Good skill-set for children to develop as they grow

1. Grow vegetables from seeds
2. Have local edible and medicinal plant foraging skills
3. Make a fire and know fire safety
4. Cook on an open fire
5. Open a can of food with and without can opener 
6. How to safely use a knife
7. How to shoot a sling shot
8. How to hunt small game with snares, traps and sling shot
9. How to fish and hunt (bow & gun) when old enough
10. How to clean fish and wild game
11. Find and purify water
12. Basic first aid
13. Find or build a shelter in the wilderness
14. How to stay warm, cool and dry in the elements
15. How, Why and When to stay hidden
16. Self defense
17. Marksmanship (rifle, shotgun, revolver and pistol) 
18. How to make a basic weapon and how to use it
19. Be able to run and walk a good distance and be in generally good shape
20. How to read a map and use a compass
21. How to read the sky and clouds for directions, time and approaching bad weather
22. Know where family and friends live if they need to find them
23. How to sew so they can mend clothing or any fabric and even make things such as bags or scrap quilts
24. How to bargain and trade (Kids naturally do this with their toys so teach them at garage sales.)
25. Develop strong situational awareness
26. Have a natural curiosity and good problem solving skills
27. Be hard working and a self starter and a family helper not a complainer!
28. Have a strong faith in God (morals, memorize Bible verses, prayers, songs, and have a hope for heaven)

The future of law enforcement

911... What's your emergency?

There'a a man trying to steal a bicycle from the rack outside my apartment building.  I need the police to come.

Can you describe the man?

He's black.  About 6 foot 3.  Weighs about 240 pounds.  Wearing a dark green hoodie.

Okay ma'am... As soon as we have a free two-man patrol with at least one black officer, we'll send it over.

Why a two-man unit?  It's just one guy.

Might be a cop ambush ma'am.  Can't be too careful.  We have two single-man units but that's two cop cars and that's excessive show of force for just a simple bike robbery.  We'll get there when we can.

An hour later (the department will get sued later for their slow response to a crime in a black neighborhood).

Dispatch this is One-Adam-Five. We're approaching the scene.  Can you describe the suspect?

It's a male.

Anything else?  That's sort of vague.

Negative.  The info I sent you is all I can transmit without profiling.

Roger.  We'll see who we can find.

Hey buddy?  You see anyone stealing a bike around here this evening?

Fuck you pig!

I'm sorry I micro-aggressed you.  Have a nice night.

Hey... check out that guy pushing that bike.  Does he seem a bit big for such a small bicycle?

Yeah.  He does.  Let's stop him and see what's what.

Sir!  Police Department!  Please set the bike down and come over here for a minute.

WHAT?  Black man can't walk down the street with a bike?  Gotta be stolen right?  Can't no black man possibly be walking at night, with a bike, unlessen it be stolen?  Fuck you!

Sir!  A bike was reported stolen near here.  We're trying to find out who stole it.  Please stop and answer our questions.

Fuck you!  I'm walkin!

No!  Stop!

Ain't you gonna chase him?

No.  Can't.  He's unarmed.  I can't shoot him.  He's a big man so I can't place my life in danger by trying to wrestle him down.  I can't tase him if he doesn't pose a threat.  As long as he is unarmed we can't draw down on him.

But that looks like a gun butt sticking out of his hoodie pocket.

May-be.  Can't be sure though.  Might be a toy gun.  Wouldn't want to shoot a guy who was carrying a toy gun.  If he pulls it out and shoots somebody with it, call us back.

Don't assume and don't take for granted.

I saw this posted on the internet and found it to be a true reflection of the chaos and hard work a stay-at-home mom faces:  

As I scrolled down through the comments, I found this.  It is also a true reflection of what a working dad brings to the table:

A woman went to the store to buy a few things. When she got to the check out she pull out her credit card and swiped it in the pay station. I came back with an error "Invalid account" so she tried another and another with the same result. Surprised but not yet concerned she pulled out her check book but the cashier, upon checking, said there was insufficient funds in the account. Now upset, she pulled out her cell phone to call the bank but her phone wouldn't connect to anything but customer service who told her the bill hadn't been paid. So she went home where she found her husband sitting on the couch playing a video game. When she finished telling him what had happened at the store he smiled and said, "You know everyday when I come home and you ask me what in the world I do all day...?"
"Yes" she answered.
"Well today I didn't do it."

