The Cor Outfitters Intelligence Community: 2017-04-02

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Altoids Survival Kits… Are a Joke

Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from JD. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.

This article may open up a can of worms, but I think the premise needs to be thought on. Altoids survival kits, in my not so humble opinion, suck. It seems to be one of the favorite pastimes of the prepper/survivalist community to make and talk about these kits, and how one could “survive” with them. I think the majority of people who make one of these kits put it in their vehicle or pocket and think that they can survive anything more than a night outdoors, are kidding themselves. And unless the one night you need to survive outdoors is in a northern climate during the winter months, pretty much anyone in decent health can last a night outside without such foolish kits. In other words, the point I’m trying to make is, if all one needs is to last a night before rescue, one can stay a night without one of these kits. Or any gear for that matter. But if things are bad enough that you need a survival kit, I’d want something substantially better. I understand that survival is something that we cannot guesstimate. We don’t know how long it will be before rescue, or finding the way out. Therefore, why rely on some joke of a kit to see you through? There are better options…

The main flaw of an Altoids kit, is that you can hardly put anything in them! The three basics of survival are shelter, fire, water. After those, food, and defense. Let’s look at these basics applied to the Altoids Survival kit.

Shelter: you cannot fold up a tarp to put in an Altoids Survival tin. How much paracord can you get into a tin along with all the other stuff? Not much. A primary tool to make shelter is a good fixed blade knife. I’ve seen where some pics displayed a Swiss Army knife in the kit. I’ve built many shelters in the outdoors and not a one of them would I wanted to have to use a Swiss Army knife to build them with. In reality, the main blade of a Swiss Army knife is good for not much more than sharpening a stick to cook a hot dog on. It isn’t made for heavy-duty use. Now in certain areas and climates of the country, you may not even need a knife to make a debris shelter. But I assure you, in the northern climates where I live, you will need a substantial shelter when snow is on the ground. One that will require a sturdy framework. Which means having a capable cutting/chopping tool. Ever baton firewood with a Swiss Army knife? No me neither.

You can fit a lot of things in an Altoids Survival Tin, but will it help you Survive?

Fire: OK we can put matches in an Altoids tin. Just don’t drop it in water, because the tins are not waterproof. Bic lighters when wet are iffy. Sometimes they will work sometimes they won’t. You can almost count on it NOT working when you need it most. Some of the smaller ferro rods and strikers will fit into a kit. I’m just not much of a fan of the gimmicky small equipment. When I’m cold and wet and its 30 degrees outside, I don’t want to mess around with some ferro rod that is an inch long putting out measly sparks. I want something that’s gonna rain down a shower of sparks that are 5000 degrees into my bird’s nest of tinder to get a fire going as soon as possible. Yes we can put waterproof matches in the kit. OK, I’ll give you that one. But how many are you gonna need? How many can you put into the kit still leaving space for all other items?

Water: you can’t carry any in a tin. You can’t get a water filter in a tin. The tin is hardly a container. If you’re in a desert environment, managed to get a fire going but need to boil water, your time is going to be consumed filling up your Altoids tin and boiling water because it’s not large enough to carry the necessary amount of water to stay hydrated. Depending on where the water source is, this could be a vicious circle.

Same deal with food and defense. You’re not gonna get a mountain house pouch or MRE stuffed into the kit nor will you get any kind of firearm or blade suitable for defense in one. I see lots of pics on the internet where people put band aids in them for first aid. Folks, a band-aid is NOT going to save your life! Real first aid gear deals with trauma, gunshot wounds, major lacerations, broken bones, etc. Good luck using those band aids on a compound fracture.

Does this cover the basics of Shelter, Water and Fire?

I also see people put X-acto blades in their kits. Really?! Trying to use those to cut something when your hands are freezing sounds more like a serious injury in the making. But fear not! There are much better options for a mini survival kit that will actually be of value if the time comes when you need it.

There are many manufacturers out there nowadays making pouches of all sizes, some of which are waterproof and ones that aren’t can be made waterproof by using a waterproofing type spray. These pouches are much bigger than an Altoids can but smaller than say a fanny pack or a butt pack. Lots of them have compartments and or loops made of elastic material to organize the contents. You can pack them with real first aid gear like gauze rolls, tourniquets, clotting agents, etc.

Real fire starting devices like a blast match or my favorite formerly known as the Gerber strike force. Now it’s made under Ultimate Survival Technologies, still known as the strike force. I’ve had mine over 20 years and started 100’s of fires and it’s probably got another 20 years left before I need to replace it. These pouches are large enough to pack a LifeStraw or Sawyer Mini filter to get clean water into yourself to maintain hydration. SOL makes a tarp/survival shelter that easily fits into some of these pouches. At the very least you can pack a space blanket or two. Another item which won’t fit in a tin.

My personal mini kit that I keep in my vehicle is the mini EOD pouch from High Speed Gear Inc. I’ve got enough stuffed into that pouch that I could stay a few nights outdoors, find my way, light my way, stay warm dry and hydrated. I can also stop bleeding while munching on some Cliff bars LOL. I think the Altoids kit is not a serious option when things get salty. For a little money, way better choices can be had. An Altoids kit can be better than absolutely nothing, if you have the proper items put in it, but in my opinion, it’s still a joke.

The post Altoids Survival Kits… Are a Joke appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

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Prep Blog Review: How To Cook From Scratch

It isn’t as hard as it seems to cook delicious and nourishing food from scratch. Learning how to cook using natural, unprocessed ingredients is the first thing to do if you want to start homesteading, no matter where you live. Your family will love it!

Plus, cooking from scratch is super easy, as you will see in the following 4 articles I’ve gathered for you for this week’s Prep Blog Review.

