The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 10, Issue 37

National Preparedness Month - In the home stretch....

Hey everyone, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. National Preparedness Month is drawing to a close, with just a few days left. One prep that I’ve tried focusing on lately is my health. Regular readers will recall that a couple of months ago I landed in the hospital with a septic infection. I’m about 95% back to normal at this point, but I’ve committed to some lifestyle changes to hopefully avoid further problems.

One of them is increasing my physical activity level. In addition to our daily dog walk and our weekly hike, I’m now going for walks in or around my home a few times a day. I set a timer for 15 minutes and just walk through the house or in the yard until it goes off. Lately I’ve been adding some stairs into the mix, too. I do these three or four times a day, with the goal being to hit four every day. That gives me a full hour, plus the dog walk, each day. I’m also adding in planking and a couple of body weight exercises. I’m not getting any younger and I want to stick around for as long as I can. I watched my father’s health decline quite quickly once he settled in at home after retirement. While I’m not retired, my job is largely desk-oriented, so I recognize that I need to be more active outside of work.

How about you? Did you have anything specific you wanted to accomplish during National Preparedness Month?

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Prepper Tip - Be realistic in all of your planning. Don’t hinge the safety and security of you and your family on novels or movies. Remember that for most creators of fiction, entertainment comes first. I’m not saying they can’t be educational, as many of them are. Rather, just make sure your plans are truly based in the real world and have practical application.

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On the work front this week, I managed to get a fair bit accomplished. I turned in all 17 articles for Prepper Survival Guide 21, four of which I wrote and the remainder were submissions I had to edit. I finished and submitted an article for Field & Stream and started in on a knife review I’ll be sending to Backwoodsman magazine. The rest of this week will be spent working on Backwoods Survival Guide 26 and 27.

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Prepper Tip -- Most of us have prep areas that interest us highly and areas that we tend to forget or ignore. Do what you can to make sure your plan is balanced. $10K in firearms but enough food for just a couple of days isn’t a good idea.

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Craig Caudill is a good friend of mine and he’s someone I greatly admire, both personally and professionally. He did a lengthy Q&A on YouTube recently and I really enjoyed hearing what he had to say. He touched on a few topics that I know I need to work on myself.

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Survival Tip -- When was the last time you had a fire drill at home? Make sure all family members know how to escape and to feel a door before opening it. Remember, smoke and heat rise so crawling might be the best option. Have a meeting place outside the home so you can get a head count and make sure everyone is safe.

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I know I have some folks in my circle here who make survival gear to sell, and others who aspire to do so. One suggestion, based on interacting with dozens and dozens of companies over the last several years. Keep your product names simple. Something like Tactical Chest Pack Kit Ruck Bag 2.3 is cumbersome, awkward, and hard as hell for anyone to remember. I get the whole SEO thing, but work that into the description and keep the names short and sweet. Just my 2¢.

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Prepper Tip -- Prepare a Death File for your family that includes not just your last wishes but everything they’ll need to access financial records and other important accounts. You might consider putting together a list of social media contacts who should be notified of your passing.

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Many survival and preparedness focused groups on Facebook are filled with what I call Passionate Ignorance. This is when someone gets very riled up about a topic of which they’ve apparently not given a lot of thought. Here’s an example of what I mean.

Person makes a post inquiring as to the efficacy of different options to store and protect a cell phone from EMP or solar flare. Immediately (and predictably), they are inundated with comments like:

--Who are you going to call? Nobody else will have a working phone!

--You won’t be able to text, call, or use the Internet, what’s the point?!

--THE TOWERS WILL BE DOWN, DUMBASS!

None of those chuckleheads apparently realize that a cell phone can be used for more than just making calls or sending texts. It can be a wonderful repository of resources, once those materials are downloaded and saved to the phone. Just a few examples:

--Instruction manuals, complete with exploded diagrams, for various pieces of equipment you own.

--Wild edible and medicinal plant identification guides.

