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Rise Of The Preppers: 50 Of The Best Prepper Websites And Blogs On The Internet

February 6, 2013 by

The following article was written by Michael Snyder on 2-1-2013 and was originally posted here on his blog The Truth Wins. I want to thank Michael for selecting Prepared Christian. I feel honored to have been mentioned.


Rise Of The Preppers: 50 Of The Best Prepper Websites And Blogs On The Internet

Are you preparing for the collapse of society?  If so, the truth is that you are definitely not alone.  The number of preppers in the U.S. has absolutely exploded in recent years.  It has been estimated that there are now approximately 3 million preppers in the United States, and “Doomsday Preppers” is currently the highest rated show on the National Geographic channel.  In fact, you could be living next to a prepper and never even know it.  All over America, families are transforming spare rooms into long-term food storage pantries, planting survival gardens, unplugging from the grid, converting their homes over to alternative sources of energy, taking self-defense courses and stocking up on just about everything that you can imagine.  The re-election of Barack Obama and other recent events seem to have given the prepper movement even more momentum.  For example, in January the U.S. Mint broke all kinds of records and sold nearly half a billion dollars worth of gold and silver coins to the public.  Not only that, Americans bought enough guns during the last two months of 2012 alone to supply the entire armies of China and India.  When it comes to prepping, nobody can match the passion that Americans put into it.

So what are all of these people prepping for?

Well, the truth is that no two preppers have the exact same motivation.  There is a general consensus among preppers that our world is becoming increasingly unstable, but when you sit down and talk with them you find out that there are a whole host of different civilization-killing events that various preppers are concerned about.  Some are preparing for the collapse of the economy.  Others are extremely concerned about the potential for crippling natural disasters and catastrophic earth changes. To other preppers, the rise of the “Big Brother” surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us is the greatest danger, and many of them warn of the tyrannical agenda of the New World Order.  Terrorism, killer pandemics, EMP attacks, World War III, martial law, solar megastorms, asteroid strikes and societal chaos are some of the other things that many preppers are worried about.  There are even some preppers that are not worried about any “threats” at all – they just want to get “back to the land” and want to become less dependent on the system.

Whatever the motivation, it is undeniable that the prepper movement has gotten very large and that it continues to grow.

In fact, there was a recent article in the New York Times about preppers that was actually written by a prepper entitled “The Preppers Next Door“…

To the unprepared, the very word “prepper” is likely to summon images of armed zealots hunkered down in bunkers awaiting the End of Days, but the reality, at least here in New York, is less dramatic. Local Preppers are doctors, doormen, charter school executives, subway conductors, advertising writers and happily married couples from the Bronx. They are no doubt people that you know — your acquaintances and neighbors. People, I’ll admit, like myself.

I was absolutely amazed that one of the key mouthpieces of the establishment, the New York Times, would publish an article that was mostly positive about preppers, because the truth is that prepping is essentially a huge expression of a lack of faith in the establishment.   Even the article admitted as much…

PREPPING IS THE BIG SHORT: a bet not just against a city, or a country or a government, but against the whole idea of sustainable civilization. For that reason, it chafes against one of polite society’s last remaining taboos — that the way we live is not simply plagued by certain problems, but is itself insolubly problematic.

And that is exactly right.  There are millions of us that are entirely convinced that the world around us is becoming increasingly unstable and that “the system” will not be there to take care of us when everything falls to pieces.

With each passing day, even more Americans lose faith in the system and begin prepping.  If you are one of those new preppers, there are actually dozens of great websites out there on the Internet where you can get an education about prepping for free.  The list of websites and blogs that I have compiled below contains more articles and resources than you could ever possibly need.  Hopefully many of you will find this list to be extremely helpful.