35 Basic Ingredients You Need For Cooking From Scratch

“One thing anyone can do to start homesteading no matter where they live is cooking from scratch. It can help you eat healthier, save money, and reduce your dependence on the grocery store. However, it can be hard to make homemade meals all the time, especially if you don’t know what to keep on hand.

If you keep these simple ingredients stocked in your pantry, you’ll be much better prepared to cook all kinds of wholesome, simple meals with ease. Note: I included links to some brands I’ve tried myself, but for most of these, there are plenty of other great options.”

Friday, April 7, 2017

Bamboo – Nature’s Gift to Preppers

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

I have a love-hate relationship with bamboo. I’m from parts of the country where the stuff takes over the edges of some roadways and chokes out some of the natural diversity found in some locations, usually locations with a lot of uses for wildlife and foraging. On the other hand, bamboo is really useful stuff. Whether somebody’s looking at a long-term, widespread, nation-altering event and wants the sustainable source of materials, or whether somebody’s just trying to save a few bucks to get ahead of the curve or save up for basic preparedness, a stand or two of bamboo has a lot to offer us. Even hitting some examples for inside and outside homes, gardens, and livestock I can’t even touch on all its uses. Feel free to list out what I miss at will, from its use as cups to the impressive BTUs bamboo can offer, furniture to bridges. It really is a handy material to locate.

Harvesting Bamboo

I’m going to encourage you to drive around looking and knock on doors or don a blaze-orange vest and harvest from roadsides instead of planting bamboo. Try to wash off boots, vehicles, and tools after any harvest of wild species, especially in damp areas. There are all kinds of things from phrag grass to kudzu that will hitch rides, plus various diseases and pests we can transfer between locations.

The great *they* like to tell us that you’re supposed to harvest bamboo from as close to the ground plane as you can.

I don’t do that.

I prefer not to create future punji sticks and heel-catchers we can’t see from all the future leaf fall. Nor do I cut at knee-height.

I tend to cut up in the rib to head level. It eats up the earth space or footprint and takes longer to die back and be replaced, true. However, pretty much nobody is going to get speared when they kneel down, nobody’s going to snag a boot or toe, and nobody’s dog is going to gash its face.

What size bamboo you want is dependent on your task, but as you harvest, don’t just abandon the leafy bits.

Remember, bamboo is really just a big, thick grass. In most cases, the leaves make fine mulch and compost. You can also use trimmings as a fiber element for goats – especially goats that are getting rich tree and shrub fodders. Chickens and rabbits can have it as well.

There is a handy knife-type saw the Japanese and Koreans each have specifically for bamboo. I use mine for all kinds of harvests. However, for bamboo, I’m more likely to go with either style of long-handled pruners, a laminate or hardwood blade on a hacksaw, or the same on a sawsall – it depends on what’s waiting closest in my truck and sometimes how much I’m planning to harvest.

The hacksaw or pruners are handy for dropping, then immediately bucking off the tops and the leafy “branches”, and sorting as I go. I tend to always have good one-handed pruners in my pocket or bag(s), though, so there are times I alternate cutting and stripping instead.

Garden Trellis

I can’t do an article about bamboo and not talk about one of its best-known uses as a garden trellis material. However, because it is so well-known, I won’t beleaguer the point.

What I’ll say instead is that bamboo is fairly long-lived, but not indefinite, especially in the damp-soil conditions of a lot of gardens. It’s not as strong as steel. However, it is pretty tough, and it does last out a season or longer, easily. The thicker the bamboo, the longer it lasts. I will also point out that unless it’s the UV-resistant type, or painted, PVC is also going to crack under a lot of conditions – sometimes in a season, sometimes after two or three.

So if you’re able to find it for free, and are looking for a long-term sustainable material that can be whacked and added to compost or used as mulch when it’s failing, bamboo can be a super alternative to buying tomato cages or lumber for squash and bean trellises.

I also want to point out a handy trick. Instead of using just cord, or any cord at all, you can drill out holes near the tops of your poles, and use thinner stalks as a pin.

I prefer drilling bamboo while it’s green, first with a thin “standard” bit, and then either a larger drywall bit or a narrow auger, depending on the size hole and thickness of the bamboo.

You can use other lengths of bamboo as a spacer to create a wider tripod, or keep it snugged up tight for a teepee type structure.

The amount of “top” left above the holes and pin can change what the bamboo will do for you. You can lay out another thick piece or pieces across the tops to move water, form a longer bean trellis, or support a row cloth or plastic cover. Or, you can trim it nice and tight for a neater appearance and create fewer perches.

Other Garden Uses for Bamboo

Bamboo can be used in lots of other ways for our food production.

It has been used to create irrigation systems in both frigid and steamy-humid parts of the world for millennia. We can use it to create “gutter” or “PVC” style tiered raised beds for shallow-rooted plants.

It can be split or small branches can be stripped and bent while green to create exclusion nets or frames – to keep butterflies and thus their caterpillars off our plants, or to protect plants from dog tails, birds, or chickens. The same types of frames can be used to create feed-through graze boxes for chickens, preventing just how much of a plant they can reach and damage, which allows the plant to survive and grow back for continuous feeding.

It has also been used to create the framework for hoop houses.

Bamboo can be used to create our whole greenhouse, point in fact, and to build raised garden beds. By size and desired style, it can create everything from neat, tidy faces to woven wattle. It can be left raw and rustic, or have boards added to smooth the upper surface.

Again, this stuff isn’t cedar, it’s not CMU brick, and it’s not landscaping timbers. It will have to be replaced more frequently than those. However, it’s been used pretty much forever and it does offer that free, sustainable material instead of paying for something.

Fencing

While we’re building our garden out of free, sustainable materials, we might also want to fence it. Bamboo can also help either lower those costs or eliminate them.

