These days, it has become all too common for people to reach for a pill bottle or call the doctor anytime something goes wrong, or even for the smallest scrape. The simple, wacky home remedies of our grandparents, those weird concoctions formed from everyday household goods, are often mocked by today’s medical establishment. But surprisingly, the truth is that our grandparents actually knew a lot more about the world than we give them credit for, and many of these old-fashioned folk remedies actually work. Not just that, but many of them work better than the synthetic pharmaceuticals that so many people stuff their bodies with today.

Preparedness Hacks: Once a nuke is heading your way, you might think that there isn’t much left to do, but you would be wrong!

Because we will show you America’s natural nuclear bunkers that are also EMP proof. When the sirens start wailing, all you need to do is pick the closest one to your home, where you can take cover before it hits.

Here are 40 weird, wacky, but shockingly effective home remedies that still work today, and would make grandma proud.

1. Use Garlic and Olive Oil for Athlete’s Foot

Everyone knows about the many health benefits of garlic, but did you know that it can fix your athlete’s foot problem in a jiffy? Just mince some garlic cloves, mix them with natural olive oil, and then use bit of cotton to rub this mixture onto the affected area between the toes.

2. Potato Slices for Headaches

Headaches and/or migraines can ruin even the best day, but there is a weird natural solution that works: potato slices. Just cut a few slices from a raw potato, soak them in a very thin cloth, and apply them to your forehead or directly to the temples.

3. Ease Cuticle Infections with Vinegar

Done too much manicuring? Cuticles all torn up and infected? Make a glass of vinegar and warm water, then put your fingers in it for about 15 minutes. Repeat this procedure once a day or so until the infection fades away.

4. Use Vinegar to Cure Swimmer’s Ear

There’s nothing that ruins a good day at the beach like coming home with swimmer’s ear. But when your grandparents told you to drop some vinegar in your ears, they weren’t kidding. The acidic properties of vinegar can kill off that awful swimmer’s ear bacteria, leaving you feeling like yourself again. Just take out some white vinegar, dilute it with distilled water, and put three drops into the problematic ear, three times a day, until the problem fades.

5. Olive Oil for Eczema

Feeling itchy already? Eczema can make anyone grow crazy. But olive oil, which is full of antioxidants and often used as an ingredient in professional skin creams, isn’t just good for athlete’s foot: it can ease the symptoms of eczema as well. Simply rub some olive oil onto the eczema-affected areas of your skin, and it should help quite a bit. Here are 23 survival uses for honey that you didn’t knowabout.

6. Fix Hiccups with a Spoonful of Sugar

Yes, seriously. The legends are true. Don’t get too overzealous with it, because diabetes isn’t something to mess around with, but this old-fashioned trick will halt the hiccups in their tracks. The reason why is because the behavior we call “hiccups” are actually just spasms of your diaphragm, so having a spoon of dry sugar will throw off the nerve muscles and cure their agitation.

7. Get rid of warts with duct tape

It sounds crazy, but it works. Instead of going to all the work to get your warts frozen off, just covered them with duct tape. After cleaning a wart off, just apply a strip of the tape to the affected area, and then keep it there for three days. After that, remove, rub the wart area with a pumice stone, and then apply new tape.  Continue this process every three days until the wart goes the way of the dinosaurs.

8. Treat Acne with Coconut Oil

Coconut oil might seem like the cool new kid on the block, but it’s actually an old-timer that’s been around since the 1800s. In addition to many other uses, coconut oil is an effective treatment for acne, since its antibiotic properties prevent further breakouts. Just apply coconut oil to the skin, maybe mixing it with a little raw honey.

9. Have a Little Yogurt for That Bad Breath

Bad breath, officially known as halitosis, is a terrible thing to live with. But the cure for it is right there in your fridge: yogurt. At least two servings a day of this probiotic wonder, ideally a plain brand with no sugar, changes the landscape of your tongue so that it won’t breed any more the bad bacteria that produces that distinctive stink.

New Survival Energy Product Makes Every Window A Powerful Solar Charger

10. Deal with bug bites by using toothpaste

Well, not technically the toothpaste itself, but rather, the peppermint oil inside the toothpaste: if you have the pure peppermint oil itself, that’s even more effective. Either way, applying peppermint oil to a bug bite—even if it’s just through dabbing on a little toothpaste – will immediately reduce the raw itchiness we all know too well.

11. Use Licorice to Eliminate Corns

Yes, licorice, everyone’s least favorite candy. But the one thing worse than licorice is having a corn on your toe. If you soak some licorice with oil, apply it all to the affected area, then wrap it tight under plastic wrap (and maybe a sock) for 6-8 hours—for instance, overnight—this will cause the licorice to soften the corn.

12. Ease Your Hangover with Apple Cider Vinegar

Drinking might be fun, but hangovers aren’t fun for anyone. But when you used to see grandpa downing a shot of apple cider vinegar after a night with his buddies, he knew what he was doing. Apple cider vinegar balances the pH levels in your stomach after a little too much alcohol throws it off. Just gulp down a teaspoon of this vinegar, or a small shot-glass. If you can’t take it straight, dilute it with some water. 

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

13. Constipation with beets

The human body needs to eliminate waste, and when it gets all bunched up, major discomfort ensues. One home solution you may have heard from your grandparents was to eat some fresh-steamed beets, then drink the water they were steamed in. This should clear out your colon like magic. Just be warned that when you do go, your stools or urine may be bright red: nothing to worry about, just the natural dye of the beets.

14. Vodka for stinky feet

Having trouble with foot odor? Get some vodka. No, we’re not suggesting that you get drunk and avoid the problem. The key is that alcoholic is an antiseptic, which means it eliminates the fungus that causes foot odor, and dries your feet out. Just soak a thin cloth in some vodka, swipe your foot down, and feel the smell go away.

15. Mix Cumin, Honey, Cinnamon and Ginger for Diarrhea

A bad case of the runs can keep you up all night. Instead of taking drugs that will simply constipate you, thereby causing more stomach pains, a better natural remedy is to combine a teaspoon of cumin, and the same portion of honey, cinnamon, and ginger into a paste that you can drink.

16. Lemons for an Earache

Pain in the ears can be soothed by the application of freshly-squeezed lemons. Just squeeze a lemon onto a Q-tip, and delicately rub this just inside the ear to restore pH balance.

17. Stinging Nettle for Hair Loss

You can’t force hair to regrow once it’s already gone, but you can slow down the rate of hair loss through the use of stinging nettle, an herb often used for tea. Drinking stinging nettle tea a few times a day should help, and you can also massage stinging nettle itself in your scalp.

18. Cure Nausea with Olives

Whether it’s from motion sickness or an unpleasant sight, the familiar (but unpleasant) side effects associated with nausea can be cured by eating olives, due to the tannin inside them.

19. Potatoes for Spider Bites

If a spider managed to sink its teeth into you, ease the itching and swelling by shredding a potato, wrapping the pieces in cloth, and applying to the bite area. Note, this is a treatment for symptoms of a regular, non-deadly bite: if the bite comes from a more deadly spider, such as a black widow, seek immediate medical attention.

20. Raw Honey for Chapped Lips

Don’t ever waste your money on Chapstick again. Much has been said about the healing properties of raw, organic honey, but if your lips are chapped, you can simply apply honey to the affected area—rub it on, just as you would Chapstick—and it will do the job nicely, and taste better to boot. Just make sure the honey is both raw and organic.

21. Garlic for Allergies

For a more natural antihistamine when your nasal allergies act up, eat lots of garlic, whether it’s straight bulbs or slices on crackers. Garlic contains a lot of the antioxidant quercetin, which eases allergy symptoms. If there’s no garlic in the pantry, onions work as well.

22. Buttermilk and Ginger for Diarrhea

If you don’t have cumin on hand, another weird-but-effective home remedy for diarrhea is to mix half of a teaspoon of dry ginger into a cup of buttermilk, and drink it.

23. Treat Styes with Potatoes

If you haven’t noticed, potatoes are a lot more powerful than people realize. If you get a stye on your eye, just grate a potato, wrap the gratings in a cloth, and press to the affected area to ease inflammation.

24. Avoid Mosquitoes with Garlic

If you don’t want to get eaten alive with mosquitoes, enjoy a garlic-rich diet, because mosquitoes are totally repelled by garlic. For further protection, rub garlic oil on your skin.

25. Yams for Menopause

To up your dosage of vitamin A, lower your cholesterol, and add more antioxidants to your diet, start incorporating yams—real yams, not sweet potatoes—into your regular daily diet.

26. Apples Help the Bowels

Apples are high in pectin, a naturally occurring fiber that both bulks up and softens stools. This means that apples are an effective treatment for both diarrhea andconstipation. Just make sure to eat the skin too, which contains valuable ursolic acid.

27. Banana Peel for Poison Ivy

While bananas won’t prevent you from getting the allergic rash that 85% of the population contracts from touching poison ivy, they can help. Rub the inside of a banana peel against poison ivy rash for relief from the pain and itchiness.

28. Honey for Acid Reflux

As soon as the symptoms of acid reflux begin affecting you, swallow three spoons of honey, and it should help you achieve better digestion.

29. Blackstrap molasses for Constipation

If you suffer from frequent constipation, try injecting a little blackstrap molasses into your diet, whether as a coffee additive or an extra ingredient in cookies. This molasses should ease constipation, but be careful not to over-indulge, because too much molasses will increase constipation.

30. Pine Syrup for Sore Throats

You know what helps a sore throat? Pine needles. Yes, really. To make pine syrup, collect a cup of freshly-washed pine needles, and thoroughly blend them. Meanwhile, boil water, corn syrup, and a bit of salt, mix this with the needles, then steep for a few hours. Keep this syrup in the refrigerator for at least a month, then keep it on hand forever to treat sore throats.

31. DIY Cough Syrup

If you want to make a good cough syrup from the ingredients of your pantry, mix together ¼ teaspoon ground ginger, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 tablespoon of honey, and a few spoons of water. Mix it all together, and have 1-3 teaspoons to ease coughing symptoms.

32. Garlic for toothache

Nothing will keep you up at night like a bad cavity or an exposed nerve. While garlic won’t cure the underlying issue, chewing on garlic at night, particularly chewing whole cloves in the affected area, will ease pain tremendously.

33. Put on Wet Socks to Treat a Cold

Hear us out for a minute. To treat the symptoms of a common cold, begin by soaking your feet in hot water for at least three minutes – or just taking a bath. Meanwhile, soak a pair of your socks in ice water. Put the socks on your feet, cover them up with a pair of wool socks, and then go to bed. As you sleep with these horribly cold feet, the blood vessels will constrict, pushing nutrients up into your body to push out the infection.

34. Fix Dry Skin

To soften dry skin, break down two bananas and mix them with a bit of honey. Apply this paste to the skin, let it sit for about 20 minutes, and then wash it off, and your skin should feel softer.

35. Teabags for Burns

Get a cool-temperature, wet teabag, of any tea, and place it directly on the burned area. This won’t fix the burn, but it will relieve the pain almost immediately.

36. Oil Pulling

This might have become a trend recently, but it’s actually an old practice that our grandparents learned from their grandparents. Basically, enhance your dental routine by taking a spoonful of coconut oil – though other oils work as well – and swishing it in your mouth for five minutes a day, specifically pulling it through the teeth, and then spit it out into the toilet. The oil will “pull” all of the toxins out of the mouth, allowing you to spit them out in one go. When used in addition to standard brushing and flossing, oil pulling will help digestion, reduce gingivitis, prevent receding gums, get rid of bad breath, strengthen teeth, and much, much more.

37. Help Eczema with an Oatmeal Bath

If the horrendous itchiness of eczema still has you down, you can hugely reduce the itchiness by following your grandmother’s old advice taking a bath of oatmeal. There’s a reason that so many lotions and pharmaceutical eczema treatments contain oatmeal as an ingredient: it really works! For a home solution, just make a bath for yourself, fill it with colloidal oatmeal, and then soak for a while.

38. Stop Your Snoring

Is your snoring annoying your wife or husband? Try drinking a glass of warm milk with a teaspoon of turmeric powder added to it before bed, and hear your partner’s relief.

39. Basil Leaves and Ginger for Fever

Fevers are the body’s way of pushing out an infection, but when it’s time to cut back on the heat, here’s a home solution. Crush some ginger and basil leaves together into  paste, then add a teaspoon of honey. Squeeze out the liquid, and then take a drink ever four hours or so.

40. Soak Golden Raisins in Gin for Arthritis

If there’s one thing that afflicted so many of our grandparents, it was the terrible swelling pains of arthritis. But they had a home remedy that still works today. Get some golden raisins, soak them in gin, and let it sit overnight until all of the gin has been soaked up. After this is done, eat about ten raisins a day. While this won’t fix the underlying problems of arthritis, it will greatly ease the symptoms.

Many people are convinced that civilization as we know it will collapse or, at best, experience a prolonged interruption. Very few of those people are actually planning for it and even less are preparing for it in advance. For those of us actually preparing we have forums, books, videos, and meetings to help us get ready for SHTF.

