Month: February 2024

Miguel talks about his hurricane kit. We have the storm kit.

The first thing we did in deciding what was needed for our storm kit was to determine what we were likely to experience, and under what circumstances.

There are three possible causes, winter storm, summer storm, social unrest.

The most likely is the winter storm. Summer storms are not as bad, in general.

Using the rule of threes, the first thing on the list is medical for a winter storm.

We have all of our medications at hand. Losing power doesn’t change that.

A massive part of the first requirement is hygiene. That is the ability to clean ourselves, clean our clothing, and to use the toilet.

If we can heat water, which we can, then we can clean ourselves. We have a propane gas kitchen stove, we have a propane burner for heating big pots of water, and we have wood to burn to make heat for heating water.

That would be enough for sponge baths. We also have solar chargers and a battery-powered shower unit. Fill a five gallon bucket with hot water. Drop the intake into the bucket. Press the button and hot water comes out the hand-held shower head.

Learn to take ship showers and 5 gals is more than enough.

We collect that water for flushing the toilet. We live at the top of a hill. There is enough “down hill” flow that we would not have to worry about back flow from the sewer lines. As mean and nasty as it might be, I know that there are houses down stream from us that would back flow, long before that shit got to us.

We have a manual washing station for clothing. Half fill a five gallon bucket with warm water, add a bit of wash soap. Use the plunger, agitator. 30 to 45 minutes of work later, you have clean clothes. We don’t have an easy way to get the water out, so that would be done manually. Painful, but not a showstopper.

We buy soap bars in bulk. I happen to use shampoo bars, which have great shelf life and are small. We have wash soap and can make more if needed. We’ve made soap in the past and can make more if needed.

In other words, some five gallon buckets, a recharging method, and a battery-powered shower head gives us our hygiene.

Our next item is shelter.

The power goes out! Everybody grab their Get Out Of Dodge Expeditiously (G.O.O.D.E) bag! We are going to live in the woods until the power comes back.

DOH! That’s not how it works. The best shelter we have is our home. It is water tight, wind tight, and insulated.

We still require some heat, but not as much as we would if we were outside in the elements.

First, we have convenient heaters. That is to say, we have both propane and kerosene indoor safe heaters. The kerosene puts out enough BTUs to heat most of the lower living area. It burns for about 10 hours on one fill.

The propane puts out heat, but I don’t like it. It is just another source of heat, if we needed it, from an alternative fuel.

We then have the wood stove. That is a primary heating method.

Finally, we have an H45 military heater. If I needed to use it, I would take the wood stove out of production to use its thimble for the H45. This thing will burn almost any sort of liquid fuel. In a worse case situation, I could pull fuel from the furnace fuel tank to run this thing.

Next in the rule of threes is water. We normally have 10 gallons of water in water cubes, ready to use in an emergency. We have the hot water tank for secondary needs. We have multiple large containers for gathering water in other ways. There is normally plenty of snow during the winter and there is the lake when it is not frozen.

The takeaway from this is that we have water, we can get water, we can filter the water to make it potable.

We have a couple of 250 gallon tanks that I’m going to setup for catching rain water. Those can be used for a source of water as well.

Food, we have lots of food put away. We can cook it on the stove, we can cook over a fire, it is easy enough to do. We have yeast and flour as well as wheat berries.

This is Hagar’s bread from the weekend. She made it at a 1700s even at a living museum. She baked it in a Dutch oven.

For tools, we have things that require power, but for the most part, we have backups that are manual and we have used all those tools.

You have to use the tools to know what they can and cannot do. As well as what you can, and cannot do.

My daughter gave me a hand generator to charge USB devices. It works. I can’t even put a 10 minute charge on my phone. My phone consumes more power than I can generate per unit time. On the other hand, the solar chargers do work.

(650 words)

When I read the filings of the plaintiffs (good guys), it is almost always respectful of the state. They might discuss the challenged statute in negative terms, but there was always a certain level of respect for the state and the courts.

That seems to be changing.

Ok, that was the gantlet across the face, not to the ground. That should leave marks.

The reply then continues by pointing out that PICA requires people to register their “naughty guns”. The Illinois State Police webpage tells the subjects of Illinois that they will be arrested and charged if they don’t register their “naughty guns”.

This is expert level trolling. This case was just vacated and remanded to the district court by the Seventh Circuit court.

The “same” Seventh Circuit court, in November, had said that it wasn’t weapons in common use that controlled, instead it was if the state or the court decided that something was more suited to the military.

They also claim that Bruen, and Heller applied circular logic. All of this because of a throw-away line in dicta in Heller which sought to protect the NFA.

This was a short filing. Only eleven pages or so.

Washington Gun Law and Mark Smith are both saying that the petitions for cert coming from the Fourth, Second(?) and Seventh Circuits are full of trolling.

Corrected my username. DOH. This is what happens when you spend the preceding hours working an AWS issue.

There was a time when a man didn’t leave his home without a knife. A knife is one of the most useful tools a man can have.

As a boy, I carried a something like a Case “Stockman”. It had three different blades. My memory is dim, so it could have been a two bladed version.

In my teens, my cousin sold me a Swiss Army knife, for a penny.

That knife lived in my pocket for years and years until I think I lost it. I replaced it with the same version. This means I’ve been carrying the same version of a Swiss army knife for over 45 years.

That knife was useful in so many ways. Mostly it was a simple knife, when needed, a corkscrew, nail file, and screwdriver. The scissors were useful, mostly for getting into bubble wrap.

The interesting thing is that I seldom reach for that knife.