We can weave it in wattle style, or get artsy and cute. We can fill in gaps on rail fences to prevent dogs and rabbits from slipping through, or extend the height of fencing to deter deer.

We can place it tightly or weave nearly mats with it to help buffer winds and create snow fences as well, which lets us almost pick the places snow will pile up or spread the snow load out to create lower drifts over a larger area.

Housing & Enclosures

Bamboo can also keep our livestock housed and where we put them.

From bird cages to goat pens, and even for the live otter and primate trade in parts of the world, it’s been doing so for centuries.

We can create full sheds and barns out of it, using either the lap-roof, tile or thatching styles for roofs.

We can also create fish traps and boxes of various types. Those boxes can be used in our aquaculture and aquaponics systems to separate breeders and growouts without needing separate tanks, or to purge our fish before harvest depending on our feeding systems.

Bamboo can also be used to create the drop-out or crawl-out tubes for various types of BSF larvae or mealworms for our feed systems as well.

Construction

Around the world, from places like snowy Nepal to steam Thailand, bamboo gets used for long-term construction on a regular basis.

The most effective roofing style is the split-overlap that prevents drips, although roofing is also done with mats and thatching styles using bamboo stalks and leaves.

In many cases where load-bearing is of issue, you’ll find bamboo bundled into pillars and pillars closer than we use in 2×4 stick construction.

As mentioned with beds and trellises, construction isn’t going to last forever. However, folks have been using it for centuries and in places with high winds and snow loads, they’re still using it.

If we have running water, we can use some of those eons-old construction methods to make our lives easier.

Water wheels use running waterways to lift relatively small amounts of water up into aqueduct style irrigation systems or through channels or piping to cisterns – which either hold it, or are used to create pressurized tanks to then distribute that water elsewhere.

Bamboo is also used to build mills that Westerners are more accustomed to seeing. Those mills can be used to do work directly – like threshing and grinding grain – or to spin low-level turbines for pumps or generating energy.

Similar designs for slow-moving fish wheels exist as well, spinning in rivers and streams and using scoops to drop fish into catchments. They’re not super efficient, but like a yoyo, they’re fishing while we’re off doing something else.

Creativity – Corn Crib or Coop?

Even if we don’t see plans for something straight off, the flexibility of bamboo and our minds can help us cut costs.

There’s no reason a shelf system can’t be combined with a plan for hampers to create a drying rack for foods, herbs, tea, or seeds.

Likewise, with some modifications, a coconut caddy we see from the balmy East can be modified into a corn crib, or a hay feeder that will reduce wastes and costs – even now. That caddy and what we know about cages can be used to create a bird coop or rabbit hutch, or that hutch can be converted back to grain drying and storage or curing potatoes or sweet potatoes.

We aren’t limited to the styles we see, either. While slender wands aren’t as strong, we can use them pretty much anywhere bamboo would have been split.

We can also take inspiration from the uses for bamboo, and apply them to things we may have in excess in our area, like young stands of aspen, copious privet, or willow.

Seventh Generation

As much as I love bamboo for all the things it can do, it doesn’t really belong running loose in North America. While certain species are less invasive than others, and it can be controlled by mowing around it and keeping it contained, I caution against planting it. Some of that is the Seventh Generation outlook on life. Sure, even invasive stuff can be fairly easily controlled on a property now, with mowing or due to other plantings or the terrain. But what happens when we’re no long fit and able, and it’s no longer our property?

So while I love it, I highly encourage preppers and homesteaders and craftsmen to find a patch of bamboo, not plant it. They’re out there, California to Wyoming, Florida to Vermont. They’ll usually be found on a secondary highway or county road, routinely in damper areas along those roadsides, or near homes.

The post Bamboo – Nature’s Gift to Preppers appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

U.S. Nuclear Target Map! Do You Live In a Death Zone?

A few days ago I was doing research on nuclear war, world war 3, and potential nuclear targets and safe distances from those target sites when I came across the NUKEMAP.

The U.S. nuclear target map is an interesting and unique program unlike other nuclear target maps because it lets you pick the target and what size nuclear device that the area your chose is hit with and then shows the likely effects and range of damage and death that would be caused by that nuclear device if it hit and detonated on your chosen target area.

The NukeMap looks to be fairly accurate as to the blast area, fallout...

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What did you do to prep this week?

Before we get started with this weeks super awesome what did you do to prep this week segment, I’d like to first thank Victoria S, Jana M, Kelli M, Willard N and Greg S for their contributions this week via PayPal. It is greatly appreciated and helps to keep this site going. Thank you.

If you too feel that this site has helped you to prep better and would like to give something back then you can do that with only a few clicks starting here.

I’d also like to thank everyone that has liked and shared the articles here with their friends on social media – I’ve made it as...

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Prepper News Brief April 7, 2017

Update: I wrote most of this yesterday evening before the U.S. attack on Syria. The big question is why would Syrian president Bashar al-Assad order a chemical attack days after the Trump administration had said that “they no longer wanted to remove Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria” knowing that it would bring a response from the U.S.? That would have been a stupid move on his part and I don’t think that he ordered the use of chemical weapons on the Syria town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib Province.

The question now is how will this affect U.S. and Russian...

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To Grow Or Not To Grow Marijuana For Medical Survival?

OK, so this is a huge topic that seems to divide people.

Within the year prior to this post, Florida became one of the 28 states to legalize medical marijuana.

Do I think that’s a good thing? Yes, but this is an article about whether or not you should grow medical marijuana, not about what my (or anybody’s) political views are. Good thing, right? Lately, that’s a powder keg that will blow up any family reunion.

