Is America Facing A Parenting Crisis?

It has happened again. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Another deranged young man has entered a school, with the intent of killing a bunch of people and going out in infamy.

from Survivopedia
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10 DIY Alternatives to Modern Day Appliances

Survival gear is important, but many survivalists are overly focus on things. What is needed to survive is adaptability and the problem-solving skills that make some people adaptable are acquired through experience.

from Survivopedia
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Why Sugar Is A Survival Staple

One of the most important ingredients in food is sugar.  That's why it is very important to know how to store sugar so that you can use it in a time of need.

from Survivopedia
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Never Leave Home Without at Least One

Written by Wild Bill on The Prepper Journal.

As you know we are all fans of a good knife, one of the most versatile tools anyone can carry and for true knife aficionados, Damascus Steel is a Force to Reckon With!

Who would not love a piece of history, in the form of a humble knife? Humble as it may seem, Damascus steel is far from that! From being a champagne saber to the perfect partner for your wilderness adventures, Damascus steel is the perfect metal for all to invest in.

When you have a real Damascus steel knife, you will have nothing short of a razor-sharp deal. Damascus steel has numerous applications in various kinds of knives. You just need to find one that fits all your needs and you are set for success!

WHAT ARE THE KNIVES THAT CAN BE MADE WITH DAMASCUS STEEL?

Whether you have a job in the kitchen or out in the wilderness, Damascus steel has application in all areas. You just need to find the right knife! Look for the knife of your dreams in the collection that hundreds of knife makers have to offer you. I have found mine, but have you found yours? Let’s have a look at the different knives, to find you your knife:

1. The Champagne Sabre: This is more a sword than a knife and gives you the feel of a dramatic period in history. This kind of sword is packed in the wooden case that has a stylish presentation stand! The sabres even have a protective guard on the handle to save you from any mishaps. So, go on and try your hand at one of these mesmerizing sabres, without the risk of cutting your hand.

2. Hand-forged Damascus Steel Knife: When you have a Damascus steel knife, you have the perfect wilderness partner. Depending on the blade length and thickness, you will have a knife, which is sharp and quite durable. Damascus steel is created by folding numerous alloys in to innumerable layers. This method has given the knives an immense strength. It is a time-consuming process, but the end result is fascinating. From a Bowie to a hunting knife, you will be able to definitely find the perfect knife for your uses.

3. Chef’s Knife: Slicing and dicing veggies and meat is just the tip of the iceberg. The jobs in a kitchen can range from the usual cutting and dicing to opening cans and tins. When you have a Damascus steel knife as your kitchen partner, you will be able to cut and slice through nearly everything! Reputed knife makers forge their knives at low temperatures and hence lend the knife great sharpness and durability. The unique texture and patterns lend your knife skills a beautiful showmanship as well.

4. The Sword: The original use for Damascus steel has been for manufacturing swords. The process remains the same, but it has advanced from a technological point of view. Forging each layer by hand and adding on one layer at a time. When you purchased your Damascus steel sword from a reputed knife maker, you will have a handle that is moulded to lend your sword great grip. This is in fact the secret to a top-notch sword knife.

WHAT ARE THE PERKS OF USING THE SERVICES OF A RELIABLE & REPUTED KNIFE MAKER?

Once you have zeroed in on the type of knife, you need, you will need to find a good knife maker! The benefits of a reputed knife maker, making your knife is as follows:

1. Skill Set: Forging a Damascus steel knife of any kind is no joke or walk in the park. You need to understand that the process is complex and intricate! This means that a novice can never get you the strong and beautiful Damascus steel knife, you have been looking for. They might mess up the process and ignore intricate details of manufacturing procedure. These steps might be the important steps and missing them will cause issues with the knife’s sharpness and strength.

2. Guarantee on the Knife’s Quality: When you have a Damascus steel knife from a reliable knife maker, you have the guarantee that the knife is bound to be of top notch quality. Why? Well, they have their reputation to uphold. This ensures that they will not dupe you out of your money! You will get the perfect knife for your use.

