The Deal of the Week is sponsored by BestPreparednessDeals.com. Check it out………

We are pleased to present which may be one of the best deals ever sponsored by BestPreparednesDeals.com. Team BPDeals.com has acquired the ability to offer an excellent survival & preparedness resource – the digital manual Survive Any Food Crisis – at a very steep discount.

Normally selling for $ 27.00 – ModernSurvivalOnline readers can purchase Survive Any Food Crisis for only $ 9.95.

What do you get with this purchase?

- FIRST - 

You receive the preparedness manual Survival Any Food Crisis….which includes:

• The 2 Big Catastrophic Scenarios: What you need to know. How to prepare for any kind of disaster, long-term or short-term. I cover everything you need to know.
• Don’t Go Here: Places to avoid when a disaster strikes. Where you should go immediately.
• Tomorrow Could Be Too Late: How to start building your food supply now for pennies on the dollar. Stop relying on grocery stores and start relying on yourselves.
• This Bank Has a Different Kind of Lettuce: How to build a food bank (the right food to stock up on — get this wrong and you might as well have done nothing at all).
• The Super Six: The 6 types of foods that you should NEVER forget to store. Do this correctly and you will have all the nutrition your family needs to stay healthy during a food crisis.
• The Super Supplements: What to add to your stash after you’ve covered the essentials.
• Keep Your Food Safe and Secure: You have to know the right types of food to store, exactly how to store your food and precisely where to store your food if you are going to keep it safe and secure. I reveal EVERYTHING that you need to know.
• Water, the Liquid Gold: Discover how to secure a water supply for your family and the right methods for purifying and distilling water.
• How much water do you need to store to guarantee health and safety for you and your family? Do you know? You must know this and much more for you and your family to survive and stay healthy when the municipal water gets shut off!
• Farmer John and Farmer Jane: If it’s a long-term crisis, then you will need to know how to grow your own food. I will show you the key knowledge that you need to do that, too.
• Gardens of Eden: Renewable food means growing a garden. But not all plants are created equal. Learn what types of planets yield the highest nutritional value.
• The Need for Seeds: In their bottomless greed, the multinational corporations are trying to control seeds, too. You MUST store your own seeds and you must know how to do it.
• This means storing your seeds for a long time so that they maintain their quality and preserve their germination. Are you ready? Let me show you how inside the “Food Crisis Survival” Manual.
• Better When Wet: Discover aquaponics and learn how to use this clever space efficient strategy for producing food in a long-term crisis. Learn why it’s even better than a regular garden in many ways. Aquaponics could be the secret ace you need in order to survive!
• Behold the Mighty Chicken: Incredibly, a flock of chickens can provide a huge share of your family’s food and nutritional needs, protein in particular. That’s why knowing the ins and outs of raising chickens in your backyard could make all the difference!
• The Art of Self-Preservation: You will find out how to preserve food via canning and pickling. This greatly extends shelf life even through the dreaded winter months.
• Cancel the Catastrophe: As a disaster and survival expert, I know ways you can keep your family safe during and after a catastrophic event. Even if violent mobs of lawless low-lifes are roaming the streets for food and victims, I will point you to little-known strategies for remaining safe in the most dangerous and uncertain of times.
• Communication Breakdown: How to assess your local situation when all lines of communication are down. You must have this vital information so that you know what to do next and where and when to do it.
• Titanic Panic: Learn about panic rooms and bomb shelters. It could save the lives of you and your family. What is involved? Is this option right for you? Find out!
• Guns, Guns, Guns: Why you need a gun and how to use it. There’s no debating this one, folks, you’re going to need a gun and you will have to know how to use it!
• The Survivor Mindset: Survival is a mindset. You have to think tough like a “survivalist.” You evaluate situations and create solutions. No panic. No mental meltdowns. No mob mentality.
• Your new mental toughness will show you the need to prepare for the inevitable collapse as global population exceeds the current 7 billion. Something has to give and you know it!
• Compact Yet Complete: My in-depth “Food Crisis Survival” Manual supplies ALL of the essential information and practical tips that you and your family will need to maximize your survival in an abrupt food crisis catastrophe or other major disaster event.

- NEXT - 

BONUS #1: Actionable Checklist for Food Preparedness

BONUS #2: How to Use Local Plants for Medicine

BONUS #3: How to Purify Water Fast and Easy

All of this for only $ 9.95!!!!

(Regular price – $ 27.00)

© 2013, Rourke. All rights reserved.

S.A.’s Canned Chicken Recipe

A well-tested recipe adapted from another Air Force wife at England AFB, Louisiana, a base now long-closed. Even picky eaters like this one.

If things do ever go as predicted, knowing how up use your stores efficiently and effectively will be important. The current way of eating with a separate large meat serving, servings of vegetables piled on a plate might become a memory. Cooks will revert to traditional peasant and poor people foods that stretch ingredients, such as soups and casseroles. (Don’t worry, in my home we are never without homemade soups, a pot of beans, and casseroles in the fridge. This is how I was raised.)

Are you using your canned chicken stores? Those chickens take some getting used to, but it is possible to cook with them and mask the tinned flavor and stringy texture. It’s like canned tuna: very different from the fresh product, but with a good recipe can be made palatable. Learn to cook with your stores now in order to be happier in an uncertain future.

The following cold salad recipe is easy, tasty, and uses few ingredients.

Chicken Rice-a-Roni Salad
(a pasta dish using a bit of chicken)
serves 10-12

1 box Chicken Rice-a-Roni
1 13 oz can of chicken (like those from Sam’s Club or Wal-mart)
6 green onions
1bell pepper
1 bunch of celery (as many ribs as you like. I use five ribs, since I like celery.)
1medium jar marinated artichoke hearts
Mayonnaise
Butter

Drain artichoke marinade into a bowl.
Open chicken can, drain, give can juice to the dog, rinse, break chicken pieces up with your fingers. Cover with marinade, stir to cover and coat the chicken well, and let sit while you prep the other ingredients.
Cook Rice-a-Roni according to package.  (Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a skillet, add Rice-a-Roni and brown vermicelli pasta pieces until golden.  Add 2.5 cups of water, the seasoning packet, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, cook 15-20 minutes until rice is tender.) Allow to cool.

Dice the green onions, bell pepper, and celery. Put the chicken and marinade mixture in a small electric chopper and pulse in batches until not so stringy. Do not turn this into a purée, it should still have some texture. (This step could be done manually with a knife or other piece of kitchen equipment.)

In a large bowl, mix the cooled Rice-A-Roni, chicken and marinade, onions, celery, bell pepper, and artichokes. Stir well. Add mayonnaise as needed to flavor and bind.  You may or may not need much or any, depending on the size of the marinated artichoke jar you used. Cover and refrigerate this the night before to allow flavors to meld.