We’ll simply discuss whether or not marijuana is a good crop to grow for medicinal purposes in your survival garden. And to that end, I’m going to discuss it just like I do any other medicinal herb – does it have enough benefits to merit a spot in your garden?

Finally, it’s on you to decide what suits you!

7 Medical Conditions Medical Marijuana Can Address

Like many herbs, marijuana has been used as an alternative treatment for many different illnesses and diseases for centuries. It’s active biologically active components are called cannabinoids and perform several different functions in your body. The two that are the most highly studied are delta-9-tetrahydrocnniabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), though others are being studied, as well.

Nausea and Vomiting

This is the big one that most people think of when they think of medical marijuana from a serious perspective. Chemotherapy – and cancer in general – robs a person of their appetite and causes nausea.

The FDA has actually approved a drug called Dronabinol to treat nausea and vomiting caused by chemo and weight loss and poor appetite in AIDS patients. It’s a gel-cap that contains THC.

Get this lifesaving information about surviving when doctors and hospitals are shut down!

Cancer Treatment

You don’t often hear about marijuana being used to treat cancer – only the side effects of chemo. However, according to the American Cancer Society website, some studies have shown that THC, CBD and other cannabinoids slows growth and/or kill certain types of cancer cells and may slow or prevent the spread of the disease.

Of course, these studies are preliminary and research is ongoing, but it’s significant because so far, there’s not much out there that we could grow naturally that can claim this. That being said, it shouldn’t be used now, when more effective treatments are available, as your primary treatment. Does this make it worth growing in your survival garden? Maybe so.

Still, though cancer is a big thing, it may not be an issue that you have to deal with, so what else is medical marijuana good for?

Pain Management

Also according to the ACS and many other studies, patients with cancer, MS, fibromyalgia, and many other painful diseases often need less pharmaceutical pain medications when marijuana or cannabinoids are incorporated into their treatment plans. It’s been shown to relieve pain related to both muscles and nerves.

This is actually one of the primary uses for marijuana as an herbal treatment and it was widely used up until the 1800’s as a treatment for chronic pain. Studies have now shown that chemically, it does have a substantial analgesic effect.

As a matter of fact, there’s a cannabinoid drug being tested now for use as a pain treatment for people with cancer and multiple sclerosis. That’s likely to spread to other diseases if the drug continues to show results.

Anti-Inflammatory and Nervous System

Cannabinoids have also been clinically shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect. To get all scientific, our bodies actually have two types of cannabinoid receptors: CB1 and CB2. CB1 is mostly expressed in the brain and, to a lesser extent, the cells in our immune system, and CB2 is primarily found on cells in the immune system.

This is where scientists are really studying cannabinoids right now because of the immune response that happens when THC is introduced. It gets a bit complicated, but basically what it does is cause an immune response that kills bad cells and results in decreased inflammation.

That’s why it’s being used as an alternative treatment (and now sometimes as an active part of many treatment plans) for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease, type 1 diabetes, and inflammatory bowel diseases.

Video first seen on Ride with Larry.

Glaucoma

Yeah, this is the one that’s joked about the most – when somebody’s busted with pot, they protest – “But it’s for my glaucoma!” Well, that’s actually a thing. THC can lower the pressure on the optic nerve, which is what causes glaucoma, but as a warning, it can also lower blood pressure, which can make glaucoma worse, or increase your chances of getting it.

Once again, risks versus benefits according to your situation.

Epilepsy

This is actually one of the areas where medical marijuana really struts its stuff. In early studies, medical marijuana extracts have shown that they can cause a 50% reduction in certain types of seizures. That’s pretty darned significant when you figure that epilepsy is one of those diseases where medication is absolutely required.

Personally, if I or a family member were a med-dependent epileptic, I’d be studying which strain of marijuana was the best to grow for my survival garden.

Anxiety and PTSD

Anxiety relief is another historical use of marijuana, and studies are now showing that it has positive effects on one of the hardest diseases on the planet to treat – PTSD. How did we discover this? Because doctors started noticing that patients who were tired of taking 5 or 6 or 10 drugs to sleep and function as they dealt with PTSD were starting to feel better as they gave up on the meds that were causing them to feel like zombies.

When a handful of doctors bothered to ask what was causing the positive changes, large numbers of patients reported that they were self-medicating with marijuana. It turns out that, according to studies, they were on the right track.

About Growing Medical Marijuana

Actually growing marijuana isn’t hard and if you give the plants some love, you can get quite a yield in just a little bit of space. And it’s a great container plant. The problem, just like when choosing tomatoes or beans, is that you want to grow the right strain for what you need it for.

There are thousands of strains of marijuana. Some strains have higher amounts of THC (the chemical that causes the high as well as provides health benefits), but lower amounts of other beneficial cannabinoids such as CBD. Some are better at relieving pain than others, and some are so strong that they may actually make your nausea worse just because you’re not used to the drug.

My word of advice here to you is this: do your own research. Maybe talk to your doctor. If he doesn’t agree with the concept, and many old-school Western practitioners won’t, then find another doctor or an alternative healthcare professional who will advise you.

One final disclaimer here – you need to know your state laws because the government is serious about this. If it’s illegal, they will take you to jail – sometimes for a LONG time – if they catch you growing it. There are some states, such as Oregon and Arizona, where you can grow a small number of plants as long as you have the proper medical documentation, but as with everything we preppers do, know your laws and be smart about them.

This is a huge topic and I know that many of you have questions or can offer advice. Let’s avoid the politics of it and share your thoughts and experience about the benefits/risks of growing medical marijuana for survival purposes.

Remember that knowledge is the only doctor that can save you when there is no medical help around.

Click the banner below to find out more!