Whoa, enough information! It is time to start your journey to find a Damascus steel knife worthy of all your resources.

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Upcycling for Preppers – Maintaining Organization

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: Another guest contribution from R.Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and be entered into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards  with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies, then enter today!

One of the challenges when we get into preparing for disaster is keeping everything neat and organized. In some cases, we’re trying to maintain our own or a spouse’s sanity and keep some of our preparations neat, tidy and organized without being in plain sight while short on space, either square footage or because we rarely allow something to leave our grasp. Beyond the ease in counts and condition checks, and avoiding a hoarder’s larder, organization can help us with both rotating supplies and in some cases even rationing our supplies should we fall on hard times.

Happily, there’s lots of stuff out there that can help us. Repurposing some items that are inexpensive, commonly found curbside and at flea markets or yard sales, or that we might already have laying around can help us maintain that organization without breaking the bank.

Maps & Rolls

Keeping our wrapping paper neat and tidy might not appeal to preppers, but we can steal some of the ideas out there for keeping our maps, charts, and our property plats accessible and tidy. There’s one where you take an old wire shelf and affix it vertically to a wall or door instead of horizontally. The 250ml wine boxes are ideal for keeping both maps and wrapping paper contained and neat, and most alcohol retailers are simply delighted to let you have boxes.

Cutting the bottoms out of hanging shoe organizers lets us customize height. That one has added benefits because you can leave pouches intact to keep map pens, sprays, and dry erase markers and erasers right there with them. It also allows some mobility, so they can be re-hung by a work board, in a radio or control room, or at the desk and table where you do your planning.

Hanging Shoe Organizers

You have to watch the weight in these guys, but otherwise, the sky is the limit. They can hook us up in pretty much all wedges of our preparedness “health” wheels. I’ve got some in use for “daily” life, too.

One’s in the kitchen keeping small packets of instant cereal and snack foods and the last bar of one kind or another from either getting lost in the abyss or from having the boxes continue to eat up space. One’s for winter, and keeps hats, scarves, and gloves neat and organized. The bottom row holds some quick slip-on slippers for household members and the dogs’ various booties. There’s another set up with each person’s preferred garden and yard work sets of gloves and pocket detritus.

For preppers, the value goes up further. With stick-on labels or clothespins, we can use them to track dates for at-a-glance organization. We can also take a space where we would be limited to boxes or shelves and turn it into basically a rack for them. A couple of freebie curbside-pickup filing cabinets, a bar or two to go across the top, and we can string our organizers on dowels or sturdy branch/sapling trimmings.

The filing cabinets here are actually reading nooks, but it gives you an idea of how the addition of a plank (freebie-pickup shipping pallets, walls/shelves from curbside bookshelves) and a curtain (surviving sheet from a wrecked bedding set) can keep it from being “ugly” even if it’s out in a home where somebody cares. If appearance is less of a concern, some suit hangers and any ol’ pole can be hung in sheds, basements or a storage room to accomplish the same – a flip or slide-through storage area for small items.

Those items can be anything. It can be a great way to keep veggie seeds separated by planting/growing season and year. We can use them for sewing supplies or art supplies. Instant drink packets, seasoning packets and shakers, granola bars, little packets of vitamin-rich gummy treats, boxes and packets of pudding or gelatin mixes, and other kitchen items fit easily. We can arrange them to be a general category like snacks or spices, or we can set each up by expiration or best-by date.

Educational goodies, supplies for the radio room or office, entertainment items, hygiene items, and especially first-aid and medical items that do start separating or losing efficiency are all other options for storing someplace we can find and see them easily and check those dates without pawing through boxes.

We can use hanging closet organizers much the same way to buy some extra space, although they’re not as handy for the tiny little items and still have the weight restrictions.

