Posts Tagged ‘survival’

1-2-3 Survival

What do I need to survive? It’s such a general question that it’s almost impossible to answer. The question can’t accurately be answered without asking a multitude of other questions such as, “What are the circumstances?”, “What is the disaster?”, “Where are you?”, “What do you have?”, “What do you know?”, on and on…

While thinking about the many disaster scenarios, from minor setbacks to major doom-and-gloom, I wondered if survival could be summed to just a few high-level statements with all else falling beneath them. What is it that roots all else when it comes to the ability to survive?

Three basic categories came to mind that seemed to sum it all up. They are,

One-Two-Three Survival

1. Food and Water
2. Shelter and Security
3. Adaptability mindset and skill-set

Food and Water

At the very core of the human ability to survive, is food and water. Without it, we die. Any and all things related to it, will fall beneath it. Having an ‘insurance’ food storage. Having a steady flow of it. Knowing where to get more of it. The ability to grow it or raise it. It is the essence of human survival, and is at the top of the list.

Shelter and Security

The human body cannot survive out in the elements for long, without eventually being exposed to weather and environmental conditions that will lead to hypothermia, or the opposite, heat exhaustion or stroke. Shelter varies from the very basic to the elaborate. In one form or another, we need shelter to survive. I have lumped security together with shelter as it somewhat goes hand in hand with the notion of protecting one’s self and home (shelter). A man’s home is his castle. A desperate human may try to get it, and will take it from you if you cannot protect what’s yours. Secure your shelter.

Adaptability and Skill-set

Everything else having to do with what it takes to survive falls under the definition of adaptability. Being flexible, adaptable, pliable. The quality of being able to perform, facilitating achievement or accomplishment. Adaptable mind or character. Adapting to a particular situation or use. The adjustment to one’s environment. The ability to alter oneself to changed circumstances. Being able to adapt, requires not only the mindset to do so, but the practical skills to know how. The more hands-on experience with a wide variety of ‘things’ and ‘circumstances’, the more adaptable you will become. It’s one thing to have an open mind about the options presented to you, but it’s quite another to actually be able to pull it off, so to speak. I believe that all else falls under ‘adaptability’. In fact, one could argue that this is the ultimate number-one key to survival, as this trait will allow you to obtain food and water, as well as shelter and security.

So if you have been wondering what it is that you ‘need’ to survive and to be prepared for disaster circumstances, then remember the one-two-three of survival… Food/Water, Shelter/Security, and Adaptability. Think in terms of these categories and organize your disaster planning accordingly. The most challenging category is adaptability because it is so vast and broad. Focus on the first two first, because you cannot survive without them. Then, broaden your horizons with all else…

Appreciate topics of survival, emergency preparedness – or planning for disaster?
Read our current articles on Modern Survival Blog
twitter: MSurvivalBlog
Facebook

Fight For Your Life

Guest post: by Todd Sepulveda

Everyday starts with the potential for trouble and/or good. Whether you are out on a homestead, working a 9-5 or taking care of the kids at home, there is plenty to keep you busy and active. If you’re like me, every once in a while I get a little bit of quiet time and my vivid imagination kicks in. I sometimes think about times that are not so pleasant. One situation that I thought about recently was if there will ever come a time when my family needs to fight to save their lives. In a fight or die situation, could my family fight adequately enough…are they prepared to “pull the trigger?”

This article could go many different ways. Many people will have recommendations, thoughts, condemnation, etc… I just want to approach it from a Bible story that came to mind when I started thinking about this scenario and let you make up your own mind on the rest of the topic. While I was thinking about this scenario, the story of Esther came to mind.

