The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 10, Issue 42

Welcome to November!

Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. I have a small outpatient procedure scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday). Nothing too serious, but if you could spare a thought or a prayer, something along those lines, I’d appreciate it.

Because I plan on taking a few days off to recover from the surgery, I’ve been hard at work trying to get ahead on my various deadlines. We’re currently working on Prepper Survival Guide 22, Backwoods Survival Guide 28, and Backwoods Survival Guide 29. We’re well into May 2024 with release dates on these. With Prepper 22, we’re talking July 2024. I’ll admit, it can be difficult trying to keep everything straight behind the scenes, as we have so many moving parts these days. I still think I have the best job in the world, though.

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I know many of you are regular readers of Backwoodsman Magazine. I'm thrilled to share that I have an article appearing in the Nov/Dec issue, which is coming out now. When I first started writing professionally, I made a list of magazines I hoped to work with one day. Over the years, I was able to cross those titles off, one by one. Backwoodsman was the only one left on that list. I’ve already sent off my second submission to them.

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Preppers and survivalists love improvisation. It speaks to the whole self-reliance mindset we foster and encourage. We enjoy finding alternate uses for things, especially if those uses have some sort of survival or emergency application. That’s all well and good, but you should never plan to improvise. Meaning, save the gimmicks, parlor tricks, and “MacGuyvering” for the last-ditch efforts.

Knowledge is knowing that a crayon is wax, and that as such it will burn.

Wisdom is understanding that a crayon is a piss-poor substitute for a candle.

Prepping is stocking up on flashlights, lanterns, candles, SnapLights, and/or other illumination aids so you don’t have to burn up your kids’ Crayolas when the power goes out.

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It has been a long time since I posted any new content to my blog, but I got an article up there the other day: Surprising Survival Skills Preppers Truly Need

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I also posted this quick review of the Carry Commission Bum Bag, which is one of my favorite new pieces of gear.

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What seems like a lifetime ago, I spent several years working in retail loss prevention management. While the bulk of the work centered on protecting the physical assets of the company, particularly the merchandise being sold, the safety of customers and employees was also paramount.

One of the last things I did before I left that line of work was to organize a Safety Fair at my home store. It was a lot of fun and we had a good turnout from the community. A service that we offered during the fair was to set up child ID kits for parents. These consisted of small folders where the parent would fill out the child’s information and add a photograph. Now, this was back in the 1990s and digital photography was still in its infancy. We used Polaroid instant cameras to snap photos for the folders. We also had a police officer on site to do fingerprints for the folders.

These ID kits can be very helpful in cases of missing or abducted children. You can download one of these kits here.

That link should take you directly to a PDF you can download and print. Fill in your child’s information and keep this document in a safe, but easily accessible, location. Update the photo about every six months. Maybe add it to your to do list when the clocks change. For the fingerprints, call your local police department’s non-emergency number and arrange to meet an officer at the station. Hopefully you’ll never be in a situation where those fingerprints will be necessary, but better to have them and never need them.

One more related tip. Any time you’re going to a crowded event with your kids, such as a county fair, take two seconds to snap a photo of them before they run off to meet their friends. This way, if you lose track of them, you can show the security staff exactly what they look like, including what they were wearing when you last saw them.

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For our hike this week, we had our granddaughter with us, so we had to find a location with terrain we could easily navigate with a stroller. The view was very nice.

Survival Tip – Handling Cold Temperatures

Like it or not, winter is coming. There are many reasons why you might need to figure out a way to stay warm, even in your own home. Let’s say you live in a climate where the temperatures dip to freezing or below in the winter and your furnace goes out. Or you live in an area where it doesn’t typically get that cold, but then it does and the power goes out due to the sudden high demand in the community.

Modern fireplaces don’t generate that much heat for the home, most of it goes right up the chimney. And let’s face it, there aren’t that many apartments or condos equipped with woodburning fireplaces or wood stoves anyway. So, how can you keep you and your family from freezing all night long?

If you’re unable or unwilling to seek shelter elsewhere, such as a local motel, here are just a few strategies to consider.

Create a Mini Shelter

One of the easiest things you can do is create a confined area within the home where everyone gathers. The smaller the room, the better, but you probably don’t want to do this in a bathroom, just for the sake of comfort. Choose the smallest bedroom instead. Hang blankets over the door and windows to reduce drafts. Depending on the size of the room and the number of family members, body heat alone should warm the room a fair bit.

Get everyone under blankets and cuddled up with one another. Bonus points if you have dogs or cats that are willing to share their body heat as well.

You can go a step further and set up a small tent in the room and herd everyone in there. Make a game of it with young children and pretend you’re camping. Again, you’re relying on body heat to warm up the space inside the tent. You can drape a blanket over the tent to help keep more heat in.

Along those same lines, if you don’t have a tent try making an old-fashioned blanket fort like you did as a child. It might not be perfect, but anything you can do to trap body heat will help.

Indoor Kerosene Heater

These work very well, with a couple of caveats. For starters, you’ll need to buy one and fuel for it ahead of the crisis. Odds are that if you wait until the emergency happens, you’ll either not be able to get out to a store or, if you do manage to make your way there, you’ll find they’re sold out.

Make absolutely certain that the heater you purchase is designed for use indoors. The fumes will be minimal and there’s less risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Even so, you’re best off setting it up near a window you can crack open. Not only will this help ventilate the room, it will reduce the odor of the kerosene.

Candles

As anyone who has done the romantic, “fill the room with lit candles” routine knows, there’s a good amount of heat given off by them. However, that warmth comes at a price—danger. Open flames can certainly warm the room. They can also set the room on fire and give you a whole new set of problems to solve.

If you’re going to resort to using candles for heat, go about it intelligently. Use heat-resistant surfaces for them to sit on and limit it to just one or two candles in a given area, closely monitored by someone responsible.

Keeping warm during a power outage or other event can be critical during the winter. Figure out solutions ahead of time, just in case. And always keep safety top of mind. You want to lessen the stress, not create a worse crisis for yourself and your family.

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. 

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 to both titles are available here.

Questions, Comments, Complaints, Concerns?

I am always just an email away - jim@survivalweekly.com.