This article has been written by Theresa Crouse for Survivopedia.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2828614/

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000881

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/state-marijuana-laws-map-medical-recreational.html

Thursday, April 6, 2017

2015 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited Rig Walk Around

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Alternative Fishing Methods – When You Don’t Have Rod and Reel

Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editor’s Note: This post has been contributed by Patrick. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter the Prepper Writing Contest today.

Fishing is a pastime that is enjoyed by millions of people.

There is nothing more relaxing for me than watching the sun rise while I cast a line into the water. However, there is much more to fishing than the fun part of it.

Around the world, fish feed more people than just about any other source of protein. This is part of the reason why a large percentage of the world’s population lives near the water. The waters of the world are bountiful sources of life for everyone.
I realized early in my survival career that fishing was one of the best ways to get calories when your body was craving for food.

Wild edibles are perfect for some vitamins and minerals, and they help you fill your belly. However, they do not provide much like calories or protein do. Hunting and trapping are challenging. But fishing is a more consistent way to get those calories and protein. Problem is, you do not always carry the gear that is ideal for fishing.

During my first survival challenge, fish gave me the fuel I needed to keep going. I went the first day without food as I spent my time building a shelter and purifying water. The next morning, I set out at dawn with a hand line and found a pond. I fished for about an hour before snagging one of the heaviest large-mouth bass I’ve ever caught.

The fire went out in the storm overnight, and everything was wet. It took me three hours to get the fire going again. After the fish was cooked and eaten, I felt the energy flow back into my body. I relied on fish for the rest of the challenge, cooked it in water to create a warm broth.

Alternative Fishing Methods

Remember that the rest of the world have other means of fishing aside from using a rod and reel. In most survival situations, you too do not usually have this gear handy. That means that knowing how to fish in other ways is vital to your survival.

In this article, I will cover a few effective alternative fishing methods as ways to fish without standard gear.

Hand Lines

Hand-line fishing with a buzz bomb in Barkley Sound, BC.

This method is the closest approach to using a rod and reel. You still have a line with a hook on the end and some bait or lure, you just don’t have the rod and reel apparatus.

With hand lining, you whip the line around in a circle with your dominant hand. The centrifugal force creates the momentum needed to launch it in the direction you choose. It can be hard to get distance, so weighting your line is important to help with your launch.

It is also good to have a spool of some kind to keep your line from tangling. A bottle or block of wood works well. Here’s how to do it:

Wrap your line around the object towards one end and hold it on the other end.
When you release the line through the air, keep your spool pointed in the same direction so it easily slides off.
Then re-spool the line as you pull it back in.

For many people, this is the best way to use the little fishing kit you may have in your bug out bag.

Trot Lines

A trot line is a passive method of fishing in which you set several hooks and come back later to collect your catch.

To build one, stretch out a long primary line. I typically make it about thirty feet long and tie loops in the line about every three feet. I then attach secondary lines that can be anywhere from one to three feet long. A baited hook is connected to the end of each secondary line.

It is best to tie one end above the surface and weight the other end so it sinks to the bottom. This allows you to cover every depth and also cover a wide area of the water.

There are two peak times that fishes are more likely to strike — around sunrise and sunset. Therefore, it is best to check your line just after these times to collect fish and add any bait needed.

Nets

Nets are one of the most common methods for catching fish worldwide. They allow you to actively or passively catch multiple fish at once.

Gill Net

I like using a gill net. It is set up vertically so any fish swimming through that area is caught. Passive fishing is ideal in streams, rivers, and tidal areas but can be effective in any water.

I tested out my gill net a while back in our pond and caught eleven fishes in just a few hours. An ideal net is weighted at the bottom and has floats along the top to keep it vertical. It can be tied between two trees, or a pole can be installed to hold up one side.

Throw Net

A throw net is another popular option. It can be used in any water and are active in nature. It is cast out and spun so that it expands as it flies through the air. Then it sinks and tangles the fish underneath so that they can be drawn into it.

It takes some practice to get the hang of using a throw net, but it can be extremely useful.

Jug Fishing

If you like fishing with a bobber, you may like jug fishing too.

A jug or large float is tied to a weighted line with live bait. The hook and bait drop to your desired depth and many people like to jug fish at the bottom for catfish.

You know that the line has a fish when the jug starts to move. You can either wade out to place the jug and wade back to collect it, or you can attach a drag line to draw it back from the shore.

This method works best in still lakes or ponds. Several jugs are usually set to cover more water.

Sapling Lines

Fishing with saplings is similar to fishing with a rod and reel except that there is no reeling action.

Long saplings are cut with a line attached to the narrow end. The thick end is driven into the mud along the bank, and the baited hook on the other end of the line is thrown out into the water using the same motion used with hand lining.

You can either watch the tip of the sapling for movement, or you can attach a small bell to the end to alert you of movement. Typically, several saplings are set in an area to cover more water.

I use this method to go after channel catfish in small, muddy rivers. The challenge is dragging in the fish. I suggest using leather gloves to avoid cutting your hands on the line.

Fish Traps

There are a few fish traps that can be easily made in the wild for passive fishing.

Using a Plastic Bottle

This can be used in any body of water for smaller fish. All it requires is a clear, plastic bottle. Here’s how to do it:

Cut the top of the bottle just below the taper.
Reverse the top so the opening is facing down.
Reattach the top using cordage to sew the pieces together.
You can then cut the opening to your desired size and add bait inside the trap.

Fish will swim in the opening and will get confused trying to find their way out. You may want to use a weight to hold it in place.

Using Poles or Rocks

You can also use poles or rocks to create a large trap in the shallow water. Either shove poles vertically into the bottom, or pile rocks to create walls.