I guess it's easy to assume that a clean house in good order and a bank account with money and paid bills is a thing that just happens but it takes work to maintain a family.  We would do well to appreciate before we criticize.

The Dark Tower as a film and/or miniseries.

The following came from: http://movieseum.com/10-films-trapped-in-development-hell/

 

To many, The Dark Tower series is Stephen King’s best work. Spanning eight novels, some nearly as thick as his thirteen-hundred page epic The Stand, The Dark Tower tells the story of Roland Decshain, the titular gunslinger of the first book, and his search for the Dark Tower and its emissary The Man in Black. To say this project is ambitious would be the equivalent of saying Stephen King is just a horror writer: obvious, but not the whole story. Director Ron Howard, and his producing partner Brian Glazer, are the men who have put it upon themselves to transfer this magnum opus from page to screen. For a while it looked as if it would happen with a deal that included both films and television miniseries and actors such as Russell Crowe and Javier Bardem rumoured to be playing the Gunslinger. Unfortunately, it is still too rich for the Hollywood money men’s blood and things have gone quiet again. You have to feel for King’s fans who have to deal with five Children of the Corn films and not even one Dark Tower film.

You Might Be a Survivalist If…

You have a cookbook all about Spam.

You consider your extra large ham radio antenna as “broadband”.

You know how to cook leather.

You’ve ever been on a Soviet “Potential Threat” list.

SWAT has ever asked to borrow a few of your guns.

Your new girlfriend comes over for the first time, and when she walks into the living room, the first thing she sees is your CHL regulation Man sized target with 50 holes in the chest area.

Your dog has more Emergency Rations than 95% of the U.S. population.

You’re the first person at the gun range on Dec 26th to try out your new toys, and the clerk knows you by your first name

The local supermarket manager knows to go ahead and open up the back dock doors when he sees you on a shopping trip.

Your home and property are more secure and better lit than Fort Knox or Area 51.

All the local restaurants know to save you all their 5-gallon buckets on Mondays and Thursdays.

None of your vehicles have electronic ignition or pollution control.

You know the tail numbers of all the helicopters in your area.

The magazines on your coffee table include American Survival Guide, Guns and Ammo, Soldier of Fortune, American Rifleman, Shotgun News and 4 -Wheeler.

You welcome a “mild” El Nino storm because you know its going to fill your cistern.

The power fails in your local movie theater, and you pull your flashlight from your belt and show yourself the way out.

You use your Gerber Tool to cut your steak at a fine dining establishment.

Your knife collection has its own footlocker.

When people ask about all those colorful maps on your walls, you tell them that you are planning a “Fishing Expedition”.

You can recognize the sound of a generator from four blocks away, but you also can tell the brand, horsepower and kilowatts per hour that it is putting out.

You have to kill a snake in your front yard, but then you skin and eat it.

You stock up on kerosene and firewood in 102 degree summer heat.

Your homeschooled children score in the 99 percentile on their SAT’s.

Your To Do list includes changing the batteries on the seismic ground sensors surrounding your home.

Your shopping list includes numbered items like .22, .308., .357 and 7.62

Your shopping list includes body armor.

Your scanner includes the frequencies of every law enforcement agency within 100 miles, including the ones that don’t officially exist.

Those maps on your wall have every bridge marked in red, with an alternate path marked around it.

Your paper boy throws the paper into the barbed wire just for the heck of it.

You have a key fob that says, “What Would John Wayne Do?”

Your fence posts double as range markers.

The window shutters have firing ports included in their design.

You have “ammo” on your Christmas list.

You’re on a first name basis with every vendor at a gun show.

You can’t put your groceries in the trunk of the car because its already jammed full with emergency kits, first aid supplies, and fully-stocked BOBs.

You have emergency rations for your pets, and view your pets as potential emergency rations.

You know the news three days before it hits the mass media.

You have back-up plans for your back-up plans.

You’re convinced you’ve been exposed to so many chemical-trails, you consider it a form of birth control.

You’ve ever bought antibiotics for human use through a vet or grains for human consumption through a feed store.

You’ve got more than one grain mill.

You’ve ever wondered how you might filter the used water from your washing machine to make it fit for human consumption.

You have a kerosene lamp in every room.

Your living room coffee table is actually a board with pretty cloth over it to disguise your food storageunderneath.

Your box springs are Rubber Maid containers filled with rice and beans.

