To help with this, I have a couple books that are very detailed and show step by step how to process multiple types of game. My favorite one is Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game by John Mettler.  I also really like Deerskins Into Buckskins by Matt Richards, this book has excellent instructions on brain, soap and egg tanning.

To help me make sure I’m up to speed with processing animals, I’ve decided to do it from home for a while.  We just did a pig in our garage a few weeks ago and we’ve got two elk tags for this season.  I plan to process both of those here in the garage.  To get ready for that, I’ve been reading both these books.  I’ve also been watching instructional videos on Youtube.

The biggest issue I hear people mention about home processing is the amount of time and energy it takes to process.  I totally agree!  While watching videos on processing deer and elk, I came across these three videos which show the entire process being done VERY quickly and was quite impressed by them!

If you are squeamish at all about blood and guts – don’t watch these videos!  They show people skinning, gutting and cutting up deer – extremely quickly.  I wish I had this kind of skill!

Skinning and Gutting:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Skinning (a different method):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Deboning:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This book also stood out to me, because I often wonder *how* my family managed to get enough food to live.  My mom’s side of the family was that oft-discussed “hearty pioneer stock”.  However I have noticed that while many farmed to live, I have a long history of blacksmiths and military.  There is no hiding that this must be because I inherited a really lousy black-thumb, they took up other trades because of this family curse. I’m one of those people who has to work really hard to make part of his garden succeed.  I enjoy blaming my heritage on this, as it cannot be some failing of my own, right?  So I felt driven to read this book, and find out how they managed to live, despite my inability to grow enough of the right foods in the wasteland of Utah.

Quick Summary:

Audience: Frustrated gardeners, those looking for more season to grow, people who feel they need to change their gardening to be more useful.

Target Location: The author speaks heavily about his experiences in the mountain west/high desert regions (specifically Utah valley). Skills discussed will make farming there much easier, and everywhere else is just easy :)

Mormons Only? No, not even close. This is mentioned specifically because of the historical hardships they encountered when arriving in Utah, and attempting to farm in what was considered a barren land. The author relies on some old family journals for historical information to help understand why certain farming techniques work, and why we shouldnt’ have forgotten them.

The Full Review:

Forgotten Skills is an encouraging read, introducing people of the mountain west to the fact that they can grow food year-round, even in our crazy climate.  The author relies heavily on pioneer journals (mostly from his family) in order to reference specific practices for growing and preserving food that are completely foreign to most people today.  Granted, experienced readers of this blog might be familiar with many specific concepts, such as: non-hybrid seeds, canning, etc; the author goes into extra depth about how these practices were used to simply stay alive in not so distant years.  Beyond some more recently popular topics, there is great encouragement into practices that can be used by people with even small yards to produce and store food year-round by simply changing certain practices in your gardening.

This book in not designed however as a be-all reference. At only 145 pages, with many great photos, you wont’ find a book that teaches every single thing you need to be independent.  However it introduces a good number of important practices, provides basic reasoning as to why it was an important skill, and provides some modern usage examples. It makes sure you know enough about what the skill is, and gives you what you need to find more information if you want. Example: After a great discussion about seed hybridization practices, and their effects, he also spends time explaining how seed banks work and how you can participate in one to get useful seeds in your garden.

Major Topics:

Here is a list of some of the major topics covered that should get the interest of our readers:

• Seeds
• Extending the harvest
• Perennial food plants
• Trees
• Cellaring
• Long Keeping Foods
• Early Veggies
• Pioneer Yeast
• Modern Ideas the Pioneers Would Have Appreciated
• Eggs
• Chickens
• Forgotten Recipes

There are a lot of gardening books out there that are written by people who clearly know how to garden. Unfortunately, communication is not their strong point, and what should be a fountain of knowledge instead becomes a wasteland of over-edited, sometimes terse sometimes diluted text dreaming to be content. This is not one of those books. The authors know how to clearly present their material in an manner that is concise, accurate (as near as I can tell), and helpful.

Most of the first half of the book is a collection of flow charts, designed to help you quickly discover what is actually going on with your plant. Some of it is a little like a choose-your-own-adventure book. For instance, the beginning flowchart for fruit symptoms looks like this:

The whole fruit is discolored. Go to page 97,
The fruit has spots of any size. Go to page 99.
The fruit has holes, or is missing, partly eaten, or cracked. Go to page 110.
The fruit is distorted, stunted, or shriveled. Go to page 115.
The fruit is mushy, wormy, moldy or rotten. Go to page 121.

