Paratus approaches!

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Paratus, the holiday of survivalists, by survivalists, is next week. A few people have sent early Paratus gifts which is quite thoughtful. To my surprise, there were some very thoughtful gifts and I offer my sincere thanks to those who sent them.

Paratus cards/gifts will go out on Monday, so if youre on the list…keep an eye on your mailbox.

So…get your Paratus events and plans laid out. Its your holiday!

In other news, Im still researching that property I mentioned last week. Still haven’t made an offer…I need more background detail and hopefully will  have that info soon.

AA925 at CostCo

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Amazon shows the All American 925 for around $500. Ive Had the smaller 921 for years and can recommend it with enthusiasm. Apparently you can shave a hundred bucks off that Amazon price if youre at Costco:.

Makes an awesome Paratus gift to yourself or any other like-minded individual. Get plenty of lids and jars…you never know when there’ll be another run on them and you dont want to get caught empty-handed. I have no doubt that people will post in the comments that their local CostCo is not selling these, but if youre local to me….youre in luck.

Maybe, maybe not

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TL;DR = I like it enough to make an offer, I dont like it enough to make it a very good offer.

There were indeed water sources on the property. Two swampy/muddy creeks. One was just black stagnant water and mud in this August weather, the other had a tiny rivulet of flowing water. But thats in the middle of August…I’d imagine that in the spring its more substantial. Interestingly, there was a block poly pipe running along the ground along the length of the creek. It ran from the state land side of the fence and through the subject property. Not sure what that was about but it seems to suggest that theres an upstream water distribution point of some kind. Wonder if I could just tap into it with a T-joint or something.

And, there was indeed, a fairly decent flat spot to build. You crested this rather steep road and at the bottom was a nice little circular area that would seem to lend itself to a small cabin. Major drawback – the water sources, such as they are, were all the way at the other end of the property 440 yards away. Thats a quarter-mile for those of you keeping track.

The roads to get up there were about what I expected. There’s no way youre getting in there in winter without either a snowmobile, snow-specific four-wheeler, a horse, or snow chains and some cajones of steel. That isnt necessarily a deal breaker. The roads could accommodate trucks that were designed for such roads. I saw a forest-fire-fighting tanker trunk maneuvering the roads with aplomb. I suspect a small-ish well drilling rig could get in there. I’d rather lean towards having a well in there.

It has…possibilities. The price is somewhat within the range I was looking for but there’s going to be a degree of terraforming necessary….trees removed, some minor roadwork, etc.

I was thinking of offering 20% below ask, cash, and go as high as %10 below ask. I think I’ll just offer 20% below ask and if it happens it happens, and if not…the hunt continues.

Property walking

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Going to look at a piece of property tomorrow. The problem with these sorts of pieces of property is that you often seem to have to navigate a labyrinth of dirt roads of varying quality that often, because of terrain, need to switchback, loop, dogleg, and otherwise snake through the terrain. Google Earth is definitely useful for getting an idea of the path to take, but a GPS loaded with the appropriate maps is also a requirement.

My goals tomorrow are to see how navigable the road is, what the terrain on the property is like, investigate the purported water sources on the property, locate and GPS mark at least one of the corner pins, and generally get a feel for things. If, and only if, all that checks out…then its time to start figuring my plan of attack. My research shows the owners are out of state (California, of course) and that they haven’t been to the property in years. To me, that sounds like people who inherited it and might appreciate a fast all-cash sale. Just how much cash is going to be the challenging part.

If that goes through (and thats a heavy if), then its time to start prioritizing things. Most notably will be getting a current survey done to get a detailed map of the place, pins in place, and some very exact ideas of where the boundaries are. And setting up whatever sort of legal fiction is necessary to maintain privacy.

Maybe spend a few weekends out there camping as I explore the place to get a feel for it and think about what exactly I want to do with it and where.

But, thats all putting the cart before the horse. I’ll walk it tomorrow and see what happens. If I don’t like it, I’ll hand it off to you guys and you can see if it’s something youre interested in.

And, as is slowly dawning on me, the purchase of the property may be the cheapest part of the whole affair. Once that’s done its time for wells, septic, foundations, infrastructure, fuels, landscaping (or, more accurately, terraforming), etc, etc. I’ve been searching for property for so long now that Im like the dog that chases cars and then doesn’t know what to do with one if he caught it.

Guess we’ll see tomorrow if its a car worth chasing. Should be interesting.

Oh, and you know what the most useless-but-fun part of this process is? Coming up with the cool name for the place. I’ve often referred to it as Commander Zero’s Post-Nuclear Bunker O’ Love And Lingerie Proving Ground but I might need something a little bit more succinct for the shoulder patch.

