PM's Self Reliance Tools: Primitive or Outside Kitchen Range, Jungle Salad Kit, More

Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

http://www.PoorManSurvival.com

For Independent Minded People!

ISSN 2161-5543

In This Issue:

1. Primitive kitchen range

2. Get your own ‘jungle salad’ kit

3. Free internet at home & away

4. Gardening resources, the Defender & other useful stuff

"If you cannot convince them, confuse them."
-- Harry S. Truman
(1884-1972), 33rd US President

This primitive "kitchen range" is often used in survival skills training programs given to missionaries who intend to set up housekeeping among native tribes far from civilization. Therefore, the practical cooker/baker could serve nicely in any remote area where supplies are scarce and the most common building materials are stone, earth, wood, and salvageable scrap metal.

The first step is to build a platform, which simply raises the cooking area to a convenient working height. This can be done by driving short poles into the ground and tying crosspieces to the uprights with a generous amount of baling twine. When that's finished, top the framework with branches that will be sturdy enough to provide a base for the heavy stove. (Of course, factory-cut heavy lumber and bolts would be a better choice for the base, if available.)

Next, construct the bottom and three sides of a stone or brick box, open at one end, that will later hold the fire. To do so, place a covering of stone or brick on the raised platform and cement the rocks together with clay or mortar, keeping the surface as smooth as possible so it will be easier to clean. Then build up the sides of the firebox as you would a wall and seal all the chinks. To provide a cooking surface, cover about two-thirds of the top of the box (toward the open end) with a flat plate. A cast-iron sheet is best, but you can use steel or even a large, flat stone. Remember, though, that only hard, unlayered rock will do, and the slab must be dried out by heating it slowly. This eliminates the risk of its cracking or even exploding during exposure to intense heat.

Now it's time to build the oven over the portion of the firebox that's not covered by the cooking surface. Place a whole 16-gallon drum inside a 30-gallon drum that's had the front end removed. A section cut out along its length, and a hole cut for the chimney. Cradle the smaller drum with the larger one with rocks and support both containers with stones at the ends. The larger barrel serves as a form for the brick or stone that surrounds the entire oven except for the door and chimney openings. Before reaching the chimney, the smoke and hot gases pass through the space between the two drums, heating the oven.

Since 55-gallon drums are usually more plentiful than 16-gallon drums, you could scale this oven up by using a 30-gallon drum for the inner oven chamber, and a 55-gallon drum as the outer. If you elect to construct this oven from the larger 55-gallon drum, you may want to increase the other dimensions, such as the base and firebox.

The oven must be fitted with a door. This job is most easily handled with an oxyacetylene torch, but if necessary, it can be done with hand tools. Cut a square hole in the front end of the inner drum, make a cover (Each of its dimensions should be about an inch bigger that those of the opening), then- with hinges at the bottom, so it can swing out of the way, attach the door to the oven and make or buy a latch for the closure.

The chimney, which consists of a pipe set into a hole in the arch above the oven, must fit tightly and be cemented with clay or mortar. You'll also need to put a damper in the pipe so that the draft, and therefore the amount of heat produced, can be controlled.

Of course, this is just one possible form of simple oven. The Indians of the Southwest, and other people around the world achieve the same results by building a stone beehive-shaped structure, with an opening in the front near the bottom and a smoke hole at the top. This chamber is heated through for a couple of hours, the ashes are raked out, and the stored-up heat in its stones can then be used for baking. This form of oven is a little more awkward to use, but it does work well. Although the Indian version is usually built on the ground and therefore requires a lot of bending over, raising the stove on a platform eliminate the need for stooping.

Substantially derived from Mother's Energy Efficiency Book Copyright 1983

Homemade dishwashing detergent using natural ingredients
read more here

PM’s Compendium of Useful Resources

Get your own ‘salad jungle’ kit…

What’s a Windowfarm? It’s nature in high design. It’s the urban gardener’s fantasy craft

Windowfarms is the emerging global leader in home food growing. The company emerged from an open source urban agriculture project, launched a record-setting Kickstarter campaign, and has now entered a partnership with one of the world’s leading research institutions that will be an introduction to home growing for millions this year. Windowfarms is leveraging its success to build a high growth company with sensitivity to its impact on living systems that surround us. Windowfarms are beautifully designed home gardening systems that empower anyone with a window to grow fresh salad greens, herbs, and small vegetables year-round.

