The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 11, Issue 45

Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. And Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who observe the holiday. I’ve been working hard the last few days trying to wrap up various odds and ends before the long weekend. Still have a way to go, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

I have two book pitches out in the wind right now and I’m hoping to hear something soon. Fingers crossed I get the green light on at least one, but preferably both. If not, I might look at self-publishing one or both.

Black Friday is this week and I think I’ve looked at a grand total of one ad. There’s just not a whole lot we’re going to be hunting for this year. My wife and I will probably hit a few stores on Friday, just to see what’s out there, but more out of curiosity than anything else. When our kids were young, we spent quite a bit of time planning Black Friday shopping. We’d scour the ads and compare prices on various gifts, then make a shopping list for each store. The boys were too young to be left home alone, so my wife stayed home and I braved the crowds. It was actually kind of fun, to be honest. But I don’t miss getting up at 4AM to get in line, that’s for sure.

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Prepper Tip -- Conducting an area study is an important step in a preparedness plan. This is an excellent tool to help you determine what to prepare for. It will give you the intelligence needed to make informed decisions.

Sam Culper is one of the leading authorities on area studies. Bob Mayer’s book The Green Beret Area Study Workbook, is another excellent resource.

In this video, Culper goes over the very basics of what an area study entails.

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This is Backwoods Survival Guide 31. It’ll be hitting stores and subscriber mailboxes soon, probably starting the first week of December. Tons of great topics covered in this one, including raising turkeys, building a knife strop, tools for processing firewood, using chest rigs, and so much more.

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A couple of days ago, I had a meeting with one of the people in my county’s emergency management office. We’re planning a preparedness expo sort of event for spring. It’s going to be a one-day FREE event with classes and vendors. Very much still early days on this, and I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted. We’re looking at April or May and it’ll be held somewhere in Walworth County, Wisconsin.

It’s very cool to see county level emergency management wanting to get involved with something like this, and assist with the planning and organization of it. Some of you may recall that I was invited to speak at the Wisconsin Emergency Management annual training conference earlier this year. This sort of outreach is exactly what I had in mind when I talked about the importance of Ground Level Preparedness. Several attendees stopped me afterwards to chat about it, so there’s definitely interest out there.

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I’m running a Black Friday sale for Patreon subscriptions. New subscribers to my Patreon can save 20% on their first month by using promo code PREP20. That offer is good through December 1st.

For those not familiar, Patreon is a subscription-based service where I deliver preparedness essays and information via email several times a week.

There are two subscription levels:

Basic = 3 posts a week delivered to your inbox.

Advanced = 7 posts a week delivered to your inbox.

You can find out more info and subscribe here.

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For those thinking of ordering the Real World Prepping or the Point to Pommel calendars for holiday gifts, please plan ahead. They take about 2 weeks to print, ship, and arrive.

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I turned in the final manuscript for the revised edition of Countdown to Preparedness late last week. It’ll come back to me from the copy editor sometime in the next couple of weeks, but for the time being, it’s done. I went through every single page and made updates as needed. I also swapped out several chapters for information I felt was more relevant.

Countdown to Preparedness will be out next summer. You can preorder it here.

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Our hike this week was a visit to Carver-Roehl County Park, Clinton, Wisconsin. It’s one of our regular stops in the rotation, so to speak. It has some great scenery, especially around the river that runs through the park. The water level was pretty low this time around.

Survival Tip – What Are You Throwing Away?

As a general rule of thumb, items left at the curb for collection are no longer considered private property. This includes the contents of your trash bin. Back when I worked as a private detective, there were a few occasions where we grabbed the trash at the curb to get information. For example, let’s say it was a child custody dispute. If we found a few dozen empty beer bottles, and the person living there alone was on probation and not allowed to possess or consume alcohol, this could be something a judge would want to know.

From a personal security standpoint, think about what your trash might reveal about you and your household. Leaving boxes from big screen TVs and similar high-end electronics at the curb is just a neon sign indicating you have new, expensive stuff to steal. A better option is to slice up those boxes and then bag up the cardboard so it can’t be seen.

Anything with financial information, such as old bank or credit card statements, should be shredded at a minimum. We’ve been known to save those shreds and then burn them in batches when we have patio fires in the fall.

Peel the labels from old prescription bottles and shred them. Same with any medical record printouts you might get at the doctor’s office.

I jot down a lot of notes on a regular basis. Everything from To Do lists to phone numbers and more. All of them go into a small garbage bin near my desk and then end up shredded/burned. Probably a little overkill, but we’re burning other stuff anyway so it isn’t like it’s a lot of trouble.

Pay attention to what you toss away.

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.