You want the shape of your trap to resemble a heart with an opening at the point of the cleavage. Then choose what to do next from these options:

add bait
throw rocks to scare fish into the trap
just wait it out

The fish again swims into the narrow opening and gets confused trying to find the way back out. In larger traps like this, you may have difficulty catching the trapped fish.

Try throwing a bundle of tall grasses or other vegetation onto the fish and then scoop the whole bundle throwing it onto the shore. The vegetation traps the fish as you fling it aside.

Hungry? Be Creative

As you can see, there are several ways to catch a meal without using conventional gear.

Any of these fishing methods can be accomplished using items in your bug out bag along with garbage or debris you might find along your way. If your belly is rumbling and you have the time, get creative and try out one of these alternative fishing methods.

Always remember: all nets, lines, and traps should be pulled out of the water when you are done so that no fish dies unnecessarily.

The post Alternative Fishing Methods – When You Don’t Have Rod and Reel appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

How To Can Water At Home

We’ve had some questions about canning water and to be honest, I’ve never really given it much thought because I just have bottled water stored, along with purification tablets.

I’m the first to admit that I thought the idea was a little over the top because of the expense and unwieldiness of canning jars, but after researching how to can water at home, I’ve changed my tune a bit, just like I did when I first heard about canning butter.

Don’t Waste Space

After I had a jar of spaghetti sauce fall over in the canner and break because I didn’t have a full canner, I started filling my canner with jars full of water. I’ve always just left the lid off and used it as a place holder, but then I saw the suggestion to boil the water first, then put it in a sterilized jar with a ring and seal and let it process along with whatever I was canning.

Still, I didn’t give this much thought because I didn’t want to waste a good seal on water. But – read on! Somebody suggested re-using an old seal. Obviously, I won’t do this with canned food because I have absolutely no desire to waste the food or risk botulism if the jar doesn’t seal, but if you’re only canning water, does it really matter?

I mean, you can look at it from one of two ways – if you really want it to seal, you can just dump the jar or use it to water plants, or even pop it in the fridge and have a nice cold jar of water to drink later. Nothing at all lost.

How many of us have stored tap water in soda bottles or rainwater in barrels? Storing unsealed water really isn’t any different than that, though I may suggest that you purify it before you drink it just like you would any of your other water if it’s not sealed.

I also found a suggestion that supposedly came from a Mormon lady – when you empty a jar of food, wash and sterilize the jar and seal and re-can water in it. Otherwise, you’re just going to throw away the seal and have an empty jar sitting around. When you look at it that way, it does make sense. The jar’s going to take up the same amount of space whether it’s empty or full.

This proven-to-work portable device provides clean fresh water 24/7!

Canning Water by the Book

If you want to ensure that your water is just as safe to drink as your canned foods are to eat, then follow the same procedures. Boil the water for at least 3 minutes – 5 if you live at elevations above 3000 feet – and sterilize your jars and seals. Pour the water into the jars and process in a pressure canner (it’s low-acid like meat and some vegetables) for 20 minutes, leaving at least 1/2 inch headspace.

Now, that being said for safety reasons, I don’t think pressure canning is actually necessary as long as your jars were sterile and your water was boiled because you’re not canning food that can spoil.

This can still be done while you’re canning other foods if you don’t want to just can a batch of water. Or, if you’ve decided that it truly is a waste for all of those jars to be sitting empty, then do a couple of batches.

Everybody in my family loves dill pickles, so I usually buy the gallon jars of them, then turn around and use the jars for pickled eggs later. Either way, I still have extra gallon jars sitting around taking up space because it kills me to throw them away. So, I decided to be bad and re-use the commercial lid that it came with to store water that I’d boiled.

Now that jar is actually being useful instead of sitting on the shelf taking up valuable real estate. I’m seriously liking this idea; it appeals to me on several levels – I’m not wasting jars or lids and filling landfills by throwing them away, my unused jars aren’t wasting valuable space, I have even more water on hand, and it’s free. Color me converted.

Video first seen on 2leelou Preserves.

Is Canned Water Sterile?

As long as you boil your water as indicated and sterilize your jars ahead of time, and then follow the processing time that we use to kill germs in everything that we can, then yes, the water will be sterile. Oh, and as long as it seals. Basically, it’s just like any other canned food.

Honestly, I think that processing it may even be a bit overkill as long as the water is boiled and the jars are sterilized, but better safe than sorry. If you’re going to do it, do it right, I guess. Still, I have water stored in well-washed Coke bottles and juice jugs (BPA-free, of course), so I’m not necessarily buying into the whole need for utter sterilization.

One instance that I can think of that would be an excellent reason to store sterilized water? For medical uses such as cleaning wounds. At that point, since infection is going to be such a huge deal if professional medical help and supplies aren’t available, sterile water would be an excellent commodity to have.

How to Revive the Flavor

After water sits in a container for a while it starts to taste flat. This is because it loses its oxygenation. There’s a simple fix – just shake it up or pour it back and forth between two jars. It still may taste a little flat, but it’s perfectly safe to drink.

As with any stored item, I highly suggest recycling it – in this case, every few months. Don’t pour it down the drain, though. Either drink it, make tea with it, or water the plants – do anything with it. It’s still good, and it would be a waste to just pour it out. Yeah, I realize it’s “only” water, but with the way things are going, it’s becoming a finite resource, so get it’s best to get in the habit of not wasting it now rather than later.

As I said, the idea of canning water sounded silly to me when I was first asked about it, but now I can see the value in it, from several different perspectives.

Next time you have extra space in the canner or empty a pickle jar that you intend to save, store some water instead of just wasting space!

Now that you know how to can water, learn how to DIY your own portable device for an endless water supply.

Click the banner below for more!

This article has been written by Theresa Crouse for Survivopedia.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Watergate… Obama Style

In 1972 Watergate, one of the biggest scandals in American political history hit Washington.