The following are 50 of the best prepper websites and blogs on the Internet…

1. Survival Blog

2. American Preppers Network

3. The Survival Mom

4. SHTFPlan.com

5. Survival 4 Christians

6. Urban Survival

7. Backdoor Survival

8. Off Grid Survival

9. Modern Survival Online

10. The Survivalist Blog

11. The Suburban Prepper

12. The Great Northern Prepper

13. Prepper Website

14. The Survival Podcast

15. Doom And Bloom

16. Provident Living Today

17. Prepper.org

18. Prepared Christian

19. SHTFblog.com

20. Survival Cache

21. Modern Survival Blog

22. Rural Revolution

23. Preparedness Advice Blog

24. Prep-Blog.com

25. Survival And Prosperity

26. TEOTWAWKI Blog

27. The Neighbor Network

28. The Apartment Prepper

29. Armageddon Online

30. The Berkey Guy Blog

31. The Home For Survival

32. My Family Survival Plan

33. Prepography

33. Prepper Dashboard

34. Bacon And Eggs

35. SHTF School

36. Canadian Preppers Network

37. Maximum Survival

38. Survivor Jane

39. Prepping To Survive

40. SaltnPrepper

41. SGTReport

42. SHTF Wiki

43. Jewish Preppers

44. Survival Magazine

45. Survival Week

46. Prepper Forums

47. Survivalist Boards

48. Tactical Intelligence

49. The Prepared Ninja

50. Common Sense Homesteading

The sad truth is that our world is becoming increasingly unstable in a whole bunch of different ways and we all need to learn how to prepare for the difficult years ahead.

Unfortunately, most Americans simply are not prepared for much of anything.

For example, a large percentage of Americans do not even have enough savings to get them through a single financial emergency.  According to one recent report, approximately 44 percent of all households in the United States are just one unexpected event away from financial disaster.

Most American families do not have much food stored up either.  One recent survey discovered that 55 percent of all Americans have less than three days supply of food in their homes.

Could that possibly be accurate?  Do people really keep that little food in their homes?

Another survey asked Americans how long they think they could survive if the entire electrical grid went down and there was no more power for an extended period of time.  Incredibly, 21 percent of those who responded said that they would survive for less than a week, and an additional 28 percent of those who responded said that they would survive for less than two weeks.  Close to 75 percent of those who responded said that they would be dead before the two month mark.

So who are the crazy ones?

Are the people trying to become more independent and self-sufficient crazy, or are the people who have complete and total faith that the system will take care of them no matter what happens actually the crazy ones?

I don’t know about you, but I would prefer for myself and my family to at least have a chance to survive if society melts down for some reason.

What about you?

Are you a prepper?

Do you know some preppers?

Do you believe that people should be prepping?

Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…

Filed Under: General Preparedness

Soil Amendments to Improve Garden Growth

February 4, 2013 by

There were a couple comments about poor soil types in the forum and I listed a couple things that could be done to improve soil types.  I thought I would give a few more ideas here for everyone to see.  I don’t personally like using fertilizers in most situations so with these tips you can improve most soil types naturally.

I am by no means a master gardener, but I have picked up a few things over the years.  I wrote an article last spring called Principles of Gardening.  In that article I covered some of the basics of gardening that I’ll not touch on here.

 

Raised Beds

If you have truly awful soil, you can build raised beds and bring in soil.  By managing the soil in the raised bed, you will, over time, improve the soil below the bed.  I like raised beds for many reasons.  You can read more about it in a review I did of Mel Bartholomew’s book All New Square Foot Gardening.

 

Organic Matter

Whether you have too much clay or too much sand in your soil, you can improve it by adding organic matter.  There are a few ways to do this that I’ll list below.

 

Composting

The following is from the article I wrote on Principles of Gardening.

Composting is more than just throwing out kitchen scraps, but that is part of it. Making your own compost and adding it to your beds is a great way to amend the soil and get rid of kitchen scraps as well as leaves and grass clippings. Here is a site with a huge amount of Information on composting. One of the mistakes I made was buying one large bin and continually adding to it. I have heard Jack Spirko from the Survival Podcast say, “That is like adding more cake mix, when the cake is already half baked in the oven.” He recommends using three small compost bins and cycling them, so you fill one, leave it alone and start filling the second and so on.

There are often community compost sites.  Many times you must pay to deposit leaves, grass or other compostable materials.  However, you can, in many cases, take composted material for free.  You just have to shovel it yourself.  These sites may use chemicals to speed the process of composting, so if you want to remain natural, you should check with the facility.