Chef’s Notes:

This is a good and flavorful bad times recipe which can utilize a small can of chicken; fresh, dehydrated, or freeze dried vegetables; pasta/rice package; and a jar of marinated artichokes. Omitting the mayonnaise would make this a good grid down recipe as you probably have bell pepper and onions from your own garden.

Some might not like the sodium load, but we don’t eat this daily. This recipe is just another defense against appetite fatigue.

Useful Recipe and Cooking Links:

Canned Chicken Recipes

Start With Canned Chicken–Quick and Easy Recipes

Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? Please send it via e-mail. Thanks!

At Home In Dogwood Mudhole, Volume One: Nothing That Eats
By Franklin Sanders
Copyright: 2012
ISBN 978-1-938817-06-9

Although there is a long standing link at JWR’s Investing page to his Moneychanger web site, not every SurvivalBlog reader may know of Franklin Sanders. His stories will either have an air of familiarity or yearning to follow in his footsteps. Christian, father of seven, farmer, historian, husband, outlaw, and reenactor are all facets to this interesting man.
 
This is first of three planned books. It solidly weighs in with a hefty 379 pages. There’s something nice about picking up a paperback that is well made.  There are also a Kindle, ePub, and pdf versions available for those who like the weightless version.
 
Franklin Sanders wrote the Moneychanger Newsletter every month. In it, he included a section about his personal life. In putting this book together he made a conscience decision to print what he wrote at the time. This is a unique perspective in that most writers would use their notes as a basis and then write history, often years or decades later, as viewed from today. Ask a six year old to what happened to him that day and it might include a story about monsters in the closet. That same writer at twenty-six would likely not tell the tale for fear of looking silly. As you read the book you will get a sense of truthfulness you would not normally expect from someone writing about himself. 
 
Franklin’s Christian beliefs run deep. One could say that he is exuberant in his faith and it shows in his writings. To some, the interspersed Biblical references and quotes may be off-putting, but it is key part of who Franklin is. In no way do these times come off as condescending or preaching which makes for a pleasant read.
 
Another thing that makes this book a pleasant read is the way it is laid out. The sections are headed by the month and year it was published. The length may be a page or a few pages long. Franklin’s writing style is straightforward and easy to read. This combined with monthly sections will have the reader flying along through the adventures.
 
One interesting thread through the book relates to the Y2K bug. For the younger readers, Y2K or year 2000 bug was a crisis in the late 1990s relating to computer programs in their ability to understand the difference between 2-digit year abbreviation (such as 00) versus 4-digit (such as 2000.) Possible catastrophes included all bank account information being lost to public utilities being turned off.  There always tends to be a looming danger in the near future and it is interesting to see how the Sanders family dealt with this example.
 
Franklin is an interesting man and that reflects in his monthly sections. One month may have you reading about a sow and her piglets, touring America, or the Civil War, I mean, the War of Northern Aggression reenactment as he plays a Southerner. There is always something of interest to read about.

The move to country life or homesteading has become more poplar in the last decade as many people realize the substantial benefits of this lifestyle. The Sanders Family began this journey almost 15 years ago. Like many fish-out-of-water tales, this book has plenty of humorous episodes as they relearn what most of our great-grandparents would have thought as being common sense. Read what he does with 2,000 pounds of Y2K rice for a good chuckle.

W. C Fields, American actor and comedian (1880-1946), was once quoted as saying "Never work with children or animals."The folly of both is bound to drive any sane person crazy when you are trying to get things done on time. Both surround the Sanders. As I am sure Franklin has said to himself many times that God never gives us more than we can handle. Weather it is children that move back home,
horses that bolt off with heavy equipment, pigs refusing to be corralled, or disappearing chickens there were plenty of challenges facing this homesteader.

Since we have lots of chickens and chukars that are all different ages and sizes, with more being born each day (6 chicks today alone!) we ran out of cages.  The laying chickens and two roosters are in the big coop.  I was going to put the chukars and young chicks into the second coop by closing the interconnecting door.  The problem was the chukars and chicks tried to kill each other.  Not a good idea putting them together!  Not only did I have them in two separate cages on the patio I also had two boxes of birds in the house.  The 2 day old chicks and the four baby chukars.  Plus I knew all the eggs in the incubator are going to be hatching.

What to do?  Boy got all his chores done so he went to play with a friend.  Wow, someone actually lives two miles away that is his age.  That’s within walking distance!  Girl didn’t finish her chores on time.  Once she did finish she decided to hang out with me.  OK, let’s get her on some task that will show great results.  I know.  Let’s build housing for the new birds.  After all, we have all those new 16 foot panels. 

I chose two places for our new pens. One in the back garden at a raised bed filled with weeds that I hadn’t planted yet this season.  The other spot was in the middle orchard, again in an area filled with weeds.  I took four 8 foot panels and dropped two off at each place.  The I had girl help carry the 16 footers.  Sure I can carry them myself and she can drag them herself but teamwork was what it was all about yesterday. 

I explained what I had in mind for each pen.  They would be 8 x 16 feet with a t-post pounded in at two opposite corners.  The fencing would be wired together in the corners and also wired to the t-posts.  Then the whole thing would be wrapped in 1″ chicken wire that was 4′ high.  Then she needed to wire the chicken wire to the fencing every couple of feet.  Not too much wiring because we are going to take these apart and move them. 

If I had given it a little more thought we would have wired each panel so the individual panels could be moved.  When it is time to move the panels we will probably wire down each end at the corner and then I’ll cut the chicken wire down the middle at the corner.  Then each of the four panels for the pen will be chicken wired.  It will be one less step to do after we move the pens to some other place that will need weeding.

Then it was time to put the chukars and chickens into their new homes.  Each pen had a hiding place (an old plastic dog house that was in two pieces, with one piece in each pen) so the birds could hunker down at night.  By the time the birds are big enough to fly out of their pens they will be old enough to go into the main coops.  Even then there will be hiding places because it will take a little while to acclimate. 

It was a productive weekend for Girl.  She got to drive.  She got to build some pens.  And she finally got her laundry done! 

I was able to borrow a friends trailer and buy 45 cattle panels.  I also picked up more t-posts just for good measure.  I got the front fruit trees all paneled in and the sheep got moved to the front pasture.  They are happy because there’s lots of food growing.  Due to the lack of rain the back 3 acres have anywhere between none and 6 inches of forage.  That’s all.  Normally at this time of year the pasture is almost waist high.  The next door neighbors have about 10 acres that’s in beautiful grasses and they can’t get anyone to mow and bale it.  Instead they asked if I want to figure out how to put up an electric fence and move the sheep into their yard.  Free.  I have to research those types of fences because I’ve never had one. 

After returning the trailer I drove right by GI Jim’s store so I stopped in for an excellent use of 3/4 of an hour.  I picked up a 55 gallon drum with a good lid.  I’m not sure what’s going in it yet.  Probably a combination of supplies. 