A few are even likely hoping for it for various reasons. What if this collapse occurs in a matter of minutes as well it might in various SHTF scenarios; nuclear war, terrorism, EMP, pandemic, conventional war, civil unrest becoming civil war? I am sure you can add a few to this list. Using the Golden Hour concept from trauma medicine I am proposing a few unusual ways of handling the first hour of SHTF.

In this Golden Hour things you do and do not do will have a profound effect on your chances of a decent survival outcome. The Golden Hour is getting a major trauma victim to a trauma center within an hour. Survival rates plummet by minute 61. What will you do in the first 60 minutes of a sudden SHTF? I expect disagreement and hope the comments will give me some good ideas.

SHTF Happens and you are at Home

Reacting rather than data gathering is the key to all of these situations. As humans used to experiencing normal conditions the sudden ending of the normal is a shock and many react to it by standing still and trying to find out what is going on. The lights go out, you check your phone, you look out the window, and you try to find your battery radio and the flashlights. You are in bed and the loud bang shakes the house violently and the power goes out. You use your phone, you turn on the TV, and you go outside to find out what is going on. You might even go through these actions several times!

I am not saying these responses are always wrong. Geography, etc. has an input into your plan which is a pre-written plan. If you are hundreds of miles from cities then your response might be different especially if you have large volumes of water stored. What I am saying is get moving early and start using the Water Bob, the clean rain barrels from storage within minutes of any alert that normal no longer might exist. Finding out what has happened is a secondary concern to preparing to survive. Who cares if Russia has attacked the USA or if it was a terrorist bomb? Listen to your gut not to CNN.

Even worse is leaving the home to collect wife (or husband) and kids. During the opening hour you have to prepare the home for a possible prolonged end of normal life. The wife (or husband) and kids have a plan and they will use it. It might be to hunker down and wait for you knowing it might be a day or two or come home immediately but they know it and you know it. Fight the very human desire to gather the loved ones immediately at the time of crisis unless is your plan and they know it. If you (or they) are at home then the preparing of the home is the best thing you can do for them in the opening hour. You have no idea how long the water or electricity will last.

Obviously if your children are young you need a plan to collect them but do you need to go immediately? If yes, then go. But the decision is a logical one not an emotional one. Emotional reactions to sudden shocks often lead to faulty decision-making. It might be best to protect your food and water supplies while the electricity and water remain on before heading out to collect your child from school. An hour or two’s delay in setting out means they get to eat and drink for sure.

If it is a temporary thing you have at worst wasted the water bob and will have to buy a new one (people say you can reuse it but I am not sure water safety is worth the risk). Other things you may consider doing during the first hour is nailing tarps over your raised garden beds and moving supplies into the house or bug out vehicle. What you do not want to be doing is chatting to neighbors or wasting time trying to get information. Something bad seems to have happened so deal with it. How much you know about it is a human desire but preparing is the essential thing in the first hour.

SHTF Happens and you are on the Road

This is the hardest of all situations to experience sudden SHTF yet it is the most common one in society. Motor Vehicle Collisions (they are not ‘accidents’) kill and maim many people each and every day.

However in a sudden SHTF of major local, national, or international scope what is your plan if you are in the vehicle? If the vehicle works get fuel as soon as possible and buy food and water in the first gas station you see using cash but only if it is safe and uncrowded. Then get home or to the preplanned bug out location using the vehicle. Do not delay at all. In sudden SHTF people literally drive miles in one direction, usually to collect family, and then end up being directed the opposite way by Police. When they finally get home it is burned down or looted. As ever everyone in your family know to stay in place or come home in an SHTF and when to do so. You are not their savior. Your role is to trust them and the written and discussed plan. 

Some SHTF scenarios will see the vehicle fail or be blocked in its progress. Abandon the vehicle immediately gathering all useful supplies and get moving away from people and towards home or the bug out location. Drive alternative routes if possible but a vehicle is not going to last long in a major SHTF so try not to be attached to it! Again chatting to people, trying their phones, and wondering what is going on is pointless. It is bad and that is all you need to know. Use the sides of highways to move away from the groups of scared, annoyed, and confused people on the road. No need to walk up the exit ramps as you have the physical ability to use less usual routes. You always have a paper map however basic and a get home bag in the car.

Transit by boat, plane, or train in a sudden SHTF is problematic. In your Golden Hour gather supplies, learn exits, and start thinking how best to get out and home. Water in train, boat, and plane washrooms is not drinkable but empty a recycling bin and fill up those bottles with it. You should have a few water purification tablets on you at all times. Do not bother washing out those bottles. People are not really that infectious (this advice is NOT to be followed in a pandemic) and you can easily get 10 liters or more of okay water stored up in the first few minutes of the SHTF while everyone else is shouting into dead phones. By Day Two you will be very happy you did this in those first few minutes.

As a rule I never travel by boat other than short ferry rides and I cannot see a good outcome in SHTF on a cruise ship but if you cruise at least carry your own flotation vests and survival kit.

Experiencing a sudden and dreadful SHTF on a plane might be interesting. If it falls out of the sky then all the prepping you have done will hopefully be used by your loved ones. However diversion and being kept in an airport is more likely in a sudden SHTF. Carry cash in large amounts and try to carry some cash that can be used in the countries you are flying over or near. If the power is on and you can use credit cards to immediately start an alternative route home. In 9-11 people were stuck in Canada for up to four days when they could have got home via train and bus if they had started immediately. A few hours later and there were no seats available! If a small nuclear war is the cause of air travel suspension imagine how long you might be stuck somewhere and how likely is it you will be well treated?

If a SHTF is likely I’d advise you to call sick and stay at home even if you have a cruise booked but SHTF can happen with almost no warning and what you do immediately can make or break your survival chances.

SHTF Happens and you are at Work, School, or the Mall

Ideally using your preplanned route(s) and get home bag you will immediately start home. If the car park is a mess or the car will not work immediately abandon it after getting the supplies. In a sudden and serious SHTF roads and car parks likely will be both slower than walking and less safe.

If it is a chemical or nuclear SHTF you might need to shelter in place. Know where the washrooms are especially those deep in the building and infrequently used. If mushroom clouds bloom on the horizon people will mainly rush to their cars and attempt to flee home not that home is a magically safe place. Go to the nearest couple of recycling bins, open them, and carry the trash bags loaded with cans and bottles to the washroom (preferably one on a lower level). Dump them out and start filling them with tap water. Don’t bother cleaning them out. Try to get 50 litres or more. Do this immediately and you can store up 4 weeks’ worth in minutes. Store it in a cubical, lock it, and climb out. At this point try to buy food as you head for the car but do not if it will take time. At the car grab everything useful and back to the washroom. Bunker in and trust your loved ones are similarly safe.

It is unlikely people will use the washrooms in Malls and schools in these scenarios especially those out-of-the-way ones. If they do all your stuff is in a locked cubical. Food and warmth are not the priority in the Golden Hour but water and security are. Consider breaking all the lights in your washroom after securing the water and jamming the door. Consider breaking all the lights in the corridor outside and pulling stuff into it. Initially people will not take hard routes.

Looting supplies is reasonable once people have gone and Security has left. Before then the chances of getting into trouble makes it not worth the risk. Most fast food places have the food (such as it is) in the back. Mall, workplace, and School offices have lockers and many will have something to eat inside if you take your time looking through them. At work know who keeps food at their desks (you do I hope!). Most people will grab their keys and bags and flee towards home leaving behind a lot of food and useful items.

Many people think about using coins to raid vending machines. Maybe this is a good idea but water is from the washroom taps and the recycling bins and lining up slowly buying chocolate bars might make you a target. In a sudden SHTF it is more than likely you can use your small crow bar from your get home bag to access the vending machines the next day. You are going to be sitting in dark for at least a week but I’d try to do this for four weeks. Then you go home. Radiation will hopefully not kill you in four weeks but likely will the first day.

Many places have drapes and carpets that you can cut up to make sleeping ‘bags’ and this is the sort of re-purposing you need to do in SHTF. Keep active and do whatever you need to do to optimize your survival chances.

The hardest part is not fleeing but thinking, planning, and acting. Prepping is a state of mind as much as anything and I hope this article gets you thinking a bit. Much of it is arguable so please argue!

A second catastrophe promises to follow in the foot steps of a first — it’s a catastrophic food shortage. The time to prepare for that is now.Lessons passed down by expert preppers on storing up emergency food on a budget…

Emergency foods are something that families, church and relief organizations, schools, institutions, and food banks should be stocking up on nowadays, while it’s still possible, while there’s still food to be had.

Our nation is sitting on a ticking time bomb and we unfortunately cannot tell exactly when this bomb is going to finally detonate. But we can hear it ticking. Louder with every passing year. Yet, no matter how frantically government and the military work to defuse the bomb, defusing this bomb continues to elude them. Of course I’m using an analogy to describe some serious crap hitting the fan.

When it does, we are looking at a famine on a level that this world has never seen before.

Nationwide Food Shortage And Then —

Famine. No more food coming in from anywhere.

What if the day comes where stores never re-open? At the point where your survival food stores become exhausted after several weeks following a collapse, you’re either going to have to turn to begging for food, or a very difficult and frustrating life trying to hunt, fish, trap or forage in the adjacent forests — called living off the land — but truly, only the adept, the knowledgeable, and the experienced are going to be able to “live off the land” and the ones who do won’t be found in any nearby woods or hills.

Because there won’t be anything to hunt or forage for in the nearby woods or hills following a major disaster.

Wildlife is very sensitive to the presence of people.

So a large number of people fleeing into wilderness regions is going to send much of the wildlife fleeing for remote regions. It’s these remote regions that the hunting can be good; but only the most adept are likely to make it that far where there are no roads, where there may be rugged mountains and canyons and rivers to cross; there may be dangerous weather conditions to deal with depending on the season. If you can make it to a remote region, I’m talking really remote, it will be possible to live off the land, but it won’t be easy.

Are You Just Fine Right Where You’re At?

In a worst case scenario, we may see martial law, a government collapse, a civil war of sorts. Our nation weakened, it’s defenses obsolete, it’s critical infrastructure all but destroyed, a scene from Red Dawn (I’ve referred to this movie in another article) may play out in a number of communities. Are those Russian jets in the skies? Are those parachuters dropping down onto main street, Chinese or North Korean? The sky is full of them. The clouds were a perfect cover when radar defenses on the ground were no longer working, having been fried by the EMP that had first wrecked America’s power grid six months back.

Parachuters are landing in residential neighborhoods. Quickly gathering up parachutes. Quickly checking weapons and gear. Firing at people who had been watching it all unfold from front yards and porches.

Who’s cargo planes are landing at the local municipal airport with tanks and military vehicles streaming out? Chinese symbols. Russian symbols. What the hell is going on?

Hopefully That’s Not Your Community

But it may be more than one community at some point. It’s very possible that your community will make it through the weeks and months following a collapse that we can feel in our blood and in our bones is heading America’s way some point soon. We can see the signs in the heavens and the earth, I believe, that Jesus warned about when he was here and told us to be on the watch for. Impending judgment. We were told, and cautioned as Christians, to watch for it. When we see it, we will know. It’s almost like Yoda talking to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, telling Luke he will know the time when the time is the right time. What Yoda? That makes no sense. On reflection though, Luke finally one day figures out what Yoda was telling him. What is the Lord telling us right now through the Spirit? For the unbelievers out there, who don’t yet know God, for a Christian this essentially means what is God leading us to do or prepare for without using words to tell us?

Some Of Us Should Be Stockpiling Food

Some communities, some neighborhoods, some small towns and cities will likely make it through the first few months following a collapse relatively fine, all things considered. Other’s won’t do so well and will be very dangerous places to live.

You’ll need some friends, you’ll need some fire power, hopefully God is on your side with all that fire power and he’s going to use you in some way to make a difference, for good. The violent hand of God is something we see repeated in Old Testament chapters of the Bible. I expect it’s something we’re likely to see again some day. There’s just too many examples of God going to war through his people, though not all of them of course, just a few at a time. Because if God used too many people, to give the enemies of Christ a beating, they might make the mistake of thinking that they did this by their own power. That’s not God’s style in the Bible though. That’s not the pattern we see in scripture.

Who remembers this phrase? “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”

When God favored the Israelites, the Israelites were successful at wiping out enemy nations, success after success after success.

But when God was angry with the Israelites, over rebellion, over disobedience, over wicked acts and atrocities, just the opposite happened. The Israelites were overrun, beaten down, many killed, many more ended up enslaved to other nations.

That first part sounds a lot like America. At one time we were a nation under God. Success after success. Innovation after innovation. Dreams and bigger dreams. America had God’s favor and was the gem of the world. People from around the world dreamed of moving here and many did. But today America no longer has God’s favor. We have become God’s enemy. Not all of us. But a lot of us.