In most cases, the symptom will be accompanied by a color illustration, giving you visual cues as to what to look for. The exceptions to this are generally when a particular symptom is too broad to be accurately shown. In this case, following the problem one or two steps in will lead you to a more detailed symptom, accompanied by a drawing. As a software engineer, this is the sort of troubleshooting that I’ve become accustomed to at work, and it’s refreshing to finally find a gardening book which so articulately follows the logical line of thought that I like to work in.

After following a few steps of analysis, you will be presented with a diagnosis. For instance:

Does the fruit have white, pale green, and dark green patches? If yes, mosaic virus. For solution, see page 309; for photo, see page 380.

Part 2 of the book, “How Do I Fix It?”, is devoted to preventative measures and natural remedies. The authors of the book seem to believe that chemicals are a last resort; use them when necessary, but not until then. It is better to properly maintain your plants and keep them from causing disease, than to have to try and treat them when something goes wrong. This is especially important in cases where a particular problem has no visual symptoms until it is almost, or altogether too late.

The book seems to be compatible with most gardening styles. Whether you grow your plant in classic rows or have opted for container or Square Foot Gardening, the steps in this book seem to make sense, and are largely easy to accomplish. I was interested to discover that even companion gardening is covered, if not by name. This concept refers to putting plants together which support and protect each other, such as planting marigolds next to certain vegetables to drive away pests which love those vegetables but hate marigolds. It discusses using beneficial insects to your advantage, to drive away other, more bothersome pests.

The book is filled with illustrations, photos, diagrams, charts and altogether useful and insightful knowledge. I’ve barely put this book down since I bought it, and look forward to using it to maintain my plants this year.

For a preview of this book, click here.

To purchase this book, Click Here.

James Wesley Rawles, Author of the renowned survivalblog, as well as the novel Patriots (which we reviewed here before) has a new book coming out shortly.  It’s been available for pre-order for a little bit now, but everybody was requested to wait until today (9/25/09) to actually place pre-orders.  This makes a big difference to companies such as amazon, which use the purchase velocity in their rankings.

From JWR today:

Today is “Book Bomb” Day for my new book, “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times”. My goal for the Book Bomb is a surge of orders is that will drive the book’s Amazon sales rank into the top 50, overall. (When I last checked, it was at #160.) Many thanks for waiting to order until today!!

Here’s a link to order How to survive the End of the Word as We Know it from Amazon – order today and help show that Prepping is cool!

Now I personally haven’t read this book yet, but have read a couple of early reviews, and they all have been very favorable.  It seems to cover many of the questions we raised when reading the Patriots novel. Personally, I’m going to take the chance with the book, and would encourage others to do the same.

If you are being cautious about it, well, hopefully I can get to a review before too long.

How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It

James Wesley Rawles. Plume 2009, Paperback, 336 pages, $7.60

Patriots

James Wesley Rawles. Ulysses Press 2009, Paperback, 384 pages, $9.35

Patriots

For this review we are trying something a little different. Nearly all the authors on this site have read this novel, often in several editions so several of us will be offering our thoughts on this most recent edition.

Ekim

In certain groups, one of the most widely read books (#6 on Amazon’s overall book rankings at its release) is James Wesley Rawles “Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse”.  Rawles’ long term interest in preparedness has become a way of life for him and offers him some unique insights into survivalism. Further, he is a former Army Intelligence officer and the author of one of the most popular survival blogs on the web, survivalblog.com. Most of the authors on our blog own and have read Patriots and highly recommend it. Until recently, I had not read it and didn’t think I needed to.

Some time ago I read the screenplay offered on Rawles’s web site and thought myself pretty well informed about the plot and information in Patriots. Since I thought I pretty much knew what the book was about it wasn’t high on my list of books to purchase and/or read, at least not while so many other wanted and needed preps still need to be completed. Fortunately, while visiting a neighbor recently I saw the book sitting on his bookshelf and took the opportunity to borrow it. After a few chapters I realized the story being told, while related, was very different from that of the screenplay. Amazon offers the book for a hair over $10 so I ordered a copy and returned my neighbor’s book as soon as I had received mine in the mail.