Another customer came in and the subject of fires came up.  (Is everyone who walks into GI Jim’s former firefighters?  Sometimes it seems that way!)  It was enjoyable hearing everyone reminisce about their old fire stories.  The large fire going on in Southern California is my old childhood stomping grounds.  I know that area really well. We talked about fire clearances around our properties.  No problem here.  The bug-out place is getting there.  Son is trying to get it all whacked down. 

The incubator is filled with eggs.  So far two chickens have hatched.  There are about 15 more chicken eggs and about 25 chuckar eggs.  The chukars won’t be hatching for at least another week but the chicks should all hatch in the next few days.  This brings me to a dilemma.  I have my coop filled with chickens.  I have five more that are ready to go out into a coop.  I have chuckars ready to go out to a coop.  I only have two coops.  One is filled with the chickens the other is empty.  I was going to see if I could put the chuckars and chicks together into the same coop.  That didn’t work.  They tried to kill each other!  So I put them all back into their cages.  What am I going to do with all these different ages?  I know.  Build some more coops.  Since my raised garden beds are 16′ long and the new panels are 16′ long I’m going to turn some of the garden beds into runs for the chickens.  That’s a project for tomorrow. 

Son and family are came over for the night and they brought their two dogs.  The dogs aren’t well trained and our new dog does not like these two.  I don’t like them much either.  But son did a lot of heavy work around here so I won’t complain about the dogs.  The fencing between the back yard and the garden was old and falling apart.  I continuously had to repair it and 16 foot boards are expensive.  I decided that the fence was coming down.  This included the 1 foot thick posts every 15 feet.  Some were so rotted they fell over with a good kick.  Others need to be pulled out with the tractor.  I’m going to put t-posts in and panels up to surround the garden.  This way I can keep the dogs out if I want whereas before they just went through the wood fence rails. 

We decided it was too hot to walk the brush and debris the 1/4 mile to the back of the property.  We loaded it all in the pickup and drove it to the back.  OK, Girl drove it to the back.  Never mind that she is eleven.  She sat on my lap, sort of.  All I had access to was the brake pedal if I needed to brake.  She did the steering, gas, and only threw everyone out of their seats once when she braked hard.  The road to the back is about 20 feet wide with fencing on both sides.  She kept the truck pretty centered.  She stepped on the gas hard once and it scared her a little.  Otherwise she did well.  It’s important to teach the kids how to drive even though they are young.   I’m not worried about the kids “borrowing” the car before they have their license.  Living in the country you never know what type of emergency may come up where she might have to drive.

If you keep chickens for any length of time, once in awhile you’ll come across a shell-less egg.

Take this one, for example. Looks pretty ordinary, doesn’t it?

But it has no shell, only the inside membrane keeping it together.

The membrane is actually surprisingly tough. It hardens up a bit when exposed to air, and this egg was sitting in the coop all night.

The egg inside is perfectly fine. I just tore the membrane open.

It’s fun to have a little variety once in awhile.

by AniOre

Journal Entry 10212014 (10/21/2014)

I have to say there were warning signs and people who foretold  what it’d be like and I semi believed but with only half conviction; but my half conviction in light of the current situation is full preparedness compared to those of my friends, family and other people not ready.  Oh my god ~ what is happening is just unbelievable!

But let me back up a bit to when things were just starting…Back when prior to the Mayan calendar ending  and people predicting the year ending in Dec 2012 (that didn’t happen), I had been listening to the news, and the doomsday people who had their projections, beliefs and theories. Then what made me really become awake was watching how a simple storm in the East, became the storm of the century and left millions homeless without source of water and power for weeks, even months; this all prompted me to start reviewing what it meant to be really prepared, though I was relatively safe living on the west side of the nation.

First my preps were focused on the ‘just in case of emergency’, like the flood and snow storms of the East coast, more importantly in my area, for earthquakes or out of control forest fires; which I needed to be prepared for at least a few month’s rations and what to do if possibly being prepared for no water or electricity. I talked with my family about doing the same and some of my friends came on board but my family were more obstinate, saying the ‘Lord’ will be there in the time of need. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the power of prayer and my god, but I also believe we need to be prepared while we wait for our Lord to come. So they tolerated my discussing my preps, but they also attuned it being that I was jumping on the band wagon of such TV shows as ‘Dooms Day Preppers’.  I laughed along with them, so that they wouldn’t commit me to the Looney house but I also tried to convince them to watch the show, I said, to get some laughs, but my secret mission was for some of the informative info to subconsciously sink in; but really there was no getting them to prepare.

So I was on my own basically, I had a few friends interested for a short period of time but only one group of people really serious like I was.  As I started to become more awake to the events around the world, things that our Government  was trying to pass or had passed into law and what our current President’s agenda was doing also concerned me and also the high cost of goods and yet the decline of jobs and shops closing down around me had me really worried. I felt out of control; except for my votes and speaking up against the tyranny but that only helped so far, I knew I had to prepare to take care of myself and my family if things would happen to get worse. …And worse they did.

I started with moving out of my rental house and bought a short sale property on the outskirts of the city. A small plot of land with some acreage that had a little farm house on it and was located across from the main river that flowed thru the valley; and a small creek also flowed thru my property to the river, though this was an extra cost monthly in flood insurance, it was worth the access to fresh water.

The place was semi off grid as it has its own well and septic. And to my delight the garage had a pantry already built with shelves and insulation in for food storage, and next to the dining room was a broken down atrium/greenhouse; which was easy to fix and get up and running again. Also the backyard had formed raised garden beds and established fruit trees. Having land, I quickly set up a chicken coop and chickens and took advantage of the small barn structure for some pigs and goats. I worked from home, so the being out of the city wasn’t a drain on a commute, but did have some adjustments on the weekend of choosing if I’d like to go into the city to visit friends or a night out on the town. The exchange of city life to country life was well worth the fulfillment I felt making my little homestead. It’s what brought me some peace of mind, the learning how to become self-reliant.

Later I added as I could afford some solar panels and installed a 500 gallon propane tank. Gas was hooked up thru the utilities, but I felt reassured to have back up stored as most of the house ran off the propane. I was still running things thru the grid, mainly electric but with the solar panels added, the bills were less and less; eventually I had the hook up reworked so that if the power went out, a switch could be thrown to ‘house’ the solar power into a bank of batteries. My next project was a wind mill or turbine tower. Sadly that didn’t come to pass soon enough.

It was about a year into living and working my little homestead when things foretold started to come to true light. Life around on the surface seemed to be same as normal, well as normal as they were a year earlier.  News of the war over seas and our troops still there still the norm’, and news of some new “Executive Order” being passed by our President that seemed for the people but was really all for the agenda of the President’s plan of ‘One World Order’ and the people eating it up, or should I say ‘sheeple’, was still the ‘norm’. And the ‘sheeple’ going about on their business as usual, the wool pulled over their eyes, was the ‘norm’ …. and still I quietly prepared; gathering and storing food, extra water storage and off-grid equipment.

