DIY Survival: Make a Crossbow from Scratch | Dual Survival

Three Must-Have Energizing Foods For Survival Situations

Whether prepping is a simple hobby or a lifestyle for you and your family, you’ll need to know which foods to pack for maximum health value.

When choosing these foods, energy should be the top priority — particularly if you aren’t sure when your next meal will be.

Below I’ll explain a few must-have foods for you to look into if you’re wanting to stock up on the nutrients that’ll serve you well.

1. Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is excellent for preppers because they’re packed with essential nutrients and also last a long time.

For instance, as long as you keep your coconut oil sealed up and protected from extreme temperatures, your coconut oil can easily last a year or more.

Typically, as long as it’s not turning strange colors or giving off smells, your coconut oil should be good to go.

One of the main reasons that coconut oil is an excellent food to add to your preppers inventory is because it provides you with healthy fats and calories that sustain you and curb your appetite.

From a nutrient standpoint, coconut oil is known as a superfood because it contains fatty acids like capric acid and lauric acid. Adding coconut oil to your meals or simply eating spoon fulls gives you plenty of brain-healthy nutrients, lowers your cholesterol, and helps you deal with inflammation-related problems.

The fatty acids in coconut oils help you to build muscle and sustain all of your bodily processes.

2. Organic Honey

Organic honey is yet another power food that people can use to get healthy servings of countless vitamins and nutrients.

For example, honey has 22 amino acids and a whopping 5,000 enzymes.

You’ll be able to store honey virtually forever to enjoy the immeasurable health benefits that it has. For example, it can help you to deal with allergies and respiratory issues, while also building up your immune system.

Honey is useful for digestive health and also naturally produces melatonin, which is a health aid that gives you complete sleep cycles. This, along with the fact that honey is packed with natural sugars that give you a boost of energy, you’ll never be dragging around as you go throughout your day.

3. Lentils

Whether you prefer green lentils or red lentils, these are packed with energy giving nutrients that’ll help you stay healthy and strong.

For instance, lentils are packed with fiber that helps you to digest your food and make better use of the energy they provide. Protein makes up the bulk of the calories found in lentils, which means you’ll be building healthy lean muscle, while also staving off hunger.

These lentils burn slowly, which means that you’ll have energy to get you throughout your day, regardless of your metabolism speed. They’re also great for your heart health and blood circulation, which is aids in brain health and mental function.

Best of all, uncooked lentils can be kept for a year or more without spoiling, which is perfect for preppers.

If you pack away these three foods, you’ll be good to go with any prepper setup.

7 Ways to Use Coconut for Survival When You Have Nothing Left

By Survival Life 3 Comments

When you find yourself in a Cast Away moment, you become overwhelmed and frantically look for resources that will aid in your survival. But did you ever think of a coconut as a means of surviving? Aside from being a source of food and drink, coconuts can be used in a variety of ways to help you live longer while waiting to be rescued.

Coconut Uses You Probably Didn’t Know

If you’re stranded on an island or in the middle of nowhere, you should be thankful if you see a coconut tree. While we often take things around us for granted, these overlooked trees produce fruit that could potentially save our lives. Read on for coconut uses you might be surprised to know.

Click here to enlarge.

1. Soothes Dry Skin and Chapped Lips

When you’re dehydrated, chances are your lips will chap and your skin will crack. In these situations, apply coconut oil on your lips and the parts of your skin experiencing dryness. This will relieve the pain and discomfort by keeping these parts moisturized.