You save dryer lint to make fire starters.

Your most commonly used fuel additive is Stabil, instead of Gum-out.

You automatically choose the heavy duty flatbed cart upon entering Sam’s or Costco.

You know the shelf life of tuna fish, but don’t know how long you’ve had that open jar of mayo in the fridge.

Your basement walls are insulated with crates of toilet paper, from floor to ceiling, all the way around.

Other people are saving money for new furniture or vacations, but you are desperately saving to get solar panels put on your house.

You were excited beyond all reason when they came out with cheddar cheese in a can.

You’ve ever served MREs at a dinner party.

You can engage in a spirited debate on chemical vs. sawdust toilets for hours on end.

You’ve ever considered digging an escape tunnel from your basement to the nearest stand of trees.

You know how to use a vacuum cleaner in reverse to filter air in your designated bio-chem attack safe room.

You’ve ever considered buying an above-ground pool for water storage purposes.

You know what things like ‘TSHTF’, ‘BOB’, ‘GOOD’, and ‘TEOTWAWKI’ mean and routinely use them in conversations.

You have different grades of BOB’s.  And re-stock them twice a year.

You know the names, family histories, locations, and degree of readiness of over a thousand fellow doomers on the internet, but you’ve never met your neighbors.

The best radio in the house is a wind-up.

You have better items in storage than you use everyday.

If the SHTF, you would eat better than you eat now.

Your significant other gave you a sleeping bag rated at -15 degrees for Christmas, and you were moved beyond words.

You’ve sewn secret mini-BOBs into the bottom of your children’s school backpacks.

Local food pantries have come to depend on donations from your larder when you rotate stock in the spring and fall.

You’re still using up your Y2K supplies.

You have enough army surplus equipment to open a store.

The local army surplus store owner knows you by your first name.

When you  fill up when your gas tank, it’s already 3/4 full.

You call Rubber Maid for wholesale prices.

You have several cases of baby wipes and your kids are all grown.

You carry a pocket survival kit, a sturdy folding knife, a Sure Fire flashlight and a small concealed handgun to church every Sunday.

You start panicking when you are down to 50 rolls of toilet paper.

You keep a small notebook to write down any edible plants you happen to see along the road.

You shop yard sales, store sales, and markdown racks for bartering goods .

You own a hand-operated clothes washer and a non-electric carpet sweeper.

You have at least two of every size of Dutch oven (the ones with the legs on the bottom), and 20 bags of charcoal, although you have a gas grill.

You have rain barrels at each corner of your house although you have a city water hookup, and a Big Berkey to purify the water.

You have sapphire lights, survival whistle, and a Swiss Army knife on every family member’s keychain.

The people in line at Costco ask if you run a store or restaurant.

You require a shovel to rotate all your preps properly.

You no longer go to the doctor’s because you can either fix it yourself, make it at home, or know and understand the physicians desk reference better than he does, and can get the goods at the vets or pet store for MUCH less money anyway.

You know that GPS has nothing to do with the economy.

You track your preps on a computer spreadsheet for easy reordering, but have hard copies in a 3-ring binder, ‘just in case’.

You’ve thought about where the hordes can be stopped before entering town.

You start evaluating people according to ‘skill sets’.

You view the nearest conservation area as a potential grocery store if TSHTF.

You know *all* the ways out the building where you work.

You have enough pasta stockpiled in your basement to carbo-load all the runners in the New York marathon.

You know that you have 36 gallons of extra drinking water in the hot water tank and your 2 toilet tanks.

You know which bugs are edible.

You have a hand pump on your well.

You have #10 cans of ‘stuff’ that the labels fell off of, but you won’t throw it out or open it because it, ‘may be needed later’, even though you haven’t a clue as to the contents.

You know where the best defensive positions and lines of fire are on your property.

You’ve made a range card for your neighborhood.

Your toenail clipper is a K-BAR.

The Ranger Handbook is your favorite self-help book.

You’ve numbered the deer romping in the yard by their order of consumption.

You must move 50 cases of food for the plumber to get to that leaky pipe, and you have your own hand truck in the basement to do it. 100

You own more pairs of hiking boots than casual and dress shoes combined.

You have more 55 gallon blue water drums than family members.

You have a backup generator for your backup generator, which is a backup for your solar energy system.

You go to McDonalds and ask for one order of fries with 25 packs of ketchup and mustard.