We can also use them to help us ration, just like we can with canning jars. We can pack each with a week, a month, or a quarter’s “goodies”. That can be seasonings or instant helpers like gravy or dressing mix. It can also be things like chocolate chips, tea bags or a brick of coffee, smaller packets of cookie, edible cake decorations, or Slim Jim’s. Some of the shoe organizers are big enough we could even seed them with fresh games like Qwixx or Dog Bites Man, new decks of cards, some specialty feel-good lotion or chap stick, or something seasonal to brighten the mood.

Another option is to use a shoe organizer as a pre-staging area. Rather than those things that jump in buggies getting tossed in a box or drawer for a while, they can get slotted by category. It can also help with those items that seems like a great idea but then hide when we want them. That can be everything from eyeglass repair kits and those mini sewing kits, to things like outlet and light-switch wall plates, overhead pull cords, and those plastic twisty-cap wire connectors that like to multiply in drawers and tool rooms.

Curtain Rods

While we’re hanging things to improve our organization, we can keep an eye out for curtain rods. With some rings and-or big S-hooks, they can help us in all kinds of spaces. We can mount them in our bathrooms – and our outdoor camping/solar showers – to drape bathroom organizers and avoid having stuff sit on ledges and floors. With hooks affixed to light baskets and tubs, what we can hang for easy access increases even further.  Those baskets can easily be the bathroom organizers or oddball dishwasher or silverware baskets that show up here and there or wire or plastic bins form the dollar store, and get used for school and office supplies, kitchen spices, each individual’s hankies and bandanas, or anything else we like.

We can arrange them under cabinets or against walls to keep items like spools of thread, bungee cords, and weed-eater wire accessible. With hooks or loops, we can add our extension cords, gloves, and tools. By our doors, they’re another easy way to keep hats and gloves organized, and the airflow they’ll get will let them dry faster.

While I specified curtain rods, be flexible while we’re upcycling and repurposing. I see swingsets and bed frames on freebie listings and by the curb on a regular basis. Tree trimmings can yield nice, straight pieces. The scrap guys in town will let us have pretty much whatever we want at about a halfway between their cost and sale price. Be flexible.

 

Garage & Shed Storage

We can use all kinds of oddball wrecked, found, used, or inexpensive items for storage, although the garage and shed where we don’t have to hear anything from family members really shines. We can use coat hangers and hooks with a piece of looped rope, chain, or bungee cord to keep heavy extension cords, hoses, and heavy rope neatly coiled and off the flat surfaces. A wrecked binder offers three rings that can hold anything, from our bungee cords to cleaned cans with a hole punched that can then hold our paint brushes, garden pruners, gloves, or safety glasses.

You have to pretty much murder somebody to find them now, but a plastic 2L soda bottle is awesome for allowing us to stack and move bottles and for keeping stuff in a pickup or van right where you want it. They can also be screwed flat to a wall to use the holes as shallow storage nodes, but they’re too shallow to have much value for me there. Instead, see if a plumbing outfitter or company has PVC scrap. It’s usually deeper and you can cobble that into a honeycomb with some screws and get a lot more use out of it.

Throw-Aways

All kinds of things that hit our recycling and trash have other uses, particularly in keeping our storage neat and tidy. The cardboard boxes that soda comes in get a lot of play for upcycling into soup and veggie can organizers, but we can also just slit the top off entirely. Swiffer pad tubs are awesome for stacking and labeling the sides, but really only for lightweight stuff. Old-school laundry detergent boxes with the flip-up lid and the little plastic handle are sturdy, stackable, and you can hook that handle around a screwdriver on your belt or a carabiner for hands-free carrying. Plastic coffee cans, jugs, powdered parmesan shakers, and creamer tubs are hugely versatile.

Indoors or out, they can help us organize absolutely anything. Arrange packets of Lipton and Knorr sides, seeds, Heartgard and Frontline, or spice blends. Keep extension cords, tow cables, tie-down straps, or Christmas lights neat and tidy, and ready to deploy again (which buys time and space for other stuff). They can also help us keep kits of commonly replaced items together.