Coconut oil can be extracted by boiling. While an easy process, it can be time-consuming. However, you’ll find that all the time and effort you put into extracting coconut oil will be worth it. Here are the steps you should follow for extracting coconut oil:

1. Start by grating the coconut meat. You can try to build a grater with a block of wood and some nails – just put the nails in rows and make sure they sprout out of the wood. If this isn’t doable, get some rough wood to help you grate the meat.
2. Add hot water to the coconut and stir this mixture until it cools. Then, squeeze the coconut meat as much as you can to extract as much coconut milk as possible.
3. Add more hot water after the first squeeze and repeat the process after you squeezed out as much milk as you can.
4. Put the coconut milk over the fire and leave it there to boil.
5. After an hour, the foam will form on the surface and yellowish fat will appear on the edges. When this happens, sprinkle water on the coconut milk’s surface to draw out the oil.
6. When the foam begins to dissipate and you see the surface is covered with golden oil, you can pull the mixture out of the heat. Pour it through a strainer or cloth to capture the foam and bits of coconut milk.
7. Allow the coconut milk to settle and solidify. Pour into a small bowl to skim the surface of your container.
8. Set aside what is left after skimming and transfer the rest to another container and put it on the fire for another 15 minutes.
9. After the bubbles disappear, you’ll see the newly extracted coconut oil!

2. Hygienic Purposes

You won’t have to worry about hygiene if you find a coconut tree nearby. Soap, mouthwash, deodorant, ear cleaner, hair conditioner, and hand wash are all among the many coconut uses for hygienic purposes. It can even kill head lice!

3. Rust Removal

If you’re lucky enough to have a knife with you during an emergency situation, but find yourself unable to use it because of rust, coconuts can help you out. All you have to do is apply a thick layer of coconut oil to your knife blade and let it stay for 1 to 2 hours. Wipe off afterward and repeat if needed.

4. Nose Bleed Prevention

Being out in the heat for too long can cause your nose to bleed. While a bleeding nose is rarely a sign of a serious medical problem, it can prohibit you from functioning as you normally would. You may prevent this from happening by gently applying coconut oil to the inside of your nose.

5. Treatment for Wounds and Cuts

Coconut oil has many medical properties, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory being the most effective. This is a great solution if you suffer from abrasions and cuts. To treat wounds and prevent infections, apply coconut oil and cover it with a bandage if there is one available. You may consider this as a first aid method for cuts and abrasions that might become a much bigger problem if left untreated.

6. Cooking Bowl

If you find yourself on a deserted island near the ocean, you can catch fish or clams. While it’s easy to just use a stick to cook the fish, roasting clams may be a little more tricky. However, you can use the coconut shell to roast the clams with ease.

7. Relief from Bug Bites

Bug bites are inevitable in the outdoors. They can be uncomfortable, itchy, and painful. Fortunately, applying coconut oil to those pesky insect bites can remedy and prevent the swelling and itching, therefore providing relief.

CREATING FIRE ON TOP OF DEEP SNOW!!

How to Transform Your Yard Into a Survival Garden

There are two kinds of preppers: those who plan to run for the hills and those who hope to stay put for as long as possible. If you are the latter kind, you’ve undoubtedly outfitted your home with every conceivable advantage, from security windows and doors to months-worth of shelf-safe foods. However, if you haven’t even touched your landscaping, you aren’t doing all you can to prepare.

Your yard is more than a useless zone between the unprepared masses and your beloved family. There is plenty you can do to transform your yard into a space that improves your chances of survival, to include growing your own food and cultivating a line of defense against potential attackers. To make your very own survival garden, here are a few tip and tricks:

Build a Natural Growing Environment

It should be obvious, but plants don’t naturally grow in rigid rows like you normally see in landscaped gardens. In the wild, plants grow just fine without weeding, trimming, or pesticide treatments; they continue to bear fruits and seeds without human intervention. You should strive to build a survival garden based on a natural growing environment. Still, that doesn’t mean you can throw seeds into your yard and expect them to grow. Instead, you must carefully construct your natural survival garden to optimize your benefit.

In nature, plants must share water, air, and sunshine, and they protect one another from pests like bugs and birds. This is typically achieved through loosely organized concentric circles. At the center is the tallest point, a large tree that protects shade-loving plants. Outside the shade grow thick shrubs that keep away larger pests like rabbits and voles and outside them, fragrant herbs that keep away smaller pests while attracting pollinators and protective insects like bees and wasps.

Ideally, you should maximize your use of the three dimensions while planning your growing environment. By doing so, you can produce up to five times more food than you might with traditional growing beds. Even better, because your yard will simulate a natural environment, it won’t encourage scavengers and looters to pillage your hard-grown food.

