Survival (not) made easy

I have a generally low opinion of most of the survival shows out there.  Yet interestingly I've found myself pretty attached to the show "Naked and Afraid" that's on Discovery Channel.

Now yes, it is true that the possibility that you will have to survive under conditions which you would be totally nude is astronomically remote, the reason I like the show is that it tests your knowledge under a "zero resources" scenario.  You have to build, create, hunt, fish, forrage for EVERYTHING.

I also find it interesting that pretty much EVERY TIME someone violates some of the cardinal rules to survival they end up not making it.

Let me highly recommend that you watch the show for two reasons.  First, it helps you go, "well that was stupid" when you see people doing something dumb on the show (so that you don't make the mistake).  However there are a couple of things that I've seen on the show that I really liked and plan to add to my skill set (like the gal that weaved hats and all kinds of useful things out of local plants).

That said, let me go through a couple of cardinal rules to survival.

A human can live without food or shelter for often very long periods of time (two plus weeks without food, longer than that without shelter).  However a human can live for about 3 days without water and can really only function for two days without it.

Therefore, in any survival situation water is always your first priority.  However, DO NOT EVER drink water below 10,000 feet without treating it by boiling or iodine first.  In a "true" survival situation where you don't have iodine, that means boiling the water for two minutes before you drink it.

THAT means that you have to build a fire AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to give you the ability to boil water.

Fire gives you several other benefits as well.

HOWEVER, if you can't create a fire to boil water then please know that if the leaves are green they probably have water in them.  You can gather a bunch of leaves, stick them in your hand and crush them to drip some water into your mouth.  It doesn't give you much, but it's better than nothing and can "get you through" until you can build a fire or do something else to obtain fresh water.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Always gather leaves from a single plant and "test" the water you will get by squeezing into your hand first.  If the fluid that you squeeze out is any color other than clear or a little green DO NOT DRINK IT.  This is especially true of the fluid is milky colored (a good indication the fluid is poisonous).

So, always, always, always, worry about water first.  In any survival situation you need water.  Even if you have the ability to treat water (e.g. iodine) you want to build a fire as a very close second priority as it helps to keep the wild animals at bay.

Now, unless you have a real fear of the fire spreading ... for crying out loud please build a fire large enough that you can use some pretty good sized logs in your fire.  That will prevent you from having to constantly tend to it and if the flame itself goes out the larger logs hold heat and keep embers longer.

Once you have a method of obtaining water (and there are a number of ways of doing that and I will be covering them over the next few posts), and once you have a fire going, THEN think about shelter.

Once you have a way of getting water, have a fire, and have shelter, THEN get going on food.  The method you use to get food will greatly depend on your specific location.

As always, hope this helps.

I'm sorry, but it's THIS kind of crap that makes me think another economic collapse will lead to social upheaval as well

As a former special operations "guy" I have more insight into the kinds of stuff the US government collects.  I have still yet more insight because of the specific group that I got my orders from.

However, every time I see stuff like this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

It just drives me insane.  The NSA has been effectively tapping, without knowledge of ANYONE, the direct servers of Apple, Google, and Facebook.

That means if you sent something privately from you to another person on facebook, that private message was tapped by the NSA.  If you sent an email using Gmail then that private message too was tapped by the NSA.

I'm sorry but how in the world is that not a violation of the third amendment? Not that trifling things like the constitution is ever in the mind of a government bureaucrat.

Stuff like this is why I'm becoming ever more convinced that:

1) I firmly believe that we are headed toward a "double dip recession".  Worse this "recession" is going to cause economic problems that made 2008 to 2010 look like a picnic

2) Because of a runaway fed the next recession is going to cause RAMPANT inflation.

3) Skyrocketing food prices, combined with a general dislike and distrust of the government (thanks to the government doing B.S. like this) is going to cause massive social upheaval.

And when I say massive ... I'm talking Syria level mayhem.  Not exactly like that because we don't have the same religious "problems" that they do.  But in some ways it may even be worse because the normal "allegiance" that keeps this country together is likely to disintegrate.

Now allow me to "revise and extend my remarks" that I just made.

1) The next recession is probably two or three years off

2) The following inflation is probably three or four years off

3) The social upheaval following that is probably five to seven years off (a longer delay because the government is certainly going to take steps to "soothe the masses" but I think they ultimately will fail).

Now please don't go thinking that I'm some "overthrow the government" type.  That isn't the case.

I'm simply pointing the above out because

1) Learning methods to defend yourself are important and you should start now (again, actual self defense, your firearm is NOT actually a viable self defense weapon)

2) Setting up an AquaPonics system NOW, while the going is relatively good and you have time to experiment and learn is ABSOLUTELY something you should be doing.  When food prices start to go flying through the roof you'll be able to absorb it without much difficulty.