Jesus warned the wheat would be separated from the chaff. If you don’t know what he meant by this, you better figure that one out fast. If should be the first thing you do before you do anything else in life.

What the hell did Jesus mean when he said he would seperate the wheat from the chaff? There’s nothing difficult with that statement. So why do so many people have a hard time grasping those words?

They just don’t care.

Tick.

Tock.

Time’s up.

How Long Will Your Emergency Food Last?

If disaster struck today, how long would your stockpile last? Careful, it’s a trick question. I’m not asking how long you would be able to live off your stockpile — I’m asking about the actual shelf life of the foods in your basement or pantry.

Though you may have beans and cereal that, in theory, can last 10 years or more, the way you store them can substantially decrease or increase that amount. In other words, you may have quite a bit of food in your pantry right now that has less than a year until it expires… and that’s a tough position to be in if a serious, earth shaking disaster struck today.

The Scoop On Emergency Food Storage

Extending The Shelf Life Of Several Foods

Food storage done right, so you can double, triple or even quadruple the shelf life of your foods. Let’s talk about that for a moment. It all starts with the 5 food storage enemies: Oxygen, moisture, temperature, light and pests. The 6th one is time but there’s nothing we can do about that except rotating our stash. Now, if you’re looking to get 10, 20 or even 30 years of shelf life off your foods, you need to tackle all of these enemies. No exception.

Extending The Shelf Life Of Grains, Beans And Rice

Grains, beans, white rice… These are some of the foods with a long shelf life preppers like to stockpile that are also cheap. However, not all varieties are worthy to be in your stockpile.

For example, Cheerios and other breakfast cereals you typically buy at the supermarket have a shelf life of 6 to 8 months. Processed cereals have many refined and hydrogenated oils in them, oil goes rancid so, even if you were to use the preservation techniques we’re going to talk about in a minute, it still wouldn’t be worth it. Thus, step one in storing your food for a really long time is to pick the right food. When we’re talking about real long term emergency food storage, opt for storing white rice (not brown), dried beans and whole wheat berries (not breakfast cereals); rice, beans and wheat berries should be the staples of your survival stockpile.

Mylar Bags With Oxygen Absorbers For Storing Emergency Food

The best way to store your emergency food is in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. This is a no-fail combination used by most preppers, provided your food is dry before you store it. Otherwise, you can wake up with condensation after you seal the package — not a good thing.

The process is simple. You fill the bag nearly all the way to the top, seal it using an iron or a hair straightener (but not before you add a pack of the oxygen absorber), depending on the size of the bag. Oxygen absorbers are small packs of iron powder and create a nitrogen environment by removing any oxygen present through chemical reactions.

So, even if the bag will look like it’s got air inside, you don’t need to panic because that’s just nitrogen.

It’s worth mentioning that neither the nitrogen nor the iron powder can affect your food (provided you keep the O2 absorbers inside the original packaging).

As you can see, you don’t need to vacuum-seal the bags; the absorbers will do the trick to prevent growth of aerobic pathogens (such as mold) as well as preventing oxidation. These are the two ways oxygen can spoil your food. Besides, your cereals will crumble under the pressure of the bag.

Put Mylar Bags Inside Airtight BPA-Free 5 Gallon Buckets

Next, you should put the Mylar bags inside airtight BPA-free 5-gallon buckets. This may seem unnecessary but it’s actually a good idea. First off, the bucket will shield the bags from light (another declared food storage enemy), thus improving shelf life. Second, it protects the bag from accidental puncturing (Mylars aren’t that strong, by the way).

We talked about aerobic bacteria but anaerobes need very little or no oxygen to develop. The most important one is called Clostridium botulinum and is responsible for a disease called botulism (not something you want to suffer from post-collapse). Fortunately, this doesn’t really occur when storing grains, beans and rice as long as they’re not moist. It’s something that mostly shows up in canned food, which we’ll tackle in a moment.

The last thing you need to do after you’ve taken care of oxygen, light and humidity is ensure the proper temperature. Anywhere between 50F and 70F will work, preferably closer to 50.

If You Do Everything Right, How Long Can Food Last In Storage?

What shelf life can you expect if you do everything right? This is pretty amazing:

– White rice can last at least 7-8 years with some sources going as high as 25.

– Hard grains such as wheat and corn can store for at least 10 years.

– Soft grains can last about 8 years (because the outer shell is not as strong as that of hard grains)

Emergency Food Storage For Pasta

Storing pasta for the long term is just as easy as storing beans or grain. If you read the label, they tell you it lasts for 1-2 years but if you store it in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, that shelf life can increase up to ten times… that’s 20+ years in shelf life!

Place it in plastic buckets to protect it from light, from crumbling inside and from accidental puncturing of the bag. Speaking of punctures, you may want to consider storing things like spaghetti in 5-mil bags instead of the more common 3.5 mil to avoid any sharp noodles accidentally poking holes in the mylar.

Some people like to freeze pasta before storage to prevent larva eggs from hatching. So, to kill these eggs, noodles should stay frozen for approximately 5 days but this method is not needed as long as you use oxygen absorbers. Ultimately freezing the noodles won’t hurt them but it won’t really help either. If you do decide to do it, you need to allow the frozen noodles to reach room temperature before you seal these noodles in Mylars. Otherwise condensation will form and allow the growth of mold.

Canned Food Can Last Several Years Past Expiration Date

There are a lot of myths about canned foods and I want to bust the ones that have to do with shelf life, the one related to the expiration date. Food experts on shelf life have looked closely at unopened cans of food from several decades back, sometimes recovered from shipwrecks, and the data they found was a real eye opener: Canned food can last several years past it’s expiration date.

As long as the can has been properly stored and it looks good on the outside (it’s not leaking and the lid is not swollen or punctured), it’s probably safe to eat. You still have to check for suspicious smells but there have been reports of cans of food that were safe to eat even after 30 or 40 years.

Nevertheless, plenty of people have reported being absolutely fine after eating canned food past the expiration date. Of course, you need to give your cans the same conditions you do to your beans and rice: Keep them in a cool, dry, dark place away from moisture.

Now, there are two types of canned food when it comes to how long they can last: High-acidic and low-acidic. The USDA guidelines tell us that high-acid food (canned fruit and pickles) can last up to 18 months while low acid food (canned meat, beans, corn, potatoes etc.) up to 5 years. The acid in these cans contributes to the deterioration of color, texture and nutrients (over time, of course).

As mentioned earlier, if the can looks, smells and tastes ok, you can ignore the expiration and the “best by” dates (in a post-collapse you might not have a choice anyway).

Extending The Shelf Life Of Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is jam-packed with calories and can last a long time if properly stored… but there’s a catch. It’s full of oils and, as previously said, oils go rancid over time. It depends which type of PB you’re storing, because natural peanut butter only last a few months while smooth and crunchy can last up to a year.

To improve its shelf life, you need to keep peanut butter tightly sealed and in a cool, dry, dark place. You should also store it in a glass rather than a plastic jar to increase longevity even more.

The alternative to PB is powdered peanut butter, which should store for at least 5 years, closer to 10 actually, and it’s good for another year after you open it. That’s considerably longer than traditional peanut butter.

Food Items With An Indefinite Shelf Life

You probably heard that honey has an indefinite shelf life. The only thing that can go “wrong” with it is crystallization, meaning the sugar molecules align themselves in a certain way. This is not a sign it went bad but still, there’s an easy fix: Place the open jar in a pot full of hot water and stir it until the crystals dissolve. In order to slow down the crystallization process, simply store the honey at room temperature. Since most of your foods need to be in cool places, you can keep honey in your kitchen or pantry where you probably have more space.

The other items with an indefinite shelf life are salt, sugar and molasses but the one thing you should do is keep them away from moisture. It’s common for basements to develop mold due to poor ventilation so the two options you have are to either install a fan (if your basement has windows), a dehumidifier (which, unfortunately, will incur electricity costs) or use some of the other recommended options depending on how bad things are.

No long-term survival plan is complete without the seeds that will allow you to start a garden once the dust settles after a collapse. In a worst case scenario, especially those who live in heavily populated areas, that may mean a long and difficult evacuation from a disaster struck region. The good news about seeds is that they don’t take up a lot of space and you can transport them with relative ease; when the time is right, plant that garden finally.

The most important thing to seed storage is to keep these seeds dry. Moisture is the biggest enemy but, fortunately, one you can easily defeat. Keeping your seeds in a cool, dry place should work and don’t forget to add desiccants to the container and seal them afterwards. Another thing you need to do is dry them before storage.

If you don’t want to use desiccants you have other options, such as putting them in paper envelopes. Other options include storing them inside the fridge or the freezer but if you’re left without power in the next disaster, you’re still going to use one of the aforementioned solutions.

The shelf life of various seeds varies.

Some people say they can last up to a hundred years. They actually found seeds inside the belly of a frozen mammoth, meaning they lasted thousands of years! It’s hard to say but if you do it right, you can expect to get at least 5 years of storage life and a 70% germination rate. The ones that have the longest shelf life are:

Bean (2-3 years)

Radish, muskmelon, cress, collards and cucumber (5 years)

Tomato, squash, turnips, eggplant, sorrel, cauliflower Brussel sprouts and watermelon (4 years each)

…but, again, the life of a seed can increase if you do a good job storing them.

Emergency Food Storage For Your Pet

How To Store Dry And Canned Pet Food

There are essentially two types of pet food you can stockpile and they’re the same ones you feed your pets every day: Dry and canned. Surprisingly, canned food lasts a lot longer than dry because dry food has a lot of fat in it, which causes it to go rancid quickly. Dry food usually lasts a year while canned food for 2+ years.

If you’re thinking of using oxygen absorbers with dry pet food, it might not work. You might wake up with mold rings around the absorbers which will, in turn, spoil the entire bag as several preppers have cautioned.

The good news about storing pet food, though, is that there’s no difference between survival food and what they regularly eat for your pet. The other good news is that pets can eat “human survival food” (for lack of a better term). For example, dogs can eat white rice, which we already know can last a lot longer if properly stored (being one of the most popular survival foods).

As long as you store your pet food in a cool, dry dark place (such as a ventilated basement), you’ll surely get a lot more than the 1-2 years it’s stated to last.

How Temperature Fluctuations Affect Emergency Food

Before we wrap this up, I need to address an overlooked aspect: Fluctuations in temperature. We said earlier that some foods need to be stored at temperatures between 50F and 70F but that’s only half the story. The other half is that you need to keep temperature variations to a minimum because they too can (negatively) affect shelf life. Even if you keep it within the interval at all times, fluctuations between 50F and 70F should be avoided.

Why Store Up Emergency Food? So You Can Survive During A Famine!

In the modern age, with so many grocery stores and restaurants bustling with activity and low prices (sometimes high) on many common food items, it’s hard to imagine what life would be like if suddenly it all came to an end. Unfortunately, if someone were to pull the plug on interstate shipping and nationwide commercial food processing and commercial agriculture, literally overnight stores across several regions would slam shut their doors and before you knew it the greatest disaster in America’s history would unfold right before our eyes.

Famine. Food shortages. Long lines stretching possibly miles for a government handout (until the government closes it’s doors as well). Long lines seeking food at churches (that is until churches run out of food) and soup kitchens — soup kitchens once popular with the homeless but now attracting crowds of hungry and scared citizens and their families looking for food and also looking for a solution; but there won’t be one.

What about organizations like the Red Cross and Salvation Army? In some communities, in the first few hours and days, they may also be a source for food, but expect incredibly long lines. When or if food finally gets into your hands unfortunately it may not be something you really find that palatable.

Isn’t Storing Up Food At Odds With Living By Faith?

For those of us who live as Christians, it would seem that way. Living by faith means we know that the Lord will provide. It takes great faith not to store up so that we can see how the Lord will provide and many times he can astonish us. I think though that there’s another angle here to look at; it’s knowing that there are a lot of people who will be hungry during a massive food shortage and subsequent famine, who haven’t stored up food, and first and foremost that could end up being a neighbor or even family and friends who simply never believed that the Terrible Day of the Lord as warned in the Bible was one day headed our way.

A lot of people, and I’m sure a few readers here, may not believe today in these Biblical warnings I’ve shared at different times on the site. I’m going to predict though that a lot of you will start believing in the times ahead.

I get that assurance from the Bible — most people who end up believing in Jesus don’t believe until God is dropping the hammer. In other words: People are some hard eggs to crack!

Food Storage Happens Now — Not Later

It’s a sad, unfortunate fact. There will be a day where tens of millions of people realize that so many signs about a coming catastrophe were all around them, but they were just too glued to their daily routines and complacency and stubbornness about life to notice. They felt life should be lived whatever way they wanted, even though for many the way they live their lives is in direct disobedience to God.

I know it. I’ve been there. And it’s not just the banksters at the top of the food chain preying on the consumers or the super elites at the head of our corporations; no, it’s the rest of us also, the people that make up modern day nations caught up in what the Bible describes as carnal, worldly lives — with a complete disregard for God and his warnings about the coming wrath on the world to deal with it’s many evils and atrocities. Atrocities are committed somewhere on our planet on a daily basis.