Choose the Right Plants

The plants you choose will ultimately depend on your region and soil. For example, it is unlikely that a prepper in Minnesota will find much luck keeping a citrus tree alive outside in the frigid winter; similarly, peaches don’t grow well in the dry air and soil of Arizona. Additionally, the seasons may impact what plants thrive and produce food and what plants go dormant or die. If you want a hands-off survival garden, you need to research what to plant when — and maybe get some help from qualified professionals during your planning stages.

Here are a few examples of possible plants for your survival garden:

• Trees: citrus, stone fruit, and nut trees
• Shade plants: members of the cabbage family, including kale, broccoli, and arugula
• Shrubs: berry bushes, sweet ferns, and other edible shrubs
• Herbs: basil, lavender, mint, lemon thyme, rosemary, and most any other herb.

Consider Defensive Flora

On one hand, wide-open fields and floodlights give you the visibility you need to see possible intruders before they reach your home; on the other hand, if your home looks inhabitable and defensible, you are more likely to attract people wanting to take what you have for their own. In truth, you might be better served by maintaining defenses that don’t look like defenses — which is to say, using your landscaping to protect you.

The easier you make it to get to your front door, the more likely you are to have visitors. Thus, the attractive and inviting front walkway will need to go. Instead, you should try to make passage into your domicile as confusing and discouraging as possible. Around the exterior of your yard — around the valuable crops of your natural garden — and along the narrow, winding passageway to the interior, you should install plants that are less-than-inviting. Some examples (of varying soil and climate needs) include:

• Creeping juniper grows like a blue carpet covered in thorns.
• Golden bamboo grows in thick clumps, creating a hard, natural wall.
• Firethorn is a tall shrub with thorny stems that makes for another natural wall, but this one is covered in beautiful white flowers and red-orange berries — that aren’t good for eating.
• Sloe or blackthorn grows in hedges of thick, prickly foliage, and the berries can be used for flavoring gin.
• Mountain or blue pine are trees with especially sharp needles.

Be a Diligent Gardener

Even if you do opt for a low-maintenance, natural survival garden, you shouldn’t expect to perform zero yardwork. At the very least, you will need to harvest your crops throughout the seasons, and you will likely need to manage your defensive flora so it doesn’t impede your passage through your yard. Though it takes some effort to build and maintain, your yard is among your most valuable prepping assets, and you shouldn’t neglect it.

Security Essentials For Home & Office

Security is an issue that we frequently deal with. It may be protecting ourselves from muggers or preventing access to our electronic profiles, or countless other possibilities. It’s always a good idea to develop a plan to protect ourselves from intruders, but our belongings need protection too, both at work and at home.

It is fairly simple to implement many of the steps necessary to avoid being a victim of a crime. Good password choices and wise email habits help with cybercrime. Avoiding dangerous areas can reduce the likelihood of being robbed. And simply locking the door goes a long way towards preventing burglaries.

But it does take some more steps to get the full protection you need to truly minimize your risks. At the same time, it’s very difficult to maximize that protection without feeling like you’re living in a fortress. How do you a strike a balance between simple daily routines and powerful security? Here are some ideas.

Multifunctional Features

Nobody wants fences and gates that look so fence-y and gate-y, but it is possible to use these devices in a way that is aesthetically pleasing while still proving lock-down tough against criminals. Aftec concrete wallsfit that bill. They are tough and secure but still include beautiful veneers that make them look as decorative as they do defensive.

In fact, many outdoor features can provide protection and beauty simultaneously. Remember that many of the most valuable items we have–tools, televisions, guns, and so forth–are large and heavy. Thieves will want to park as close as possible, so illuminating or barricading areas where they might put the getaway vehicle will make it tougher for them to execute the heist.

Alarm Systems

An alarm system remains a powerful tool for security in any location. And thanks to a number of new features, they are easier to use than ever.