In my opinion, self defense, and GROWING your own food (both protein sources and vegetables and such) are important to surviving what's coming.

Stock piling food effectively ILLEGAL

President Obama signed an executive order late last year that was a bit shocking.  Basically it said that if you have more than three days of pre-packaged food, and a state of emergency was declared, then you had to turn over your food to authorities ... or face felony charges.  This law applies only to individuals an not to corporations (such as grocery stores or trucking companies)

Now honestly, I didn't think this executive order carried enough weight to actually allow the president to declare someone a felon simply because they were prepared.

Further, the order so grossly and obviously targets the prepper community that I also didn't think it would hold up in court.

Well here's the thing ... possibly it won't hold up in court.  That doesn't mean that some FBI agent won't still get to throw you in federal prison for God only knows how long until your case works its way through the court system if there is some kind of declared emergency and you are caught with large amounts of stock piled food.

That means that for all intents and purposes, right now, stock piling food is illegal.  Well, not illegal, just not worth it.  I mean, why stock pile the food if you're just going to have to turn it over to inept FEMA morons?

Now before I hear any foolish "pry it from my cold, dead, fingers" nonsense, lets be clear ... you can't fight the FBI.  Head on out to Waco if you have any foolish notions that you can.  And seriously, you shouldn't even TRY to fight them or even get around the executive order either.  There's simply no reason to.

The executive order however mentions only "pre-packaged" foods.  It leaves food growing in your garden alone.  The problem is that most gardens don't really produce enough food to be adequate for a survival situation.

AquaPonics on the other hand is a different story.  An AquaPonics system, grown "vertically" (meaning multiple things stacked" can produce ENORMOUS amounts of both food and fish that can keep you, your family, and probably your neighbors in good stead. (the system shown in the picture is a "horizontal" system with only two levels.  There's better ways of doing it)

If things get really bad then your ability to produce food for barter and other things can mean the difference between simple survival and actually thriving during a full blown "shit has hit the fan" type of scenario.

The great thing about AquaPonics is that it's both easy and remarkably non-time consuming.  Personally I'm not a good gardener or farmer.  Neither are my wife and kids.  In fact collectively we typically have a hard time keeping cactus alive in our house (seriously).

However the nature of how AquaPonics functions means that we have ZERO difficulty producing what amounts to a small mountain of food, most of which we can't even eat because our system "out produces" what we can consume.

The Bottom Line: If you're a prepper, it's time to stop stockpiling food and instead learning aquaponics.

The truth about survival self-defense

I do a fair bit of classes and like in the survival space. That, combined with the several other businesses I run (along with a few health issues) has meant that I haven't posted here for quite some time.

However, how much time I spend teaching survival techniques and tactics means that I get to interface with a lot of people.  Because of how I do "testing" with what I teach it also means that I get to see how people are likely to react in live survival situations.

I've said this before in the past, and I'm going to say it again.  If you are thinking of your firearm as a self-defense weapon you are probably making a HUGE mistake.  Amazingly few people can kill a wild animal when they are half starved.  Squeezing a trigger on a human you're looking right at is quite a bit more difficult.

The thing is, I see it ALL THE TIME.  People who say they can go hunting and kill an animal even though they've never been.  But when push comes to shove, killing another living thing IS NOT EASY.

Killing another human being is VERY hard.  Why else do you think soldiers come back so mentally messed up?  It's the killing of other humans that does it.  It's the knowledge that every time the trigger is squeezed you're trying to kill someone.

Even soldiers who have spent their childhood with a parent out hunting in the woods and killing various and sundry wild animals STILL come back from having to kill people messed up mentally.

It is something not spoken about at all, but without exception, every single special operations soldier I have ever known (myself included) has got some issues from killing people.  Yes, it's true that most of us do a very good job of hiding it, but the problems are still there.

So let me give you the truth about surviving ... and the whole "prepping" thing in general.

If you aren't actively studying a method of self defense then I honestly have no idea what you think you're prepping for.  If you have a bunch of food and a starving mob figures out that you have it, do you really think they aren't going to try and take it from you? (which by the way, did you know that stock piling food is now ILLEGAL ... a post on that hopefully soon)

Not only that, actually practicing self defense is particularly important for women.  In a  SHTF situation your ammo won't last forever no matter how much you have, sooner or later it's going to run out.  Then what?

Now, let me give you another truth ... most forms of "self defense" won't actually help you to defend yourself much in a down and dirty fight. for your life.

When it comes to self defense, the only forms that matter are Krav Maga (easily the best), Brazilian Jui-Jitsu (of particular benefit for women) ... and possibly Eskima (which is tough to find outside the Phillipines).

If you have a Krav Maga studio ... and I mean a REAL Krav Maga studio that has instructors licensed and trained through krav maga global ... then whether a man or woman this is without question your best option.  The great thing about Krav Maga is it is AMAZING at teaching "situational awareness" as well.