The plastic options can help us keep pests out of dry pantry goods and little packets of drinks or boxes of pudding. Those plastic bottles are also handy for rationing out things like brown and white sugar that last forever in storage, or once we bust into bulk bags or buckets of snack foods and dry goods.

Drink bottles get a lot of play for organizing wire, ribbon, and cord. If you have access to wide-mouth juice or sports drink bottles, those make excellent ways to keep some ammo in a bag nice and dry – but don’t try it with narrow-neck water and soda bottles, not even with .22 LR. There’s nothing wrong with using them for beans or grains, either, since they stack up like cordwood well.

Mostly, though, I think people seriously underestimate how much water they need. I may be the only person affected by Uncle Murphy on a regular basis, but you need water stored even with a well, because you need time to hunt down the problem and repair it if the pump goes down. So, for the most part, I’d rather see soda bottles get used to store water, everywhere, in homes and in vehicles.

Organizing Preparedness Supplies

The time spent in organizing not only makes maintaining our storage a little less daunting and time consuming, but also allows us to better visualize gaps. The sanity boost from neatness and not being overwhelmed by our piles o’ stuff can’t really be overstated, either, and less-involved family is less likely to add to our stresses when they’re not overwhelmed by it all, too. Since there’s so many items out there that we can scrounge for free or little outlay and repurpose, we really don’t have any excuse not to keep our storage organized.

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Russia’s new missile and our military industrial-complex

Some things are as bleak as the media wants you to think and some things are much worse… Like how we’re being scared by the media with Putin’s new nuclear warhead delivery missile.

from Survivopedia
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Top Summer Jobs to Teach Teens Prepping Skills

Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: Another guest contribution from valknut79 to The Prepper Journal. Is this another time-honored tradition being impacted by year-round school? I hope not as I learned much from summer jobs that ranged from loading 100-lbs. bags of borate onto rail-road cars during a United Mine Workers strike in Boron California, and being shot at by those same United Mine workers, to working in the accounting department at Max Factor Make-up, to driving a home delivery milk truck for Carnation. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and be entered into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards  with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies, then enter today!

Any summer job will teach your children the basics: coming to work on time, the value of hard work and money, and how to behave more like an adult. The best summer jobs, however, can also teach preparedness skills that are essential for them to learn as they grow and mature into (hopefully) responsible adults.

Becoming a waiter, while certainly an option, will not teach them half as much as some jobs. As a waiter, you make money daily, so there is no element of planning. You’ll learn about the menu, and people, but not much else. Of course, you’ll spend most of your time indoors, rather than outside. You might learn about how to help clean dishes, and you should hopefully see an increase in politeness, but this is not an ideal job if you want to learn something that would be helpful if the SHTF. What should teens be doing instead?

Life-Guarding

Life guarding is the ideal summer job. Your teen will sit outside in the warm sun, paying mindful attention to all the swimmers in the pool, lake, or ocean.

The benefits of this job are endless, but they start for preparedness with the fact that, as a lifeguard, your teen will be expected to learn CPR and basic first aid skills. These are essential basic medical practices that will be of instant use in most preparedness scenarios, SHTF or otherwise. Many teens, especially those who take jobs lifeguarding at beaches, will learn to study topographical maps, and learn about undertow, current, reading weather data, and “feeling” the weather changes as a result of their job having so much to do with the outdoors.

Teens will also learn quite a bit about being prepared with the right tools for the job. If your teen is out lifeguarding and forgets their water bottle or sunscreen, they won’t be in imminent danger thanks to rotation, but forgetting will start to occur less and less often as they find themselves potnetially sunburnt or suffering from headaches due to dehydration.

Lifeguards also are expected to keep physically fit, and are frequently drilled in life-saving drills that require them to swim long distances carrying weight. If that doesn’t do it, then perhaps the thought of having to be seen in a bathing suit all day wil help motivate them to get off the couch and burn a few calories.