Today’s alarms can be armed and disarmed with remote controls or via an app. No more struggling to enter passcodes before an activation takes place. And speaking of activation, sensors are more effective now. Better equipment installed by experienced technicians yields a lower chance of false alarms.

In addition, video surveillance can couple with an alarm. You can receive a notification on your phone that the alarm is going off, then quickly switch to another app to review surveillance video. If all is well, you can contact the monitoring company and have the alarm canceled. If not, you have video evidence of what happened.

Concentrated Security

Sometimes your best efforts still won’t keep criminals out. But that doesn’t mean that they can get what they have come for.

There are lots of tips and tricks for where to store things to make them harder for thieves to find. After all, the jewelry box is a pretty obvious first choice for intruders. Lots of people have been successful by finding creative places to hide things.

But that really only works for things you don’t use every day. A business that has to handle cash on a daily basis needs a safe, and there’s nothing wrong with having several safes to help split up the risk and to limit access by employees. For example, more people will need access to the daily startup cash for a retail business, but they won’t all need to get into the business credit cards, so those two items can be stored separately.

With so many new technologies available, upgraded security is easier than ever. We can make it very difficult for criminals to access our property and our people, both at home and at work. And we can do it without spending our lives searching for passcodes and digging through keys.

How to Choose the Perfect Cooker for Camping?

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner – whatever you want to cook, now it is possible to prepare any meal far away from technical civilization. When the issue is cooking anything in the heart of nature, a perfect stove can give you the feel of home. But from a wide variety of types, is it difficult to choose the right one for you? Take a look at our perfect cooker reviews guide and it’ll help you to pick best one for your camping.

These tips will guide your research:

•         At first, decide what you need. A camping stove or a backpacking stove?

•         Now decide the types of fuel. Is it canister or liquid? Both of them have different aspects. 

•         Now, think about the size and weight. Is this size can carry your all cooking needs, and is the weight is light enough to transport with own hand?

Choose one, which you can use to boil water for coffee on a lake or cook dinner after a day-long climbing.

Car Camping vs. Backpacking Stoves

Camping or backpacking which type of stoves you needs completely depends on space and weight restrictions, and also on your cooking objectives. 

Car camping stoves are designed relatively large and powerful as like as home burners. You can use them for preparing any type of meal, but can’t transport them far away from your car. 

On the other hand, backpacking stoves are designed to be efficient for their size and weight. Some backpacking models are designed only to boil water, while others can prepare food with some preset models of ultra-light cookware. 

Canister vs. Liquid Stoves

To get the adequate heat, you have to burn something. 

Basically, camping stoves have fallen into two categories based on the fuel type. Canister stoves are usually powered by propane oil which is blended with butane or iso-butane to keep the fuel steady and continue to burn even when it’s not so hot out.

Liquid-fuel burners are powered by refined gas, which is better than others at giving an unswerving flame at low temperatures. 

Campers can use a wide variety of liquid fuels in multi-fuel stoves, while most use kerosene and gasoline to cook a meal.

There are other fuel choices, as well. Stoves in the option classification incorporate models that keep running off of strong fuel tablets. These are supported by ultralight hikers who pick the “pocket stove” as a result of how versatile both the gear and fuel are. There are likewise wood-fueled camp stoves that channel vitality from consuming sticks into usable centered warmth, and a few renditions make vitality that can likewise charge electrical gadgets.

What Size Camping Stove Should You Buy? 

The following inquiry to consider is the way enormous of a gathering you hope to cook for. By and large talking, there are two primary sizes to browse: minimized two-burner models that sit on a tabletop and bigger, unattached outdoors stoves. 

Gatherings of 4 or Less

On the off chance that you have a gathering of four or less and are simply outdoors for a couple of days, we suggest a minimal two burner. Acquiring a mass tank hose connector additionally gives you the alternative of utilizing a substantial propane tank rather than the little green 16-ounce canisters. Single-burner stoves are adequate for some gatherings of 1-3 in case you’re keeping your suppers straightforward. . 