--DIY project instructions for things you’ve not gotten to do yet.

--First aid information.

--Videos on all manner of survival skills.

--Books, music, and videos for entertainment.

--Treasured family photos that you’ve saved in digital format.

Cell phones and tablets can be powerful tools with uses that extend far beyond communication. If EMP or solar flare is on your personal radar, so to speak, then working out a storage solution for sensitive electronics is probably wise. Yes, you’ll need a way to recharge the batteries, which is easily done with a small solar panel.

Note – I’m not suggesting that electronics storage should fully take the place of hard copy materials. This isn’t an either/or proposition. But you can store a whole lot of information in a very small space with a cell phone or thumb drive, and digital real estate is pretty cheap.

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Over on my Patreon, we’ve been discussing a wide range of topics, including:

• Pepper spray

• Mini survival kits

• Survival schools

• Multi-tasking

• Healthy diets

You can sign up for a free trial, if you’re interested. There are two tiers available. Basic gets you three posts a week, Advanced gets you a post every single day.

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We took our hike this week at a city park about a half hour away from home. It has been at least a year or two since we were there last. Nice trails, well-kept and scenic. At one point, we ran across a bridal party doing a photo shoot. There had to be about 30 of them, all in matching formalwear, with a chartered bus nearby. I told my wife that I could not imagine us having so many close friends that we’d need to rent a bus to transport them all.

Survival Tip – Doom Fatigue

My friend Daisy Luther has a new book out called How to Prep When You’re Broke, and I highly recommend it. I haven’t gotten through all of it yet, but what I’ve read thus far is quite good. I’ve been skipping around in it, and one chapter that immediately caught my eye was the one on doom fatigue. This is a topic I’ve been meaning to talk about myself.

Doom fatigue refers to the feeling you get when you’re overwhelmed by all the badness you see and hear in the news, online, and elsewhere. It is rather prevalent among new preppers, as they start to pay closer attention to what’s happening in the world. But it isn’t limited to them at all, as I know many seasoned survivalists who still fall victim to it from time to time.

It can lead to a sense of hopelessness and resolving to just let whatever happens happen. That’s pretty much the opposite of prepping, right? Alternatively, it can cause one to want to tune out the world, which works against the heightened awareness to which we normally strive.

Here are some pointers from Daisy’s book, as well as some of my own ideas, on what you can do if doom fatigue starts to creep in.

Be diligent about the amount of time you spend each day or week perusing the news. Set a limit and don’t deviate from it. Give yourself, say, 20-30 minutes during breakfast and another 20-30 minutes in the evening. Check for anything new, then move on. While you’re at it, be selective about the sources you consult. Pick two or three that have proven to be reliable in the past and stick to them.

Avoid the comments section on news stories at all costs. Seriously, nothing good ever happens there.

Self-care is a thing that exists and you should pursue it regularly. Invest time and energy into doing things that enrich your body and mind, that you find fun and relaxing. As the kids say these days, “touch grass” on a regular basis, meaning get outside and get some fresh air.

Concentrate on the things you can control. You can’t do much about how various world governments treat one another, but you can for damn sure control how you spend your time at home. If you feel like you absolutely need to do something prep-related, there are many things you can do that are productive and that don’t cost much. For example, you could inventory your supplies or work on learning a new skill via books from the library and YouTube videos.

If you start to feel overwhelmed, like there’s too much you need to do and you obviously can’t do it all at once, stop. Sit down and take some deep breaths. Spiraling will get you nowhere. Make a short To Do list for that day, focusing on things you can realistically finish. Maybe it will just consist of decluttering and organizing two shelves in the closet. That’s fine, that’s progress. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to tackle everything at the same time. That will get you nowhere.

Above all, don’t give up. It’s okay to take a day off. Hell, it’s perfectly fine to take an entire day and never leave the couch, just bingeing on your favorite show. We all deserve some downtime. But, the next morning, get your butt up and accomplish something.

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.