God Sees All

The prophets, apostles, Jesus himself assured us that there is a terrible day coming for our planet.

If we don’t get our lives right with God, we are going to be caught up in the midst of it. It may start with a government collapse and famine and food shortages, but really that will only be the beginning. A serious storm is heading to our world and we see it’s waves starting to beat against our shores; consider ISIS (or another faction of Radical Islam) as one of those waves; if you look at the ocean during a storm you cannot count the number of waves that hit; but you can see how strong and violent the waves get as the storm approaches.

The Storm Is Approaching

Matthew 21:25-26 – 25 “And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world…”

Matthew 21:29-33 – And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

Matthew 21:34-36 -“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

In an EMP attack, or a major power grid failure, GPS systems would be out of service along with cell phones and other electronic communication systems.  So all you rely on today for getting from one place to another will be rendered useless and all you’ll have left is your knowledge and your skills.

That is if you have them, because not a lot of us have ever been put in a situation where they had to get from A to B using the underground sewage system. Or even a map or a road atlas.

That’s why it would be to your advantage to know how to navigate using these older, tried and true methods. It’s never to late to start learning and practicing your skills, so I won’t drag this on anymore and get to the point.

Using Maps to Find Your Way Above Ground

How to Use Folding Street Map

A folding street map is exactly what the name implies. It is a detailed map of streets in a specific area. To be compact the map is folded up to conserve space. These types of maps were originally designed to be kept in motor vehicle glove boxes or to be carried in back packs or brief cases by pedestrians.

{adinserter emp}A street map is a grid map. Map grids are formed by vertical and horizontal lines drawn on the map. Locations on a map are expressed as grid coordinates. Grid coordinates are designed to divide the earth’s surface equally and evenly on a flat surface.

Map coordinates are the numbers and letters used to pinpoint a location. The letters are on the top and bottom of the map and the numbers are on the left and right side of the map. To locate the street that you are looking for first check the street index for the coordinates.

To locate the street on a map, read right across the bottom of the map until you find a grid coordinate that corresponds to your east-west position. Then read up the left side of the map until you reach a coordinate that corresponds to the north-south position. Where these lines cross will be the location of the street that you are looking for.

Note: On proper street maps, North is always up.

The map legend is an index and a table of contents. It tells when the map was made, a list of street names in the street name index, and all other visual information that is necessary to read and understand the map symbols.

Practice regularly on how to travel across the city without the aid of a GPS system. Get used to using maps and written directions for travel. If you have a good memory, memorize emergency travel routes to your home or to another safe location.

How to Use Bus Route Maps, Trolley Car Route Maps, and Elevated Train Route Maps

In the cities that have public transportation there are usually bus, trolley car, or elevated train route maps at each of the larger stops mounted in a protected frame. These maps are grid maps and can be used to find locations the same way you use a standard city grid map.

There are usually free copies of the maps at these stations to help you find your way when not at the larger protected route maps. These maps may not have a lot of detail, but they will give you a general idea about which way to go.

How to Use the Rand McNally Road Atlas

The road atlas books are grid maps and are updated each year to ensure that the atlas is as accurate as possible. These books contain very detailed maps of all 50 states. These books are usually paperback and are either spiral-bound or staple-bound.

The atlas shows main roads, secondary roads, and major city and county roads. They keep track of all new construction and highways that are being taken out of service. If you have an older atlas, try comparing it to newer ones. Even if there are roads taken out of commission, you may still be able to travel along on foot as opposed to trying to navigate through more difficult places.

These abandoned roads may also be overlooked by anyone trying to stop you from leaving the city. If you aren’t certain about the status of an unmarked road, take some time to visit it when you will not be readily observed in the area. If you notice unusual activity, then it may not be a good idea to try that road during a crisis situation.

To use an atlas, turn to the state you are looking for. Then the specific location within that state in the road or location index. Finally use the map coordinates to locate the location or road you are looking for.

How to Travel Underground

In a time of crisis it may be to dangerous to travel on the city streets. Because of this you will have to find alternate safe ways to travel to get home or to leave the city. To prepare and to practice safe ways of travel will give you and your family the edge in a world gone mad.

How to Read Subway Maps

Subway maps are not grid maps, these maps are subway route maps. Like a grid map, those routes that go up and down travel north-south. The routes that go across the north-south routes are the east-west routes just like the streets above.

Most subway maps come in the following types.

• The whole subway system map which shows all routes of the system.
• Individual subway route maps that give better detail  of a subway route in a particular area.
• Neighborhood maps that show all subway routes going through a particular neighborhood in a city.

Since the subway was tunneled underground each route is color coded, lettered, or numbered and is given a route name.

• The colors, letters, and numbers define the transit routes.
• The maps will show you which routes go east-west or north-south.
• Each station is clearly marked on the map.
• Each station is clearly marked with the station name on the walls in big letters.

As you enter a subway station from the street there are information signs that tell you the station name or location and if it is open or not. These signs are usually located above the stairs as you enter the station level.

In every station there is an information board that has a large detailed whole subway route map and subway train time schedules. You can always get free subway maps and schedules in this area.

When using a subway map you need to know where you are at and where you wish to go. Say that you are at 5Th ave. and 59Th st. and you wish to go to Time Square and 42St. The subway routes that service 5 ^Th ave. and 59Th st. are  the N, Q, and the R. The subway routes that go to Times Square and 42St. are  1, 2, 3, 7, A, C, E, N, Q, R, and S. So the N, Q, and R trains will make the trip.

In a time of crisis subway construction maps, abandoned subway tunnel routes, and out of service station locations would be a helpful tool for getting around a major city without the general public knowing of these routes. These maps may be obtained from a construction company’s public relations office that is doing the new subway construction or the city public works department.

Know which Direction Tunnels Go in Your City

In large cities that have tunnels it is very important that you know which direction the tunnel is pointing when you enter it or exit it. Depending on the city location the tunnels may be north-south or east-west.

In the beginning of a crisis it may be safe to use a tunnel to get out of a city. As the crisis continues there will be uncontrollable traffic jams and grid lock that could make these tunnels unusable and dangerous to use or be in. Most modern tunnels have emergency closing doors that can seal off the tunnel in an emergency situation and possibly trap those individuals inside.

If the crisis was one of biological or nuclear in nature, all roads, bridges, and tunnels would be closed due to martial law in the city to control the population from spreading disease and contamination. With martial law comes the use of deadly force to further control the people and the crisis.

You can also use storm water sewer maps, sewer system maps, and underground utility tunnels and vault maps (natural gas, water, electrical, steam, or other utility services).  In the older larger cities there are miles upon miles of underground storm water sewers,  raw sewage sewers, and combined sewer systems. Each have their good points and each have their bad points as escape routes.

How to Use Raw Sewage Sewers

Raw sewage sewers just transport raw human sewage away from buildings and sends it to a sewage treatment plant. At the treatment  plant the sewage is decontaminated and released to the ocean, rivers, or streams. The nice thing about these sewers is that they run all over the city.  Unfortunately, if you use these sewers even with waders and other protective clothing, there is still a great chance of you getting contaminated and sick from being exposed to the raw sewage.

How to Use Storm Water Sewers  

Storm water sewers just carry rainwater run off. When it is not raining these sewers make a good underground pathway to all parts of the city. If you get caught in these sewers during or after rainstorms flash flooding could kill you by drowning. For safety sake, know what the weather is going to be before going underground and do not forget to wear your waders. Storm water is usually sent directly to lakes, rivers, streams, or to the ocean, so following them will take you out of the city and possibly quite far from it.

How to Use Combined Water Sewer Systems

Combined sewer systems are designed to carry raw sewage, industrial waste water, and rainwater runoff in the same pipes to waste water treatment plants. Not only does this treatment plant treat raw sewage, but it must remove all kinds of toxic waste compounds from the water as well. When industrial waste compounds are mixed up in the sewer system water, no one truly knows how dangerous and what kind of a health hazard exists.  Therefore, it is hard to say what will happen to your health  if you are traveling unprotected in these sewers.

Where to Get Your Maps From

For secrecy sake and if you have some knowledge of map making, it would be to your advantage to make your own maps for traveling around the city. If you are planning to use the storm water system only,  then you could walk the proposed rainwater routes on the surface then make your map. Test the routes to ensure that they will work out for you.

If you are not very good at making maps or the city is too large, then you will need to locate city maps that will be detailed enough for you to make multiple travel routes through different types of terrain. When you are traveling in a crisis situation to either your home or trying to leave the city, it would be to your advantage to use a route that has a very little chance of you being seen or followed.  With multiple route plans, if there is a problem on one route, all you have to do is to switch it to another route and continue on your way.

The following is a list of places where you might locate underground maps of your city:

• City public works office.
• The city planner’s office.
• The city building permit office.
• The city records office.
• If you can’t find maps in these places, the city clerk may be able to direct you to a viable source.
• If the city is very old and has a lot of classic architecture there is a good chance that some of the old underground utility tunnels may be intact, and old maps of the tunnels may be found at the city’s public library.
• In some of the older cities in this country like New York City, they also have a lot of natural caves in and around the city. With a little research it might be possible to locate old caving map books or old city maps in a library research section.  Even though these caves and tunnels may have been abandoned for decades, you may still be able to travel through them safely.

Now that you know the basics of underground traveling during disaster, all that’s left to do is practice. Try different routes in your area and see how you manage to get there without using any electric device. And by “routes” I don’t mean a trip to the corner store.

The Amish (about 300,000 of them) quietly live among us throughout the United States. They do not live on the grid, not in a conventional manner of speaking, at least.

American Amish communities function from a power grid far superior to our antiquated electrical system – “God’s Grid.” We preppers can learn a whole lot from the Amish and their off-grid way of life…and should before it’s too late.

Preparedness Hacks: Once a nuke is heading your way, you might think that there isn’t much left to do, but you would be wrong!

Because we will show you America’s natural nuclear bunkers that are also EMP proof. When the sirens start wailing, all you need to do is pick the closest one to your home, where you can take cover before it hits.

Amish Mindset

Before we delve into the individual survival secrets we can learn from the Amish, we need to discuss the foundation of their successful communities. If you merely enhance your skill set and mimic the Amish lifestyle during an SHTF disaster, you are doing both yourself and your loved ones a vast disservice – one that could lead to an epic failure.

The Amish live simply and in a manner that is wholly devoted to both their strict faith and to their families. Their deeply held beliefs guide their daily lives explicitly. The bond between family members is always present and absolute.

Prepping families who are still embroiled in a typically overly-scheduled life–both parents spending at least 40 hours a week outside of the home then rushing to meetings, ball practices, music lessons, etc. and rarely ever gathering around the table to share a meal–cannot realistically develop the deep bonds and total devotion to family necessary to survive a long-term disaster.

Amish children are not rapidly ushered out the door to go to a babysitter or government school. They spend their time helping on the homestead and are assigned farm and household chores from a very young age.

Toddlers toting and helping stack firewood is a common sight in the Amish community in my rural county. Amish children are educated at home or in a community school with a curriculum based on practical skills and faith.

Everyone has to learn their jobs and do their fair share of work to keep the Amish farm and/or business humming. Their very lives depend on each family member being able to complete tasks properly, in a timely manner, and unsupervised in order to put food on the table and run a business (usually a home-based one) so the family can earn the money they need to expand their operations.

The extended family often lives together on a single Amish farm or in separate homes on adjoining properties. The Amish have not likely heard the term “mutual assistance group” but they function in this manner constantly and not just during weekend training in preparation for a disaster.

About six years ago, a tri-state region encompassing where we live lost electricity during a powerful summer storm. We were also experiencing a heat wave–a 103°F in the shade kind of heat wave–at the time. Our Amish community members went on with life as normal completely undeterred by the outage.

After several days, word eventually spread into the Amish community about the power outage caused by the storm. They got into their buggies and drove their horses into the sole grocery store in the county to buy up all of the perishables which would soon go to waste when the store’s generators ran out of fuel. Their ice houses were stocked with bargain meat and other perishable food items for the rest of the year.

The storm did so much damage to the store’s electrical system that it reopened only briefly before shuttering its doors for good. We became a food desert for four years until a far smaller supermarket was finally built.

The Amish are a plain people, completely devoid of vanity and materialism. They are so very much like our ancestors who settled this great land. Their clothing is simple, functional, and durable. Their bodies are healthy and strong, and they are not afraid of hard work and find doing it quite fulfilling.Amish homes are uncluttered. Rarely will you find a closet inside an Amish home, as they do not believe in stockpiling excessive amounts of anything but food and tools. The children have homemade toys and books to read, but not excessive amounts of junk that rarely gets played with or is made of cheap foreign plastic that breaks quickly.

Going inside an Amish home generally has a calming effect. It is neat, it exudes warmth, and it smells delicious thanks to whatever homemade goodness is baking in the 1800s style oven. The family gathers together and actually talks without the distraction of tech gadgets and television.

