The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 10, Issue 47

The holiday season is upon us....

Dec 06, 2023

Hey everyone, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. I hope your holiday season is off to a good start. We’ve put up some lights outside and the stockings will be hung later this evening. The tree isn’t up yet, though, which is unusual. We usually get that up and decorated the weekend after Thanksgiving. But life has had other plans for us lately, so we’re making do the best we can. Hopefully this weekend we can finish decorating.

I’m still in the recovery phase after my abdominal surgery, but the healing seems to be going well. While I’m careful not to overdo anything, I am trying to stay at least a little active. We even did about two miles for our hike over the weekend. Not too bad for a guy five days the other side of the surgery table.

* * *

On the work front, we’ve wrapped up the stories for Prepper Survival Guide 22, Backwoods Survival Guide 28, and our Natural Disasters special issue. All of those will be out in Spring 2024. Our writers are working hard on their submissions for Backwoods Survival Guide 29, as well as the special Gear Guide issue that will come out in Fall 2024.

* * *

Announcement – while I had every intention of getting it ready on time, it just isn’t going to happen. This year’s Real World Prepping wall calendar has been canceled. Between my recent health issues and a pile of other deadlines, there’s just no way I’ll have it ready in time for people to receive it before Christmas. My sincere apologies, I feel horrible having to cancel the project.

* * *

Prepper Tip: When we hike as a group, inevitably some members will move quicker than others. Over time, there may be one or two who are lagging significantly behind. Invariably, what happens is the main group will pause every so often to let those stragglers catch up, then everyone moves on.

The problem there is that everyone gets to take a breather while they wait for those last couple of people, but then when those folks catch up, they don’t get that same break as the rest.

A better approach is to let those slower members choose the pace for the group. They won’t feel left behind and the rest of the group might take the opportunity to take in the sights a bit more as they travel.

(Admittedly, this is more of a hiking tip than strictly prepping, but I thought it was still worth mentioning.)

* * *

Want to win some pretty cool stuff? 5.11 Tactical has a new giveaway going through the end of the year. Prize package includes $2,500 in 5.11 gear. Details here.

* * *

Prepper Tip: You may have heard it said that a dull knife is more dangerous to the user than a sharp one. The reason for that is because you end up using more force to make a cut with the dull one, increasing the chances that something is going to slip out of your control.

Any craftsman will tell you that one of the keys to success is to maintain your equipment properly. We’ve all been there at one time or another, struggling to make do with a tool that isn’t working well because it hasn’t been taken care of. Doing so invariably requires more effort on our part and the end result isn’t always all that great.

Your brain and the skills you’ve learned over the years are tools and they require sharpening on a regular basis, just like the knives in your kitchen and the other tools in the workshop. If you let them get dull and rusty, when it comes time to use them, they might not perform as well as you’d like. Look at it like this, if you’re building a shelf and it doesn’t work out well, no great loss. If you’re in a survival situation, the stakes are a bit higher, yeah?

Commit to sharpening your tools on a regular basis. This would include practicing skills you’ve learned, as well as spending time to learn new ones.

* * *

I spent a little time over the weekend putting together my Top Knives of 2023 list. You’ll find it here.

* * *

As I mentioned earlier, I did make it for the hike this weekend. We did about two miles at a local park. Nothing too strenuous, just a fairly flat path near a lake. It was the first time I’d left the house since coming home from surgery, and it was nice to get the fresh air.

Survival Tip – Balance and Priorities

When you think about the various types of disasters we could face in our lifetimes and the things we can do to mitigate them, I’d estimate somewhere around 90% of the preps are fairly universal. Water, food, shelter, those sorts of things are needed regardless of whether we’re talking about a bad winter storm, job loss, or economic collapse, right?

The remaining 10% of preps are more disaster-specific, such as building a Faraday cage if you’re concerned about EMP or investing in an extensive underground bunker where you can ride out a nuclear exchange.

Here’s where I feel some survivalists get turned around. If you’re spending 90% of your time, energy, and resources on the 10% that’s disaster-specific, you might be setting yourself up for failure.

Make sure your prep plan is balanced and your priorities make logical sense. If you’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars on armaments and ammunition, but have less than a week’s worth of food available at any given time, you might want to rethink that approach. If you have enough medical supplies to outfit a hospital, but have no idea where you’re getting water to drink if the taps run dry, that could be a problem.

Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide

For those new to my little corner of the Internet, I am the Editor in Chief for both Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide magazines. Here are the covers for the current issues that are available in stores right now.