If you can afford it, throwing in a couple of months of Brazilian Jui-Jitsu a couple of times a year is also advised as well, again especially for women.

If you can't defend yourself hand-to-hand then you aren't actually prepping for any sort of disaster.  If you are a man and you aren't making VERY sure that the women around you can defend themselves then you are just asking to have survivors guilt if there is a disaster.

BOTTOM LINE:
Self defense is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of being a prepper.  And please don't think of your firearm as an actual method of self defense.  It probably isn't.

Getting Started With Survival

I see a lot of posts on the various forums where people ask how they should get started.  I see advice on this topic that ranges from good to downright dangerous.

To understand how you should get started, you first need to understand the "hierarchy" behind survival.  What things you should worry about first, second, third, and so on.  I'm not going to talk about actual "buy this, avoid that"


First, let me tell you what The hierarchy (unless climate conditions are at extremes) is: Air, Water, Food, Shelter, Self Defense, and finally Medical care (unless there is a dangerous pre-existing problem in which case it moves upward as appropriate).

The hierarchy for times when climate conditions are at extremes is: Air, Shelter, Water, Food, Self Defense, and finally Medical Care (but again this item can move up as appropriate).

With that information as a basis, if you want to begin preparing, then start "close to home" with problems you are likely to face, and then move out to less and less likely issues from there.

I have a post where I talked about "Prep Levels" that was meant to put a sort of "DEFCON" (which stands for Defense Condition) kind of feel to preparedness.

It does you no good to have lots of weapons and ammo if you can't survive a simple grid failure without help due to lack of food and water.

So focus "close to home" ... or at the center of the graphic below ... and move out to each step from there, helping yourself to become more and more prepared.

Here's the thing.  This whole "survival" deal is so situation dependent that actually giving you a good beginners survival guide is fairly difficult.  However if you focus on "PL1" level "survival" and being prepared for that, then you will be more ready for a PL2 event.  Again, see the post where I talked about "Prep Levels" to get an understanding of how this can be done.

Not only that, but it becomes easier to understand how to survive the specific situations you are likely to encounter and thus be much more ready for your specific type of survival scenario should you need it.  What I am saying here is that instead of telling you exactly what you should and should not need, instead, I am hoping to help you to become is prepared in the best way for you without mucking up the waters telling you what works best for me.

My background and skills are different than yours, my strengths and weaknesses are different than yours.  Therefore, the things I should do are by necessity different than what you should do.

If you have any questions about your specific situation let me know and I'll be glad to help.

Well, that was horrible advice!

Over at the Survival Blog, someone by the name of ChemEngineer wrote this post.  Before I get into the post itself, let me say that you've probably noticed that I'm careful about the advice I give.  The reason is that too much of survival is "situational"; meaning that what is the right thing to do in one instance will get you killed in another.  That's why I pose so many questions in my posts to get you to consider what the best method will be for you.

Anyway, I really liked that post.  It was well written and well thought out, until I got to the part that said "Don't plan to live in a tent or take to the mountains to live off the forest. Bad idea."

Folks, what's a "bad idea" is trying to do something based on the advice of only one so-called "prepper expert" when he's giving opinions with no knowledge of the specific situation you may encounter.  Did the writer know what he was talking about?  Clearly he'd studied survival "some".  Was his opinion about tents and mountains correct?  That depends.  In fact, it's the "that depends" that makes me say the person probably hadn't truly thought out various different scenarios which meant he wasn't much of an expert ... and that meant all of his opinions were therefore suspect.

If you've spent time learning about what plants and animals will actually be available to you, should you need to "bug out" then you can indeed "take to the mountains" or what ever.  As for the thing about the tent ... that was just downright foolish.  Many events don't last very long and staying in a tent for a week or two is no big deal, backpackers do it all the time and it's fun (being a backpacker I know this).  I routinely will go on two week long backpacking trips where for the entire two weeks, if I don't have it on my back, I don't have it.  I'm literally living a "bug out" type of scenario on a regular basis.  Like I said, backpackers do this as a matter of course and few think of what they are doing as "practicing their survival strategy" and instead just think of it as having some fun and enjoying nature.

Not only that, but given my background I can speak with some authority about something ... people in groups can get real ugly real fast.  If you live in an apartment staying there is a very bad idea if you are a prepper.

People in that complex almost certainly will come after you if there is even the slightest inkling that you have food and water and they don't.

Do you live in a house?  That might possibly work IF you have "hardened" the house to prevent a swarm of people from just breaking through the walls.  Again, the people in your neighborhood will come after you if any of them know you're a prepper.  They'll come begging for your help at first "please give us some food, we're starving! Please help us, please."

