The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 11, Issue 41
Hey everyone, thanks for checking out the newsletter. For the last couple of weeks, everyone in our household has been playing Round Robin with a cold. Granddaughter ended up in the hospital a couple of days ago with a fever of 104F and an ear infection. They got it under control, thankfully. I’m hoping that we’re all back healthy in another few days.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I’ve always been a fan of monster movies and the like, ever since I was a little kid. Scary movies are fun, though gore for the sake of gore doesn’t impress me. I like spooky rather than jump scares. For anyone who might be interested, here are my top five scary movies, in no particular order.
Dark Skies (2013) - I’ll admit that I have a fondness for Keri Russell. She’s a great actress and she does very well in this film about alien abductions.
Amityville Horror (1979) - This was the first movie I can recall scaring me as a young kid. I’ve seen it a few times since and it holds up decent, for the most part. Not quite as scary as an adult, of course.
The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - Great, great movie. Not creepy scary, but a really great love letter to horror movies. Don’t miss the novelization by Tim Lebbon, either.
Wrong Turn (2021) - There are several films in this franchise. I’ve only seen the original from a few years back. It was okay, but nothing spectacular. This one, though, has a few pretty intense scenes that stuck with me. It isn’t for the squeamish, there’s a good amount of blood and gore being splattered about. Keep it going through the credits, too.
Nightbreed (1990) - Based on a novella by Clive Barker, it is kind of bizarre but cool if monsters are your thing.
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Prepper Tip -- The other day, someone on Facebook suggested investing in a few live traps. Their idea was that they could be used to catch squirrels or other small game animals to use for food in the wake of some type of disaster. These traps are pretty easy to bait and set. Not to mention that any critters caught would be somewhat protected from other predators until you get back to the trap. On top of that, if you happen to catch something you don’t want to eat, you can set it free.
Now, with all of that said, here’s the reality check. In the wake of a major natural disaster, such as what hit North Carolina, the animal population will be just as affected as the human one. And they won’t have rescue crews out looking for them, either.
There’s also the human impact on said animal population. The small game that does manage to survive the disaster will likely be hunted and trapped to near extinction fairly quickly. This is something that’s been portrayed a few times in fiction, such as in ONE SECOND AFTER by William Forstchen as well as the TV series Jericho.
Consider wild game to be a supplementary food source at best, rather than a primary plan.
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Joining us this week on How to Survive 2025 is well-known survival instructor Craig Caudill from Nature Reliance School. Our topic this week is active shooters -- how to prepare for that possibility and what to do if you're caught up in a bad situation.
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This is a short article I wrote for GAT Daily about Talismans of Safety. That’s a term coined by my buddy Jayberry Miller from Tuff Possum Gear. It refers to how people will often buy survival gear simply for the “feel good” aspect of owning it, without knowing if it will actually do the job.
The cat’s out of the bag since the book is up for preorder on Amazon. I’m doing a revised edition of COUNTDOWN TO PREPAREDNESS. It won’t be out until summer 2025, but I’m having fun going through it and updating everything.
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I have two 2025 calendars available for purchase.
Real World Prepping has about 130 tips, hints, and suggestions scattered throughout the year to keep you moving forward to being ready for life’s little and not so little curve balls. There’s also a ton of bonus content that can be found through the QR codes that are printed for each month.
Point to Pommel is for my fellow knife nerds. The calendar features knives from:
Bark River
LT Wright
7Forge
Spartan Blades
Buck Knives
Night Watch
White River Knives
TOPS Knives
Kopis Designs
Smith & Sons
Vehement Knives
Dan Tope
If you are interested in a bulk purchase of either calendar, drop me an email [jim@survivalweekly.com] to discuss rates.
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For our hike this week, we drove almost an hour to get to a state natural area we don’t get to very often. We went there specifically for this view.
Survival Tip – Think About Water Sources
I’ve met several preppers over the years who have said they store very little water. Reason being is that they live adjacent to an outside water source, such as a stream or pond. In a couple of cases, they’ve said that their outdoor pool is their emergency water source.
That’s all well and good, provided that outside source doesn’t become contaminated. I recently read an account online where a guy had that very thing happen. He only kept a couple of cases of bottled water on hand, because he had a good-sized stream running near his house. Then one day there was a chemical spill a few miles upstream, fouling the water for several days.
Store plenty of water, as well as invest in robust filtration gear. Water is a primary need and it’s one of the few areas where I would be okay seeing people go a little overboard. As I’ve often said, nobody has come out the other side of a disaster upset that they had too much clean water available.
Backwoods Survival Guide Magazine
For those new to my little corner of the Internet, I am the Editor in Chief for Backwoods Survival Guide magazine. Here is the cover for the current issue available in stores right now.
You can find them just about anywhere magazines are sold, including:
Walmart
Sam's Club
Costco
Publix
Walgreens
Rite Aid
CVS
Tractor Supply
Fleet Farm
Barnes & Noble
Subscriptions are available here.
Questions, Comments, Complaints, Concerns?
I am always just an email away - jim@survivalweekly.com.