Prepping: Heat Your House For Free

Free Heat. Tossing a hunk of pallet on the fire.

Ok so nothing in life is free. But some things are so low cost its almost like free. So how do I heat my house for free? Well I simply went back to the tech our ancestors used for thousands of years. Wood. Think wood is not free. Well it can be if you are willing to work for it. And if you live in the right area.

I burn shipping pallets or skids as we call them around here. Yep shipping pallets are free for the taking at most factories and stores. One skid will heat my house for 6hrs so that would be 4 a day. However I let the fire go out when I am sleeping ( That's what blankets are for ) so its only about 2 skids to keep me nice and toasty for the day.

Now to be honest I do burn a little bit of wood that is grown right here on my farm but not much. Skids are thin cut wood and that burns fast. So when a break is needed from filling the stove I will toss a log on. I don't like to get up from the table when eating just to keep the fire going.

Getting ready to cut up my skids for today.

Now I realize this only works for some people. You must have a wood stove or fire place. You must have a truck, van or trailer to haul the skids home. And you must live close to the factories or stores that have the skids. Now gas is expensive so you don't want to make special trips to get your skids. I know each place in my town that has them so on a trip to the coffee shop I can grab the skids from the places that are along the way. When I go to the bank I know the hardware store around the corner will have some. I burn almost no extra gas to get them. You get the idea.

This will not work for everyone but it works for me and it reminds us that to survive we need to use what we can find around us. WASTE NOTHING.

Smith & Wesson Mod 1913

The first semi-automatic Smith & Wesson

Just did a live video on Periscope: Smith & Wesson Mod 1913. You can see it live for the next 24 hours. (It's 9:07 p.m Eastern)

Iver Johnson Safety Automatic Hammer in .38 S&W Video

Hi All. My video of the Iver Johnson Safety Automatic Hammer 3rd Model in .38 S&W is now on my Indiana Magnum YouTube Channel. So click on the link below to have a look.

Iver Johnson Safety Automatic Hammer

Iver Johnson Safety Automatic Hammer 3rd Model in .38 S&W

Winter Car Survival Kit

The last few years have seen winter storms in North America trap thousands of motorists in their vehicles for hours if not days. Make sure you have your Car Survival Kit with you. You never know when you may need it.

What you put in your kit is up to you. Some ideas are.........

Water.
Snacks.
Warm hat gloves socks and jacket.
Blanket.
Candles and candle holder.
Flashlight.

I put this kit together in 5min.

Can or other small container for melting water.

You should plan to be able to spend at least 48hrs stuck in your car in sub zero temperatures without a working engine. You can not count on your engine in a survival situation as it may not work for a number of reasons. If you do have a working engine that's a fantastic bonus but be careful. Many people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping in a car. Never sleep with the car running. Just turn it on to warm up then shut it off. 

Make sure the exhaust pipe is clear. Snow or other debris can build up around your vehicle trapping the exhaust fumes. Don't let drifting snow trap you. While snow is a great insulator and actually will make your vehicle warmer you don't want to be trapped. So open a door every hr or so and clear the snow away. 

And be careful with your candles. Don't sleep with your candle burning. Cars have lots of flammable fabric and plastic and can go up like a torch if you knock over your candle.

The few ideas I have discussed here are just a start. I recommend you have a much better kit than the one on this page. But anything is better than nothing.

11 Uses for a Smart Phone in an Emergency Situation!

Use your cellphone camera to look around
objects without exposing yourself.

I was sitting looking at my smart phone and thinking about what good will it be when the world falls apart. I came up with a few ideas. I am sure there are more.

Flashlight. Makes a good flash light. Some even have a flash light App.

Memorization Tool. Camera still works and that could be handy for taking photos of things you need to remember. Like landmarks for navigating or things you are taking apart that you need to put back together.

Periscope. Camera makes a good periscope. You can use it for looking around corners with out sticking your head out.

Morale Booster. If it has music or games on it that could be a fantastic morale booster.

Compass. The compass on mine appears to work with out the Internet.

Fire starter. You can short out the battery to start a fire.

Stop Watch. Not sure what you would use this for but something may come up.

GPS Locators. The satellites that send out the GPS signals may still be working. So with a GPS App you can get your location.

Phone Calls. It may still work for a short time after the land lines go down. May not but you may need to contact family members or friends

Calculator. The calculator still works without the Internet and may be handy for the math impaired among us. Math is far more important than you may think for navigating, food rationing etc.

Secret Communications. You can password protect your phone and leave it for another person who knows your password to pick up. Then they can read or listen to your message. Could be handy.

If you are wondering how to keep your phone charged after the end of the world it may not be too hard. You can get a solar charger or charge it from a car battery. A car battery will charge it quite a few times before the car battery will need charging.   

Could you survive an asteroid impact?

In February 2013 a once in a lifetime surprise meteor flashed across the sky and exploded in a fireball above Russia, causing a shock wave that shattered windows and injured over 1000 people. At the same time asteroid DA14 went flying past the Earth at a record-breaking distance of about 17,000 miles from the surface.

The Earth gets hit every day but now and again we get hit by a big one. Could we survive a hit like the one that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Some say we could not survive such a hit but I say we can.

