Welcome to this week’s Sunday Survival Buzz – a roundup of preparedness news, tips, articles and recommendations from around the web. But first, an update on my own preps.
By now you all should know that my new eBook, The Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage, launched this week on Amazon. I was frantic trying to get everything done and had to pull a few all-nighters. Alas, my preps took a backseat to eBook-ing. I did recruit the Survival Husband to take our new BaoFeng Ham Radios out of their boxes and get them charged up. Our plan is to get through the self-study course for our tech license before the end of the year. Will we make it?
So that’s it for my preps this week. Let’s get on to the Sunday Survival Buzz.
SURVIVAL NEWS & ARTICLES FROM AROUND THE WEB
The Pressure Cooker That is America: Interesting thoughts from one of my blogging colleagues. This is what many of us are preparing for – for better or for worse. Just wondering – do you think the top is getting ready to blow soon?
Widow Faces Eviction in Fla. City For ‘Living Off the Grid’: This is nuts – that is if she is the owner of the property. I can see where a landlord would take issue and file a complaint but a private property owner? No way.
Home Test Kit Helps You Find Antibiotics In Leaves: After reading this, I had to think about whether this was a good thing or not. Wouldn’t it be better to find a way to take advantage of the natural healing properties of plants and leaves without involving big pharma and the greedsters?
TSA Confiscates ‘Realistic’ Two Inch Toy Pistol From Sock Monkey: And here is some more craziness.
Robert Kiyosaki talks prepping, anarchy in America, and issues his biggest warning ever: Robert Kiyosaki is best known as the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, the #1 personal finance book of all time. His view of the future of America is bleak. He believes that within the next five years, the entire system will collapse, ushering in a period of American chaos and poverty the likes of which have never been seen.
Are You STILL Using Pads & Tampons? Use the Menstrual Cup Instead!: Don’t tell me this is TMI. Guys, you need to know about this stuff too.
My Go To Spice Mix Recipes: Here is a good one for all of you do-it-yourselfers out there. (And that includes me!)
Amazon sets sights on Costco with new ‘Pantry’ service: Two Seattle area companies; now this should be interesting. For those of us living in the boonies, this could be a great thing.
Kickstarter Isn’t A Store, But These People Still Want Their iPods: At least once a week, I get a pitch from someone asking me to share their Kickstarter project on BDS. I ignore the requests for three reasons: I do not have the time to check each one out in advance, I was burned once by promoting such a campaign here on BDS, and three, promised products (as described in this article) are sometimes phantom (bogus?) and never delivered. No thank you.
Clara In Memoriam – Aug 18, 1915 – Nov 29, 2013: The last news item for today is very sad. We have all fallen in love with Clara but 98 years old, her time to move on has come. I still learn from Clara and her book is one of my favorites. May she R.I.P. See Depression Cooking: A Visit to Clara’s Kitchen.
BACKDOOR SURVIVAL MAIL BAG & READER TIPS
Tom made this comment to a recent article on OPSEC. He has his own blog at Blogospherical Ruminations.
It might be worthwhile separating OPSEC into two categories: What the government and big business knows, and what the neighbors, friends, and acquaintances know.
It is probable that no person in the government knows anything about any of us. If they want to though, the data is in the computer banks. They can correlate where our cell phones have been the last five years with where anyone else’s has been. They can access metadata from all of our phone calls and emails (and I suspect they do have the contents as well. Just because they deny it doesn’t make it so) They can read all of our comments to news stories and blogs. They can access all our Amazon order data.
However, unless we are suspected of actively working to overthrow the government, they have little reason to look at that info.
Neighbors, friends, acquaintances: We cannot expect them to help themselves if we do not discuss the possibility with them. I have discussed hurricane preparedness with a small number of people, and seem to have influenced one to store some water. Another upgraded his water filtration gear. I don’t know about the rest.
Since there are several swimming pools in our area, we do plan on providing water filtration services for neighbors if the municipal water supply gets knocked out, most likely because the power grid it relies on gets knocked out. We can’t supply food, so we don’t worry about what we cannot do.
We are natural disaster preppers, not TEOTWAWKI preppers, because we just don’t think TEOTWAWKI is survivable on Oahu, at least not by us, and because the probability seems too low to worry us much. That automatically makes us less threatening/’weird’ to others, because we can talk about the utterly unarguable reality of hurricanes and other disasters.
So, we keep it low key, we prep so we can help the neighbors, at least with water, and don’t make a big deal of it. If people respond positively to a comment, we can follow up. If not, we let it drop.
AND THE WINNER IS . . .
I have two winners this week.
“Brian” has one a copy of all three books in the A. American Survivalist Series. Here is how he answered the question How far could you walk to make it home if you were separated from your family?
With 3 designated gathering places (use the closest one, unless circumstances don’t allow and leave message showing where you are going next) already identified, none of us would go home, but we WILL meet up!
The winner of the Innova Microlight and Aqua Vessel Water Filtration Bottle is “Harold” Here is how he answered the question If you only had room for 3 items in your every day carry kit, what would they be?
I would have a knife or multi-tool, flashlight, and water bottle.
Both winners have been notified and will have 48 hours to claim their prize. Coming up this week in the Winter Blast Giveaway is the Lifestraw Family. Be sure to watch for it on Thursday.