They may be separated from the rest of society, but they are not isolated from one another. The Amish truly know one another and spend time together both in play and in work – not interacting via text messaging or Facebook.

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

Why Is Adopting An Amish Mindset So Important, From A Survival Perspective?

Imagine for just a moment that you have worked in an office sitting behind a desk punching away at a keyboard your entire adult life. At the end of the day, you get into a comfortable car, turn on the air conditioning, and listen to the radio so you don’t have to spend a single moment being bored.

A short time later, you arrive at your air-conditioned home, pull something to eat out of the refrigerator, pop it in the microwave, and sit down in an easy chair to watch television and play with your phone until bedtime.

Suddenly, the SHTF. The world that you and your family have always known disappears in an instant.

The lights go out. The air conditioning goes out. No more television or texting. Food begins to spoil in the refrigerator. There is no way to cook food indoors – keeping the smell of the tasty food from wafting to the noses of those who will soon be starving.

As preppers, you have equipped yourself with the skills, tools, and supplies to survive a sudden TEOTWAWKI event. But even though you have trained your body how to react, you may have neglected, partially or completely, the same intensive level of training for your mind.

Spending a weekend living off the grid and honing the survival skills of the entire family is one thing. But primitive living for 48 hours does not give you a good enough look at how your family will hold up both physically and mentally and remain focused for a long-term disaster.

A sort of culture shock will eventually occur, especially for the children and teenagers in the family. Adapting your lifestyle now by simplifying and decluttering it will help your family adjust to a less tech and scheduled oriented lifestyle.

How will your children react when their video games, televisions, and other electronic gadgets are gone for a long time, perhaps forever? Decrease the amount of withdrawal the family will feel by focusing on connecting with each other, your land, and finding joy in the simple things in life – the things that will always be important, where the light bulb shines when you flick a switch or not.

Top 10 Amish Survival Skills

1. Alternative Power – How much of the modern world an Amish community allows to infiltrate their homes and places of work varies by sect. No Amish home has electricity, yet they still have lights at night, a way to cook and refrigerate food, as well as warm water, in some cases. The use of gas generator power, wood burning stove and furnaces, and provides the energy necessary to create a fully functional manufacturing business.

Hydro-power is also used, depending on the home or business’s proximity to a running creek or river. Instead of merely stockpiling fuel for your generator or buying a solar generator, work towards taking your home entirely off-grid in steps and stages that fit your budget.

2. Fence Building and Mending – Strong fences will not only keep your valuable livestock safe and secure, they will help keep the marauding hordes out. I love tactical fencing, but we live in a rural area more than a half mile from a county road – so prying eyes are not an issue here. But you do not have to create a tactical looking fence around your home. In fact, doing so would attract a lot of unwanted attention.

The Amish build wood fences using simple tools and also string barbed wire, which is quite a chore in itself, to create pastures and to separate areas of their farms. Learn how to make and repair your fencing and keep the supplies on hand to make necessary repairs for the long term.

3. Livestock Illness – Learn how to not only detect but also treat livestock illnesses and injuries yourself. Growing your own apothecary to treat both animals and the family should be at the top of your survival priorities list.

4. Farm “Equipment” – Horses are deemed farm equipment by the Amish and are as essential to their daily life as water. The power grid WILL fail during any type of long-term disaster…eventually. Owning horses, knowing how to treat their ailments, train them, and trim and shoe them, could be substantially beneficial to your family.

Not only will you have a way to get around for security patrol that is faster than going on foot and does not require gasoline, you will have an important item and skills to barter with during the post-SHTF rebuilding stage.

Horses are trained by the Amish pull not just buggies but also low-tech versions of modern farm equipment. I cannot think of any essential piece of farm equipment that is not still manufactured with a horse pulling attachment. Some of the farm equipment used by the Amish also include a small gas-powered to run the machinery, such as a hay baler.

5. Food Preparation and Preservation – Learn how to make and prepare food the way our great grandmothers did by following the Amish example. Cookbooks and off-grid food preparation tools are sold online, in Lehman’s – the slightly expensive but cool store (online and brick-and-mortar location in Ohio) that caters to Amish ways.

6. Hand Sewing or Manual Sewing – Old-fashioned manual sewing machines are still on the market. Clothing will be put to the test during an extensive nationwide disaster. What is currently in your closet will have to last for a very long time. Learn how to mend, darn, and sew your own patterns to keep the family warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and to cover growing children.

I often run into local Amish families at area yard sales snagging sheets, blankets, tablecloths, etc. for next to nothing so they can use the items as fabric to make clothing and other necessary items. Yard sales are also a great place to find buttons and other notions to stockpile. If you find a shirt you do not like or it is in the wrong size but only costs 50 cents, buy it for the buttons or to use as fabric for a young child.

7. Gardening – The Amish, homesteaders, and preppers who live on their survival retreat are already growing and raising at least most of their own groceries. And you should be too, regardless of where you live. Amish make the most of every inch of their property, both inside and out, to start seeds and cultivate crops.

The non-materialistic living style leaves Amish wives free to use folding tables in their living rooms to capture the best light in the house to start their seeds, without worrying what visitors will think about their taste in decor. They also are already picking their first crop, even though snow is still likely to fall a couple of more times before it finally feels like spring.

Use the Amish layering techniques of piling dried manure covered by straw to protect cold weather hardy crops like onions, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, and broccoli so your growing season can begin in February too! Using natural pesticides is a far better idea than pouring chemicals all over the food you feed your family. Mix up your own bug, wild rabbit, deer repellent, and fungus killing agents to protect your food sources.

8. Carpentry – The Amish are often master carpenters, and they do it all by hand. You will not be able to call a professional to repair your barn roof after a storm or to fix the door on your smokehouse. Learn to use manual tools and make essential repairs yourself and with the help of your family.

9. Mechanical Skills – The Amish never have a need to call a repairman for plumbing or equipment problems. By hand or sometimes with the aid of a gas generator or solar power, they can keep their utilities and mechanical equipment in working order so the family can keep their work and chores on schedule. Amish men are generally competent blacksmiths, hunters, and sometimes gunsmiths, as well.

10. Work Ethic – In addition to adopting the mindset of the Amish, you should also learn to achieve the same top-notch work ethic. The day starts around 5 a.m. on an Amish farm and continues until dark when everyone sits down to enjoy supper together.

How many hours per day does your family work together doing chores? How many hours do you think they can suddenly adapt to working when the stress level is at its highest and when they’re tired and hungry? Better to find out now and develop a new routine instead of crossing your fingers and hoping they can handle strenuous manual labor like champs after the SHTF.

Typical Amish Seasonal Work Schedule

• April – Oats, Barley, Sorghum, and Corn are planted. Tomato seeds are moved outdoors as soon as the threat from the last frost has passed.
• May – Late harvest corn and the rest of the crops are planted.
• June – The first hay cutting takes place. This is also often calving season, depending on when the cows were bred. Berry picking and preservation also begins in June.
• July – Honey is collected, fruit tree starts are transplanted, more berry picking and hay cutting.
• August – Fall wheat is planted and silos are filled with stores to prepare for the coming winter months.
• September – The bulk of the garden is harvested and preserved.
• October – The late corn and wheat are harvested, cover crops planted, cider and jams are made, and perhaps a third cutting of hay – weather permitting is completed. Hunting and the smoking of meat now kicks into high gear.

Go Visit The Amish

The best way to learn Amish skills and more about their way of life is from the people themselves. Nearly every state has an Amish community of some type. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, massive communities exist, most of which have businesses that highlight their skills. These businesses are open to the public and welcoming of tourists.

Amish Communities In The United States

• Ohio Amish – Wayne, Geoga, Holmes, and Vinton County are all home to Amish communities.
• Pennsylvania Amish  – Lancaster County
• Indiana Amish  – Elkhart County
• Missouri Amish – Webster County
• Iowa Amish  – Kalona-Kalona
• Delaware Amish  – Kent County
• Colorado Amish  – San Luis Valley Area
• Florida Amish  –  Sarasota Area
• Illinois Amish  – Arthur and Arcola
• Kansas Amish –  Garnett, Yoder, Hutchinson, and Young Kansas
• Kentucky Amish  –  Guthrie and Munfordville/Horse Cave, Guthrie
• Maine Amish  –  Aroostook County, Smyrna County, and Waldo County
• Maryland Amish  –  Southern Chesapeake Bay area and St. Mary’s County
• Michigan Amish  –  35 Amish communities exist in the state
• Mississippi Amish – Pontotoc County
• Minnesota Amish  – Becker County, Clearwater County,  Fillmore County, Todd and Polk Counties
• Montana Amish  – Lake County,  Lincoln County, and Rosebud County
• Nebraska Amish  – Antelope County and Pawnee County
• New York Amish  –  Conewango Valley, Clymer, Heuvelton, Maryville,  Mohawk Valley, and Lowville
• North Carolina Amish  – Union Grove
• Oklahoma Amish  – Clarita County and Mayes County
• South Dakota Amish  – Hutchinson County
• Tennessee Amish  – Ethridge, Carroll County, and  Huntington County
• Texas Amish  – Bee County
• Virginia Amish –  Charlotte County, Giles County, and Halifax County
• West Virginia Amish  – Mason and Summers Counties
• Wisconsin Amish  –  Green Lake County, Cashton, Monroe County, and Vernon County

If the SHTF tomorrow, would your family be ready? The Amish would.

As you can imagine, the Amish way of life is very similar to how American pioneers lived in the 1800s.

The United States has conducted five atomic weapons tests in outer space. On July 9th, 1962 they conducted a test that would become known as Starfish Prime. The test was done in the Pacific and exploded so high that it devastated the satellites that were orbiting the earth.

It wasn’t the explosion that mangled the satellites, it was the electromagnetic energy. The blast even affected electronics down in Hawaii. This gave developers of these weapons a peek into the potential of an EMP, short for electromagnetic pulse, as a weapon.

The damaging effects of an electromagnetic pulse are not just man-made. The sun could also hit us with a blast powerful enough to shut off the lights. The solar storm of 1859 or “The Carrington Event” was visible from places across the planet.

In fact, Australian gold miners who witnessed the aurora from the event began making breakfast because they thought the sun was rising.

Thankfully, in 1859 there was very little for an EMP from the sun to affect. Still, telegraphs failed all over the US and Europe. Some people even claimed to have been shocked when using the machines. Had there been a world of power grids to destroy, it would have been a much different story.

Our Power Grids

According to Energy.gov, “America’s electric grid is actually comprised of three smaller grids, called interconnections, that move electricity around the country.

The Eastern Interconnection operates in states east of the Rocky Mountains, The Western Interconnection covers the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountain states, and the smallest–the Texas Interconnected system–covers most of Texas.”

For an EMP to shut America off, it would need to affect all three of these power grids. Therefore, the atmosphere above the Midwest has been speculated as the best target for an enemy to detonate a high altitude nuclear bomb that would trigger a HEMP (high altitude electromagnetic pulse) that could damage all three grids.

It makes sense that our power grid should be as well funded and fortified as possible. We should have the best three power grids on the planet and they should already be immune to the effects of a known risk like an EMP, right?

Wrong!

According to the same article from Energy.gov, “Since 2010, the Energy Department has invested more than $100 million to advance a resilient grid infrastructure that can survive a cyber incident while sustaining critical functions.

The Department’s cybersecurity work involves ongoing collaboration with a number of public and private partners including the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the intelligence community, private industry and energy-sector stakeholders.”

The upkeep of our power grid has only landed a measly $100 million dollars over the last seven years! That might sound like a lot, but don’t be fooled. That is far less money than is needed, and today we are still left unprotected from a potential EMP blast.

Remember, the EMP does not just come from hateful nations. Our sun could decide to burp out a life-changing blast of energy that would power down our whole planet.

The Effect – 90% of the Population Would Die

Experts agree that if an EMP strike from the sun or from a nuclear blast were to hit the USA and down all three of our major power grids, it would result in the death of 90% of the population in just one year. This is a staggering statistic that on the face might seem a bit extreme.

What would a nation look like with just 10% of its population left? In America, that’s around 32 million people, a population about the same size as the state of Texas.

Experts told a House Homeland Security subcommittee the following: “With the development of small nuclear arsenals and long-range missiles by new, radical U.S. adversaries, beginning with North Korea, the threat of a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. becomes one of the few ways that such a country could inflict devastating damage to the United States.

It is critical, therefore, that the U.S. national leadership address the EMP threat as a critical and existential issue and give a high priority to assuring the leadership is engaged and the necessary steps are taken to protect the country from EMP.”

So why is the outlook so bleak?

It’s because so much of our lives depend on electricity. Let’s take a quick look at the essential services that would be affected by an EMP. Remember, anything that requires electricity in any form could be affected or destroyed.

• HVAC Systems
• Water Treatment
• Communications
• Shipping (food, resources and people)
• Travel
• Trash Pickup

One of the more interesting things to consider about an EMP attack is how long it would take for people to realize what they’re dealing with. For the public, the full scope of what a powerful EMP means could spiral them into total despair. How long could people last without the above-mentioned services?