Outdoor Maintenance

When I was a teen, I spent three summers working outdoor maintenance at my large local library. My job duties entailed mowing lawns, trimming bushes, deadheading and planting flowers, as well as a few indoor projects for rainy days. This was one of my first forays into the world of gardening, as I had never really planted flowers since I was in third grade science. I had never refilled the gas tank on the lawn mower since I lived in an apartment, and I found I had quite a bit to learn about maintaining power tools, sharpening blades, and how to trim a bush without destroying the bush. I even got preemptive driving lessons on the riding lawnmower since I was too young for my driver’s license. When I was indoors, I rewired a set of lights with my boss’s help, and I replaced a large number of broken fixtures and spent lightbulbs.

All in all, these jobs exist everywhere, mostly in large government buildings or as a member of your city’s public works department, or privately at landscaping companies. There is a lot for kids to learn in these jobs in regards to maintaining tools, but also about plants and gardening.

Camp Counseling

A camp counselor job is one that requires a lot of responsibility. This is not a “first job” unless you likely start as a volunteer helper, but it can be one of the most rewarding jobs that you can do over the summer, and is the only one on this list that may not feel quite so much like a job.

Counselors are responsible for a large group of children, and while acitivities are often planned by coordinators, there’s a lot that goes into this job. It’s more than just sitting and watching youngsters play at the park. For counselors of the very young, you’ll have to manage a group of upwards of ten kids at a time, and make sure that they can play safely together without fighting, falling or making a mess. You also need to watch to make sure that none of them are wandering off, and that all of them are having a good time. A bored kid is a kid about to start trouble.

What I remember most about my time as a camp counselor was that you had to be ready for everything – a lesson all preppers would do well to remember. On Monday, Jack attempted to play hide and seek in the forest near the playground instead of in the playground itself. On Tuesday, Jill fell on the sidewalk and scraped her knee. On Wednesday, one counselor’s group was late leaving the cafeteria, and I needed to teach all my hungry six-year-olds how to play rock-paper-scissors while we waited for our turn at lunch.

As a counselor, you need to be full of games and activities, you need to be tough, demanding and respected by your kids, and you need to know a few basics. Any good counselor program will require counselors to know first aid, some will require CPR, and some will expect them to demonstrate good swimming because they’ll be the only lifeguard their pool has. Sleepaway camps will require your teen to deal with the emotional issues of homesickness and loneliness.

All in all, a camp counselor position teaches your teen a lot about kids and self-confidence. After all, if they can do this job, they’ll feel like they can do anything. Mostly, though, being a counselor is a chance for your teen to stretch their legs as a leader, and thrusts them into a position of power. They’ll learn, more quickly than you realize, that being a leader means being prepared, and that being prepared makes their life a lot easier.

Nursery Supplier

Garden nursuries are an intersting and intense business. In most parts of our country, they open in the spring, right around the time that college kids are planning their summer jobs, and have to make enough money during three or four months to live on and cover expenses for a full twelve month period.

One thing about teens is that their first job really defines many of their new interests. Quite unlike their schoolwork or their family activities, they are intrinsically motivated to learn as much as possible about the job and it’s business model. Many are proud of their jobs, and many learn more from these jobs than you’d possibly realize, and their first paycheck will often make their allowance seem like a very paltry sum indeed.

When my best friend worked for a local nursury, he learned a lot about plants, to the point where he could identify different types of trees and flowers, and identify seeds by look and feel alone. To this day, he can look at a seed and tell if it’s going to be a zucchini or a butternut squash, even though they look identical to me. In addition, he planted a garden in his backyard as a teenager, and planned his finances for the year according to the plan of the business – make money in those three months to last all year – he saved and budgeted well for an entire twelve month period.

In addition to these benefits, working at a local nursery requires hard work. Since they need to make hay during a short period, workers at these jobs work quickly, work hard, and often work very long hours. There is a lot of hauling, a lot of walking, and a sense that making small mistakes – like leaving the greenhouse doors open during a late spring freeze – can lead to serious consequences.

What better lesson can a young teen learn than that? What other jobs are perfect for teens that would help them learn prepper skills? Let us know in the comments below.

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