Esther opens up with King Xerxes upset at his queen, Vashti. She is sent away and the King embarks on a search for a new queen. Eventually, he chooses Esther. In the meantime, an evil guy by the name of Haman became the Prime Minister. Haman hated the Jews because Esther’s uncle Mordecai wouldn’t bow to him in respect. Haman wasn’t satisfied to just take out Mordecai for being disrespectful; he wanted to exterminate all the Jews. So he approached King Xerxes,

“There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire. Their laws are different from those of any other nation, and they refuse to obey even the laws of the king. So it is not in the king’s interest to let them live. If it pleases Your Majesty, issue a decree that they be destroyed, and I will give 375 tons of silver to the government administrators so they can put it into the royal treasury.” The king agreed, confirming his decision by removing his signet ring from his finger and giving it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite—the enemy of the Jews. “Keep the money,” the king told Haman, “but go ahead and do as you like with these people.” On April 17* Haman called in the king’s secretaries and dictated letters to the princes, the governors of the respective provinces, and the local officials of each province in their own scripts and languages. These letters were signed in the name of King Xerxes, sealed with his ring, and sent by messengers into all the provinces of the empire. The letters decreed that all Jews—young and old, including women and children—must be killed, slaughtered, and annihilated on a single day. This was scheduled to happen nearly a year later on March 7. The property of the Jews would be given to those who killed them. A copy of this decree was to be issued in every province and made known to all the people, so that they would be ready to do their duty on the appointed day. At the king’s command, the decree went out by the swiftest messengers, and it was proclaimed in the fortress of Susa. Then the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa fell into confusion. Esther 3:8-15 (NLT)

When Esther, Mordecai and all the Jews heard the news, they were devastated. Talk about your TEOTWAWKI situation! But Mordecai was a man of faith and believed that Esther had become Queen for “such a time as this.”

To make a long story short, Esther reveals to the king that she is a Jew. Because the law of the Medes-Persians could not be changed, there was another law that was passed that the Jews could defend themselves on the March 7 date.

Here is where my vivid imagination kicks in. There was no guarantee that non-Jews were not going to attack the Jews. As March 7 approached, what must have gone through the minds of those fathers/husbands and parents, knowing that on a certain day they could all lose their lives?

Were fathers training their children to take up swords, knives or whatever else was available to defend themselves? Were they loving or forceful in their training? Did moms cry themselves to sleep at night? What was the dinner talk like on March 6th?

I have three sons. They all have different interests and passions. They all know my reasons for preparing and can even share some of the reasons for it. To break them in, I started jokingly talking about the zombie apocalypse. But now they know that is just a metaphor. However, even though they see the need for the preparedness mindset/lifestyle, they are still kids and want to do kid stuff. My middle son seems to take to the idea of guns and knives and such a little more than the other two. He started a “knife collection” with money that he has saved and has gone to the gun show with me before. At the gun show, he could pick out all the different battle rifles because he plays the Modern Warfare games online. He shoots the pellet gun outside (we live in a suburban neighborhood and take precautions) and practices proper gun safety with the air rifle.

I was proud that the other two were willingly to shoot the other weapons recently. Hopefully, I plan on enrolling them in the Appleseed project here real soon.

But in the back of my mind, I always think about if they could “pull the trigger” in a time of need. We value life so much here in the US. My inclination is that when the family is in danger they will. But just like soldiers in the military, this needs to be practiced and conditioned.

I wrestle with this idea. Does this cause a child to lose their innocence? I know that children of all ages have had to take up arms throughout all of time. However, the topic is a sobering one.

Please understand that I don’t dwell on this topic. The words written here are based on one moment of time when my imagination was given the time to run a little, but I believe that there will be many out there who have had thoughts along the same lines.

Note – As I was writing this, Matthew 6 came to mind. Matthew 6:34 (NLT) says, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” This Scripture and the preceding verses don’t mean that we shouldn’t prepare, or that we shouldn’t think about this topic. It does mean that we shouldn’t be so worried or anxious that we sit in a corner afraid of what might happen, it shouldn’t cause you to just give up. So I’m not advocating that you allow your imagination to run so wild that it causes you to hold up in your room and not come out afraid of what might happen. That wouldn’t be healthy.

Raising a family to be compassionate, kind and live the servant life is a worthy calling. But attaching discernment and the tools to act, if necessary, are just as important. What do you think?