According to Amazon.com, Patriots is

Part novel, part survivalist-handbook, Patriots tells of a small group of friends facing every American’s worst nightmare—the total collapse of society. The stock market plummets and hyperinflation cripples commerce and then a seemingly isolated financial crisis passes the tipping point when an unprepared government fails to act. Practically overnight, the fragile institutions of democracy fall apart and every American is forced to survive on their own.

Evading mobs of desperate, out-of-control citizens who have turned Chicago into a wasteland of looting and mayhem, this novel’s protagonists make their way to a shared secure ranch in the wilds of northern Idaho. Here the survival-driven group fends off vicious attacks from the outside and eventually assists in restoring order to the country. The compelling, fast-paced action-adventure novel has readers jotting notes and referencing the book’s impressive index for informative survivalist tips on everything from setting up a secure shelter to treating traumatic flesh wounds.

Without giving any specifics of the plot away here are some of my thoughts on the novel.

Style

Rawles’s style may not be to everyone’s liking. While the overall story is excellent, Rawles delights in providing a detailed back story for each protagonist, often told as in the first person in a long and drawn out manner that borders on being tedious. Further, the story is also interrupted on a semi-frequent basis with in depth explanations of why the group or a character chose a particular piece of equipment. While this is informative it often detracts from what would otherwise be a fast paced, action packed yarn.

I don’t mean this as a criticism of the novel and I think this was a part of Rawles’s overall concept for the novel; Survival Encyclopedia masquerading as entertaining fiction. While Rawles may have garnered a wider audience and higher sales by removing this information, his intended audience for Patriots is immeasurably appreciative of its inclusion.

Information

Having informed you of the wealth of useful information in Patriots, I also feel I must warn you that most of the information on specific equipment and some procedures is a bit dated. I get the feeling that Patriots is a constant work in progress for Rawles that is currently in its 6th incarnation. This latest version was updated to include information on the recent Presidential election and bailouts along with a useful index. Left unedited though were some of the specific equipment that the protagonists use. For example, the specific computer equipment used by one of the characters is mentioned in quite some detail, but the equipment mentioned is no where near top of the line as implied, even by last year’s standards. Also, some of the radio equipment used by the group is long out of production. This is mentioned in the narrative for some specific equipment but not in others.

I think that the take away with regards to the specific equipment recommendations and especially the details on medical procedures and tactical exercises is that you should NEVER base your decisions on what you have read in ONE book or resource. Instead this and any other reference needs to be viewed as the just one stop in your search for information. Patriots is a great starting point for those without in depth prior professional experience with the many subjects broached within the story. But remember, true mastery will always require hands on experience.

While I am positive that Rawles would not condone it during a TEOTWAWKI scenario as described in the novel, someone out there may think that Patriots provides them with a field manual for addressing a gunshot wound in the absence of any other resource. That may seem far fetched but we use the resources we have when dealing with an emergency.

Summary

I found that Patriots was a very entertaining novel to read. More importantly it got me to thinking about some scenarios and preps that I hadn’t devoted much attention to in the past. It also spurred me to do some more research and seek out some specific and in some cases specialized training to allow me to feel more prepared for a number of scenarios that may someday cross my path.

If you haven’t read it yet, you can purchase your own copy through Amazon here: Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse If you have read it and would like to offer a comment or your own review, we welcome your input.

Connor

I’m always on the look out for good preparedness-focused evangelizing material. I’ve found that doomsday-scenario novels are often a good method of opening a person’s eyes and getting them to think about the “what if”. The TV show Jericho has been a great method for me to encourage those who enjoy watching TV to think about what life would be like in a TEOTWAWKI setting.

Patriots has become one of the books that I recommend to others, due to the simple fact that it is so “meaty” in terms of information and survivalist action. That being said, the material is rather dense and so I currently recommend One Second After first; if the individual liked that book and is interested in more, then I feed them this book.

As has been said, Patriots is more like a manual than novel; you will want to read it with a pen and paper at your side to take notes and add items to your list of preps to buy. While the items discussed may not be pertinent to your situation or mesh well with your personal preferences, the sheer magnitude of items covered in the book will cause you to think of things you otherwise hadn’t. For the average prepper, it’s well worth the investment of time and money to gain valuable perspective on a host of circumstances we may one day be confronted with.