One of those new laws that had gone into effect in that prior year was for all gun owners to register their guns or turn them in if they chose not to register. I know many people, in fact some law enforcement that did not ~ didn’t register or turn them in. It was plainly obvious that if one did, then that person now is easily on a list for the Government to now come and take said guns ~ well obvious to all except the ‘sheeple’.  Sadly that is what just came to pass. Soon after the registration process had died down, a new Executive Order was announced that all private citizens were no longer allowed to own guns, and sure enough a door to door of the people on the registration list were the first to be asked to turn in their guns. Not all took this lying down and many civilians were injured or killed in the line of standing up for their constitutional rights. The major cities had riots and martial law was proclaimed in those areas. Didn’t really effect the rural areas at that time, but that was just the beginning.

During that year, a mini revolution had been started and what affected the big cities now trickled down to the smaller cities. Slowly people (the previous sheeple) became awake. They were shocked and stunned that our nation could become so divided and so quick and bewildered why the ‘Power that be’ didn’t see this coming and avoid it. But in reality the ‘Powers that be’ did in fact foresee this coming; and probably in fact, planned it. Of course the ‘sheeple’ did not truly see the tyranny that was being released around them, they blamed the increasing violence and upheaval on the people and not the government. They’d say, the one’s fighting back must be with the terrorist or anti-government groups or something; and if not for their actions, this type of upheaval wouldn’t be happening.

Yah right, I thought to myself, keep that wool pulled over your eyes, them thinking if they just not get involved or stand up themselves that it will all just go away. But it didn’t.

The above post was an entry into the ModernSurvivalOnline Preparedness Guest Post Writing Contest.

First Place winner will receive:

• SafeGuardArmor.com is providing body armor – a Stealth Vest (White) B2 S1  vest.
  
• a Deadwood Cook Stove from Deadwood Stove Company
• A Paladin Go Bag provided by SurvivalGearBags.com
• CampingSurvival.com is providing the following:
  • Lifestraw Portable Water Filter Straw
  • Medical Corps Potassium Iodide Pills - bottle of 90 pills
  • Alone in the Wilderness DVD
  • Foliage Green Paracord - 1000 foot spool

Second Place will receive:

• Cube Stove w/ 3 Month Fuel Supply from Directive21.com
• From Prepper Press - 5 preparedness books of your choice
• Old West Lawman’s Forgotten Memoir courtesy of http://www.oldwestlawmansforgottenmemoir.com/
• A TrustFire XML C8-T6 5-Mode CREE LED 1000 Lumen Flashlight along:
  • UltraFire 18650 3000mAh 3.7V Rechargeable Li-Ion Battery (Pair) + Charger Combo and
  • Ultrafire 2pcs 3.7v 18650 3000mah Rechargeable Battery

Third Place will receive:

• One Solo Stove provided by SoloStove.com
• The excellent book….Going Home by A. American
• The digital eBook manual “Sold Out After Crisis“

© 2013, Rourke. All rights reserved.

My husband, children and I live in a largely off-grid community in the desert southwest.  We live on forty acres with solar power, a water well and water catchment.  We garden and live with chickens and are adding skills to our new life style all of the time.  My husband does not like for me to be too specific, but I outlined some of our lifestyle changes in an article on trash in July 2012.
This article is about clothing.  It is about sewing and mending and altering.  I know you’d rather read about AR-15’s, but IMHO, clothing is going to be a big deal in a TEOTWAWKI situation.  Before radically changing our lifestyle two years ago, I was the typical American mother.  I bought new clothing when the old became too small or too worn.  I bought when the seasons changed, and worse, I bought when the fashions changed.  Another thing I steadfastly did was to donate clothing by the tub and box full.  I worked very hard at keeping our closets clean and clutter free.  This is something that every home management book, blog, and article tell American moms to do. 

Whether you shop in charitable thrift stores or big box discount stores or big name fashion stores, the quality available to most Americans is pathetic.  But, while we still have shopping opportunities, look for quality clothing, for yourself and every member of your family.  Buy it whether you need it or not.  And once you own it, where ever you got it, you need to hang on to the quality stuff and learn to repair it.  I advocate charitable giving, but I also advocate the discontinuation of consumerist disposal of the old to make way for the new because of fashion dictates and other materialistic mindsets.
Have you taken an inventory of your closet lately?  Is it 90% professional clothing?  Do you have suits and ties for weekdays?  Is it chinos and button down Oxfords for the weekends?  Or do you have heavy duty work-type seasonal clothing that is suitable for your climate?  Do you have enough to layer in a cold climate with no household heating?  Can you protect yourself from the sun in the heat of the summer?  What about work boots?  Do you have a pair or two mixed in with your dress loafers?  Women, how many of you have heavy denim jeans?  I say this because women’s jeans are usually thin stretch denim and it is flimsy.  I know because I repair it!  Ladies, those high heels and flirty flip-flops that we all love are not going to serve you well in most TEOTWAWKI situations.  Neither are the flimsy tank tops that are so popular in summer.  Most of us do not wear them in the desert.  What is in your closet?  If you can’t imagine what you’d need, there are books, like Mr. Rawles’, that have fictionalized accounts of what a TEOTWAWKI scenario would be like.  Look around for people who work outdoors or farm; go into GEBO’s or whatever your farm supply store is.

I’d like to add one last thing before I begin my main topic.  I have no idea what I’m preparing for.  We, those of us who have a certain mindset about future possibilities, don’t know what the future holds.  We all have an opinion.  We think it may go this way or that way, but really, we don’t know.  Our job is to prepare, as best we can, for many different scenarios.  There are plenty of scenarios where we will all be blessed to just get out alive, never mind our extended wardrobe. There are others, like a long slow economic decline, where we simply have to roll up our shirtsleeves and do more with less.  There are plenty of TEOTWAWKI scenarios in the middle of those two.  If you are preparing, though, you need to prepare to have no new and maybe no new-to-you clothing options in the foreseeable future.

New clothing construction.  This usually begins with a pattern.  There are a few points to think about with patterns.  First, what kind do you want?  Well, IMHO, you want basic patterns for clothing that suits your area.  Pants, shirts, coats, jackets, hats, gloves, vests, the list could go on and on.  You can find a sewing pattern for just about everything, so if you’ve got an interest, look through the books and pick out patterns for additional items like luggage, organizers, tea cozies, etc., whatever suits your interests.  Just make sure you cover the basics first.  Also, if you are young, starting a family, think you may continue to add to your family, you need to consider the different stages of that child’s growth when looking at patterns.  Second, if I were you, after searching out the patterns that I like and want, then I would wait for a pattern sale.  Patterns can cost $ 10 to $ 15 these days, but most stores put patterns on sale regularly.  These sales used to be across the board, come in and get it sales.  These days, they have restrictions here and there.  Just educate yourself.  They all eventually go on sale.  Also, you can find many free patterns on the internet.  Granted, most of these are craft patterns, but you can find basic patterns too.