Todd Sepulveda is the editor/webmaster of The Prepper Website – http://www.prepperwebsite.com. He is also an assistant principal in the public school system and a bi-vocational home church pastor.

Survival Food, Creature-Critter Soup

Guest post: by Christine Coburn

Scenario:

The SHTF 3 months ago and the grid has been down with no end in sight. You had 3 full months of canned food put up for your family which now you are down to items like vegetables, barley, flour, etc. All of the Vienna sausages, tuna and canned chili are long gone. Let’s say you have never hunted but you bought that 22 rifle “just in case”. With civilization down the wildlife (creatures) have been finding their way in closer to suburbia and you have noticed lately that there have been some rabbits and squirrels in your yard. Or maybe you live in a more rural area and the rabbits, squirrels and other wildlife have been there all along but you have just never shot any. After you get one what do you do with it? Wild rabbit or any other wild game can be very tough if it is not cooked properly.

Soup has long been a way to cook food for multiple people at a minimum of cost and difficulty. Soup is a very easy meal to prepare and you do not need frozen or box mixes from the stores to make it (Contrary to popular belief). The limit to the kinds of soup you make is only limited by your creativity and availability of food stuffs to put in the pot. You can make it with meat or without, with grain, pasta or rice or without, or even with or without vege’s. The art of soup making has literally been around since we discovered fire and started cooking our food. It really is just a matter of putting various foods into a pot of water and cooking it together. It can be served hot or cold. It can be preserved by canning it or freezing it. It can be cooked on any heat source including a camp fire. If using an open fire then place the pot over rocks or bricks set over a bed of coals. Placing it directly over the flame would be too hot.

Remember that in a survival situation Soup has many advantages over canned, store bought ready to eat foods:

1. It can be made with anything you have on hand, can catch, shoot or forage
2. It provides liquid at the same time as the meal to decrease dehydration
3. The salt content of home made soups will be a lot less than that of store bought (excess salt consumption will increase you water requirements)
4. It provides a nutritionally balanced meal that is filling and warming.
5. It can be eaten hot or cold
6. It can be preserved by canning or freezing
7. It can be kept warm on the back of a wood stove or camp fire for your whole family to eat at will.

Disadvantages:

1. You have to cook it
2. You need heat to cook it

Equipment Needed:

Large soup pot with a lid (Mine holds 5 gallons), the thicker the bottom the better
Long wooden spoon, you want to be able to stir and scrape the bottom when the pot is full
Heat Source
Water
Any kind of meat, vegetables, grain, seasonings

Creature Soup

You will need:

1 large soup pot
1 long wooden spoon
A heat source for cooking (camp fire or wood stove will work just fine)
1 creature killed, cleaned and cut into pieces (any small mammal: rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, or even a piece of a larger creature such as a deer shoulder, etc)
Water to fill your pot
Vegetables (any kind will do) or cat tail shoots cleaned and cut up
Grain (any kind barley, steel cut oats, cracked wheat, rice etc)
Beans if you want
Spices (what ever strikes your fancy and is available IE: Onions, celery, peppers, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, thyme, rosemary, etc)
Pasta if you want

Place your creature, seasonings, beans (if desired) and water into the pot. Make sure there is enough water to thoroughly cover the creature by several inches. Cook slowly over a low heat with the lid on. In order to make a rich broth and have tender meat you will need to simmer it (not boiling) on low for several hours. Keep adding water as necessary to keep water over your meat by several inches. Once you notice the meat falling off the bones take it out and set it aside. By now the broth should smell yummy and have a nice rich color to it. If it is too weak for your taste you can add some bouillon. Tomatoes make a nice broth also. Add your grain to the pot at this time. Continue cooking slowly at a simmer. Stir frequently, as the grain cooks it will have a tendency to stick on the bottom and burn.