Jayce

For the person reading this book for the literary experience, I’m sorry, but you will be let down.  The book is a bit scattered in nature, with long aside’s exploring the depths of side characters you won’t see for a long time, if ever, again.  Details abound on what would seem to be inane details to most people, making the story a little harder to read for those simply looking for a good story.

What this provides though is a much more entertaining way to read about Rawles suggestions on several best practices.  Of course Patriots is a story of a “Worst Case” example (several actually) in the preparedness world, and shouldn’t be approached as a “This is exactly what people think will happen”.  Instead, the reader should read this first as a story, and take notes about the concerns that it raises in your mind, as to what you actually feel are valid things you should verify in your preparedness portfolio.  You should come out of this book with a nice list of “what if’s”, and at least one suggested solution to many of them.

One of my biggest gripes has been voiced before, and it is in the nature of the main characters.  All are successful individuals, none with children, who have an amazing amount of resources to dedicate to their preparations.  Many times while reading it I would comment along the lines of, “Try that with kids”.  The information was still extremely useful, and it did just serve to make me think more, but it would have been nice to have that angle in the story.  With that said, it does a great job of emphasizing the importance of preparations in the “hero’s” lives, and the difference that knowledge and physical items played in their success as compared to other people.

Phil

Patriots was one of my favorite reads in the last couple years, as Connor mentioned, it is meatier and heavier than One Second After and I now recommend One Second before Patriots as well (for prep mentality newbies).  The story line of Patriots is fantastic in that it provides a realistic scenario and then follows the journey of several small groups of people dealing with the scenario.  Eventually, most of the small groups meet up with everyone else and become a larger group.  They then go on to battle for Liberty and Freedom.

This book presents a lot of moral dilemmas – for instance, what do you do with those who have turned to cannibalism?  What do you do with those who rob, kill and destroy while taking advantage of the crisis situation?  What do you do with those who are starving and come by your way peacefully?  If you are starving, do you take things that you stumble across?  And so on.  Fortunately, being a Christian, I agree with most of the moral resolutions in the book – others may not.

As a survival manual, I made several pages of notes while reading Patriots and used them to incorporate into my preps as much as I could.  However, many of the things in this book demonstrate a level of preparedness that many of us cannot attain very easily.  For example, they had a nice cabin on a big ranch in Idaho.  They had retrofitted the cabin with steel doors and windows and fortified everything.  Right now, I can’t even afford to buy land with a cabin, much less to fortify it.  This book does a fantastic job of describing how a group of friends can/should ban together to help take care of each other.  Strength in numbers will be essential in a SHTF scenario and to accomplish that properly requires a lot of pre-planning.  The pre-planning is covered fairly well in this book and provides a lot of ideas.

In all, this book will likely help open your eyes to at least one area of preparedness that you haven’t yet considered. I strongly recommend it as both a good survivalist read and as a survival manual.  This is one of those books that you’ll want to read every couple years.

Patriots

James Wesley Rawles. Ulysses Press 2009, Paperback, 384 pages, $9.35

One Second After

Newt Gingrich (Foreword). Forge Books 2009, Hardcover, 352 pages, $13.99

The plane sunk from below their feet into the depths of the deep blue abyss. Three naval airmen now find themselves floating alone in endless waves and ocean expanse. This is a gripping true story of their grueling adventure adrift at sea for 34 days in a rubber raft not much bigger than a bathtub.

Preparedness lessons learned from this book include:

• No matter how bad it may get, it will never be as bad as these guys had it.
• Resourcefulness – From next to nothing to absolutely nothing, they made use of their resources of tools, supplies, knowledge and experience.
• Interesting study on the effects of dehydration and starvation.
• Sometimes miracles only happen once we’ve arrived at the limits of Hades.

I read this book recently as a bedtime story for my 9 and 6 year old boys. It’s a quick, easy read that mixes adventure with preparedness lessons. The Raft had enough suspense, adventure, guns, sharks, storms and peril to keep my kids’ attention and wanting for “just one more chapter” each night. My wife was even hooked in for the last half of the book and kept joining us nightly until the end.

Don’t expect to come away from this book with a list of, “I’m going to do this, and this and this” as practical examples from this book. Instead you’ll come away with a stronger conviction that no matter how bad it gets, if God wants me to survive, I’ll stay alive and thrive. This is a story of courage and the indomitable human spirit that we should all acquire so that we can thrive through any challenge that the future might hold.