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Quick side note.  While tissue paper patterns have been around for a long time, they haven’t always been available. So what was the process before tissue patterns?  You can use newspaper, butcher paper, freezer paper (smaller items), muslin, or light colored sheets to make a pattern.  It is always easier to have a deconstructed item of clothing for this, but simpler garments can be traced without deconstructing.  You lay the garment pieces out on the fabric you are using and you trace around it.  You need to make sure that you leave enough for a seam allowance, usually 5/8 inch.  A basic understanding of clothing construction is helpful here.  Let me admit right here that the only time I’ve done this was in college.  Several of us in the dorm made matching sleep pants.  Two hours and lots of giggling later, we were done.  We used shoe strings for the waist, so I’m pretty sure that experience doesn’t qualify as “making my own pattern”.  So, I haven’t done this before.  If it interests you, research it.  However, one of my roommates could draw a basic dress on the fabric, cut it out and sew it up.  Many people can do this and they don’t all live in large cities.  Maybe you can find someone with this skill who is like minded enough to join your group.  Wouldn’t that be a great asset? 

Back to store bought patterns.  Patterns come in a range of sizes.  For example, women’s pants can include sizes 8, 10, 12, and 14.  You simply cut the pattern along the line that corresponds to your measurements.  And you need to have accurate measurements.  Sewing patterns do not always correspond to store sizes.  This is mostly a problem with women’s clothing, not men’s.  And, IMHO, you should buy a range of sizes from the smallest through at least extra-large in a range of patterns.  Example: my youngest son was tiny until the age of 14.  He is now the size of The Hulk.  Many women are different sizes from top to bottom.  A range of sizes is good. If you don’t want to have that many patterns, then just get the most basic clothing patterns in the widest variety of sizes.  For the more specialized patterns, you can be more size specific.  You might be able to barter with extra patterns, though, you never know.  Patterns are meant to be cut.  I don’t cut mine.  I trace them onto paper.  Besides having an aversion to cutting that pristine pattern, I don’t cut mine because I can be different sizes at different times.  I gain, I lose, I add pockets.  If you cut the pattern, it is cut.  I don’t cut mine. 
If you are going to sew new clothing, then fabric is the next step.  Useful fabric is probably another article all together.  I came from a small city of just over 200,000 and if you want to make a prom dress, no problem.  Most fabric stores sell craft fabric, home decoration fabric, and fabric for special occasion clothing.  Professional suiting (for women), fabric for Sunday dresses can be had, but the everyday hard wearing fabric is harder to find.  You can find home dec denim or denim for dressy skirts, but not hard wearing, “play outside” denim.  Since I haven’t lived in a really large city, I can’t speak to what is available there, but I don’t think it could be too different.  If I’m wrong and you live in a large city and can find good thick denim, canvas, thick flannels, strong thick cottons, then stock up and learn to sew.  Let’s not forget all of the other necessary sewing notions, either.  Thread, buttons, zippers, slacks closures, hooks and eyes, the list could be long, but it doesn’t have to be.  Stock the basics.  Now, here is the kicker, after four paragraphs, I say to you that, right now, new clothing construction is not cost effective.  I think in some scenarios, it could be…again, but right now, it isn’t.  There are just too many lower cost and more efficient ways to find clothing, such as thrift shopping.  I still stand behind what I just wrote, though.

So what were the previous paragraphs for?  You’ve got store bought patterns and sewing notions, now what?  Well, I haven’t sent you down the rabbit hole; I simply do not know what role clothing manufacturers or cloth manufactures will have in certain end times scenarios.  So you take those patterns and you read them.  This is how you learn about basic clothing construction and then, in turn, you learn about alterations and repair.  I find these two topics to be more useful for my continued efforts in prepping.  If what is ahead is a severe, deep depression similar to the 30’s, then it could be that fabric is affordable and store bought is not.  Sewing in any form will be a fundamental and much needed skill.

As I’ve stated before, I live in a small community.  I often work in a small quilting shop.  The owner will take in repairs and small, easy alterations.  We repair a lot of clothing here.  We sew up pockets, we hem new jeans, and we repair rips, tears, and wears.  For many in our community, they have no concern whatsoever about how a repaired item “looks”.  We can repair holes with a patch and the heavy and liberal use of the zigzag stitch.  If a pocket is ripped, most don’t mind if we put on a different colored pocket.  In my family of men, there are so many tiny holes in underwear and socks that can be easily repaired with a darning stitch or a zigzag stitch on the machine.  My daughter’s things have to be handled more carefully, but all in all, she’s not that picky.  My point is, when you find a rip, or a tear, fix it right then.  Don’t wait for it to get worse.  Sew it together with a strong stitch and be as neat as you can with it.  Don’t throw it away if the main part of the garment is still useful.  If you cannot wear it in public, then wear it at home or store it.  If the repair is major, get out a pattern and cut a new sleeve, or a new collar.  Use the patterns to fashion new pockets or cuffs.  I don’t know about you, but I cannot just wing something like that on the fly.  I need a pattern. 

Patterns will be very useful when altering clothing.  In any end-time scenario where people actually survive, you can pretty much count on losing weight.  Regardless of how much food you’ve stored, your supply is limited. You’ll ration your food.  Pair that with the absence of processed foods and you’ve probably got a significant loss of excess pounds.  What you also have is a closet full of clothing sized for your pre-TEOTWAWKI self.  Now, you can prep for weight loss and buy clothing in smaller sizes and store it.  You could go ahead and lose the weight now and that way you’d only have minor changes to make.  Still, your clothing is going to need alteration at some point.

I’ve thought about this portion of this article for a while now.  There is no way that I can write, describe, or illustrate all of the ways to alter clothing in this article.  So, what follows is a simple start to a much larger learned skill. 

The very best way to alter clothing because of weight loss is to deconstruct the item, cut them down and reconstruct them.  This is where those sewing patterns come in handy. Not many people will to want to do that. I wouldn’t do it unless the item of clothing needed to be severely cut down. 
So, if we are not going to deconstruct the item, then what?  Starting at the top, most shirts can be altered by simply taking in the side seams.  If the shirt has sleeves, then you probably will need to take in the seam of the sleeve as well. The seam is usually on the underside of the sleeve.  You can use pattern pieces to keep the shape of your garment.  Pattern pieces also will have the seam allowance already marked.  If you are a complete novice, break out the patterns.  Or, if you have some basic knowledge of sewing, then put the shirt on inside out and have a friend or family member pin (straight pins) the seams to the contour of your body.  You don’t want to do this too tightly.  Most clothing seams have a 5/8” seam allowance, meaning you sew your seam 5/8” from the edge.  You’ll need to consider that allowance as you pin.  If you need to take in the sleeves, pin the sleeve as well.  Take the time to mark it.  Any writing instrument will do, it doesn’t have to be a sewing marker.  These two seams will meet at the sleeve hole and will have taken up the necessary excess fabric in the sleeve hole.  Sew it up with a straight stitch.  I would suggest you try the garment on before you cut away the excess fabric.  If it isn’t right, that is okay. A straight stitch is easy to rip out.  Rip the seam and make any corrections needed.  Once you are satisfied, then I suggest you use a narrow zigzag stitch just inside the straight stitch to make the whole seam stronger.  Then you cut away the excess fabric.  It probably took me longer to type and edit this paragraph than the process actually takes, so don’t be intimidated. 

