told CNN in emotional interview after false missile alert.

One Twitter user wrote: ‘My family was hiding in the garage. My mom and sister were crying. It was a false alarm, but betting a lot of people are shaken.’ (source)

Visitors were also left reeling.

California resident Elizabeth Fong is in Hawaii looking to buy a house and received the alert. She said she didn’t receive a correction alert stating it was a false alarm until 8:46 a.m., 39 minutes after the initial alert.

The aftermath of the false alert was “crazy,” she told NBC Bay Area, and prompted people to run around on the streets “crying and screaming,” wondering what to do.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Swedish Government Is Warning Citizens to Be Prepared for at Least a Week Without Help

January 10, 2018

The Swedish Government Is Warning Citizens to Be Prepared for at Least a Week Without Help

The Swedish government is warning its citizens to be prepared to survive on their own for at least a week, which is unusual advice for Sweden to dispense. Is there trouble on the horizon?

Shortly before Christmas, the Swedish government quietly published a paper called “Resilience.” Initially, the requirement had been for people to be prepared for 3 days without help, but it seems like that was a baby step. The government itself wants to be prepared for a 3-month long civil emergency and they’re urging citizens. to take responsibility, too.

It really makes you wonder what is looming ahead, doesn’t it?

A publication called SVT reported today:

“Because we have the security policy situation we have today, we say that we will make our planning at government level to face a security crisis for three months,” says Eva-Lena Fjällström, Deputy Director of the County Administrative Board in Västerbotten.

Previously, it has been said that citizens will be able to cope for three days in the event of a crisis. Now it’s extended to one week.

“I think it’s important that you can manage yourself. Society has changed and is vulnerable and complex with many dependencies. It can easily be a disturbance so we have to manage ourselves, “says Eva-Lena Fjällström. (source)

The same publication provided video instructions for putting together a “crisis box.”

The Swedish government is also urging young people to get better prepared.

It’s also interesting to note that back in November, an article introducing the idea of preparedness was published and geared toward 18-year-olds. (One must also wonder if this is a gentle nudge toward a potential draft?) It referenced a study done to measure the preparedness levels of the country’s young people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to Get More Fruits and Vegetables in Your Prepper Stockpile

January 9, 2018

How to Get More Fruits and Vegetables in Your Prepper Stockpile

Most people who are working hard to eat well consume a lot of fruits and vegetables. One of the biggest issues folks are noticing with the Stockpile Challenge is getting enough produce in their diets.

It can be a major challenge when living from your stockpiled foods to get enough fruits and vegetables. This is dangerous because, without produce, your family can be at risk for nutritional deficiency diseases like scurvy and their immune systems will be compromised. A minimum of 5 servings per day is recommended, but during the long winter, how can you meet that goal with the contents of your pantry?

As well, many people these days generally eat a low-carb diet that is reliant on protein and produce. (You can get more info about stockpiling for a low-carb diet here.)

Supplying your family with produce that will provide the necessary nutrients that their bodies need to thrive is a twofold process. Not only should you preserve the summer’s bounty for the winter ahead, but you should also come up with ways to add fresh greens outside of the growing season.

Building a Stockpile of Fruits and Vegetables

When creating your produce stockpile, you have to look at what actually constitutes a “serving” for the people you will be feeding. It may not actually be the amount that you expect. For example, a child’s serving of green beans is anywhere from a quarter cup to a half a cup (depending on their age), but an adult’s serving is a full cup. So for a child, plan on 1-3 cups of produce per day and for an adult, plan on 5 cups of produce per day.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Prepare for Extreme Winter Weather: Forecasters Warn of Bomb Cyclone

January 3, 2018

Prepare for Extreme Winter Weather: Forecasters Warn of Bomb Cyclone

If you aren’t dealing with extreme winter weather, consider yourself lucky. 90% of the 48 continental U.S. states started off 2018 below freezing (32 degrees or lower). For weeks, severe winter weather has pounded many parts of U.S. and Canada with no end in sight.

Currently, a winter cyclone is projected to bring much of the East coast to a screeching halt where forecasters are warning to prepare for heavy snow, hurricane-force gusts, and blizzard conditions. With these types of frigid storms, expect schools to be canceled, flights to be canceled and utility companies to have widespread outages. Given the record-breaking low temperatures, hospitals could see a record number of cold weather injuries from the grid being down.

How to Prepare for Extreme Winter Weather

The primary principles for preparing for these types of extreme weather is to concentrate on the basics: heat, food, water, and first aid. Keeping the core warm by layering clothing is your main priority. Exposure-related injuries such as frostbite and hypothermia could occur quickly with this type of weather. This will be discussed further in the article.

In an article on winter preparations, writer Jeremiah Johnson outlines the fundamentals.

Heat

The wood stove (wood burner, if you prefer) is the answer to keeping the abode heated when the temperature falls. This is crucial to keep your pipes from freezing. The problem being when you heat the place up too much (you should see mine…it’s only about 3’x2’x2’ but can heat the place up to 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit in nothing flat). Too much heat and your food in your refrigerator is going to go bad faster.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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About the Information Specialist series

Was gardening an option? If so, how did people protect their gardens?

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