They'll bring out their starving children (can you really resist helping a starving child you know you can help) and beg and plead.  If that doesn't work they'll resort to an outright invasion of your home or apartment.

Here's the thing, in a Shit Hits The Fan (SHTF) type of event (natural disaster such as massive fire, flood, hurricane, etc) you do not want to put yourself into the situation of having to defend yourself if you can avoid it.

Trust me when I say this ... very few people can actually shoot and someone.  TRAINED SOLDIERS have great difficulty doing it which is why it takes so many rounds to make a single kill and why so many come back with mental problems.

It is far better to bug out if you can to a location where you can hunker down and largely be invisible.  However, remember what I said, that opinion is situation dependent.  For any number of a variety of reasons that may not work for you.

In some places doing it can simply be very difficult (e.g. some parts of Denver the government has the ability to completely seal off the roads and leave you with no way out).  If you have to stay where you are (roads washed out or flooding so bad you're stuck or closed and guarded roads) then you have to make the best of the situation presented to you.

In that instance, you want to appear to be gone, but you'll also want to make sure that what ever structure you live in can be "hardened" and you want to make sure that you can make it appear that no one is home.

However, the thing to understand is that if you are going to stay in a city environment then you may need to defend yourself from an incursion of people wanting to see if there is food in your home (particularly if any neighbors know you're a prepper).  If you harden it, then it's possible that people will give up and move on to other, easier targets.  Once everything else has been broken into, they won't stop and sooner or later they will get in unless you prove that you have the ability to absolutely and completely defend yourself ... and that will mean shooting people.

The best thing to do is to begin to do what you can to harden now and continually improve on it.  Try coming up with ways you could break into your house even if it means breaking things (trust me, the mob won't care about that).  When you find a weak point, make it strong.  Keep working on it.

Not only that, but during Katrina not only was the grid down but there wasn't any water either ... if you stay in a city then you have to expect the possibility there won't be running water either.  In that case, how will you obtain water in the middle of a city?  Next to breathable air, water is the single most important resource.  Without it you will die in a matter of days.  If you're staying where you are then you will need quite a bit of stockpiled water.  Remember, not just water to drink, but water to bathe as well.

Further, what about "human waste"?  Again, with no running water what will you do when you have to go to the bathroom?  You can always stockpile "grey water" to fill your toilet tank yourself.  However, we're now talking about needing to stockpile a lot of water.  A natural disaster that knocks out the water supply for two weeks would mean you needing at least 50 gallons of water just to flush toilets with!  That's on top of an easy 100 plus gallons you're going to need to drink, cook, and clean with.  Do you have some place that can handle the weight of 150 gallons minimum of water (that is a lot of weight)?  Do you have some place to store it?

The Paradox Of Hardened Structures


Now there is another problem.  The more "impregnable" you make where you live, should a mob come against your home they may wonder what's being hidden and go at you all the harder.  It's why a decent stockpile of ammo at your home at nearly all times should be considered a must.

Prepping does you no good if a mob of people can just come and take it from you.

I bring this up because in any survival scenario you need to the pros and cons.

Should a mob come after what you have, how will you defend your food and your lives?

If you can bug out, how will you get there?  Will you have water, food, and shelter?

Hope this helps.

Dry Fire: The little known secret of top shooters

Most of shooting is about learning to "be still".  Breath control and trigger control.

One of the best ways therefore to learn how to shoot better is to get an inexpensive red dot sight (any cheap one will do) and put it on a rilfe that has been "3 point checked" that it isn't loaded.

Put up a target at the end of the hallway, and aim at it.  Watch how the red dot moves around, focus on keeping it still.  (I'm not going to cover shooting mechanics in this post)

Now, squeeze the trigger slowly and watch how the dot moves.  Cock and do it again, focus on zero movement all the way through the squeeze.

Do this laying down with the barrel supported, laying down with you holding it, sitting down, standing up, do it using a wall for cover.

Now do it while walking (crouched, step heel to toe).  Focus on being able to hold your rifle with nearly zero movement in the dot of the scope still all the way until you hear the click of the firing pin ... no movement.

This is "target" practice that you can do at home without needing to spend a single cent on rounds.

Now, your rifle, unloaded will of course be a little lighter than it is with rounds in it.  However, what you're after with this exercise is to give you the muscle memory to be able to fire with extreme accuracy without hardly thinking about it.

If you want to take this to another level, there are "lasers" that you can set into your barrel.  These things put a laser dot on the wall and can make a neurosurgeon look like an epileptic.  It's a way of learning to shoot with near zero movement to a whole new level.

If you want to learn to be a great shot, this is one way of getting that done because now you can practice much more often from the comfort of your home.  You can improve your skill without really going anyway.

Hope this helps.

P.S. I know it's been quite a while since I last posted, but things got a little hectic.  My apologies.