You have ever given SPAM as a serious gift.

You’ve had your eye out for a good deal for a stainless steel handgun to conceal in the bottom of the magazine rack next to the toilet.

You are single male over 40, but you still have an emergency childbirth kit, just in case you have to deal with that possibility.

You have two water heaters installed in your basement, but one is a dummy that’s been converted to a hideaway safe.

You’ve made bug-out cargo packs for your dogs.

You have a walking stick with all sorts of gadgets hidden inside.

You’re a substitute scoutmaster, and you taught your son’s troop to set mantraps and punji pits, and haven’t been asked to stand in since.

You’re on your fifth vacuum sealer, but you keep at least one of the worn out ones because you can still seal up plastic bags with it.

You haven’t bought dried fruit in years, but you buy fresh bananas, apples, peaches and pears by the case and have three dehydrators.

Your UPS man hates you because of all the cases of ammo he’s had to lug from his truck to your front door.

You have duplicates of all your electronics gear, solar panels and generator parts in your EMP-shielded fallout shelter.

You have set aside space for your live chickens in the fallout shelter.

When the power goes out in your neighborhood, all the neighbor’s kids come over to your place to watch TV on generator power.

You must open the door to your pantry very carefully for fear of a canned goods avalanche.

You have a ‘Volcano’, you know you can cook anything, and you cast evil glances at your neighbor’s annoying, yappy poodle, muttering, “Your day will come, hotdog”.

You’ve learned to make twine from plant fibers to be used for snares  because you fear that all of your preps and hard work will be confiscated by FEMA troops or destroyed by earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear blasts, ravening hordes of feral sheeple or reptiloids from ‘Planet X’

The Police Chief calls you to find out what guns to buy for their officers.

Thanks to Bob Mayne over at Today’s Survival Show podcast for putting this together and for giving me permission to post it.  How did he know I save my dryer lint??

If you’re not sure of some of his abbreviations, check out The SurvivalBlog Glossary.

There may be links in the post above that are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, which does not affect the price you pay for the product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers.

I had the most vivid dream last night...

I'm in uniform (ACUs).  I'm walking between two old beachfront hotels, all whitewashed stucco and palm trees, down to a beach that looks like Daytona or maybe Jacksonville.  Feels like late morning and the breeze is warm but it's not really hot yet.  I am standing there at the edge of the concrete where it meets the sand.  I am approached by an older couple (late 50s to early 60s) that start to chat me up.  They thank me for my service and I say "thank you" as I bow my head slightly.  "I appreciate that."  (This is a true depiction of how I usually react to such thanks.)  They continue speaking and it soon becomes apparent that they are making a pitch for a retirement community there in the beach city I'm in.  I demur and say, "Thanks but I live in the barracks.  Uncle Sam gives me a place to stay.  I'm cool but thanks anyway."  They appear to be well trained salespeople and begin to "handle my objection" as we say in Recruiting Duty.  I continue to remonstrate politely and turn to go.  I find myself facing a one story cinder block building fronted by a shady thatched roofed patio cabana.  I step into the shade of the cabana and go through a set of glass double doors into what seems to be a USO-type lounge crossed with an open-bay barracks.  Lots of day-room rec equipment, couches and a big T.V. up front with two long rows of bunk beds down the length of the room.  As I am milling around one of the beds, the persistent condo sales folks are still with me, dump-trucking all the reasons why their condo community is the perfect place to spend the sunset years.  All I keep thinking about is "Cocoon" or "The Green Mile" and thinking, No way.  They ask me if I think I deserve to get treated right in my retirement?  After serving my country all these years, don't I deserve to get something back?  A thought pops into my head.  A way out of this clingy sales pitch.  I say, "No.  But I do think about all those guys who never got the chance to have any golden years.  And the ones whose golden years will be spent suffering the effects of horrible wounds and trauma.  That stops them cold.  I continue, "I bet they sure could use some peace and easy living."  I begin to choke-up and my eyes fill with tears.  I look down at a bag between my feet and squat to zip it up, averting my eyes.  It's all crocodile tears, of course.  I'm just trying to find away to throw them off and get them to go away.  It works.  The woman chokes up herself and pats my arm saying how sweet I am and how grateful she is for all we've done.  They quietly turn and leave.  I am happy to have pulled off a tactic that defeated the two smarmy hucksters and woke up feeling both haughty and guilty.