The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 12, Issue 17
Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. They’d been predicting some bad weather for my area yesterday and last night, but it all kind of fizzled out into nothing. While I’m not complaining about missing potential tornadic activity, I do love a good thunderstorm.
My wife and I are trying to plan a couple of trips this year. We’d like to see Mt Rushmore as well as do a waterfall sightseeing tour through northern Wisconsin. I’d also really like to get out to Pennsylvania to visit some friends as well as maybe do a prepping class of some sort. Juggling various deadlines, graduations, and other commitments is proving problematic, but we’ll get it sorted out.
Work this week has been focused on finishing content for Backwoods Survival Guide 34 and working on a few articles for Gear Junkie, GAT Daily, and Recoil Offgrid. I’m also planning out the article list for Backwoods 35 and making notes on a few other projects.
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I’m not an alarmist, but this caught my attention. It’s no secret that there has been a sharp decline in cargo ship traffic arriving to the US. According to this article from CNBC:
For the week ending May 3, the number of freight vessels leaving China and headed to the Southern California ports, the main U.S. ports receiving Chinese freight and other Asian trade, is down 29% week-over-week, according to Port Optimizer, a tracking system for ships. Year-over-year, the data shows a 44% drop in vessels scheduled to arrive the week of May 4-May 10.
What this means, from a prepper standpoint, is that you may want to take a gander through your preps and see if there are any holes that need to be filled. There’s a good chance we might be looking at some COVID-esque shortages in stores in the next few months or more.
While I believe the plan is to have the US ramp up domestic production rather than rely on imported goods, no matter how optimistic you want to be there’s going to be some lag time between when those imports stop arriving and when trucks start rolling from new production facilities here. Those who normally buy imported goods, when they can’t find their standard choices, will likely buy the domestic equivalent. This will put a strain on those supply chains.
Use common sense and avoid panic shopping, but at the same time think ahead to what you might need and make sure you’ll have it available. Don’t rely on online ordering, if possible. Head to local stores where you can actually pick up items in person. That way you can be certain it’s there.
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Related to the above, here’s a great article from Daisy Luther with her thoughts about a potential economic catastrophe.
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I suppose I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the power outages that recently affected parts of Europe. As of Tuesday morning, power had been restored to most areas, but there are still some issues with transit systems.
Despite claims I’ve seen to the contrary; this incident wasn’t being hidden by mainstream media. I’ve seen it covered on every source I’ve consulted thus far.
While initial reports suggested the power outages might have been caused by hackers, I’m seeing more and more sources indicate that it’s due to rapid temperature fluctuations that caused, “…anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines….”
In any event, this was a pretty extensive outage, impacting all manner of systems including mass transit and banking. Just one more example of why preparedness is important.
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We are gearing up for the release of Countdown to Preparedness (2nd edition). If you have a YouTube channel, website, blog, or similar outlet and you’d like a review copy of the book, please get in touch.
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For those who might want the info, here are all of the places you can find me online. At least, I think this is all of the current ones.
Patreon
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For our hike this week, we took our granddaughter to White River County Park, Lyons, Wisconsin. She’s about 2 ½ years old, so we didn’t want to try anything particularly difficult for a trail. She did really well and we walked about two miles all told. The next day, my wife and I headed over to South Beach in Port Washington, Wisconsin for some sand strolling and rock picking.
Survival Tip – Meals in a Jar
This is one more option for food storage. I wouldn’t rely on it exclusively, but it can provide some variety to the post-disaster diet. The concept is pretty simple. All of the dry ingredients for a meal, such as soup, are measured out and stored in a Mason jar. The jar is sealed and the contents will remain fresh for several years. Many people will print labels with the preparation instructions and affix them right to the jar.
You may have seen something along these lines as a DIY holiday gift, such as Brownies in a Jar. But here, we’re not just talking about festive desserts.
This site has several recipes to get you started. But the search engine of your choice will undoubtedly uncover dozens of others.
The one downside here is that most recipes of this nature use freeze-dried or dehydrated ingredients. These may not be things you have sitting on the shelf right now. Pick and choose the recipes you want to try to get the most out of any of those freeze-dried ingredients you need to purchase.
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 Backwoods Survival Guide just about anywhere magazines are sold, including:
Walmart
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.