Gatherings of 5-7 

In the event that you are right in the center with a gathering of 5-7, it can be harder to pick which item to buy. Begin by considering your cooking requests and your normal excursion length. One incredible choice is to run with a reduced two-burner and afterward include a third reasonable one burner. This expands adaptability and enables two individuals to cook on the double. A few burner detached model will give you a lot of energy and space, however, won’t appear to be justified regardless of the bother to collect and transport on the off chance that you don’t generally require it. 

Gatherings of 8+ 

On the off chance that you have a gathering of at least eight, you will clearly require all the more cooking space, and will in all likelihood require more than two burners unless all you intend to eat is soup. This can be accomplished by having an expansive three-burner detached model with legs, or numerous reduced two-burner models. We do prescribe the unattached choice as it extends your kitchen and doesn’t take up valuable tabletop space. 

Remember that bigger items require more vitality to pack, gather, and keep up. We have discovered that they are extremely incredible on the off chance that you have a substantial gathering or need more table space. On the off chance that counters space isn’t an issue, be that as it may, two of your most loved smaller outdoors stoves could be a similarly intense however more portable choice.

Ready for Anything: 4 Emergency-Preparedness Tips to Live By

Emergencies may be a rare occurrence, but when one strikes, you can’t retroactively prepare for it. If you haven’t prepared for this type of situation, you’ll be one of the many people scrambling to get supplies and figure out what to do. Fortunately, by following a few simple emergency-preparedness tips, you’ll be ready for anything.

Pack an Emergency Kit

You never know where you’ll be in an emergency, which is why you need an emergency kit that goes wherever you go. Since this can’t be too large, you’ll need to stick to the essentials, including a first-aid kit, flashlight, radio and water. If you typically drive places, you can store this in your car. Otherwise, you can store it in a backpack or bag. Another benefit of having an emergency kit is you won’t need to pack anything if an emergency forces you to leave your home.

Keep and Maintain a Water Pump

Being able to pump your own water is a huge benefit in an emergency. You won’t be reliant on a water company, which could go down in certain situations. Even if you don’t use your water pump regularly, make sure you work with a company like Quad Fluid Dynamics Inc. or someone similar to check it out on occasion to ensure that it’s in good working order.

Store Extra Food and Water at Home

You don’t want to be one of the people waiting in line for hours to buy water before a natural disaster strikes or immediately after. It’s a major hassle and there’s the risk that stores will run out of the supplies you need. You don’t need much space to store a few extra cases of water and cans of food, both of which will keep for years.

Have Emergency Plans Ready and Committed to Memory

All the preparation in the world can go to waste if you haven’t considered what you’ll do in an emergency. You’ll need to make up plans on the fly in a stressful situation. Instead, have plans ready for exactly what you’ll do in different emergency scenarios. You should have one plan for an emergency that strikes when you’re away from home and two plans for an emergency that strikes when you’re at home—one where you remain in your home and ride it out, and another when you’re forced to leave.

You don’t need to devote your life to prepping to be ready for an emergency. The tips above are easy to implement and will keep you safe in a variety of situations.

How to Properly Clean a Gun and Keep It Useful

Most people don’t clean their guns properly. They buy too many products, clean too often, and over clean when they do clean. 

If you’re one of those people, it’s time to set your rifle down and pay attention. Unless your daughter is walking in with her boyfriend, then, by all means, keep cleaning. 

It really depends on how often you shoot as to how often you need to clean. It may not be as often as you think. 

Unless you carry concealed, you only have to clean a gun every 1000-5000 rounds. The more often you clean your gun, the more likely you are to mess something up. And if you don’t seat the bushing correctly or do something similarly stupid, you’ll negate any benefit you had to cleaning the gun.

Since you understand how often to clean a gun, let’s move on to how to actually clean a gun.

1. Gather Your Tools

You don’t need a complicated cleaning kit. Just keep it simple. 

What should you look for in a good yet simple cleaning kit? 

A simple effective kit should have a bore brush, a cleaning rod, a cleaning brush, a patch holder with cleaning patches, and a polishing cloth. That and some lubricant and solvent will work just fine for most handguns and rifles. 

