The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 10, Issue 21

Be sure you hydrate, boys and girls

May 24, 2023

Hey everyone, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. So far, the feedback about the new format has been very positive, which is great to hear. I’m still working on finding out whether there exists a text-only version for those who prefer that format.

It has been an…interesting…few days. Sunday morning, soon after feeding the dogs and cats, I developed a pain that radiated along the left side of my back and flank. At first, I thought I’d twisted wrong and pulled a muscle, but the pain got worse and worse. It let up after about 20 minutes, then came back with a vengeance maybe a half hour later. At one point, it was so bad it made me nauseous. When it subsided, I told my wife we needed to head to Urgent Care as something was definitely wrong.

Some of you probably guessed it already – kidney stone. They did a CT scan to confirm, then gave me a couple of prescriptions, with an advisory to see a urologist at my earliest convenience. I did that on Monday and he is giving me some time to see if it passes on its own before he gets more involved. Thankfully, the pain hasn’t been bad today. I’m hoping I can get this all squared away soon, as I have a lot going on in the next several weeks.

For time being, I’m taking my meds and drinking far more water than I’ve ever drank before. I’m approaching a full gallon for today…which also means I’m headed to the bathroom about every 20 minutes. I’ve never been much of a water drinker, preferring milk, juice, and soda. Which is likely what led to my current situation, especially the milk as I was drinking 3-4 big glasses every day. The Urgent Care doctor suggested that might be a little excessive, without water to flush excess minerals from my system. Thus my advice to all of you. Be sure to drink plenty of water every single day.

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One of the latest “the sky is falling” posts floating around social media is about how 50 senators have been given encrypted satellite phones, with the question being posed, “Why not all of them? Why only those 50?” Literally two seconds of searching online revealed that all 100 senators have been offered the phones and so far, 50 or so of them have picked them up.

Personally, I was kind of surprised that they didn’t have that capability already. Seems like something that should have been done years ago.

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On the work front, we’re starting in on Prepper Survival Guide 20 and Backwoods Survival Guide 24. These issues won’t be out until September/October, but here’s a sneak peek at some of the topics we’re covering.

Backwoods 24:

Search and Rescue Training
Magnet Fishing
Pickling Food
Homeschooling
Flint Knapping
Cast Iron Restoration

Prepper 20:

Mental Preparedness
Financial Prepping
First Aid Kits
Setting Survival Priorities
Avoiding Online Scams
Defense Weapons for Non-Permissive Environments

We’re always looking for suggestions for topics readers would like to see covered in our magazines. The ideas we receive aren’t always feasible or practical, but we’ll do what we can.

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Patreon is now allowing me to offer free trials for those who are curious about the content I offer there. Here’s the link to my page where you can sign up.

There are two levels that receive posts. Basic gets you three posts a week of original content. Advanced gets you a post every single day, the three Basic ones as well as articles, essays, and other material from my archives.

Give it a shot and see what you think!

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One of my latest articles for Knives Illustrated is a review of their new Alpha Scout and Alpha Hunter knives. You can read it for free here.

I also did one on the pros and cons of various knife handle materials, which you can read for free here.

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Brian Keene is one of my favorite writers, and I dearly love his Lost Level series. In an effort to raise a bit of money for his coming wedding and honeymoon, he’s doing a pretty cool project. In a nutshell, he’ll write a custom story featuring you, or the person of your choosing, set in the Lost Level series. More details on his blog here. But, you need to act fast, as the offer is only good for another day or two.

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Reminder: I’ll be appearing at the Minnesota Prepper Expo. The event runs June 30 – July 2, but I’ll only be there Saturday and Sunday. I won’t have any books to sell, but I plan to have some back issues of Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide available. I’m leading four classes during the expo:

Financial Preparedness
Prepping with Kids
Conflict Resolution
Realistic Bug Out Planning

See their website for the schedule.

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For our hike this week, we went took the mutts to a county park that’s about a half hour from home. It was incredibly buggy, with swarms of gnats and the occasional mosquito dive-bombing us. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice walk, but I could have done without the extra cardio workout from waving my hands at bugs almost the entire time.

Survival Tip – Castaway Depots

In the 1860s, there were a few shipwrecks where survivors managed to make it to small islands near New Zealand. In fact, there were two separate wrecks that occurred near Carnley Harbour just several months apart in 1864 where people made it to shore and survived, on different ends of the island and without ever knowing the other group existed.

After these and other incidents, a number of emergency depots were established on various islands. New Zealand took over the responsibility from private parties in 1877 and maintained them for the next 50 years. During that time, government ships patrolled the area to check for survivors and maintain the supplies in the depots, visiting each location at least once every six months. They would cut firewood, drop off stocks of live animals, and make any necessary repairs to the huts.

With the advent of improved communication equipment and such, the program was discontinued in 1927.

All of that’s interesting, but how can we apply it to prepping? Well, from time to time we talk about setting up caches. Same principle, applied slightly differently.

There are a few different types of caches. The most traditional, at least as far as survivalists and preppers go, is a container filled with supplies that’s buried or otherwise hidden somewhere. One of the most common approaches is to use a short length of PVC that’s sealed on both ends. These don’t hold a ton of stuff, but even a little bit of gear could give you a leg up in a pinch.

Another version of the cache is to make use of a storage unit. I’m not suggesting you rent a unit specifically for this purpose, but rather if you have one already, there’s little harm in adding some shelf-stable food, cases of bottled water, and other supplies to it. Ideally, the storage facility will be located outside any urban areas and thus less likely to be dangerous to access in a crisis. From where I’m sitting at home, I know of at least three of these companies that are within a 20 minute drive and are well outside any city limits. So, yes, they do exist out beyond where the sidewalks end. Incidentally, two of those three are ungated and thus require no electricity to access the storage units themselves, so no worries about massive power outages, either.

Yet one more version, and the one I wanted to actually concentrate on here, is a tote or other container with supplies that you stash with a friend or family member. This one wouldn’t have food or water in it, but rather things like:

Spare clothes
Cash
Prescription meds (if applicable)
Toiletries
Copies of important documents
List of phone numbers (insurance companies, etc.)

The idea is to assemble what you’d probably need for a few days if you were driven from your home, such as in the case of a fire. Rather than rely on the generosity of others to donate something you can wear and what not, you’d have a small supply of necessities squirreled away somewhere you could access easily, should the need arise. Even if you’re not crashing on your friend’s couch, you can resupply and head out from there.

Obviously, this would need to involve someone you could trust. And you’ll want to access the cache a few times a year to swap out medications and other perishables. The good news is that this isn’t something that should cost you much money to assemble. You don’t need to go out and buy a bunch of brand-new stuff. Just use old clothes from your closet (that still fit, of course). The other supplies can be likewise skimmed from what you have at home already.

This isn’t something that is truly life-or-death survival-related. But, it is something that will help smooth things over a bit in an emergency, allowing you to focus on other pressing matters.

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.