One of the biggest killers would be water and foodborne diseases. Without medical facilities, we would become very similar to the animals that are kept in factory farms. In large metro areas, we would be huddled together in apartments, surrounded by our own waste, and it wouldn’t be long before disease started taking out tens of thousands of people.

For those of us who are prepared, it would still be a hard pill to swallow. Everything changes after an EMP. If the three grids are damaged, there is no going back. We are thrust back nearly 200 years and the American population is just not ready for that.

You Are The Soldiers Of The Next War

All throughout history, wars have been fought using many tactics. We watched the great navies of the British dominate the world. Then came the ugly land warfare of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This gave way to military might through the air that led us up to the point of unmanned drone technology.

The EMP creates a new dynamic regarding warfare. Why waste the lives of your own soldiers when you could simply cut the power to a dependent nation and watch that nation dissolve? The world would watch America eat itself alive if one of our enemies capitalized on a serious EMP attack.

What does this mean to you?

Well, it means you are going to be soldiers in the next war. The next world war will likely be fought using some sort of EMP technology. It is a weakness that other nations are not going to ignore. Whether that blast goes off high in the sky from a weapon deployed by China or a Russia or another enemy, it will come with war.

A nation would be foolish not to use that kind of strength against a military as strong as ours. An EMP is arguably the only thing that would stop America (other than total nuclear war).

If you believe, like me, that we are all going to be soldiers of the next war… start training. Training like a soldier is not just about how strong you can get (although that helps). It’s also about understanding your enemy and learning how to defeat that enemy.

Of course, the most troubling thought of an EMP situation is, your enemies will be the people around you. That is, unless you start recruiting and building a community today!

We don’t all have to be passing strangers in a disaster. There is a very real possibility that our nation could be filled with strategic communities who are able to defend and react to whatever an EMP might bring.

Get prepared, get in shape, and get ready. It’s gonna take work, but there is a great network of preppers, websites, and podcasts that can help you on your journey. I know it sounds cliché, but if you start today, you won’t recognize yourself in a year.

This is your responsibility as an American citizen. Do not become one of the desperate.

Preparing For An EMP

Whether an EMP blast comes from the sun or from mankind, those who are self-sufficient will be able to survive much more easily than those who aren’t. In fact, this factor could be the difference between those who survive and those who don’t. The moment the lights go out, everything will grind to a halt. No more easy food, water, or heat, among other things.

You see, after an EMP the entire world will change, possibly forever. It is estimated that power could be completely restored in about four years. To survive until then, you will need to focus on things like sustainable sources of food, water, security, and heat. The community will play a huge role in this recovery as well.

Food

Most Americans have enough space to store about 3 to 6 months of food at best. The idea that you could possibly store a year’s worth of food is stretching it. We are talking about a long-term power outage. An EMP will affect the population for years. Your food will be gone, and you will need answers beyond that.

Growing food and raising livestock are going to be some of the most important things you can do. Start now and slowly expand every year.

You will also want to explore the world of preservation. Stretch those food items that you are growing. In most climates, you will not have access to food all year. By preserving it, you can dip into that harvest when necessary.

Water

The storage of water is a tough thing to pull off. Even if you do it well, you can only store enough water for a set amount of time. Water collection is what it will take to be successful, long-term. You will need to investigate things like rain barrels, cisterns or even diverting water from local sources.

Security

Bullets run out. Bricks of ammo run out, too. It is hard to know what level of hostility you will face and how much ammo it will take to protect yourself and your family. What I do know is that, eventually, bullets run out. What does security mean after that?

How can you secure your home and your family if you use all your ammo in a year? Do you have ammo? Are you afraid of firearms? In an EMP situation, that line of thinking will get you killed. Here are some articles you should read.

Shelter

If you have a home, the creation of shelter may not be the priority, but caring for your shelter should definitely be a priority. Heating and cooling your shelter will be another priority. Without power, there will be no air conditioning or heat. Many people will die from hypo or hyperthermia. You must have plans to avoid these things.

Here is some more info.

Community

While this may seem like a lost effort, there are ways that you can engage your community for the future. A cohesive community can be a wonderful thing to be a part of. It can also be just the structure you need when disaster strikes.

A community can use security in numbers to be effective in ways that an individual cannot. If you are looking for ways to engage your community and start down a path towards cohesion and preparedness, check out my book Come Unity; Community. Not to toot my own horn, but it’s a great read.

The steps you take today to be prepared for tomorrow will make all the difference in the long run. While it may seem like a big hill to climb, I assure you that every little decision and every little purchase you make will pay back exponentially when the time comes.

Don’t be gutted by the horrors of inaction. Today we have time to prepare. Tomorrow may be different.

The Hardware

Of course, there are many items you’ll want to have on hand in case of an EMP. While self-sufficiency is the long path, you will also need some hardware to survive the early days after the EMP. Remember, you are going to see calamity on a scale that the world will not be able to handle.

An entire nation of 300 million fighting for dwindling resources will be a horror show.

To survive, you will likely need a bugout bag, firearms, and ammo. You may have to shoot and kill someone or several people. You will likely need to relocate, and you will always need to be on guard.

No one can really know what a post-electricity world would look like, but if it kills off 90% of the population in one year, then I assume there will be plenty of death, decomposition, and disease. To survive, the most important types of items you will need are:

• Food Storage
• Water & Filtration
• Security
• First Aid
• Weapons & Ammo

These items may seem obvious, but there are other things to consider as well.

• Good Boots
• Plenty of Warm Clothing
• Alternate Types of Shelter
• Off Grid Cooking Methods
• Plenty of Materials for Building and Sustaining Fire
• Tools and a Way to Keep Them Up
• Personal Hygiene
• Trash Bags and Bins to Manage Waste

There are many services that will come to an end the moment an EMP strikes, and you must have answers for all of them. Trash cannot be allowed to pile up all over your neighborhood or it will invite pests and they will bring disease. You must give the weather new respect as it will have massive effects on your life.

You must also be ready to leave your home at a moment’s notice. So, a well-oiled bugout plan with well-constructed bugout bags will be necessary.

Just picture the chaos. Tired, hungry, sick, and dehydrated people will be flooding neighborhoods in search of resources to keep their loved ones alive. They will find their way to your door, and they may be heavily armed. You will have to keep your family safe and to do so, your best bet will be to bug out fast!

Faraday Cages

The big problem with a powerful electromagnetic pulse is that it will destroy all of your electronics, and our world is made up of so many electronics. These electronics govern our money, our vehicles, and our freedom. Without them, things get crazy fast.

To mitigate the powerful punch of the EMP, you can create a Faraday cage which will protect the electronics placed inside. This container will have to be insulated from the pulse, but this is not that complicated.

You can make a small Faraday cage for just a few dollars, but the most common method is to build one using a metal trash can with a lid. This can is insulated using foam or rubber and the items placed inside are often wrapped in foil or more insulating materials.

Watch this video to see it done.Inside this container, you can place things that will make your survival much easier. Here are a few suggestions:

• Pocket Radios
• Walkie Talkies
• Solar Charger
• Solar Panels and Batteries
• Flashlights or Lanterns
• Old Laptop Loaded with Survival and DIY Instruction
• Zip Drive of Precious Documents
• Small Motors

Just remember, there will be a very small portion of the population that prepares in this way. Your electronics will be like gold in the post-EMP world. They should be kept secret. You may not even want to tell your kids about them as kids have a tendency to blurt out things they aren’t supposed to.

Any electronic that you protect from the EMP will be a force multiplier. Whether a light source or an information source or even a power generator, these tools will give you an edge over those who are left in the dark. Use them wisely and be sure that you are not making yourself a target with your technology.

Vehicles After the EMP

It’s true that all electronics will be affected, and that includes most vehicles. Unfortunately, modern vehicles are heavily reliant on electronics to make certain processes work. That is the sad truth of our cars today. That said, EMP simulation tests have yielded mixed results, even on modern cars. I still wouldn’t depend on it, though.

Cars made after the mid 80’s have the worst chance of surviving an EMP attack. The ideal vehicle for surviving an EMP is going to be a diesel-run vehicle from the early 80’s or before. If you need more detail, try a 1979 Jeep C59. This automobile is manual and has off-road capabilities to make it effective anywhere you need to go.

Another more radical path you could take is to fortify your garage. We mentioned the power of a Faraday cage and how it can protect electronics. You could fortify your garage in the same way. Remember, we are looking for insulation from the pulse.

While I wouldn’t recommend covering your whole garage in aluminum, you could consider some high-level rubber or foam insulation on the ceiling and all the walls. Another consideration would be ditching the asphalt tiles for a tin or metal roof.

If you are going to include a vehicle in your EMP preparedness plan, you better store up plenty of fuel. The allure of the diesel engine is that fuel can be made. In the long run, it will kill the engine, but in the meantime, you can make your own diesel and have a car that runs even after all the gas pumps are dead.

You will want to invest in some jerry cans and be sure you have enough fuel to get to your bugout location. Without that amount of gas on hand, your car could be more of a burden than a help.

Just remember, a running motor vehicle will be at a premium. People will kill for the opportunity to move faster than a biking pace. Just think of the movie War Of The Worlds starring Tom Cruise. He had the only working car, and it wasn’t long before a violent mob stole it from him.

If you drive a vehicle, only use it to get away from a dangerous area and never come back. And you better drive it to a secluded area. While the advantage of wheels is a big one after an EMP, you must also use it wisely or it could get you killed.

Becoming One Of The 10%

I hope that much of the information in this guide sticks. I know there is one line that always sits with people, that “90% of all people will die in the first year of a collapse.”

This might bring about all sorts of terrifying thoughts. What you should recall is a very simple question:

“How do I become one of the 10%?”

Picture the world one year after an EMP and try to imagine what the 10% look like. Where do they live? What do they eat? How do they spend their days? Mulling over these questions will give you some great ideas on how to prepare.

The truth is there is no way to assure that you are one of the 10%. Best bets are going underground in a well-hidden and well-fortified bunker for an entire year. That is no easy feat.

Just the financing of a large bunker and the resources to go inside of it are enough to make the average person weak in the knees. All that said, even somebody in a bunker could still be found and killed.

There is no bulletproof answer to becoming one of the 10%, but we have discussed some very important things you can do put the odds in your favor.

First, the disaster will come. It will come like they always do. It may start slow and steady but eventually, it will reach a fever pitch. The destruction brought on by man or mother nature will ravage all that dares step in its path. The audible effects of the disaster will give way to visual awe when the damage is quantified.

Soon after the disaster, things will get rather quiet as people begin to take it all in. When the realization that everything they have learned to depend on is gone, there will be a hush across the land. This will be quickly followed by a screaming mass of desperation that will involve violence, looting, rape, and the most carnal and violent behaviors. But even that will die down eventually.

If you are still alive, you will find yourself in the silence of survival. You will find that breaking that silence and attracting the attention of the desperate masses could lead to another tragedy. We are going to discuss six methods that can give you away in a survival situation and how to mitigate them.

1. Smoke

If you find yourself in an outdoor survival situation, you will eventually be heating and cooking with wood. Not everybody knows that the types of things you put on a fire dictate the type of smoke you’ll get. Stay away from green. Young saplings and green leaves will create billows of white smoke that will be easy to see from far away.

In fact, this is a great technique if you are looking to signal for rescue. Look for dry wood from old trees. This is your best bet when it comes to building a good fire.

Watch the video below on the Dakota fire pit. This is a method of building fire underground to cook with and heat your shelter. You want to build this type of fire pit by digging two holes in the ground and connecting the tunnels. The largest tunnel will be for your fire.

Also build your Dakota pit under a full tree branch. This will help disperse the smoke.

2. Smell

If you are fortunate enough to bag yourself some wild game in traps or by bow and arrow (assuming you want to be silent), you must be very careful about cooking. Many survivalists will tell you to smoke your meat to get the most shelf life out of it. When it comes to shelf life they would be right.

The problem is, after a few hours of smoke and delicious meaty aromas floating up into the air, you will probably have some visitors. You may even have some wildlife visitors as well.

The Dakota method mentioned above will help with the smell as well. Still, in an urban survival situation where cooking will attract hungry and desperate people, it would be in your best interest to cook and scatter. You shouldn’t loaf around and eat.

Don’t sleep where you have cooked. In the wild, this brings bears, but in urban survival, it will bring people.

Learn to cook in the ground. You can make charcoal by assembling a pile of wood and completely covering it in a mound of clay soil. After this, build a big fire all around the mound. The soil will protect the wood inside and the fire will create some great charcoal for you. Use this to cook in the ground.You can cook whole carcasses in the ground covered in leaves, or you can bury small cooking pots, covered, and avoid the wafting smells.

3. Sound

The importance of being conscientious about sound is crucial. Sounds come from all types of movements and activities. You must remain quiet always and particularly in movements. Many people plan on carrying an or rifle of the type in a survival situation.