Unless you don’t care about the surface you’re working on, it’s wise to use either some newspaper or an old towel as a workspace. But if you want to put down a little bit extra cash, you can buy an anti-slip anti-solvent mat that will help keep all your parts in one place.

2. Never Clean a Loaded Weapon

This may sound like common sense, but there are people out there stupid enough to do this. Always remove the magazine and clear the chamber before cleaning your weapon. 

It’s a simple task and it will save you either your life or a grave injury. 

Safe gun handling is the number one thing any gun-owner needs to learn. Simple rules get overlooked if you haven’t taken a basic safety course.

Cleaning a gun requires that you look down the barrel of your gun. And one of the first things you learn in a safety class is never look down the barrel of a loaded gun even if the safety is on. You don’t want to play with your life like that.

When you do remove ammunition from your weapon, be sure you do not place it in any solvents. Solvents can damage ammunition and cause it to fail. 

3. It’s Time to Disassemble Your Weapon

Only disassemble as much as the manufacturer recommends. Most new guns come with a manual. You can find the manufacturer recommendations in your gun’s manual.

If you bought a used gun or from a surplus supplier, you won’t receive a manual. This is absolutely ok as plenty of online forums will have information about your weapons. You can also check the manufacturer’s website for a particular manual.

Guns are actually quite simple to tear down. But it certainly depends on the type of weapon you’re cleaning. While a Glock 9MM is pretty easy to take apart and reassemble, others are more complicated.

You don’t usually need to fully tear apart a gun to clean it. Know your gun inside and out before attempting to disassemble it.

4. Now It’s Time to Look Down the Barrel

Once your gun is empty of ammunition and you’ve torn down what you need, you can safely look down the barrel. You should see the barrel’s rifling unless, you’re looking down a shotgun barrel. These are the spiral grooves that cause the bullet to spin and maintain its trajectory.

This is the most important part of the gun to clean. Once you’re done cleaning it, you should be able to look down the barrel and see virtually no bits of debris or flecks along the inside of the barrel.

If you don’t clean this part of your gun well, your accuracy will take a hit and the gun might eventually cease to function. 

Take your bore brush and attach it to your cleaning rod. You can add a small amount of solvent to the brush before pushing the brush through the barrel.

You should run it through the barrel several times while adding solvent every few passes. Once you’ve completed this step, replace the brush with your patch holder. Add a swab in the holder and run it through the barrel as well. 

You should come out with a fairly dirty patch if you’ve been using your gun. 

Replace the patch and repeat. Do this until the patch comes back fairly clean and the inside of the barrel is free of debris or particles. Make sure you use a flashlight for this. Shine the flashlight into the chamber from the other end and look down the barrel.

The last thing you need to do to the barrel is protect it from corrosion. Put a few drops of oil on a patch and run it through your barrel. 

If you are cleaning a revolver, be sure to clean each of the chambers as well. Treat them just like you would a barrel. 

5. The Rest of Your Gun

The rest of the gun may not need to be cleaned as often. But when you do clean it, use a very small amount of solvent to remove debris. A little goes a very long way.

After you’ve wiped down the gun with a solvent laden patch, you can then add some oil over all the metallic parts of your gun. Just like the inside of your barrel, this will preserve the gun and keep it from corroding.

And lastly, make sure you lubricate the moving parts in your gun as well. But not too much. If you apply too much lubrication to things like your firing pin, it could gum up in the small amount of space there is between the pin and its housing. Plus, too much lubricant attracts unwanted debris and dirt.

A double-action gun will need some lubrication on the cylinder ratchet and the ejector rod. A single-action requires oil on the cylinder, ratchet, and pin.

A Clean Gun Could Save Your Life

Make cleaning your gun a habit. A well maintained firearm could save your life. A poorly maintained firearm might fail you.

Davis County Amateur Radio Club

The Davis County Amateur Radio Club will be holding a class, teaching the requirements for the Technician Class license, on February 3rd at the Bountiful PD. The class begins at 7AM and the exam will be administered around 1pm. I don't know the cost, but it will be nominal, probably in the $15 dollar range. 