NEWS FROM OUR SPONSOR
This week I am pleased to announce our latest premium sponsor, VIVOGEAR. Between now and the end of the year, VIVOGEAR is offering 15% storewide and free shipping on orders over $99.
As with all of my sponsors, please pay them a visit and let them know you saw them on Backdoor Survival. You can also visit their Facebook page here.
Speaking of which, check out the Backdoor Survival Sponsors page and support the fine companies that allow me to keep Backdoor Survival free for everyone.
FACEBOOK WOES
This message came in Saturday afternoon from one of my FB Fans:
I follow a few different survival groups on Facebook and have noticed that a few postings from various sites are not going thru. Have also seen a report from SHTF site that Facebook has been closing down or extreme filtering of some site. Have you heard or witnessed such?
My response was this:
YES! FB is also throttling my posts even though they are relatively benign. They are going through but only showing them to about 300 of my page fans. Up until a few days ago, they would be “seen” by 2,000 to 4,000 fans of the 9,900 Backdoor Survival fans. This is Facebook’s way of telling us we must pay. In my opinion, they are treating bloggers like commercial businesses. The difference, of course, is we are sharing free information and not just selling stuff.
That said, some the of SHTF blogging sites are fronts for nefarious info-products. They steal content from sources such as this website then pitch their products to visitors. It is a huge problem for authors such as myself.
I do realize that I am whining a bit but to tell the truth, I spend a couple of hours a day keeping my Facebook page current but if this continues, I may have to cut back. The sad part is that I share a lot of free stuff on FB. Because the time-frames are so fleeting, it would not be appropriate to share them on the website.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
My email runneth over with requests for more information about essential oils. Believe me when I say I am not an expert but as I experiment and learn, I will share my experiences with you. In the meantime, if you have a special request, be sure to let me know. And in case you missed it, Spark Naturals is offering FREE SHIPPING on any order (US and Canada) through Tuesday. I just ordered some “Dream Blend” to rub on my feet at night. Be sure to use the coupon code BACKDOORSURVIVAL for 10% off your order.
Coming up next? How about a simple recipe for DIY Peppermint Scrub? This is something that us ladies adore and guys, even you can make it now for gifting on Christmas. I will try to get this posted in the next day or two.
THE FINAL WORD
Another week and almost another year gone by. Where has the time gone? I don’t know about you, but I am going to need a “save by sanity” break sometime soon. At least that sounds good. I think, however, I may need to settle for some chocolate truffles instead.
What about you – what did you do to prep this week? Until, next time, remember to make every day a prep day!
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye
If you have not done so already, please be sure to like Backdoor Survival on Facebook to be updated every time there is an awesome new article, news byte, or link to a free survival, prepping or homesteading book on Amazon. You can also follow Backdoor Survival on Pinterest.
In addition, when you sign up to receive email updates you will receive a free, downloadable copy of my e-book The Emergency Food Buyer’s Guide.
Just released! My new eBook, The Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage will provide you with everything you need to create an affordable food storage plan, including what to buy and how to store it. Nothing scary and nothing overwhelming – you really can do this! Now available at Amazon.
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Bargain Bin: For your discernment, here are some of the items mentioned in today’s Buzz.
BaoFeng UV-5R Dual-Band Ham Radio: I had to look twice when I saw the price of this – $29.55 as of this writing! The Baofeng UV-5R is a compact hand held transceiver providing 4 watts in the frequency range of 136-174 MHz and 400-480 MHz. It is a compact, economical HT that includes a special VHF receive band from 65 – 108 MHz which includes the regular FM broadcast band. Dual watch and dual reception is supported. Here is the antenna I ordered: NAGOYA Antenna for BAOFENG UV-5R (thanks to a recommendation from my pal, George Ure).
Clara’s Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression: Of all of my books, this is one of the few I go back to over and over again for inspiration and motivation.
The Survivalist Series by A. American : Going Home, Surviving Home, and Escaping Home are the first three books in the Survivalist Series by popular author, A. American. You will love these books – survival fiction at its best.
Nite Ize/Inova Microlight STS : This is the key-shaped flashlight with the “Swipe To Shine” feature. Shelly prefers this model. I prefer the original Inova Microlight.
Aqua Vessel Tritan Filter Water Bottle with Flip Straw & 100 Gallon Filter: This is great water bottle. Stylish and sturdy; great for traveling where the hotel water is going to be full of bad tasting, smelly chemicals and who knows what else. The water you drink from this bottle will taste good!
ZAQ Dew Aromatherapy Diffuser : This essential oil diffuser uses water and essential oils to make make a mist of micro-particles and disperse them into the air. No heating or burning means the properties of the oil are not broken down.Low energy use. The really cool thing is that the light (which can be turned off) changes colors all by its own self. Very soothing and I love it!
LifeStraw Personal Water Filter : The LifeStraw is considered the most advanced, compact, ultra light personal water filter available. It contains no chemicals or iodinated resin, no batteries and no moving parts to break or wear out. It weighs only 2oz. making it perfect for the prepper. Also, check out the Lifestraw Family.
The monthly specials at Emergency Essentials feature discounts of up to 35% off sometimes a bit more. I have a monthly budget and each month I add a bit more FD products to my long term storage – always making my selection from sale items.
And don’t forget there is still time to get some RED EMERGENCY CANDLES – including gift bags and bows – for gift-giving off. These are great candles, even for non-emergency purposes.
Shop the Emergency Essentials Monthly Specials
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