President Nixon had ordered wiretapping of his political opponents, for what turned out to be purely political reasons. His operatives, who weren’t government employees were caught, and accused the president as part of a plea bargain.

The result of this boondoggle was Richard Nixon resigning from the presidency, in order to avoid being the second president to be impeached.

Of course, the media had a real hay day with Nixon’s scandal, giving birth to what then became known as “investigative journalism.”

Every reporter who graduated from college wanted to be the next one to break the story on a major scandal. For a few decades our politicians had to walk a narrow line, keeping any unsavory activities from coming to the attention of the media.

But the times, as they say, have changed. Today’s media is mostly part of the progressive-liberal movement, pushing our nation’s politics more and more into socialism and a one-world government.

As such, they’ve become the de facto propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, even if they aren’t listed as the propaganda arm de jure.

Mainstream Media and the Progressives

The mainstream media sees it as their job to help progressives accomplish their agenda. As such, they are probably the group most responsible for dividing the nation. Rather than being the conveyors of truth and information that they used to be, they have redefined “truth” to mean the liberal agenda and anything that doesn’t agree with it as being “fake news.”

They’ve done this on climate change, they did it during Obama’s presidency, they did it during the 2016 elections and now they’re working overtime to do it in Trump’s presidency.

There are two ways in which the mainstream media lies to us. The first is by telling us an untruth; something they have made up or which they are party to someone else making up. Such has been the case of their reporting of mass shootings. Every time there is a mass shooting, they immediately begin the narrative of how some nut-job conservative went nuts again. Yet once the facts come out, it is found that it was a liberal who pulled the trigger.

Of course, this goes far beyond gun control, hitting every area that affects our nation. One of their favorite weapons is the classic liberal weapon of name calling.

Throughout the presidential campaign, they characterized Donald Trump as a racist, sexist, homophobe, islamophobe who was going to take the rights away from women, minorities and the LGBT community.

The other way they lie to us is by concealing the truth. They focus huge amounts of airtime on outrageous stories that really don’t matter, in order to hide what’s really going on. During Obama’s tenure, this would most likely be hiding something bad that Obama was doing, in which case they were protecting Obama.

Now that Trump is in office, they are making sure not to report anything good that is happening, so that they can avoid having anything to do with making Trump look good.

So now we have the latest chapter in the story of media misreporting. On one side, they’ve been hammering the fake news story of Trump’s supposed ties to Russia, while ignoring Hillary Clinton’s very clear ties to them.

The Russian Story

The whole Russian story started out of two things. Trump made a joking comment in one of his campaign speeches, asking the Russians to release Hillary’s 30,000 missing e-mails, if they had them. Shortly thereafter, Wikileaks started posting Hillary’s e-mails, as well as those of her campaign manager and top Democrat Party officials.

Those e-mails gave us a true and accurate picture of the inner workings of the Democrat Party, showing the corruption that is a daily part of Democrat political life. Yet somehow, that story never really broke. The e-mails are still sitting there, but nobody is really talking about them. In this case, nobody includes the main conservative news sites too.

The second root goes back to the Cold War. For decades, starting just after the end of World War II, the Russians were the bogeymen of the world. Countless books and movies portrayed them as the bad guys.

While that image has faded some, Vladimir Putin’s charming way of threatening his neighbors, such as attacking Ukraine and taking back the Crimea, has brought the bogeyman image back out of the closet. Coupled with Trump’s statement about the Russians, the media had their story and they ran with it.

For almost a year now, we’ve been being told by the mainstream media that Trump was in collusion with the Russian bogeyman. That escalated with the various Wikileaks dumps, increased as the campaign drew near and went right over the top with Trump’s win.

Since the election, the progressive-liberal left, along with their media lapdogs, have been pushing the narrative that the Russians hacked the election, all to spoil Hillary’s campaign and allow their best friend, Donald Trump, to win the election.

Let’s get a couple of things straight here.

First of all, Trump isn’t best buddies with Putin. About the closest thing he’s said that even sounds anything like that was that he wanted to work together with Russia for world peace. That’s something he should have said. Two of the world’s most powerful countries should work together for peace, as well as for defeating terrorism. As president, if he refused to speak with them, he would be remiss in his duties.

Secondly, Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, has come out clearly stating that the e-mails that were posted on his organization’s website didn’t come from the Russians, but rather from leaks in the Clinton campaign office and the offices of the Democrat Party.

So, it’s clear that what the Democrats are claiming didn’t happen. Even so, Democrats are sticking to their story, refusing to accept that Trump won the election honestly.

But the narrative that Democrats are pushing is much more sinister than the reality would be, even if the reality they claim were true. By saying that the Russian’s “hacked the election,” they’re clearly implying that the Russians somehow changed the outcome of the elections by getting into the election computers. In other words, the implication they are pushing is that the Russians committed voter fraud, even though they didn’t.

This is a tricky bit of misinformation that the Democrats and their medial allies are pushing. Their only factual point of reference is the e-mails that were given to Wikileaks. So the claim is that Russia hacked into the necessary computers to gain access to those e-mails and then turned them over to Wikileaks.

The way they are stating the story makes it out to be a much bigger and more nefarious Russian involvement than that.

Even if the Russians did what the Democrats claim they did, all they would be doing is exposing the Democrat’s own words. Why should they be bothered by that? They love to jump on Republican words and twist them out of recognition in an effort to make the speaker out to be bad.

But nobody has changed one word of their own e-mails, just laid them out for all to see.

Everything Changed on March 4^th

On March 4^thTrump tweeted that Obama had wiretapped his phone lines. No longer could the media run around slandering Donald Trump, they had to circle their wagons and protect Obama. Their fair-haired boy was in trouble and so they rushed to his defense.