You must be very disciplined when you use that weapon and know what using it means. A gunshot will bring people.

Learn the basic principles of hand signals in movement. You will want to be able to move quickly and quietly without having to stop and discuss changes in direction. Another skillful use for hand signals is if you see someone before they see your group. You can signal a quick stop and cover with just a move of the hand.

Keep a silent or quiet weapon on your person along with your high-powered rifle. A crossbow or even a smaller .22 will generate a lot less sound than a big rifle. Another overlooked survival weapon is a good scoped air rifle.

4. Light

Light discipline is a consideration whether you are bugging out or bugging in. Remember, the world will be darker than we have seen it. If we are experiencing a disaster that puts the power out for a long time, the world will be totally different at night.

The light pollution of buildings and street lights will be gone and you will be left with the cosmos above as your only light.

The human eye is trained to find light and particularly artificial light. If you have a home or a site that is lit in a world of darkness, you will have visitors. Of course, there are ways to combat this as well.

We call on the Dakota fire pit again to also conceal our fire. If you can create a perimeter of tall rocks or logs around your Dakota setup, you will be offering great coverage to your fire. Also plan on building camp around the fire and camp in denser areas as well.

Light discipline also involves traveling at night without the aid of artificial light. In the cooler months, this is a fantastic way to stay warm through cold nights. Sleep during the warmer days. This alleviates the need for a big camp fire in the middle of a dark night.

While traveling, you will want to mind your flashlights, headlamps and lanterns. Get yourself a reliable red light as they are much less noticeable at a distance.

5. Conditions

In a community setting, you will want your overall condition to mimic that of the conditions around you. In other words, a fresh haircut, well fed, spirited neighbor may raise some eyebrows in a community without running water that has been bartering for food over the last month.

In our society, we are often looking for the guy who has it easier. He often becomes a villain as well, i.e. the rich are evil!

Be observant of those around you. Make sure you mimic their struggles to keep your preps a secret. Unfortunately, if you admit to having it, people are going to want some of it.

6. Dogs

We love our dogs. They are loud and boisterous every time someone comes by the house. They are way cooler than any alarm system. The problem with dogs is that they are also instinctual. The reason we love them is because they read us better than any creature on the planet.

When you are on high alert, so are they. This comes from hanging out with us over millennia. They are going to bark when threatened. That is their go-to deterrent. They don’t care if a hail of bullets is what comes back in return.

The solution? Start training your dogs on terms like hush or silence. If your dog is not capable of keeping quiet in a bug out situation, you will have your location exposed all the time. Branches will fall, sticks will snap in the night, and you will be scared. This will make your pooch go crazy, in most cases. A simple command can take care of that.

White noise is another great method when dealing with dogs. When I want the babies to stay asleep, I put the television on for the dogs or they hear everything outside and get loud if something comes too close.

Setting up camp by rushing waters or waterfalls is a great way to muffle the perceived threats of your animal and keep them quiet through the night.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to give ourselves away in a desperate world. If you take these six considerations and apply my recommendations, you will be a little more concealed. What other situations would expose you in an urban survival scenario? Leave your comments below.

Watching the Democratic debates over the last couple of months, it’s amazing how all the candidates are talking about having the government do more for people. Whether it’s Medicare for All, canceling student debt, handing out more money in welfare or just letting people stay in the country after they crossed the border illegally, politicians want the government to give us all more help.

Well, unless we’re preppers. Then it seems like the government switches to being as obstructive as possible. Politicians at all levels, from town selectmen up to Congress and most presidents, do everything they can to make self-sufficiency difficult.

Obamacare was the last administration’s flagship policy and it basically made it illegal to not have health insurance. There are arguments for that, but if you want to pay any medical bills when they happen, shouldn’t you have that right? Many towns have local ordinances against keeping livestock, even if it’s just a few chickens to give you eggs and occasional meat. Zoning laws can be – and are – applied to limit what you can do with your home. Want to drill your own well? You might need to allow (and pay for) inspections. And don’t forget the constant attempts to limit what sort of guns you can own.

The argument for all these laws is that the government can do things better than you can, so you should turn responsibility over to it. You’re just a citizen; you don’t know enough about health to make insurance decisions, so you should let Bernie Sanders bring in Medicare for All and the government will take charge of your health. The eggs from your own hens haven’t been through federally mandated inspections, so you shouldn’t eat them. Did the town health officer check the water from your well? And what do you need guns for? The cops will protect you from bad guys.

Well, what could possibly go wrong? I guess you could ask the residents of Flint, MI how well the government did at giving them clean water. What if you live in a rural area and the cops need an hour to respond when you report an intruder? And go take a look at a meatpacking plant then tell me government-approved food is safer for you.

It’s very obvious that there are plenty of things we’re better off doing for ourselves every day, and a whole lot more we can do for ourselves if we need to, so why won’t the government get out of the way and let us do it? This really puzzles a lot of people, but that’s because they’re looking at it from the wrong direction. The government doesn’t really care what’s best for us; it’s thinking about what’s best for the government.

The thing is I’ve been calling the government it, but really I should be saying them. The government is made up of people, and being the government is their job. If you’re a lawmaker the chances are you really like your job. You get special privileges and a pretty good income. You’re respected. Maybe most of all, you have power. If you have an idea and you can get the votes for it you can turn it into law, and everyone has to act the way you think they should. That’s a heady brew.

So, if you’re in government, you want the people to respect and obey the government. The best way to do that is to make them rely on the government.

Think about it. If people are self-reliant, and the only contact they have with the government is when lawmakers demand money from them or tell them what to do, they’re not exactly going to see the government as their friend, are they?

The only way to govern a self-reliant people is to do it lightly. Only pass laws when it’s absolutely necessary. Give people maximum freedom about how they live their lives. Keep taxes at the bare minimum needed to pay for things only the government can do. There are things only the government can do, like national defense, but despite left-wing complaints about our military budget we don’t actually spend very much on defense as a share of government spending.

Do it that way and most people won’t resent the government – but there’s a problem. Doing it this way means having a small government, and that means there won’t be many of those nice government jobs that give people access to privileges, money, and power. I don’t care about that. You don’t care about that. But all the people who work inside the Beltway care about that.

No, they want big government, because that way there are more jobs for them, their families and their friends. And the only way to get the people to accept a big government is to make as many as possible of them depend on it.

The government has two ways to make people depend on it. One is to stop them doing things then make the government the only source of those things. Law enforcement is a classic example. The government says you don’t need guns to protect yourself because the police will protect you. That’s rubbish, of course. If you hear breaking glass at 3 am you need a gun to face down a potential intruder, and you need it right there – not on a cop’s belt outside a Dunkin’ Donuts 17 miles away. So if you can’t have a gun you’ll be worried about intruders, and all you can do is vote to pay more tax, give the police department funding to hire more cops, and hope that one of them is close enough when you need protection.

That’s one way to make people dependent. The other is brutally simple – money. This country has massive financial inequality, the worst in the civilized world, and most of it’s been created by politicians. The slow, kudzu-like growth of government bureaucracy has made it harder to start a small business or be self-employed. The government likes order, predictability, big corporations with HR departments full of liberal graduates. They hate the chaos created by startups and entrepreneurs – but it’s that chaos that drives innovation and creates wealth.

So government policies help keep people poor, but that’s OK because the government has an answer for poverty. They’ll just take money from the people that have it and give it to the ones that don’t. That’s mostly what our government does now – move money from people who earned it to people who didn’t.

Mostly? You think I’m exaggerating? Nope. When you pay tax you get told the money’s needed for education, for transport infrastructure, for defense. Don’t believe it. Just 1% of federal spending goes on K-12 education. Only 3% goes on transport infrastructure. Even defense only gets 18%.

A staggering 69% – over two thirds – goes on entitlement programs. Medicare, social security, welfare, food stamps – that’s what most of your tax goes on. Giving people things for free, but never giving them freedom. Because if they had freedom they wouldn’t need the government, and we can’t have that, can we?

Henry Kissinger is famous for saying: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

Some people think that in the 60s US strategy started to deliberately destroy family farming in the US and abroad and eventually led to 95% of all grain reserves in the world being under the control of six multinational agribusiness corporations.

What are your thoughts on this?

Pioneer life was not easy and the daily chores of managing a house where more than a full time occupation.

Cooking was a major part of each day. Early settlers butchered their own meat and made corned beef, sausage, smoked and dried meats. Large gardens yielded produce for canning, pickling and other preserves. Root cellars stored potatoes, carrots, and onions. Milk was separated into cream for butter and baking and milk for drinking. Breads, cakes and pies were of course all baked at home from scratch from whatever was available.

For the most part meals were informal and the food hearty. Nothing was wasted. Dried bread was made into bread pudding; a bone was turned into soup and extra milk was made into pudding or cheese. Often there was a shortage of some ingredient. As you will see from the recipes, many are based on very basic ingredients and several on how to make a meal with only a few ingredients. Recipes would not only be for food but also for perfume, home remedies, wine and soap making.

Recipe books were not common and cooking was very much a passed down art or trial and error. It is interesting to read recipes from this period, as often they are vague and written with a few small hints that only the person who wrote them would understand.

Pioneer women who had to decide what few precious things to carry across the plains surely made one choice in common—their own individual collection of “receipts,” as recipes were then called. For them, these were reminders of a security left behind and a hope for the abundance of the future. In the interim, they simply did what they had to do to keep their families alive.

Many early memories of pioneer food concerned the frugality with which the Saints lived: “We lived on cornbread and molasses for the first winter.” “We could not get enough flour for bread … so we could only make it into a thin gruel which we called killy.” “Many times … lunch was dry bread … dipped in water and sprinkled with salt.” “These times we had nothing to waste; we had to make things last as long as we could.”

No doubt the “receipt” books were closed during these times, and efforts were given simply to finding food and making it go as far as possible.

But slowly, even out of this deprivation, recipes grew. The pioneer women learned to use any small pieces of leftover meat and poultry with such vegetables as they might have on hand—carrots, potatoes, corn, turnips, onions—to make a pie smothered with Mormon gravy.

Experts predict that an EMP strike that wipes out electricity across the nation would ultimately lead to the demise of up to 90% of the population. However, this figure begs an important question: if we were able to live thousands of years without even the concept of electricity, why would we suddenly all die without it?

20 Lost Recipes From The Pioneers

Side Pork and Mormon Gravy

Mormon gravy, common fare among the early settlers and apparently a creation of necessity expressly for the times, is still hearty and nourishing for many of this generation who like to make it with ground beef or frizzled ham or bacon and serve it over baked potatoes.

8 thick slices side pork (or thick-cut bacon strips)

4 tablespoons meat drippings

3 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk

Salt, pepper, paprika

Cook meat on both sides in heavy frying pan until crisp. Remove from pan and keep warm. Measure fat and return desired amount to skillet. Add flour and brown slightly. Remove from heat and add milk, stirring well to blend. Return to heat and cook and stir until mixture is thick and smooth. Season to taste. Serve with side pork on potatoes, biscuits, cornbread, or even pancakes.

Mud apples

This is a variation on a Native American cooking method.

You will need

4 large apples
A bucket of mud

Coat the apples with about an inch of mud on all sides, being sure that the mud is of a nice thick consistency. When the fire has burned long enough to make some coals, have your adult help you to scoop some of the coals to the side. Bury the apples in the coals, and leave them there for about 45 minutes. Scrape away the cooled coals. Knock the dry cooked mud off of the apples and discard the skins. Spoon up the sweet steamy pulp for a surprising treat.

Some groups of Native American people used a mud coating on their food as a sort of oven. The steam from the mud would keep fresh-caught fish moist, and as it dried and became clay-like, it protected the food from burning. When the mud was peeled off, it took a lot of the fish scales with it. A delicious instant meal.

Chuckwagon beans

This is a cattle trail recipe from the Midwest. Although this was originally done on the campfire, it might be best if you bow to modern convenience and do the cooking on a stove top.

You will need

A 16-ounce package of dry pinto beans
9 cups of water
Two large onions, peeled and chopped up
2 teaspoons of salt
½ teaspoon of oregano
½ teaspoon of garlic powder, or two cloves of sliced garlic
¼ teaspoon of pepper
1 tablespoon of brown sugar or molasses (add this last, and put in a little more if you like.)

Wash the beans and heat them along with 6 cups of water ’til they boil for five minutes, then turn the stove off. Let them sit for an hour. Add three more cups of water and boil it all again. Now add everything else, stir it up, and cook it for about an hour.

Cowpokes on the drive west had to settle for foods which were portable. That meant a basic menu of beans and lots of meat. For a treat, there was cornbread, biscuits, or a sweetened rice dish. Pinto beans (which are small and spotted when raw, like a pinto pony) seemed to be the favorite. When cooked, these beans swell up and turn a sort of pinkish white. They were first given to the settlers by the natives on the Mexican border.