Pre-registration is available at dcarc.net. Look for 2018 Exam Sessions in big letters and click on the pre-register link.

How to Choose the Perfect Cooker for Camping?

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner – whatever you want to cook, now it is possible to prepare any meal far away from technical civilization. When the issue is cooking anything in the heart of nature, a perfect stove can give you the feel of home. But from a wide variety of types, is it difficult to choose the right one for you? Take a look at our perfect cooker reviews guide and it’ll help you to pick best one for your camping.

These tips will guide your research:

•         At first, decide what you need. A camping stove or a backpacking stove?

•         Now decide the types of fuel. Is it canister or liquid? Both of them have different aspects. 

•         Now, think about the size and weight. Is this size can carry your all cooking needs, and is the weight is light enough to transport with own hand?

Choose one, which you can use to boil water for coffee on a lake or cook dinner after a day-long climbing.

Car Camping vs. Backpacking Stoves

Camping or backpacking which type of stoves you needs completely depends on space and weight restrictions, and also on your cooking objectives. 

Car camping stoves are designed relatively large and powerful as like as home burners. You can use them for preparing any type of meal, but can’t transport them far away from your car. 

On the other hand, backpacking stoves are designed to be efficient for their size and weight. Some backpacking models are designed only to boil water, while others can prepare food with some preset models of ultra-light cookware. 

Canister vs. Liquid Stoves

To get the adequate heat, you have to burn something. 

Basically, camping stoves have fallen into two categories based on the fuel type. Canister stoves are usually powered by propane oil which is blended with butane or iso-butane to keep the fuel steady and continue to burn even when it’s not so hot out.

Liquid-fuel burners are powered by refined gas, which is better than others at giving an unswerving flame at low temperatures. 

Campers can use a wide variety of liquid fuels in multi-fuel stoves, while most use kerosene and gasoline to cook a meal.

There are other fuel choices, as well. Stoves in the option classification incorporate models that keep running off of strong fuel tablets. These are supported by ultralight hikers who pick the “pocket stove” as a result of how versatile both the gear and fuel are. There are likewise wood-fueled camp stoves that channel vitality from consuming sticks into usable centered warmth, and a few renditions make vitality that can likewise charge electrical gadgets.

What Size Camping Stove Should You Buy? 

The following inquiry to consider is the way enormous of a gathering you hope to cook for. By and large talking, there are two primary sizes to browse: minimized two-burner models that sit on a tabletop and bigger, unattached outdoors stoves. 

Gatherings of 4 or Less

On the off chance that you have a gathering of four or less and are simply outdoors for a couple of days, we suggest a minimal two burner. Acquiring a mass tank hose connector additionally gives you the alternative of utilizing a substantial propane tank rather than the little green 16-ounce canisters. Single-burner stoves are adequate for some gatherings of 1-3 in case you’re keeping your suppers straightforward. . 

Gatherings of 5-7 

In the event that you are right in the center with a gathering of 5-7, it can be harder to pick which item to buy. Begin by considering your cooking requests and your normal excursion length. One incredible choice is to run with a reduced two-burner and afterward include a third reasonable one burner. This expands adaptability and enables two individuals to cook on the double. A few burner detached model will give you a lot of energy and space, however, won’t appear to be justified regardless of the bother to collect and transport on the off chance that you don’t generally require it. 

Gatherings of 8+ 

On the off chance that you have a gathering of at least eight, you will clearly require all the more cooking space, and will in all likelihood require more than two burners unless all you intend to eat is soup. This can be accomplished by having an expansive three-burner detached model with legs, or numerous reduced two-burner models. We do prescribe the unattached choice as it extends your kitchen and doesn’t take up valuable tabletop space. 

Remember that bigger items require more vitality to pack, gather, and keep up. We have discovered that they are extremely incredible on the off chance that you have a substantial gathering or need more table space. On the off chance that counters space isn’t an issue, be that as it may, two of your most loved smaller outdoors stoves could be a similarly intense however more portable choice.