We don't really know the effects of a big hit. But if we are to believe what some Scientists tell us then we can assume that the surface of the Earth will be almost completely sterilized by the fires that will consume every thing that will burn. The air will become super heated to perhaps 800 degrees. Earthquakes will rock the planet and giant waves will flood the coasts. Then the planet will freeze for several years due to lack of sunlight. But people can survive all that. They just need to be underground.

Every day all around the world thousands of people are underground at any given moment. Thousands of people work in mines and underground government bunkers. Many thousands more are riding in subways or train or road tunnels. Several hundred or perhaps even a few thousand peppers have underground bunkers they can access.  And don't forget the hundreds of men who are deep under the ocean in nuclear subs all the time. So we can expect many thousands of people to survive the blast and the heat. Now we just need to feed them. So how do we feed people when the earth is one big sterilized cold dark rock? We will eat things that most people would not consider eating now.

We know that many lifeforms survived the event that killed the dinosaurs. Animals that lived under ground and under water were protected from the heat and the blast. And the same kind of animals can survive the next big hit, Animals like mice and rats and earth worms would survive and they may in fact be quite plentiful as the disaster may provide them with lots of dead cooked stuff to eat. The impact will also kill all the larger animals that would normally prey on them. I know it may sound unpleasant but rats, mice, and worms are really nutritious and they don't taste bad if you can get past the idea of eating them.  Think alternate food sources!! Survivors would also be able to find insects and a few species of animals that live in the water such as Fish, crocodiles, turtles, frogs and many more.

Human beings are not designed to live on a diet of meat only so any survivors would also need to find a source of plant matter. Finding the necessary plants on a world that has been scorched may seem impossible but it may in fact not be. The roots of many plants are edible and may survive the initial high temperatures.Water plants may survive for some time until the coming cold temperatures and lack of sunlight kill them off.

Long term survival in such a hostile environment will be difficult. It could be many years before sunlight returns to levels sufficient for agriculture. However humans are amazingly adaptable creatures and our ability to use whatever we can find to our advantage should serve us well. For example our ability to scrounge things like glass from the wreckage of civilization and build greenhouses to grow plants sooner than nature would otherwise allow.

So with a little luck and ingenuity humanity might just survive an asteroid impact.

Credits: Image by idea go at freedigitalphotos.net

Bond Arms Snake Slayer or Perhaps Zombie Slayer

I just picked up my new Bond Arms Snake Slayer (Well ok its my Wife's) I wont go into too much detail as you can find plenty of info and reviews on line and I see no point in repeating all that. So I will just concentrate on the anti Zombie potential of Snake Slayer.
 
In brief the Snake Slayer is a cool little .410 shotshell/.45Colt pistol. It looks like an old fashioned Derringer but its made to modern standards and is bigger than the original Derringers.  I should also say that you can get it in many other calibers just by swapping out the barrels but its the .410 shotshell/.45Colt that we are talking about as that's what I have.

As an anti Zombie weapon the Snake slayer has a few problems. I will get them out of the way first so we can talk about all the good features of this gun.

CONS AS A ZOMBIE KILLER GUN

1) Limited to 2 shots. Because its in the style of a Derringer it only holds 2 rounds and reloading is quite slow. The best reload time I can get is about 10 seconds. Someone younger and faster could probably do a little better but its still slow. When surrounded by hoards of the undead 10 seconds is an eternity.

2) Single action. As the Snake Slayer is single action you need to manually cook the hammer for each shot and that will also slow your rate of fire down a tad.

3) Bad sights. The sights on this little gun are just not that great. The rear sight is small and as the gun is all one colour (stainless steel) I find it quite hard to get a quick sight picture. However to be fair the gun is intended to be used at extremely close range so the sights are just a guide.

PROS AS A ZOMBIE KILLER GUN

Now for the good stuff.

1) Quality. The Snake Slayer is well made. It's a solid hunk of stainless steel that just looks really good. It feels like with a little care it would last a lifetime.

2) Reliability. I have found it quite reliable. I have had no issues with any brand of ammo that I have used. In fact I have had no misfires or any failures at all. I should say however that the gun has only had 250 rounds through it so something may crop up yet.

3) Its versatile. This gun is really a little tiny shot gun and as such its very versatile. With a simple change of shells you can go from shooting small animals like snakes or small birds to defending yourself from larger attackers like dogs or Zombies. A blast of .410 buckshot is devastating at close range. And with slugs or .45 Colt you can extend your range out to a considerable distance. I found it easy to ring a 12 inch steel gong at 60 yards from a seated position. I was able to hit it a few times from a standing position as well but I found it difficult. I should also mention that after about 5 shots it started to get a little hard on the hand. The recoil with slugs is managable but some may find it a bit much.

4) Easy to use. Its a really simple gun to use. Push the safety. Cock the hammer. Pull the trigger.

5) Safe. Because its so simple to use I believe it would be a gun that lends itself to safe use. The safety is large and simple and easy to use. Its a single action so one must cock the hammer before you can shoot it. It also has a rather stiff trigger pull that makes it hard for someone who is in a stressful situation to have an accidental discharge. You have to pull the trigger hard to make this gun go bang.

6) Easy to carry. At about 22 oz it's a nice easy gun to carry around. Yes you can find lighter guns but when you combine the light weight with the firepower of .410 buckshot its a nice carry gun.

So to sum it all up the Snake Slayer may not be the best Zombie gun but in my opinion its a handy little gun that would make a great back up gun or a good carry gun for most self defence situations. Just not hordes of the UnDead.