Manure can be a great source of nutrients to add to your compost.  I was able to find plenty for free on Craig’s list.

 

Mulching

Mulching is taking organic matter and placing it over the soil.  This will do multiple things; it will bring in other nutrients, it will keep the soil moist and it will prevent evaporation among other things.  You can use many things for mulching: leaves, grass clippings, shredded newspaper and even wood chips.  Carmen commented in the Principles of Gardening about a video done by a Christian called Back To Eden.  It’s about a man who says God showed him how to use wood chips for mulch.  If you leave them on the topsoil this will work great, but do not mix them in with the soil.


Cover Crops

Here is a great article called Cover Crop Basics, written by Organic Gardening, a great publication that we have received for some time.  The article is well worth reading, so I will just touch on the highlights.

Cover crops can help bring organic material to your soil.  They are also a great way to stop erosion.  The process is fairly straight forward.  You plant a crop, give it minimal care and then either chop the top off, letting the plant regrow to chop the top off again later (this process is often called “chop and drop”) or you kill the cover crop completely.  In either case the organic material is left to return its nutrients back to the soil.

There are many types of things you can use as cover crops; ryegrass, barely, buckwheat and legumes, to name a few.  The benefit of using legumes is that they bring nitrogen into the soil, which is often deficient in poor soil types.   You can also use a mix of ryegrass and legumes, to get the benefit of both.

 

Final Thoughts

These methods will fix a lot of problems with your soil, such as; adding nutrients, stopping erosion and adding organic matter.  While these things can be used to improve poor soil quality, you can keep doing them to keep improving the quality.

 

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Filed Under: Food, Preparedness Tips Tagged With: ,

What to do if Your Spouse doesn’t Want a Gun in the Home?

February 1, 2013 by

I don’t usually post things that could be seen as controversial.  Today might be a little different.  It is not my goal to offend anyone, and I apologize if I do. I realize that either sex could be opposed to a gun in the home, but the vast majorities, in my experience, are women.  The advice I am going to give today is from the perspective of a man.  Ladies, if you’re in favor of a firearm in the home and your husband is not, most of what I have to say applies to you as well.

 

Why Are They Opposed?

The first step is to find out why they are opposed.  In my experience most objections to firearms from are either based on a lack of understanding about firearms, or are an emotional response.  Don’t poke fun at their opposition, or minimize their concern.

If it is a lack of understanding, one thing you could do is see if they would be willing to get some training.  One thing I have learned (yes the hard way) is that spouses don’t always take direction from one another.  Find an experienced firearms instructor and, if possible, a female instructor.  You could also attend a First Shots class together.  First Shots is an introductory class on basic handgun safety and operation.

If their response is emotional in nature, find out why they feel the way they do.  If your spouse is generally an open minded person, you may be able to show them facts that back up your support of firearms.  It is my experience that when anyone bases their argument on an emotional response, you’ll have a hard time getting them to see differently.

 

What To do if They Won’t Budge.

Let’s say you’ve discussed the issue and tried to get them to see your point of view, but they still won’t relent.  What should you do?  I believe that men and woman are generally equals in a marriage.  When it comes to the safety and security of the family, that role generally falls to the man.

If you feel that a firearm is the best way to protect your family against a multitude of possibilities, purchase one.  Explain to your spouse that you have heard their point of view, but that you feel it is your duty to keep your family safe, and to do that you feel you need to be on level playing ground with the criminal element.

Assure them that you will be safe, you will get training, a gun safe, keep the firearm stored safely.  Do not rub their nose in it, do not flaunt it.  You should also be prepared to spend some time in the dog house.  I am blessed to have a wife who thinks much like I do, but if she was opposed to guns, I would reassure her, purchase the gun and think it worth being in the doghouse it to feel like I did everything I could do to protect my family.

 

Closing Thoughts

I wrote last week that Security is a Woman’s Responsibility Too and I stand by that, but let me clarify.  I think, in this one area, it is the man’s primary duty to protect the home.  Ladies, if you have a husband who is anti-gun or can’t fulfill his duty to protect the home, I believe that the duty now falls on you.

 

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Filed Under: Security Tagged With:
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