To make a small shirt larger, say for children who are growing, you could cut the side seams and add fabric to each side to the seam. Sew it up with a narrow zigzag stitch or a straight stitch.  Add fabric to the bottom of the shirt; add more fabric to the underside of the sleeve and you have a larger shirt that can see some more wear.  You can probably get at least another season of wear out of a shirt by using this technique.  Actually, since adding fabric at the seams is a style statement at the moment, you can find examples of this on the internet if you look.

Sleeves deserve a little extra attention.  Shortening sleeves? Not a problem. Most people can easily cut sleeves off and hem either what is left of the sleeve or hem the sleeve hole.  Pretty obvious and pretty easy.  Can you lengthen sleeves?  Well, if you don’t mind fabric that doesn’t match, then sure, you can lengthen sleeves.  You can add extra material at the shoulder seam or at the wrist.  Here is another time you can use the patterns that you’ve stored.  You can make a whole new sleeve by using the sleeve from a shirt pattern similar to what you are altering. If it needs to be lengthened, most patterns have a line where you can cut the pattern to lengthen it or fold it to shorten it.  Cut it out and sew it up.  Or, at the shoulder, use the upper part of the sleeve to make a pattern for the sleeve hole.  I’d use an inch or so in addition to your seam allowance of complimentary fabric and not even try to match the fabric of the sleeve.  Use a straight seam to sew the sleeve on to the new fabric. Pin your whole sleeve into the sleeve hole. If you have a pattern, follow those instructions. If you don’t have pattern instructions, then find the side seam of the shirt and pin to the seam on the underside of the sleeve. Do the same with the top of the sleeve. Once those two pins are in place, ease the rest of the fabric in on the curve.

You could also take the cuff off, if there is a cuff, and add fabric there.  Same procedure, you simply make a pattern from the end of the sleeve with the cuff off.  Sew the new fabric on and then reattach the cuff.   If there is no cuff, add one for extra length.  This is probably something that you would only do in a TEOTWAWKI situation.

The next obvious item of clothing that might need altering is pants or slacks.  If the waist needs to come in just a bit, then add darts.  Basically, to make a dart, you put your index finger in the back waist band and then using your thumb and third finger, press excess material to the front of your index finger.  You’ve done this a million times, so you know how to do it.  Pin it.  Once you have the clothing off again, pull the material together and smooth it into a long triangle on the wrong side of the fabric.  This is a dart.  Pin it and sew it up.  Make another dart on the opposite side in a similar place.  If you have a lot of material to take in, you may have to take the waistband off, take in the extra from the center seam in the butt. You’d also have to take in the waistband and that will involve removing a belt loop or two and the pockets as well.  This may be worth it if you have nothing else to wear, but it is a pain otherwise.  For general resizing in the hips and thighs use the inseam. If you are sizing jeans and the inseam is a double hem, then I’d just cut that off and make a flat seam.

After all of that, hemming the length of the pant leg is a breeze. Get a friend or a family member to pin them and sew with a straight stitch. If you need to hem more than an inch, consider cutting the material off leaving enough for a 5/8” seam.  You’ll want to turn the raw edge and then turn it again for the best results.

That is a very basic description of alteration for basic clothing. I didn’t cover altering a suit or a prom dress or any other kind of dress for that matter.  I don’t really consider those items important after the ball drops. I don’t think any of the readers on this site would either. If the world is truly gone, then I’d cut up those wool suits and make quilts out of them (you can’t wash them, but they are WARM). I’d use the softer prom dress type material for sleepwear or underwear for women or children.  You also may need to cut adult clothing down to child size.  Another good reason to have patterns on hand.
I have a final observation about Americans and clothing.  I said above that I do believe in charity and I do not advocate discontinuing that practice.  I don’t know about you, though, but the images of the mountains of clothing dumped on Sri Lanka and other areas affected by the Christmas tsunami in 2004 was eye-opening for me.  As Americans we have SO MUCH that we sent it to those people by the container full.  I think it was a wonderful testament to the giving hearts of most American people.  But!  Most of it was not usable in their tropical climate.  I read that much of it was destroyed.  The people there could not use it and they could not deal with the onslaught of all of that clothing.  So, I urge you to look at clothing that you might give away with a more discerning eye.  Absolutely donate your professional clothing!  If an item is in pristine condition, someone will be thankful to receive it.  But I know that in our little church clothing room, I receive far more articles of clothing that are stained and ripped than those that are pristine.  Many organizations will not put these clothes out at all.  They destroy them.  But, if you do not donate them; if you mine those clothes for zippers, buttons, collars, cuffs and any number of embellishments that clothing companies use, then that clothing won’t be wasted.  You can either deconstruct the garment completely and keep the pieces organized, or just store the shirt.  You can also use the deconstructed garment to make a pattern if you missed those pattern sales that I told you about.  You’ll be tempted to say that you cannot possibly store one more thing.  I agree.  Storage is a problem for all of us, but buttons and zippers don’t take that much room.  Find a way to store at least some items because you will need them.  And before you throw away the body of the garment, could you use it for a blanket or quilt?  Could you use it for cleaning rags or even bandages if it comes to that?
So, my suggestions are:

• Learn about sewing or better yet, learn to sew.
• Stock up on patterns, material, and sewing notions that will be useful in a survival situation.
• Learn to keep your basic wardrobe in good repair.  Learn to alter clothing.
• When going through your closet, keep in mind emergency/survival scenarios.  Do you have the clothing necessary to keep you covered, cool and/or warm enough in any type of situation?
• If the clothing that you seek to remove from your closet would be useful in a survival situation, do not throw it out or donate it.  If it is too small, it won’t be after the ball drops.  It may be something that you could barter with.   Good, heavy duty clothing will be a gold mine.  If it is not in good repair, repair it yourself or have it repaired while you still have professionals who can and will repair and alter.
• Lose the bulk of the extra weight now.  It is just easier that way.
• By all means, donate your professional clothing to charitable organizations, but the items that are too ripped, or worn, or stained to donate should be mined for usable parts.
• On February 8th, 2013 Mr. Rawles posted an article to Survivalblog called “Industrial Sewing Machines for Prepared Families”, by Lockstich.  This is really an excellent article.  Obviously, if you don’t have a sewing machine, then that article is the place to start.  Get a good machine.  And then learn to use it!