How to Transform Your Yard Into a Survival Garden

There are two kinds of preppers: those who plan to run for the hills and those who hope to stay put for as long as possible. If you are the latter kind, you’ve undoubtedly outfitted your home with every conceivable advantage, from security windows and doors to months-worth of shelf-safe foods. However, if you haven’t even touched your landscaping, you aren’t doing all you can to prepare.

Your yard is more than a useless zone between the unprepared masses and your beloved family. There is plenty you can do to transform your yard into a space that improves your chances of survival, to include growing your own food and cultivating a line of defense against potential attackers. To make your very own survival garden, here are a few tip and tricks:

Build a Natural Growing Environment

It should be obvious, but plants don’t naturally grow in rigid rows like you normally see in landscaped gardens. In the wild, plants grow just fine without weeding, trimming, or pesticide treatments; they continue to bear fruits and seeds without human intervention. You should strive to build a survival garden based on a natural growing environment. Still, that doesn’t mean you can throw seeds into your yard and expect them to grow. Instead, you must carefully construct your natural survival garden to optimize your benefit.

In nature, plants must share water, air, and sunshine, and they protect one another from pests like bugs and birds. This is typically achieved through loosely organized concentric circles. At the center is the tallest point, a large tree that protects shade-loving plants. Outside the shade grow thick shrubs that keep away larger pests like rabbits and voles and outside them, fragrant herbs that keep away smaller pests while attracting pollinators and protective insects like bees and wasps.

Ideally, you should maximize your use of the three dimensions while planning your growing environment. By doing so, you can produce up to five times more food than you might with traditional growing beds. Even better, because your yard will simulate a natural environment, it won’t encourage scavengers and looters to pillage your hard-grown food.

Choose the Right Plants

The plants you choose will ultimately depend on your region and soil. For example, it is unlikely that a prepper in Minnesota will find much luck keeping a citrus tree alive outside in the frigid winter; similarly, peaches don’t grow well in the dry air and soil of Arizona. Additionally, the seasons may impact what plants thrive and produce food and what plants go dormant or die. If you want a hands-off survival garden, you need to research what to plant when — and maybe get some help from qualified professionals during your planning stages.

Here are a few examples of possible plants for your survival garden:

• Trees: citrus, stone fruit, and nut trees
• Shade plants: members of the cabbage family, including kale, broccoli, and arugula
• Shrubs: berry bushes, sweet ferns, and other edible shrubs
• Herbs: basil, lavender, mint, lemon thyme, rosemary, and most any other herb.

Consider Defensive Flora

On one hand, wide-open fields and floodlights give you the visibility you need to see possible intruders before they reach your home; on the other hand, if your home looks inhabitable and defensible, you are more likely to attract people wanting to take what you have for their own. In truth, you might be better served by maintaining defenses that don’t look like defenses — which is to say, using your landscaping to protect you.

The easier you make it to get to your front door, the more likely you are to have visitors. Thus, the attractive and inviting front walkway will need to go. Instead, you should try to make passage into your domicile as confusing and discouraging as possible. Around the exterior of your yard — around the valuable crops of your natural garden — and along the narrow, winding passageway to the interior, you should install plants that are less-than-inviting. Some examples (of varying soil and climate needs) include:

• Creeping juniper grows like a blue carpet covered in thorns.
• Golden bamboo grows in thick clumps, creating a hard, natural wall.
• Firethorn is a tall shrub with thorny stems that makes for another natural wall, but this one is covered in beautiful white flowers and red-orange berries — that aren’t good for eating.
• Sloe or blackthorn grows in hedges of thick, prickly foliage, and the berries can be used for flavoring gin.
• Mountain or blue pine are trees with especially sharp needles.

Be a Diligent Gardener

Even if you do opt for a low-maintenance, natural survival garden, you shouldn’t expect to perform zero yardwork. At the very least, you will need to harvest your crops throughout the seasons, and you will likely need to manage your defensive flora so it doesn’t impede your passage through your yard. Though it takes some effort to build and maintain, your yard is among your most valuable prepping assets, and you shouldn’t neglect it.