Video first seen on New York Daily News.

I’ll have to say, this was a masterful tweet by Trump. In one short message, he changed the entire narrative, putting his enemies on the defense. If one was writing a book on warfare, this could serve as a prime example of taking the initiative away from the enemy.

Obama’s spokesperson quickly came out with a response, saying that Obama didn’t wiretap Trump’s phone lines, nor did anyone else in the White House. It was the standard denial one would expect, but masterfully written nonetheless. Without denying that the event had happened, he declared before America and the world, that Trump was lying. It was the classic effective lie, one with just enough truth in it, so as to seem truthful.

But while Obama and the White House didn’t actually attach wires to Trump’s phone lines, it’s clear that someone had been listening in on Trump’s team, specifically listening in on conversations between Trump team members and people who were in the employ of the Russians.

Herein is something else I need to clarify. The term “wiretapping” has changed through the years. Originally, it referred to physical wires, attached to physical phone lines, allowing others to listen in on what were supposed to be private conversations.

But things have changed. Our technology has increased by several orders of magnitude since that time. So today, wiretapping doesn’t mean the same thing that it did back then. Today, if the FBI or some other law-enforcement agency wants to listen in on those conversations, and can get a warrant allowing them to do so, it’s all handled at the phone company.

Of course, they could just go to the NSA, who records every bit of electronic communications in the world. But for some reason, the FBI doesn’t do that. Instead, they go to the FISA court for a warrant and then do the wiretap themselves, probably with the aid of the local phone company.

That’s what happened in Trump Tower. The FBI first went to the FISA Court for a warrant, naming four members of Trump’s team. That warrant was rightly denied. So they went back with a fresh request, leaving the names of Trump’s team members off the request. That time the court granted them the warrant, as there was no reason not to do so.

So, the electronic surveillance in Trump towers was at least marginally legal. The pretext involved a Russian bank, which had offices in the tower. Whether or not their lines were actually wiretapped is irrelevant, it seems that they weren’t the real target anyway. The target was team Trump.

Up to this point, everything the FBI did was legal. They were following orders given to them by superior authority. They got the warrant they needed, to make their actions legal. It’s what happened after that which became illegal.

Video first seen on ANN Portal.

On January 12^th, Obama issued Executive Order 12333, which amongst other things, changed the dissemination of intelligence information containing the names of American citizens. Before that, the names of Americans had to be eliminated in intelligence information, before it was disseminated.

The new E.O. which came out the month before Obama’s term ended, allows dissemination of American names picked up in electronic surveillance to be shared with all 16 intelligence agencies.

What that means is that if we assume that the FBI followed the law and only wiretapped the Russian bank that they got the warrant to surveil, picking up the names or the voices of Trump team members was merely incidental. In other words, it wasn’t part of their investigation. Yet that information, which could be highly damaging to the Americans in question, was widely disseminated throughout our nation’s intelligence agencies.

Chances are extremely high that the information made its way into the hands of at least a few Obama supporters; either people who were his political appointees or simply Democrats who voted for him. Either way, it made it into the hands of people who had the ability and the opportunity to use it for political purposes, rather than what it was supposed to be for.

And so, information about conversations between Trump team members and Russians made it into the hands of the Democrat’s lapdogs, the mainstream media. They reported gleefully about Trump’s ties to Russia and more specifically about his National Security Advisor, General Flynn, having lied to Congress about his contacts with Russians. Their source for all these accusations? An anonymous source. Not exactly the most reliable source to use, I’d say.

Of course, the media is now denying that they got any classified information from the intelligence community, even though they themselves reported that they did, just a few months ago. Not only that, but they reported that they knew that Obama’s administration had spied on Trump. They themselves made the case to back up what Trump said in his Twitter post of March 4^th.

Here is where we find the true scandal. Whoever gave that information to the media, broke the law. While we can’t at this time say that they did so at the orders of the former president, they certainly did so to please him.

Whether Obama himself knew that it was done or whether he said it should be done is something we will probably never know. But it was clearly done for his benefit, not for Trump’s.

For that matter, it wasn’t done for the benefit of the country. If anything, it was done to harm the country, more than just to harm Trump and his team. At a minimum, that borders on treason, if it can’t be proven to truly be a treasonous act.

If we ever needed proof of the corruption in the Democrat Party and in Obama’s Administration, we now have it. The question is, what is going to be done about it?

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

References:

http://nypost.com/2017/04/02/the-watergate-sized-scandals-rocking-the-trump-and-obama-administration/

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/03/04/donald-trump-wire-tap-barack-obama-tweet-trump-tower

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446415/susan-rice-unmasking-trump-campaign-members-obama-administration-fbi-cia-nsa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12333

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Friday, April 7, 2017

Harvesting Bamboo

Garden Trellis

Other Garden Uses for Bamboo

Fencing

Housing & Enclosures

Construction

Creativity – Corn Crib or Coop?

Seventh Generation

7 Medical Conditions Medical Marijuana Can Address

Nausea and Vomiting

Cancer Treatment

Pain Management

Anti-Inflammatory and Nervous System

Glaucoma

Epilepsy

Anxiety and PTSD

About Growing Medical Marijuana

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Alternative Fishing Methods

Hand Lines

Trot Lines

Nets

Gill Net

Throw Net

Jug Fishing

Sapling Lines

Fish Traps

Using a Plastic Bottle

Using Poles or Rocks

Hungry? Be Creative

Don’t Waste Space

Canning Water by the Book

Is Canned Water Sterile?

How to Revive the Flavor

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Mainstream Media and the Progressives

The Russian Story

Everything Changed on March 4th

Everything Changed on March 4^th