I’ll repeat the warning I put up every time we butcher: DO NOT READ THIS POST if you are vegetarian or have a squeamish stomach. This post shows pictures of some animals being butchered. I don’t want anyone complaining that they weren’t adequately warned about the graphic nature of these photos.

Okay?

Okay. That said, this morning we butchered our steer, Thor, and our bull calf, Atlas.

The most challenging part of butchering animals is getting them confined to the barn the day before the butchers come, and keeping them there. Through harsh experience we’ve learned that trying to round up an animal the day it’s due to be dispatched is stressful, frustrating, and often a failure.

And even when we cleverly get an animal confined the night before is no guarantee he’ll be there in the morning. Last summer when we butchered our heifer Smokey, she escaped the barn during the night, jumped two gates, plowed through three fences, and went gamboling across the neighbor’s pasture by the time I found her at dawn the next morning. Grrrr, was I ever glad to put that girl in the freezer.

Thor, who is Matilda’s two-year-old steer, has been growing more and more snarky over the last few months. He’s big, and has been plowing down fences with abandon. We know from experience that an animal with an unpleasant disposition isn’t going to improve; far better to stop feeding him and let him feed us.

We originally purchased Atlas when he was a few days old from a neighbor, thinking we would raise him to become our new herd sire. However our old bull Gimli was his father, meaning he has a bit too much relatedness to our girls. Once we got our new bull Samson, poor little Atlas became surplus. He’s very sweet-natured and rather small for his age (he’s about 17 months old). We thought we had a buyer for him, but no such luck.

Anyway, in anticipation of the mobile butchers who were due to arrive this morning, we needed to maneuver the herd out of the pasture and back toward the house (and barn). But before we could do that, we needed to make some infrastructure improvements.

Last week we bit the bullet and bought eight more cattle panels (cha-ching!). They’re expensive but oh my, they’re wonderful. Instant (and sturdy) fences wherever you need them.

We wanted to block the cattle from getting into the garden, the chicken coop, and the hay barn. So we trotted the cattle panels around and put in temporary U-nails to keep them in place.

Here the barn and all that tempting hay is walled off.

Next step: the old barn. It sustained some severe damage during a windstorm a couple months ago. The barn was built with cheap T1-11 sheets and gets damaged all the time. Time to patch it, at least temporarily, since the area on the right is where Thor will be locked up for the night.

We nailed one of the T1-11 sheets lengthwise across the wall, then put a cattle panel across the top. We also reinforced several spots inside that we felt Thor could push through if he was agitated enough.

This pretty much wiped out Don, who still doesn’t have his full strength back from last week’s kidney failure.

But at this point all that was left to do was trot down and close our driveway gate.

Then I walked to the pasture gate and yelled “Bossy bossy bossy bossy bossy!” — which is our universal cattle call. Immediately the critters came running.

As usual, Brit was the first through the gate.

As the neighbor’s horses watched, all the other cattle came barreling through in short order.

At first everyone congregated in the back of the barn before scattering around the driveway area.

We left the barn door invitingly open. Sure enough Thor, being the curious creature that he is, went in to investigate and I closed the door behind him. One down, one to go.

Atlas was a little more wily but was unable to resist exploring Matilda’s stall, the door of which I left invitingly open. Soon he too was where he needed to be. Whoo-hoo, success! And fairly painless too! No rodeos this time.

We left the rest of the livestock in the driveway for the night, and all night long we were serenaded by bellows from Thor and Atlas. I also spent the night stressing. I always do this the day before, and the morning of, butchering — stress that the doomed critter(s) will make an escape. We checked constantly to see if either animal was breaking out of the barn, but it actually — and let the record show, this is the first time – held, and no one escaped. Atlas, however, did an absolute number on Matilda’s stall — trashed it — and managed to escape into Thor’s area, but since he couldn’t escape from Thor’s side, they were within easy dispatch reach.

Potlatch Pack, the best mobile butchers in the region, came on the dot of 10 am this morning. Their specialized rig is self-contained with water, power, and all their tools.

On the side of the rig are barrels for waste.

Within minutes, both animals were down. These men know precisely where to place the bullet so the animal drops instantly with hardly a twitch and certainly without suffering. They chained the animals up one by one to get them out of the barn. First order is to drain the blood, then take off the head followed by the feet. (Mel is on the right, and his nephew Chance is on the left.)

Then they start skinning. I’ve never seen anyone who could skin as quickly and perfectly. Comes from sheer practice, of course.

They always make sure the tough Achilles tendons are exposed because they use them for hanging the carcass later on.

Today has been a day of wild shrieking wind (gusts up to 60 mph) but the men were cheerful as they worked. “At least it’s not blowing snow,” said Mel.

Over his waterproof apron, each man wore a belt from which dangled a plastic holster for their knives…

…and a knife sharpener. The sharpener is constantly in use.

Within short order, the carcasses were partially skinned and ready to gut.

But first they have to cut through the ribcage, which they do with a specialized chain saw. They have to be careful not to cut any of the internal organs, which could taint the meat.

They insert a stout metal bracket through the tendons on the back legs so the animal can be partially hoisted. Lifting the animal makes it far easier to gut, finish skinning, and then halve the carcass.

Once the carcass is hoisted, they gut it.

We have a neighbor who adores fresh liver, so they put the liver aside for her.

Next they cut through the backbone.

Here they’re hosing down the carcass. The men hose down everything, constantly: themselves, their aprons, their knives, the carcass, the truck… they keep everything squeaky-clean.

They can finally finish detaching the hide. This is almost the last step.

They put the hide in one of the side barrels.

They sell the hide to an outfit in Spokane that bundles them into thousand-hide lots and ships them to the Orient, where they’re processed into leather. This surprised me, but Chance told me there are no more large-scale tanneries in America any more.

“It amazes me how many manufacturing jobs we’ve lost,” I commented.

Chase gave a small bitter smile. “And they’re just beginning to realize the impact,” he said, thus proving that every blue-collar worker in America “gets” what our politicians don’t.

It didn’t take long for all four carcass halves to be wheeled into the interior of the truck.

Then the cleanup began. I took the tub of blood onto the compost pile with the intent of pouring it around (blood is a superb compost activator)…

…but the blood had already congealed into a gelatinous mass. So I left it. The chickens will probably scratch around in it, but the wind was shrieking too hard to fuss with it for now.

Chase emptied the contents of the stomachs into the now-empty tub. This too will go onto the compost pile.

He found a couple of hairballs in the stomach contents. “They’re harmless,” he said, “and it’s too bad these are soft hairballs. Hard hairballs are worth money.” Go figure.

All the leftover stuff — unused organs, hooves, heads, etc. — were put in the waste barrels. This material is trucked to a rendering plant.