This is one of those “can’t put it down” adventure books that pulls you in from the start and won’t let you go until you reach The End. To read the first few chapters or pages online so that you can get hooked, go to Google Books ». And of course it’s available via Amazon: The Raft

As for why this book is so important to me, let me ask the following questions.  Have you ever gotten to the point where reading various sources of survival or preparedness information gets a little freaky?  Maybe information starts sounding very similar to each other, or maybe it all seems written to an era that expected Russian troops to come parachuting in any day?  Maybe you’re just getting a little tired of the same old ex-military survival manuals and want something to add a little splash to your evening, beyond curling up with the lantern and warmed up spam.

What makes this book so great is the way it was written.  In reading it, you get the feel of the old school survival manual.  Written as a totally factual report, it breaks down the best practices on how to survive given an outbreak of a zombie horde.  Many of these will be very familiar to all, from the casual prepper to the hardcore survivalist.  It gives ‘plausible’ reasons for an outbreak, ‘historic records’ of previous outbreaks, and even gets into government conspiracies.  What’s not to love?

If it’s any help, I realized after I read the book that the author is the son of one of my favorite movie directors, Mel Brooks.

The Zombie Survival Guide

Max Brooks. Three Rivers Press 2003, Paperback, 288 pages, $6.52

World War Z

Max Brooks. Three Rivers Press 2007, Paperback, 342 pages, $6.79

The Zombie Survival Guide Deck

Max Brooks. Potter Style 2008, Cards, 100 pages, $7.78

So, I thought I would start a new book review feature where I would recommend a good book on prepping and discuss it quickly. I’ll also talk about what I’m currently reading and fill you in on what I’m planning to read next.

First, I’d like to introduce you to my prep bookshelf so we have a decent visual to work with here:

Top Shelf: (Left) Military Survival and Training Manuals and Boy Scout Manuals (Right) Several Cookbooks, especially wheat and bread

Second Shelf: Mostly gardening, some livestock

Third Shelf: The tall books, lots of livestock, gardening, tools, etc. Several Pioneer Skills Encyclopedias

Fourth Shelf: More Livestock, other general survival manuals

There are a lot of books not currently on the bookshelf that should be – each shelf is usually full. Most of the missing books are either on my desk, in my room, or one of my kids is reading it :)

If you’re interested in Military manuals, one of the easiest places to find them is in Military Surplus stores like Uncle Sam’s in Orem. These are great instructor based manuals that provide excellent information on topics that are difficult to get experience in – like Sniping methods and tactics.

I have a lot of livestock books – Cows, Horses, Chickens, Goats, Rabbits, Sheep, etc. A lot of times these books focus on a particular area like Raising, Breeding, Training, etc. If you’re looking for one, make sure it covers the area you’re interested in. I buy up every Country/Pioneer Skills book I find. There are several encyclopedia type books out there on country skills that are excellent.

I have a lot of Gardening books as well – different ones focus on fruits, vegetables and herbs. I constantly find them useful as references. I also have several books that cover skilled work like electrical wiring, plumbing, etc. Several on ‘shop’ methods and wood working as well.

My bookshelf isn’t just for books on things I consider myself a quasi-expert in, it also has many books that I think will be most useful in a TEOTWAWKI situation – ones that will provide answers to questions we haven’t needed or thought to ask yet.

Right now I’m starting a book called Rising Storm by Jessica Draper. It’s about end of days and the opening of the Seventh Seal – my father recommended it and said he really enjoyed it. I’ll be reporting on that soon, in the mean time I’ll start putting up some review of other books.

Do you have any book recommendations for me or others? Do you have a collection of prep books, what is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

The manual targets a marine unit, which can translate well into what you might need to think about in a family situation.  The manual attempts to teach everything somebody would need in order to effectively move themselves during harsh Winter conditions.  They provide good lists of items to keep in an emergency kit for personal use, as well as spreading larger group items around.

Beyond gearing up, the book provides some great information for traveling across difficult terrain, and then focuses heavily with the titular matter, dealing with health issues in the winter.  The manual focuses on several of the winter specific health hazards, and how to deal with them effectively both in terms of immediate medical attention, and in how to handle it as a group.

Got a Kindle? You can get it here:
COLD WEATHER MEDICINE COURSE, Survival