When the creature is cooled enough so that you can handle it remove all the meat off the bones, cut it into small pieces, across the grain of the meat and replace the meat into the pot.
Watch the grain. It will take a couple hours at a simmer to cook the grains until they are soft. If you are using fresh vegetables, add them when the grain still has a bit of a crunch to it. If you are using canned vegetables then add them when the grain has cooked to a soft texture and continue to simmer only to heat them up. Add pasta last as it only requires a few minutes of boiling to cook.

Left to right: Chicken broth, turkey vegetable (noodles to be added after opening, vegetable barley, French onion, Venison with vege’s and barley, Bean soup and Beef and barley (no vege’s). Notice the white lids with tape. Those are the Tattler reusable canning lids. You can see the edge of the red gasket under the white plastic lid. When I open those jars I will wash and reuse the lid the next time I can something.

This soup will provide a filling nutritious meal. Any leftovers may be frozen or canned into quart jars for eating at a later time. Always process your jars for the recommended time for the ingredient requiring the longest processing. If you are cooking it on a woodstove the soup pot can be kept on the back corner so as to keep it warm for several hours. Stir and add water as needed to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot or drying out.

(submit your own guest post here)

Be Prepared. If you enjoyed this, or topics of current events risk awareness and survival preparedness, click here to check out our current homepage articles…

How To Divert The Unprepared From Your Preps

Guest post: by ‘Be informed’

Most people are probably going to be much better off after a society crushing event to be located away from highly densely populated centers. Unfortunately the majority of everyone lives in suburbia or in urban areas, and the problems of total or near breakdown of civilization are usually magnified there. Even in rural areas the anguish of collapse will be apparent and a problem. For those that failed to plan and put away what they need, their main issue is going to be food, clean water, and their everyday needs. For those that have prepared and sacrificed to be ready, “just in case”, their main problem is keeping what they have.

The prepper and survival driven person needs solutions to be able to better handle the fact that people are going to be coming for what they have in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Some people will turn their homes into forts, and battle to the end before anyone takes what they have saved up. For these people there are plenty of survival military manuals and training that go into great detail how to defend your home from booby trapping everything to every weapon you can imagine. For the person that has stored up and wants to survive as long as possible there are some less drastic measures (solutions). It should be remembered though, everyone should have some form of reliable self defense.

First and foremost what you have is your LIFELINE, it may be all that you have to work with for an indefinite amount of time. Sharing with those who are unprepared could cost you your chance of making it. You cannot feed everyone. There are precautions you can take beforehand to make your stocks safer. There are viable solutions that can be taken to try to avoid dangerous confrontations. There are things you can do to bypass hurt feelings with those you share a community with so as not to come back to haunt you if there is a recovery of the society.

Pre-planning and securing food and supplies.

- Find good hiding places for everything. A storm cellar is wonderful because it is buried, can be concealed, a place for personal safety, and it is cool and if properly insulted frost free for supplies. If moisture is a problem, keeping everything in plastic air tight boxes should solve this. Other hiding places include in the attic under insulation, inside walls, crawlspaces, anywhere you can hide your supplies, as you know your house best.

- Many people will stack food and other items in plain view of all to see, a simple window covering in a store room will not let people see in to what you have.

- If you can afford it, get enough plywood and screws for every window in the house. After a disaster your windows are vulnerabilities that can be shot out or broken for many reasons. Without windows you are at the mercy of the weather elements, harmful insects and animals, people having an easier time of getting in, and you become more visible.

- Don’t let anyone you don’t trust know what you are doing beforehand. Find reliable people you can count on and add them to your group. Safety in numbers.

Some suggestions for helping to keep people away after a cataclysm.

- On top of not being visible to others, keep your home as void of light during the nighttime as possible. Try to keep your home as blending in with the darkness as you can. People can see the dimmest light for miles.

- Be aware of the smell of food. Aromas of cooking food can be smelled for long distances, especially meats.

- Bury all your trash. This keeps disease down, and does not let desperate people know you have been eating food that there is probably more of.