From start to finish, butchering two animals took the men one and three-quarters hours. They have another stop at a neighbor’s for a steer, then another stop for two more animals in a small town south of us, before they make their way back to their facility. There the meat hangs in a cooler for ten days, after which they cut and wrap it. In about two weeks, we’ll get ground beef, stew meat, and lots of different cuts of steak and roasts, all organic grass-fed beef. Yum!

We don’t know what the hanging weight is yet, but I’m guessing it’s at least 750 lbs. between the two animals.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: these men and the service they offer exemplifies all that is BEST in America. They work hard and do a dirty job in sometimes adverse weather conditions; and they do it cleanly, humanely, and cheerfully.

I wish we had more people like Potlatch Pack. Thank you once again, Mel and Chance, for your work today.

Many (if not most) people seek wealth, yet few can define it.  There are many practical definitions.  One author defines wealth as having sufficient assets to provide the cash flow necessary to meet your monthly living expenses.  That’s a great definition for normal times, but having a bunch of rental houses when the dollar is worthless and the hungering hoards are loose upon society won’t do you much good.

If you are at all familiar with the concepts promoted in this blog you know what you need to have for basic survival.  I will not spend space and electrons reviewing what we already know.  But what do you do after you have the basics?  Do you continue to accumulate more of the basics until you need a multilevel secret subterranean warehouse to house your supplies?

When you have your basics squared away you need to look to the concept of vertical integration.  Vertical integration was used by the so-called robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century.  The man that owned the steel mill also owned an iron mine, a coal mine, a limestone quarry, and the transportation capability to move the raw materials in and the finished product out.  Now before you start giving me that funny look I do know that most prepper budgets would not support the purchase of mines and mills.  But the ability to go from raw material to finished product is the definition of wealth for a prepper in a post-TEOTWAWKI situation.

This concept applies to every element of your preparations.  Food, defense, medicine, etc.  And it not just about tools but knowledge also.  Let’s look at food as an example.  The first step is to store food.  You start small, maybe a month’s worth at first.  You build up to a year then two years.  You purchase a grain mill to turn your stored wheat into flour.  This is as it should be, but what is next. 

Now, you look to food production.  After all, you can’t practically store a lifetime’s worth of food.  Gardening is a great place to start.  You read and research different techniques.  You develop a place for the garden, starting small so you don’t overwhelm yourself.  You acquire the tools necessary for a small garden and learn how to use them.  You put this knowledge into practice and learn from your failures and build on your successes. 

As your successes increase and your failures become rare your confidence increases, and so does the size of your garden.  You acquire the tools necessary for a bigger garden.  You start using open pollinated seeds and learn how to save seeds for future years.  You learn how to start bedding plants.  After a few years your small garden that produced a few salads and tomatoes is now producing a tremendous excess of a large variety of vegetables.

Now you turn your attention to food preservation.  You learn pressure canning, pickling, and dehydrating to preserve your excess harvest for the winter months and the lean years.  You have vertically integrated your food production.  You can take seeds and produce finished storable food and produce seeds for future years.  You can expand your garden to produce far in excess of your needs.  The ability to sustainably produce food in a world of hungry people is wealth.  You can now take your basic skill set and expand laterally to small-scale grain production, herb production, and/or animal feed production.

Along the way you have learned associated skills such as how to repair and maintain your gardening tools, how to produce the power necessary to run your food processing tools, how to keep the pests out of your garden, and how to produce natural fertilizers for your garden.  You cannot focus on a specific area and learn in a vacuum.  There are always associated skills to learn.

This same principle can now be applied to animal production.  Start with chickens and build from there.  Add goats then cows or pigs or both.  Continue to grow and expand your capabilities adding skills and tools, as you are ready for them.  Many people, especially those new to the preparedness mindset, will see the enormity of the task and panic.  They will try to do it all at once and set themselves up for failure.  Proper preparation is like eating an elephant, you have to do it one bite at a time.

This process happens in measured steps and assumes that you have taken care of the basics first.  You have your “beans, bullets, and bandages” stored away and you have a place to work that you can call your own.

Start at the end.  Identify how the end result will look.  List the capabilities that you want to have when you reach your final goal.  Be specific and detailed.  You cannot start a successful project if you do not know what the finished result will be.  You need to know when you have reached the end.

Next, go back to the beginning.  Determine when, how, and at what level you are going to start your project.  The chances are good that you have some basic knowledge to start with, knowledge that will allow you to begin the project at a level within your comfort zone.  This point will vary from person to person.  Some will start with no knowledge at all on the subject, some will start with knowledge that they haven’t used for years, and yet others will start with a firm grasp of the basics.

Now that you have identified the starting point and the finishing point, you can determine the actual size of the project.  You can now accurately identify what tools you need to acquire and what skills you need to learn.  You can divide the project into manageable bites or phases and set goals to be accomplished at each phase.  The beauty is that you can make each phase as big or as small as you like.  You can customize each phase to your time and resource availability.

You can use this method to focus on a single project or to steadily advance on multiple projects simultaneously.  This method will work no matter where you start or where you want to end up, whether you have many resources or few to devote to your projects.  You can make this system fit your needs.  This is how you develop your assets to produce the kind of wealth that will benefit you in difficult times.

Allow yourself the time that you need.  It is easy to look around us at the negative indicators and panic, thinking that you need to do everything now.  That type of thinking will only lead to failure.  You must lay a solid foundation of knowledge to build on, a process that takes time.  You should develop at least a degree of confidence at each phase before moving to the next.  Otherwise, it is easy to overwhelm yourself.  Should the world go to Schumer sooner than expected you can be confident in what you know and take comfort in the fact that you are far better prepared than well over ninety percent of the rest of the people.

“A man has got to know his limitations.” (Harry Callahan).  The technology exists to do many things on a small scale.  You can produce energy from wind, water, and sun.  You can produce fuel from grains and oil seeds.  You can produce your own food, grow your own medicines, produce your own transportation, and many other things too numerous to mention.  However, even with all of these possibilities there are still some things that you will need to store.  While you can cast or swage your own bullets you will be hard pressed to make primers or powder to match what is commercially available today.  The same applies to lubricants, matches, canning lids, and a large variety of other vital supplies.  Be realistic in your expectations and don’t plan to do more than you are capable of.

“Specialization is for insects.” (Robert Heinlein).  If you have a group it is tempting to divide workload and then stay with your assigned tasks only.  This type of thinking is a key ingredient in the recipe for disaster.  The loss of one specialized individual can greatly harm the overall effectiveness of a group.  Cross training avoids this.  You should learn as much as you can about as much as you can.  Additionally, should you find yourself on your own, a broad base of generalized knowledge could make you a valuable asset to a group. 

When the day comes that the paper dollar is little more than mediocre tinder, wealth will be the ability to sustainably produce a finished product in excess of your immediate need.  The knowledge and tools that you need produce that product are the assets that will generate that wealth.  Develop a plan that will take you from where you are to where you want to be and then act on that plan.  The most important step that you can take is to start.