Eating Neighborhood Wildlife (Neighborhood Hunting)

It's been a while since I last posted but I'm still preparing.

I don't know how but my dog bagged him a rabbit.  He came out of his dog house with his head high and a full grown rabbit in his mouth.  I was kind of proud!

Well after seeing this, that got me interested in considering our neighborhood animals as food.  In my neighborhood the most common wildlife are squirrels, rabbits, deer and wild turkey.  These animals are fairly abundant in my neighborhood at this time but if a disaster took placed that lasted for several months most of these animals will be gone very quickly.   It would be almost a luxury to have these animals for dinner if supermarkets are no longer there.  For those who are not hunters you may not realize what is necessary to put these animals onto your plate.  There is more to it than just putting a bullet or arrow into the animal.  We are so accustomed to just picking up already skinned, gutted and butchered meat, that we forget or do not realize that there are preparations that must be done before eating these animals.  Knowing how to properly skin, gut and butcher these animals can give you alternative food options such as raising rabbits.  Below are some videos I found that show what needs to be done to prepare a squirrel, rabbit, deer and turkey for dinner.  If you can't stomach it, don't look at the videos.

Live the Motto - Be Prepared!

 

Construct a Raised Bed with Wooden Pallets

I have been preparing my garden for seeding and this year I'm going to use raised beds.  I was about to buy some lumber but I decided I should be able to somehow use the wooden pallets I have collected to create the raised beds.  After searching the internet I borrowed an idea from the Organigasmic YouTube channel.

Below are some photos of how I constructed my raised bed.  The bed is 3 feet wide x 8 feet long.  I used leftover fencing to hold all the pieces together and some screws.  I used 3 pallets to complete the bed.

This particular bed will be for carrots.  Last year those damn rabbits and gophers nibbled on my carrots.  Hopefully, the raised bed will slow them down.  LOL.

Live the Motto - Be Prepared!

Plain old pallet

Cutting of the pallet

3 foot end wall for raised bed

8 foot side wall for raised bed

First side wall installed

Second side wall installed

Completed raised bed

Neighborhood Defense

Continuing from my previous post, after combining your neighborhood's resources when the SHTF you will ultimately have to defend those resources from looters and gangs.  Unfortunately most neighborhoods, including mine, will not have the best security since most of our neighbors did not think to prepare for a world without rule of law.  As seen in my previous post, the most vital survival resources (farms) of my neighborhood are located in the southeast section but the majority of the families live in the north section of the neighborhood.  I would say that the whole neighborhood is approximately 370 acres.  To defend this amount of property you must have several surveillance positions and patrols since most of the neighborhood is covered in tall pine trees and it would be hard to see the looters and gangs coming. 

Once you agree to cooperate with others in your neighborhood to combine and defend its resources, you may be the only one in your neighborhood with the mindset and knowledge to properly educate your neighbors on how to survive and defend the neighborhood.  You also may be the only person in the neighborhood that has enough weapons and ammunition to supply to your neighbors.  The leaders of your neighborhood before the SHTF most likely will not know what to do in a situation where they do not have police to enforce rule of law.  I highly recommend that you prepare for this type of situation even if you believe it may not happen in your lifetime.  Who would of thought Egypt and Tunisia would fall into turmoil so quickly?  Hopefully it will never happen here but being prepared for it is much better for your survival. 

To prepare to defend your neighborhood you will need to learn basic defense and offensive tactics.  For those who were never in the military, like myself, it may be difficult to practice and properly learn these tactics.  However, one option would to join a paintball or airsoft team or have a group of friends paintball fight each other.  Paintball is popular in my area and in fact there are 2 paintball fields just in my township.  It's not the same but you can learn the basic concepts and maneuvers which will enable you to teach your neighbors who will patrol the neighborhood with you. 

There's a lot of information on the internet where you can learn about basic military tactics.  Below are a few videos by SouthernPrepper1 that gives a good basic introduction on how to engage an enemy while on patrol.  I recommend that you learn as much as you can about various military tactics, learn your neighborhood's terrain and the best way to defend it.  If there is ever a time when the SHTF you will be prepared to defend not only yourself and your family but your whole neighborhood.

Live the Motto - Be Prepared!

Neighborhood Survival

As you may know, Egypt is in turmoil and rioting, looting and killing has been occurring for several days.  Those living in the worst areas in Egypt are facing the SHTF and there are no police to be found to protect property and arrest criminals.  Because the police went home some of the people in the neighborhoods in Cairo formed groups to protect themselves and their property. 

That got me thinking about my neighborhood and if we were to cooperate with each other could we survive for an indefinite period of time without police and the luxuries of life like a supermarket.  My small neighborhood, about 100 families, is semi-rural (for New Jersey anyway) and if we were to cooperate in a SHTF situation I believe we could survive.   The neighborhood could easily be isolated and entry by vehicle could be made impossible.  The only issues would be patrolling the surrounding woods and having enough food to make it to the next harvest.  Another issue is, do I really want to cooperate myself which would most likely result in my neighbors knowing that I have more than enough food to survive to the next harvest for me and my family. The most likely conclusion is that I would need to cooperate with my neighbors if a real threat such as gangs of looters were to come into the neighborhood. 

In any case, the neighborhood has several 10+ acre farms, two 18+ acres of forest (mostly pine trees, not the best firewood but good enough) that are partially township owned and privately owned, a small chicken farm and a vineyard.  Some of my neighbors also raise some goats and others have horses. All homes have septic tanks and have both well and public water so sanitation and access to water, even if the power is out, should not be an issue. 

