The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 12, Issue 42
Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. We’re gearing up for a short camping trip later this week. It’s gonna be a mite chilly, down into the upper 30s at night. But we’re looking forward to getting away for a bit and spending some time next to a campfire instead of a computer screen.
Once we get back, though, I’m going to be chained to the keyboard for the foreseeable future. I have a lot of deadlines coming up between now and the end of the year. That’s okay, though, as a lot of those deadlines involve playing with knives and other gear, which is always fun.
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Doing what I do for a living, I’m obviously a strong proponent of home-based survival libraries. The collection and curation of useful information is incredibly important.
However, it shouldn’t stop at just buying books and magazines, and/or printing out blog posts and other information online. The only way that information is going to be useful to you is if you read it. It’s sort of like buying gear but never practicing with it. The information contained within those pages won’t seep into your brain via osmosis.
I remember mentioning in a Facebook group once that you should actually read the survival/prepper books you acquire. One guy commented that he wasn’t about to start reading the advanced medical texts that he’d purchased, implying that he’d just consult them as needed when medical issues cropped up. That seems like a recipe for failure to me.
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I led an Intro to Preparedness class over the weekend in Stoughton, Wisconsin at the library there. We were up against a Badger game and a few other events, so the audience was a little sparse. But everyone seemed to enjoy the presentation. One the participants made a point of commenting to me later that he’d found the class informative, which was nice to hear.
If you’d like to see me come to your area and lead a talk about prepping, give me a shout and let’s see if we can work something out. Email me – jim@survivalweekly.com.
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Back in June, I spent some time touring Benchmade’s headquarters out in Oregon. Here’s the article that talks about that visit.
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If you talk to anyone whose job involves hiring people, you’ll probably find out that a candidate who can “think outside the box” is valuable. Being adaptable and innovative, those are great qualities for preppers as well as job applicants.
Here’s the part of the equation many people seem to miss. In order to be successful with thinking outside the box, you first have to possess a great understanding of how to work inside that box. I’m going to use one of my most-despised prepper myths as an example.
Someone without any sort of training or education with regard to rendering first aid to a gunshot wound may read that shoving a tampon into the wound cavity is a great way to stop, or at least slow, the bleeding. It’s a hole in the body and the tampon might fit, so it makes sense, right? Great out of the box thinking.
However, if you’ve been trained or educated within the box, so to speak, you’d know that the tampon isn’t likely to do anything constructive. The wound channel inside the body may be considerably larger than what you can see from the outside. Further, the tampon isn’t going to absorb much blood at all in the grand scheme of things. A better option is to start shoving a shirt sleeve or something similar into the wound, packing it as tight as possible to reduce bleeding. No, the shirt isn’t sterile, but neither is the tampon.
It’s difficult to come up with an improvised solution to a problem if you don’t know how the proper solution is supposed to work. You have to know how to work inside the box before you start mucking about outside of it.
Seek out training and education. Watch videos and read books from reputable instructors. Learn skills and practice them.
Then start playing around with improvisations.
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Here are some of my most recent articles at GAT Daily. All are free to read.
Seasons of Change – Fall and Winter Preps
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Our hike over the weekend was a visit to the Arboretum in Delavan, Wisconsin. It’s a short walk, but we wanted to check out the lake there. They had drained quite a bit of it to work on the dam and recently started refilling it. This looks like a marsh, but it’s actually the lake bed. Once filled, the water level should come halfway up those rocks or higher.
Survival Tip – Taking A Hit
Most people would probably agree that self-defense classes are a great way to learn some basic skills. But there’s something else that’s pretty important that you’ll learn taking these sorts of classes. You’ll find out what it’s like to get hit. For many people, that’s never happened before. Or if it has, the last scuffle was maybe back in middle school.
Going through the motions at half-speed or less is a good way to get the technique and movement down. But having it applied to you at full speed is something else entirely. Getting hit hurts, no question about it. So does having a joint lock applied as well as numerous other techniques.
But it’s important to know what it’s like on the receiving end. Not only will you have a better understanding of how these various strikes and locks work, you’ll be able to better control your own reaction. The first time you get struck in the face, you’ll probably freeze up from the shock and surprise. But over time as you practice and spar with others, you’ll be able to improve your reaction speed, so that getting hit maybe happens less often.
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
Questions, Comments, Complaints, Concerns?
I am always just an email away - jim@survivalweekly.com.