- Make the outside of your place look more rundown and less appealing. Like during regular times the homes that look like they have nothing, are less likely to be ransacked. It doesn’t take much to quickly make a house look worse than it actually is.

- Avoid movements and noise. Where there are people there is food, and things that others need.

- A clever tactic that can work to keep others away is to spray paint in big red letters “QUARANTINED” across your home, even add “DANGER VERY SICK PEOPLE”. Most people don’t want to add to their misery being deathly sick or eating food contaminated by someone with a deadly disease.

When people come knocking at your door,

You can of course confront people with force, but doing this can send out a message you have something well worth fighting for and end up in a fierce battle being outgunned. It may be the only way, but there can be alternatives to this.

- Try never to allow people in your home, but if it happens, have clutter and unkempt surroundings to keep their focus on. Like the outside of your home, look like you have nothing.

- Physically look shabby and depressed like you have nothing.

- Admit to nothing you have stored, even like saying the mistake of saying you ONLY have 2 weeks of food. People will want you to share even this with them.

- Discussion about what you have, should include key words like; meager, little, very limited, bare, empty, sparse, etc.

- If you just have to give away some food, make it seem like it’s a huge sacrifice to do so. Less likely for someone to think you have much more.

- Give away food first to those with children as this makes you appear like you are doing what you can.

- Be ready for any excuse for someone to try to get into your home to see what you have.

- Never talk to a large crowd of people, mob mentality rules and you will find this out.

- Have only one person be the spokesperson for your group. One person is less likely to make a mistake than several that could let out what you have.

- Watch people’s eyes closely when talking to them, beware of the “sizing it up” wandering eyes. Never look away. Watch the body language.

- Remain calm and say what you mean and don’t change your mind, this doesn’t open up for all sorts of manipulation of people trying to get you to feed everyone till you have nothing.

- Don’t let others make you feel bad about sitting on your hoard while they suffer. Convince them that you wish you had food to feed everyone but you don’t. Even make it believable that you are worse off then those coming to your door. Sickness is again something to play on, people are ill inside.

- Get a person’s thought sidetracked what you “might” have, to what the person or people are going to do, ask them about their plans for the future.

- Without discriminating, the more overweight someone is the more desperate they are going to be to eat, the more likely that they are not going to take no for an answer. The more likely they are going to hound you or do something drastic to get any food that may be around.

- To try to predict how people will react, picture yourself in their situation and ask yourself what you would do.
This gives you a foundation to think about and plan for if and when people come to your door wanting what you might have.

- Have a collection of native plants, such as dandelions, that are eatable and discuss with your neighbors that this is what you have been living on and they can also find this around the city. This should curb their interest that you have much or any stored up food for them.

This is a set of ideas that can help you keep a hold of what you have to survive, those things that you have saved up for and sacrificed for to be prepared. It must be realized by most of us that we all have a degree of warmth and compassion for those hungry and desperate, it is called humanity. The problem with this is that you cannot support and keep everyone alive and thriving unless you are a multimillionaire and have all sorts of stored food and supplies and other means of manufacturing food and needs.

You can attempt to feed and supply everyone that you can, and end up with nothing, and in the same sinking boat as everyone else. You also can decide to keep what you have prepared for and try to survive for your family’s and group’s sake, and attempt to keep what you have by using these methods or other inventive and creative ways of avoiding “giving or having the shirt taken off your back”.

(submit your own guest post here)

Be Prepared. If you enjoyed this, or topics of current events risk awareness and survival preparedness, click here to check out our current homepage articles…

Be Prepared For Unprepared People

Guest post: by ‘Be informed’

In the aftermath of any unprecedented disastrous event, no matter how well prepared someone is with regards to a well accumulated stock of survival supplies, no one is truly ready or can anticipate how people will handle it. The emotional upheaval is difficult enough for yourself, throw in those around you within your circle of family and friends and you have some genuine stress. Nevertheless you are familiar and have certain bonds and mutual understandings with each other. Now, unless you are a totally isolated group, the actual issue is how those casual acquaintances, little known neighbors, people of your community, and strangers are going to act towards you and others when the normalcy and stable structure of society has broken down or collapsed.