I have met some of my neighbors and most are sheeple and do not have any survival sense.  I've met one of the farmers directly behind my property and they seem to have a survival sense like most farmers do.  So if the SHTF I think we could survive for a while because of the resources in the neighborhood.

Below are aerial photos of my neighborhood.  I recommend that you get to know your neighbors and what resources may be available in your neighborhood in order to be prepared for the SHTF.  A lot of us are individualistic types but in certain situations and areas of the country (like New Jersey), you may need to cooperate with your neighbors to survive.

Live the Motto - Be Prepared!

Overall View of My Neighborhood

Farms located in the neighborhood including vineyard.  

Two 18+ acre forest for firewood

Small Chicken Farm

Neighbor with a few horses. 

New Firearms Website

To Idaho Bob and my other readers.  Thanks for checking on me.  I haven't posted for a month since I am developing a new website that I think would be helpful for new gun owners as well as experienced gun owners.  It's taking me longer than I thought it would to develop the website and the more I develop it, the more ideas I have for the site.  The website will be called Firearms University or F.U. for short :-) It will be sort of an online education website for firearms where you can view gun videos (i.e., Courses) in a more organized fashion.  Hopefully for a new gun owner it will be easier for him/her to find the information and videos they need quickly. I have come to learn that finding good gun videos is sometimes difficult because some people who post videos don't use good keywords or tags and therefore, you have to use different and uncommon keywords to find videos.  Each course will have a set of videos to be viewed, a course manual, and a final exam which when passed you will be given some type of incentive such as product discounts to online/offline retailers.  I still have a lot of work to do and have to develop the exams and manuals for each course.

Just like a university it will be divided into several different colleges and schools.  The main school will be the New Firearms Owner Institute.  The other schools that I plan on "opening" will be Concealed & Open Carry College, Ammunition Reloading College, College of Gunsmithing, School of Competitive Shooting, Tactical College, Long Range Shooting Institute, and of course we will have a Survival & Preparedness College. The goal for each college/school will be to give the viewer/student a basic foundational education on the respective subject through the use of various videos and articles/manuals.

The website is not ready yet but I wanted to get some feedback from my readers to see if this is something that would be helpful and if they would visit on a regular basis.  The work in progress website is http://www.wix.com/livethemotto/firearmsuniversity2  Once the website is semi-completed, the website address will be http://www.FirearmsUniversity.com.

Take a look and click on some of the links.  It's a flash based website so it may load a little slower than normal.  As you will see on the site, there are several tabs at the top.  All the tabs, except the "Athletics" tab, are working.  Make sure you click on the "Courses at F.U." tab to get to the different schools/colleges.  The only working link is the link to the New Firearms Owner Institute.  Once you are at the New Firearms Owner Institute, you will see the different courses offered.  Not all of the courses are completely finished and I am having some issues with some of the video players.  YouTube recently changed their embedding code and the Embedr video player that I wanted to use for the site is not working right.  Nevertheless some of the videos are working so check them out.  FYI, some of the videos do contain profanity.  I will probably remove the videos with profanity since I do want this to be a professional site that anyone, including children, can visit to learn.  Also be sure to check out the Course Manual for the "Introduction of Firearms" course within the Firearms 101 module.  This is the only manual that has been completed.  The course manuals will link all the videos together to give the reader a multimedia learning experience and information resource. 

So let me know what you think, whether good or bad.  FYI, try not to use the Back button on your browser.  For each page I tried to include a link to return to the previous page.  Thanks.

Live the Motto - Be Prepared!

Happy New Year

To all my blog readers, I hope you all have a Happy New Year.  Let's make it our goal for 2011 to be more prepared than we were in 2010.  Keep buying storage foods, canned foods, survival products and learn to garden this spring.  Learn new survival skills in 2011 and practice the new skills you learn on a regular basis.

For me, I plan doing all of the above.  In addition to being prepared I am working on a few projects.  One will be a new website that I think will be helpful for new gun owners to more easily learn about firearms.  I have almost completed the first phase of the website and once I finish I will let you know the web address so I can get some feedback from you guys. 

Live the Motto - Be Prepared!

Homemade Magnetic Holsters

For those of you who have several firearms and consider home defense a priority (you do right?), having easy access to a gun is vital in order to be prepared for a home invasion or attack.  Instead of leaving the guns on a counter, desk or in a drawer, you can create a homemade magnetic holster that will let you have easy access to the gun but at the same time partially conceal it.  I got the idea of creating a magnetic holster from Erich of Tactical Intelligence.  He has some good information.  I recommend that you visit his site. Unlike Erich's magnetic holster I used electrical tape instead of heat shrink tubing.  The electrical tape is a whole lot cheaper and works just as good to prevent your gun from being scratched by the magnets.

As you will see in the below photos and short video, I created a magnetic holster to place next to my front door.  As you can see, it is partially concealed and since the door opens towards where the holster is placed, it is the perfect spot to have my pistol or revolver when answering the door. 

In addition to a magnetic holster for a handgun, I decided that I needed one for my Mossberg 500 shotgun.  So instead of 3 magnets, I used 9 magnets and 2 paint stirrers which was surprisingly strong enough to hold my 7 lb. shotgun.  I placed the holster behind my office door to give me easy access to my shotgun and to give me the ability to partially conceal it behind my door. 

To create your own magnetic holsters you will need at least 3 ceramic block magnets, electrical tape and wooden paint stirrers.  To make both my handgun and shotgun magnetic holsters it cost me approximately $14 at Lowes. 

Check out the photos and short video below.

Live the Motto - Be Prepared!

                 

     

Test Use of Magnetic Holster