Learn more at:

http://www.poormansurvival.com/Pages/urbangarden.aspx

You Can Now Get Free Internet at Home and Away

Several startups are challenging the status quo and offering cheap - even free - wireless Internet. It's about time.

…Bank branches are being eliminated. There was a loss of 1,118 branches last year; the biggest drop since 2005. Banks are doing this to save money, focusing on big cities and areas with large populations and lots of money. Source: Money.CNN.com

Gardening Resources

Learn more about growing your own food using these sites:

www.HerbGardeningGuru.com

www.BackYardGardener.com

http://www.poormansurvival.com/Pages/urbangarden.aspx

The Defender: A Covert Defensive Tool

The Defender is a piece of plastic type material flat but with a unique shape. The edges and sides of the Defender all have specific purposes. You can control a person with one side, apply pressure to vital targets with another side, and strike with many of the sides. The Defender is designed as a less-lethal device; however, if your life was in jeopardy you could use it in a more damaging manner than how it would normally be used.

Unlike other more ominous and sinister looking self-defense weapons that would be banned from certain locations, this device is quite innocent looking and will fit into your back pocket or purse. It might not replace having a firearm when someone is shooting at you, but in close quarters combat scenarios this device could be exactly what you need to defend yourself and live.

http://www.pdws.biz/

Going Beyond Cheap Recipes
When you come home from work and have a hungry family to feed, it's hard to think frugally. But, that's a quick way to let your grocery bill get out of hand. Here are some suggestions for finding inexpensive recipes and some other tools that can soften the blow at the grocery store. Read more.

Recipes for the cheaper chicken parts
read more here

The Nanny State Updates… Americans are fat n happy while their rights are trampled!

Law-enforcement technology
Stopping vehicle in their tracks -- remotely

The need to stop vehicles remotely was identified by the law enforcement community. In 2010, the characteristics of a squid’s sticky tendrils were combined with the concept of Spiderman’s super-strong webbing to create a prototype of the first remote device to stop vehicles in their tracks: the Safe, Quick, Undercarriage Immobilization Device (SQUID).

Minnesota police compromises drivers' privacy

The headlines in Minnesota tell a story of a privacy scandal, after an audit has revealed that 88 law enforcement agents have abused the state’s driver’s license record system during just the last year.

Are Political Perks Fueling our Demise?

http://poormansurvivorblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/are-perks-for-politicians-fueling-our.html

Recipes for homemade floor cleaners
read more here

The Parting Thought- Privacy outlawed in the USA

The Road to Serfdom

Using the illegal unPatriot Act GOVERNMENT VIOLATES PRIVACY ACT OF 1974

Americans are numbered as infants for lifetime surveillance…

For years we heard about the Mark of the Beast and I always discounted it. However, the government has mandated the use of a Socialist Slave Number on all Americans just like the Nazis used on Jews and other concentration camp conscripts.

Comrades, you are now REQUIRED to have a socialist slave number to be born, enrolled in school, apply for any government benefits, for medical treatment, to open any kind of financial account including non-interest bearing accounts and even pre-paid debit cards, to serve in the military, to apply for many utilities, etc.

Despite wording in the Privacy Act of 1974 which prevented the collection and use of a Social Security number to open non-interest bearing financial accounts (later to include pre-paid debit cards) one cannot do much of anything without the slave number - even a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) is no longer accepted for most transactions.

The Privacy Act of 1974, Public Law 93-579, was created in response to concerns about how the creation and use of computerized databases might impact individuals' privacy rights. It safeguards privacy through creating four procedural and substantive rights in personal data. First, it requires government agencies to show an individual any records kept on him or her. Second, it requires agencies to follow certain principles, called "fair information practices," when gathering and handling personal data. Third, it places restrictions on how agencies can share an individual's data with other people and agencies. Fourth and finally, it lets individuals sue the government for violating its provisions.

There are, however, several exceptions to the Privacy Act. For one thing, government agencies that are engaged in law enforcement can excuse themselves from the Act's rules. Agencies have also circumvented information sharing rules by exploiting a "routine use" exemption.

Hell, our IRS shakes down and blackmails the banks in other sovereign nations such as Switzerland in order learn about “secret” money stashes. This is what happens when a state turns rogue and is headed toward totalitarianism.

It’s a depressing sign that most Americans submit to socialism and to the USA's growing police state.