Range time with S&W M&P .45

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Some time at the range today. I had a new-ish pistol I came into that I wanted to try. A S&W M&P in .45 ACP. Historically, S&W autos kinda sucked but I really like the M&P. Whats interesting is that this one, in .45 AARP, is a double-stack magazine but the grip is so narrow that you wouldnt think its any bigger than a 9mm. The interchangeable backstraps are the secret and, I gotta say, compared to a .45 Glock, this thing is much nicer in the hand. Also, it shot quite well.

While Im on the subject, I don’t know who needs to hear this but if you wanna save some money on buying self-adhesive target dots, head down to the hardware store and buy yourself a roll of blaze orange duct tape. Presto – turns everything and anything into a target. And, it does it cheaply.

Tear it off to whatever size you want, slap it onto a paper plate or backing of butcher paper, and you’re ready to go. And….hopefully your target skills will improve. Or not.

Dinner ca. 2017

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Beef. Its whats for dinner. Eight years ago, anyway.

Todays dinner staple comes from Trumps first term, when I was still in college, and had somewhat less grey hair than now. What a difference eight years makes, hm?

Since I’m upright and typing, rather than in a hospital somewhere getting my stomach pumped, it is evident that eating eight year old ground beef didnt hurt me. Why would it? If you store this stuff properly…which means freezing it and keeping it at around zero degrees…it will last indefinitely. The record around here for fossilized freezer findings has been 11 years on some short ribs. And they were yummy.

Most household freezers that are part of  your refrigerator do not keep things as cold as a dedicated freezer. Go to CostCo, pick up a chest freezer for a couple hundred bucks, stick it in your garage or basement, and start buying in bulk.

Inevitably some budding genius in the comments will go off about how this is a bad idea because power outages occur and blah, blah, blah. And, you know what?….power outages do occur. Which is why we prepare for them (hence the term preparedness). In my case, that looks like a generator and enough fuel to get me through most non-EOTWAWKI power failures in my region. And if it comes to the point where all the fuel is exhausted and the power still hasnt come back? Well, its time for a big barbecue and a whole bunch of pressure canning. And until that happens…..have a deep freeze.

Land, man….

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Still hunting for a piece of dirt. I’ve found a piece that looks pretty close to what I want…maps show it has water, there isn’t a road cutting it in half, it butts up against a big chunk of non-private land, and it isn’t that far from here. But…altitude. I really didnt want to get anything that was way up in the hills. But…it’s a nice looking piece, the price is right, etc.

Sent off an email to the realtor asking if there were any other roads, public or private, going through the piece….are there any markers, pins, or other border markings….can a person go unaccompanied and look at it…that sort of thing. We’ll see what I hear back.

Did some investigation into the listed property owners and I get the impression it’s a buncha outtastaters who inherited it. Perhaps they’d be amenable to taking a price cut in exchange for cash and a quick closing.

Before I put the cart before the horse, I need to get boots and eyes on the ground and check the place out in person. I need to check out the access, the roads, etc, etc. And I need to visually confirm if there actually is water on the place.

So, we’ll see what happens.

The War Budget

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Good judgement comes from experience, and experience? That comes from bad judgement.  If you suffer a job loss, catastrophic event, divorce/death of a spouse, major medical episode, or any number of financial EOTWAWKI events, you’re already at a disadvantage because your head is in a bad place and you’re probably in no shape to make short-term tactical financial decisions. Why would you be? Caught in the moment, your major thought is survival..keeping the lights on and not starving.

We wargame and make plans for the end of the world, right? We have maps, escape routes, stashes of gear, emergency communication protocols, etc. But, as I’ve said over and over, you’ll have a bunch of small personal EOTWAWKI events that are resolved with $50 bills long before you have the EOTWAWKI event that is resolved with .50 BMG.

So, it would stand to reason, that if youre going to be so prepared that you have contingency plans for the apocalypse, perhaps it might be a good idea to have plans for those personal apocalypses as well.

I learned the hard way that when youre suddenly in a financial hardship and you don’t know where the next dollar is coming from, thats the worst time to suddenly write a budget or spending plan. Dude, you need to have that duck already in the row so that when you get that big pink slip or your income takes a headshot you simply open up the folder to the plan and you follow it.

For me, thats what I call ‘the war budget’. I try to live on a budget, which I have always recommended you do, and I have created and maintained a separate budget just for a crisis like the one I described. When my personal financial situation suddenly drops into chaos, I can open a folder, pull out the War Budget, and know that a lot of time and thought went into it and that if I follow it I’ll have the best chance of muddling through.

The War Budget is simply my regular budget stripped down to the essentials and with all the fat trimmed out. Retirement contributions on hold, dining out eliminated, investing on hold, services like cable and the like are reduced…the goal is to establish the minimum dollar amount needed to keep me in the fight.