When you eat beans with rice or corn, the two foods mix up inside your body to create an important type of protein which is like the protein in meat. (Your body is made largely of protein, and so you need to eat a lot of it.) That’s why the native Southwestern people were so healthy with a diet of mostly beans and corn and not much meat.(Here are 23 survival uses for honey that you didn’t know about.)

Baked pocket yams

These were “handy” during the winter months, and not particular to any one area of the country.

Take several sweet potatoes, individually wrap them in foil, and surround them on all sides with mounded hot coals. Occasionally turn the potatoes. Cook till the sweet steam pipes out of the foil (about 45 minutes). Poke into the potato with a clean sharpened twig to check for doneness (the center will be soft).

When the potatoes are done, DON’T EAT THEM YET. Let them cool a bit, then slip one into each pocket to be used as hand warmers. These will keep you comfortable while you chat around the campfire. Pioneer mothers used to send their children off with these in the winter months to keep their hands toasty on the long walk to school. Then the kids would eat them for lunch. When you eat yours, you might want to use a dish and slather them up with butter.

Spotted Pup

Take whatever amount needed
for hungry cowboys of fluffy, cooked rice.

Put in Dutch oven and cover with milk and well-beaten eggs.
Add a dash of salt.
Sweeten well with sugar.

Add raisins and a little nutmeg and vanilla.

Bake in slow oven until egg mixture is done and raisins are soft.

Jerky Gravy

Jerky, ground or chopped fine
Little Fat or Grease
Flour
Salt & pepper
Milk

Fry the jerky until done.
Remove meat from grease, and add flour.
Add milk, and salt & pepper. Cook gravy. Add meat to gravy.
The amount of each ingredient depends on how much gravy you want.

Lemon Pie

One cup of hot water
One tablespoonful of corn-starch
One cup of white sugar
One tablespoonful of butter
Juice and grated rind of one lemon

Cook for a few minutes; add one egg; bake with a top and bottom crust.
This makes one pie.

Cooked Cabbage Salad

1 Pint or more of chopped cooked cabbage

Add: 1 Egg well beaten
¼ Cup vinegar
1 Tsp butter
Dash of salt and pepper

Sweeten to suit taste. Simmer a few minutes and add ½ cup of thick fresh cream. Serve immediately.

Winter Red Flannel Hash

A great way to use left over corned beef is to add a few new ingredients and create Red Flannel Hash. Who knows who came up with the beets, but it really is colorful, and sticks to the ribs.

1 ½ Cups chopped corned beef
1 ½ Cups chopped cooked beets
1 Medium onion, chopped
4 Cups chopped cooked potatoes

Chop ingredients separately, then mix together.
Heat all ingredients in a well- greased skillet,
slowly, loosen around the edges, and shake to prevent scorching.
After a nice crust forms on bottom, turn out on a warmed plate and serve.
If it seems a little dry add a little beef broth.
Try with a couple poached eggs, for a hearty meal.

Spiced Corn Beef

To 10 pounds of beef…
take 2 cups salt
2 cups molasses
2 tablespoonfuls saltpeter
1 tablespoonful ground pepper
1 tablespoonful cloves

Rub well into the beef.
Turn every day, and rub the mixture in.
Will be ready for use in 10 days.

1876 Cottage Cheese

Allow milk to form clabber.
Skim off cream once clabbered.
Set clabbered milk on very low heat and cut in 1 inch squares.
Place colander into clabber.
Dip off whey that rises into the colander.
When clabber becomes firm, rinse with cold water.

Squeeze liquid out and press into ball.
Crumble into bowl.
Mix curds with thick cream.

Mormon Johnnycake

Here is a form of cornbread used not only by the Mormon immigrants,
as the name indicates, but quite often by most of the immigrants traveling west.
Because of the inclusion of buttermilk, a source of fresh milk was a necessity.

2-cups of yellow cornmeal
½-cup of flour
1-teaspoon baking soda
1-teaspoon salt

Combine ingredients and mix in
2-cups of buttermilk and 2-tablespoons molasses.

Pour into a greased 9” pan and bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.
To get a lighter johnnycake include two beaten eggs
and 2 tablespoons melted butter.

Soda Biscuits

Take 1lb flour, and mix it with enough milk to make a stiff dough;
dissolve 1tsp carbonate of soda in a little milk;
add to dough with a teaspoon of salt.

Work it well together and roll out thin;
cut into round biscuits, and bake them in a moderate oven.
The yolk of an egg is sometimes added.

Vinegar Lemonade

Mix 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into a 12 ounce glass of water.
Stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar to taste.

Note: The pioneers used vinegar for numerous reasons.
One reason was to add vitamin C to their diet.

Fried Apples

Fry 4 slices of bacon in a Dutch oven. Remove bacon.

Peel and slice 6 to 8 Granny Smith apples.

Put apples in Dutch oven with bacon grease,
cover and cook down the apples, but not to mush.

Serve topped with butter or cream and crumbled bacon.

They’re great for breakfast or desert!

Dutch Oven Trout

As soon as possible after catching your trout,
clean them and wipe the inside and outside of the trout
with a cloth wet with vinegar water.

Don’t put the trout in the water.
Roll the trout in a mixture of flour,
dry powdered milk,
cornmeal,
salt and pepper.

Heat deep fat in a Dutch oven and fry until crisp and golden brown.

Black Pudding

Here’s an old ranch recipe courtesy of Winkie Crigler, founder and curator of The Little House Museum in Greer, Arizona.

6 Eggs
1 Cup Sweet Milk
2 Cups Flour
1 Tsp Soda
1 Cup Sugar
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Cup Molasses

Mix well.  Pour into 1-pound can and steam for 2 to 3 hours by placing in kettle of boiling water.  Keep covered.

This is to be served with a vinegar sauce:
1 Cup Sugar
1 Tbsp  Butter
1 Tbsp Flour
2 Tbsp Vinegar
½ Tsp Nutmeg

Put in enough boiling water for amount of sauce wanted.
Add two slightly beaten eggs and cook stirring constantly to the desired consistency.

How To Fry Quick Doughnuts

The following recipe for doughnuts came from the March 17, 1885 Daily Missoulian.  Obviously, anyone making these doughnuts will want to find a substitute for fat as a cooking oil.

Put a frying kettle half full of fat over the fire to heat.  Shift together one pound of flour, one teaspoonful each of salt and bicarbonate of soda, and half a saltspoon full of grated nutmeg.

Beat half a pound of butter to a cream and add them to the flour.  Beat the yokes of two eggs to a cream, add them to the first-named ingredients, beat the whites to a stiff froth and reserve them.

Mix into the flour and sugar enough sour milk to make a soft dough and then quickly add the whites of the eggs.  Roll out the paste at once, shape and fry.

Kid Pie

If the kid (goat) is too fat to roast, cut it into pieces and make pies.  Make a sauce of cut up perejil (parsley) and put in the pies with a little sweet oil and place it in the oven.

A little before you take it out of the oven beat some eggs with vinegar or orange juice and put into the pie through the holes made in the crust for the steam to escape.

Then return pies to oven for enough time to repeat The Lord’s Prayer three times, then take the pies out and put them before the master of the house, cut it and give it to him.

Brown Gravy

The following is a farm recipe for gravy from the late 1880’s.

This gravy may be made in larger quantities, then kept in a stone jar and used as wanted.

Take 2 pounds of beef, and two small slices of lean bacon. Cut the meat into small pieces. Put into a stew-pan a piece of butter the size of an egg, and set over the fire.

Cut two large onions in thin slices. Put them in the butter and fry a light brown, then add the meat. Season with whole peppers.

Salt to taste. Add three cloves, and pour over one cupful of water.

Let it boil fifteen or twenty minutes, stirring it occasionally.

Then add two quarts of water, and simmer very gently for two hours.

Now strain, and when cold, remove all the fat.

To thicken this gravy, put in a stew pan a lump of butter a little larger than an egg, add two teaspoonfuls of flour, and stir until a light brown.

When cold, add it to the strained gravy, and boil up quickly. Serve very hot with the meats.

What Kind Of Supplies Did The Pioneers Take With Them?

The question is answered by the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center this way…

A variety of guidebooks, newspaper articles, and helpful tips in letters from friends or family who had already made the trip provided different lists about what and how much was essential to survive the five-month journey. The critical advice was to keep things as light as possible, and to take easily preserved staple foods. Supplies in each wagon generally had to be kept below 2,000 pounds total weight, and as the journey progressed and draft animals grew tired, many pioneers had to discard excess food and baggage. Items taken by nearly all wagon parties included flour, hard tack or crackers, bacon, sugar, coffee and tea, beans, rice, dried fruit, salt, pepper and saleratus (used for baking soda). Some also took whiskey or brandy, and medicines. Minimal cooking utensils included a cast iron skillet or spider, Dutch oven, reflector oven, coffee pot or tea kettle, and tin plates, cups, and knives, forks, spoons, matches, and crocks, canteens, buckets or water bags for liquids. A rifle, pistols, powder, lead, and shot were recommended for hunting game along the way, and for self-defense. Candles were used for lighting, as they were far less expensive and lighter than transporting oil, and several pounds of soap was included. Only two or three sets of practical, sturdy, and warm clothing of wool and linen had to last the wear and tear of the journey, and a small sewing kit for repairs was important. Basic tools such as a shovel, ax or hatchet, and tools to repair wagon equipment were essential. Bedding and tents completed the list of necessities. For most families, 1,600-1,800 pounds of their supplies would be food, leaving little space for other items. Although some people tried to include furniture, books, and treasured belongings, these were soon discarded. According to many accounts, the trail was littered with cast off trunks, bureaus, beds, clothing, excess food, and even cast iron stoves. Though prices and availability of goods varied from year to year, for most emigrants it cost a minimum of $600 to $800 to assemble a basic outfit of wagon, oxen, and supplies.

An article from the St. Joseph, Missouri Gazette dated March 19, 1847

The Pioneers discovered an amazing plant with properties similar to morphine. Find out how to prepare the best natural painkiller from a plant that grows in your backyard. Watch video below!

Here’s just a glimpse of what you’ll find in The Lost Ways:

From Ruff Simons, an old west history expert and former deputy, you’ll learn the techniques and methods used by the wise sheriffs from the frontiers to defend an entire village despite being outnumbered and outgunned by gangs of robbers and bandits, and how you can use their wisdom to defend your home against looters when you’ll be surrounded.

Native American ERIK BAINBRIDGE – who took part in the reconstruction of the native village of Kule Loklo in California, will show you how Native Americans build the subterranean roundhouse, an underground house that today will serve you as a storm shelter, a perfectly camouflaged hideout, or a bunker. It can easily shelter three to four families, so how will you feel if, when all hell breaks loose, you’ll be able to call all your loved ones and offer them guidance and shelter? Besides that, the subterranean roundhouse makes an awesome root cellar where you can keep all your food and water reserves year-round.

From Shannon Azares you’ll learn how sailors from the XVII century preserved water in their ships for months on end, even years and how you can use this method to preserve clean water for your family cost-free.

Mike Searson – who is a Firearm and Old West history expert – will show you what to do when there is no more ammo to be had, how people who wandered the West managed to hunt eight deer with six bullets, and why their supply of ammo never ran out. Remember the panic buying in the first half of 2013? That was nothing compared to what’s going to precede the collapse.

From Susan Morrow, an ex-science teacher and chemist, you’ll master “The Art of Poultice.” She says, “If you really explore the ingredients from which our forefathers made poultices, you’ll be totally surprised by the similarities with modern medicines.” Well…how would you feel in a crisis to be the only one from the group knowledgeable about this lost skill? When there are no more antibiotics, people will turn to you to save their ill children’s lives.

And believe it or not, this is not all…

Table Of Contents:

Making Your Own Beverages: Beer to Stronger Stuff
Ginger Beer: Making Soda the Old Fashioned Way
How North American Indians and Early Pioneers Made Pemmican
Spycraft: Military Correspondence During The 1700’s to 1900’s
Wild West Guns for SHTF and a Guide to Rolling Your Own Ammo
How Our Forefathers Built Their Sawmills, Grain Mills,and Stamping Mills
How Our Ancestors Made Herbal Poultice to Heal Their Wounds
What Our Ancestors Were Foraging For? or How to Wildcraft Your Table
How Our Ancestors Navigated Without Using a GPS System
How Our Forefathers Made Knives
How Our Forefathers Made Snow shoes for Survival
How North California Native Americans Built Their Semi-subterranean Roundhouses
Our Ancestors’Guide to Root Cellars
Good Old Fashioned Cooking on an Open Flame
Learning from Our Ancestors How to Preserve Water
Learning from Our Ancestors How to Take Care of Our Hygiene When There Isn’t Anything to Buy How and Why I Prefer to Make Soap with Modern Ingredients
Temporarily Installing a Wood-Burning Stove during Emergencies
Making Traditional and Survival Bark Bread…….
Trapping in Winter for Beaver and Muskrat Just like Our Forefathers Did
How to Make a Smokehouse and Smoke Fish
Survival Lessons From The Donner Party

Get your paperback copy HERE