It can be downright frightening to witness how a person you thought you knew becomes erratic and very volatile, a perfect word is “unhinged”. Try now to imagine that there is a calamity that goes into uncharted territory of overwhelming shock. You, your family, friends, maybe your whole neighborhood or even the better part of the city you live in might have stocked up and prepared to survive varying degrees of disasters. However, what do you do in regards to those that have NOT prepared?

This is mainly the issue that one is going to have to face with irrational people – the lack of their preparation and their need of food and other items. Aside from the obvious dangers of people that will try to come to your home or retreat and attempt to forcefully get what you have (which you should have defense plans for ahead of time), you might have to deal with individuals that are desperate, terrified, and disoriented. These people will come to your door in terrible distress, and whether you choose to answer the door will be a decision that you will have to make. You will have to decide whether to share what you have or not. I have personally reserved some food that I got with coupons for next to nothing for certain neighbors. Please beforehand, consider the following when thinking about handing out your supplies after a disaster.

Most people that have not stored away some food and supplies, other than those too poor to do so, have failed to “out of personal choice NOT to do so”. You and those in your group have gone without luxuries in order to prepare. Those that laughed at the idea of preparedness have spent their money on much useless junk, TOYS for amusement. Everything you give away will cut down on your family and group’s own time of survival. Survival food for 10 people for 3 months if shared with the average block of neighbors that is about 100 people that didn’t prepare will now only last 9 days. Think about the math and not being able to replace what you stored for your own survival before divvying it up. It may become quite difficult when very scared ill prepared people, nice and not so nice, come to your home and either plead or demand that you share.

An “in advance” solution that many people do not understand is to keep their mouths shut in regards to their preparations. Getting neighbors on board and getting them to store up is wonderful as this benefits all. Going around bragging about all the survival supplies you have and how you can make it through anything puts a great big fat bull’s eye on your home. You want to encourage and give valuable advice on how to stock up and store food and supplies to neighbors, not openly advertise that your house is a mini supermarket ripe for the pickens when the need presents itself. Too many make this mistake and become overly enthusiastic about prepping and forget the old adage that “loose lips sinks ships”.

On top of safeguarding what you have at all times, people MUST also watch over their dear pets. As repugnant as this sounds, some people are going to become ugly inside because of the desperateness of the dire situation and find and eat whatever animal is available. Someone MUST remain with their pets if they go outside or risk them disappearing. Your victory garden is also something that either has to be guarded at all times, or harvested early, to avoid the two legged varmints snatching every last vegetable and fruit you have growing. Disaster brings out some true weirdness in people, and people in your group should always go in at least pairs and children always have adults in their presence, if and when you must venture outside.

There are two extremes of unpredictable behavior to expect after a very intense and societal breakdown type of catastrophe. The first is not as likely at the offset, but becomes more probable as the time or lack of social order drags on. People begin to exhibit some raw animalistic behavior when doing whatever is necessary to get food and whatever they need and want. Ugliness that someone would expect in a prison in which just a handful of inmates have the remaining resources. Then there is the good nature of people that is supposed to separate the beast from man. This is where the community comes together and works for a common goal towards everyone’s survival. The standoffish neighbors are the ones out there with chainsaws clearing fallen trees and other debris. In other words, unpredictable stand and work togetherness. We can all hope!

Each community is different. But know this, whether it is intensely positive or horrifically negative, unprecedented and unbelievable disasters WILL bring about highly uncertain reactions in people around you. Any person planning survival and preparedness for future bad, ugly, and worst case events must understand and plan for; how to handle, adapt, and be ready for the many different “person to person equations” that will certainly continuously play out in everyone’s life.

(submit your own guest post here)

Be Prepared. If you enjoyed this, or topics of current events risk awareness and survival preparedness, click here to check out our current homepage articles…