This isn’t something you can just come up with in ten minutes as youre driving home from what used to be your job or business. You just won’t have your head in the game enough at that moment to be making clearheaded decisions…this is why you have to come up with this plan beforehand when you’ve got time to think it through. The first step, of course, is to have a regular budget that youre working with that you can start going through and editing. Food budget? Cut it and dip into your short-term food storage.Fuel budget? Trim it…your driving to job interviews and not  much else. Cable television? It’s outta here. Buying gold? On hold. Roth contribution? On hold. HSA contributions? On hold. Vacation? Forget about it. Its time to regroup, refocus, reorient, and re-engage.

The War Budget works best, unsurprisingly, when you’ve made other preparations for this sort of thing a part of your life when times are good. You have enough food in the cabinets and freezer that cutting back the grocery budget doesnt mean eating any less. You’ve created an emergency fund that can cover your bare minimum expenses for the amount of time you project it’ll take for you to get back on your feet. You’re a survivalist, you should have been preparing all along.

I look at my normal budget and compare it to the War Budget and see that it’s a reduction of about 20-25% in most things, and the outright elimination of others. But that number at the bottom of the column is the one I live and die by. Take the emergency fund, divide it by the amount in the War Budget, and thats how many months you have to get your feet back under you.

Obviously, once we’re back on our feet the plan is to replenish what we used, add to it, and create a state of even more resilience. That’s how this is supposed to work. But here’s the important takeaway from this post: when you are in the midst of the crisis is not the time to plan how youre going to survive it. In the midst of the crisis you’ll have the ‘fog of war’ clouding your judgement…you won’t see the things you need to see. This is why you need to have a plan ready to go that is well thought out, periodically revisited and updated, and … most importantly…trusted. When you stagger home shell-shocked and thinking “Now what am I going to do?”, what you want is to have the confidence and faith that you’ve got something in place that has already done all the thinking for you. Something where if you just ‘follow the plan’ you’ll be fine. Hence…the War Budget.

But remember, guys….the War Budget is a budget of resources..money. And for any budget to work, you have to have those resources that need budgeting to begin with. Without a an emergency fund, the War Budget is almost useless. And without the War Budget, the emergency fund is in danger. When crunch time hits, you can’t just spend indiscriminately…you need to make the most of the resources you have. So…War Budget.

I’ve had a couple episodes in my past where I had no idea where the next dollar was coming from, and I seriously had doubts there’d be electricity in my home in the morning. Those experiences sucked, but they brought about the good judgement I exercise now in regards to being prepared for the personal EOTWAWKIs. If I were to lose my job tomorrow, I could operate for a rather comfortable amount of time on the War Budget and my emergency fund. Having the emergency fund is crucial, but so is having a plan on how best to maximize when that emergency hits.

You do you, of course.

 

Paratus 2025

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Just a reminder, guys… Paratus is September 19th this year. We are about four weeks out. Get your shopping done early. Don’t forget a little something for your internet buddy Commander Zero. If you got a card last year, odds are good you’re still on the list. If you got a card last year and your mailing address has changed….dude, ya gotta let me know.

Cards have been ordered and will be going out around the beginning of the third week of September. How do you get on the Paratus card list? Glad you asked….

Please read the Paratus FAQ to learn more about this holiday of, by, and for survivalists everywhere.

 

Video – Inside the Most Prepared Country on Earth

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Finland borders Russia and has had a wee bit of tension with them in the past. It’s perfectly understandable how, given Russias activities of late, that they would ramp up their resistance to any potential future conflict. From what I read, this sort of thing is rather becoming the rage in countries that border Russia and/or have been punching bags for the Communists earlier this century (looking at you, Poland).

An interesting video. Not sure how germane it is to you and I, in terms of preparedness here on the other side of the world from them, but its got some interesting bits.

The Finnish company Varusteleka has been the go-to source for European military camo and gear for the last several years. I am especially interested in their various flavors of snow camo. I’ve ordered some stuff from them in the past and been pleased.

When I was in school a few years back, one of my instructors was this hot little bohunk from Estonia. She would mention how every time she went home it seemed the nation was gearing up more and more ‘just in case’.  The Russians have made an impression, it seems.

The US is pretty unique in that the idea of an invasion is almost ridiculously implausible. In ‘Red Dawn’ the Soviets crossed the Bering Strait and came down from Alaska, where I’m sure the fearsome might of the Canadian military slowed them down just long enough to break for lunch before continuing down to the US, while more forces came up through Mexico. Nowadays I’d say the threat isn’t invasion, in the ‘armies on the march’ sense of the word, but rather through insurgency and irregular warfare….all those Chinese college kids suddenly disappearing would be a pretty strong sign something is about to happen. I have absolutely zero doubt that there isnt a conex or twenty stacked in a port somewhere labelled as ‘agricultural machinery’ but filled with arms, radios, explosives, and everything else a fifth column needs. Heck, Soviet defector Mitrokhin alleged that there were already stockpiles of this sort of thing scattered across the US during the Cold War.

Anyway, interesting video and further evidence that the world is getting interesting.