At university, I upgraded to two extra knives. On my left hip, I carried a USN issued Ka-Bar that was gifted to me by a UDT dude. It was the knife he carried in Vietnam. It lives on my desk, today, I just pulled it out to verify the markings.

On my right hip, I carried a Gerber Bolt Action Exchange blade. It had three different blades. Two were carried in the pouch, while the third was in the handle. Exchanging the blades was fast and easy.

After several years, I figured out that I never used the extra blades, so I just carried it in my pocket.

My next addition to the EDC tool set was a Leatherman. It was one of the first of the multitools. I found that I used the pliers the most, the blade seldom, and the screwdrivers fairly often.

When that was misplaced, I replaced it. I’ve since sold it, for a penny, to somebody that will use it.

My replacement was a Gerber multi-tool. The MP600. It has the pliers that I use regularly. The different screwdrivers, the blades, the file, and the can opener.

Except for the pliers, I could do all of the above with my Swiss Army Knife, but this is so much faster and the tips on the screwdrivers so much better.

So my current pocket load out is:

Left pocket, clipped to the edge, O-Light flashlight. In the pocket is the Swiss army knife, a USB thumb drive with current Ubuntu Install media, container with ear plugs. If I am not carrying mag pouches, a spare mag will go there.

In the right front pocket, clipped to the edge, is a Cold Steel Code-4. In the pocket is the Gerber multi-tool.

I am currently looking at the Kershaw Select Fire. I like that it has a standard bit driver and is built around a knife and not the tools. My bits would be #2 square drive, #1 Philips, #2 Philips, and a slot driver.

Thanks to Lenard for lots to think about. Thank you for all the feedback we’ve gotten from other users.

This weekend, I’m going to be looking at the filings for cert. I’ve listened to a couple of reports talking about how powerful these petitions are. It should be good.

We have a guest post happening. If you submit an article in LibreOffice or google doc format, and it is fitting for the blog, we’ll likely post it. You can submit your articles to gunfreezone@troglodite.com

Back links will be evaluated on an individual basis.

Have a great weekend!

Please let us know what you are interested in, in the comments.

It is always weird when you have something that you can’t find online anymore.

Years ago, when we owned a small hobby farm, we used to have “sausage making day”. About once per year we would, as a family, gather to make sausage. One of our lodgers owned a powered meat grinder. We would spend the day grinding meat and making sausage.

I do not remember what make or model it was. I just knew that people complained about the motor overheating and other issues.

Fast-forward, we want to make ground meat and sausage again, but we don’t have a grinder. I set my lady to looking for a manual meat grinder. She located a Weston #32.

As far as I can tell, meat grinders are sized by that number. #32 is the larger size. Today, #32 are professional sized electric grinders. The sort of thing which will grind an entire cow in a single session.

The thing is, I think that this darn manual mill could do an entire cow in a few hours also.

It is constructed of two large iron castings. The body and the augur. The body doesn’t seem to have much in the way of machining. The drive end of the augur takes a plastic bushing to center the augur, the front might have been machined round to take the grate.

The augur is drilled and tapped at both ends. The cutter end having been faced as well.

All in all, a low cost of production. Castings are generally fairly low cost. The amount of machining is low.

The one issue I have with ours is that the feet are not on the same plane. I could take it to the shop and cut the legs level, but it isn’t worth the effort.

Currently, we just clamp it to the counter top with C-Clamps.

How well does it work? Very well.

One of the first things I learned is that the retaining ring must be on tight. And you will have to tighten the ring a few times as you use the tool.

The last thing I learned is that I should remove the cutters and grate between passes, as there will be product that gets caught in the cutter.

The second thing I learned was that you don’t really want or need to fill the hopper. Just add enough so that the augur is barely covered, add more as the augur is exposed.

We did a 75% venison to 25% beef fat mix. It was still leaner than the 85% ground beef we get from the store.

It just feed through. There were no difficulties. It took us about 30 minutes to process about 10 pounds total.

We ran the entire batch through a total of three times. The first were one-inch cubes. We mixed the result manually and feed it through a second time, only for mixing purposes. Then we mixed manually a second time and feed it through for the last time.

Everything was then packaged in one-pound packages and frozen.

The only issue we’ve had is that the plastic pushing had a thrust bushing. That was broken before we got it. I will have to machine a replacement.

At this point, we are looking at making ground beef. It isn’t much more work, and I believe we will get superior results.

We are just looking for some cheap beef to come on sale.

Furthermore, We are looking at sausage making, again. We just haven’t gotten there yet.

Update: I was not clear on my emotions when I wrote this. Then I had to ask Hagar for the right words.

It is not that I feel remorse over harvesting that deer. It was done ethically. Nothing was wasted. It is that I feel the immensity of the life I took. I need to honor it.

I hope that helps clarify.

I’ve waited a bit before writing about this.

Earlier this season, I was able to harvest a deer. I’m not a great hunter, I just do my best.

The first deer I harvested was taken at about 500 yards with a 7.62×51 through a Remington 700. My hold point was about 8 inches over the deer’s spine. The round was a good shot. The deer stood there for a moment, then with the rest of its group bounded into the tree line.

I hiked out there, lugging that rifle. Three times I was about to give up when I finally spotted the blood trail. I followed it into the woods, found the deer. We used every bit of the meet of that deer.

This time was a little different. The shot was at about 50 yards. I was using a 30-30 out of a Winchester Model ’94. A 75-year-old rifle.

We talk about how a round performs into jugs of water. We talk about how rounds work in ballistic gelatin. We even use “meat targets” if we can afford them.

All of these are simulations. The only way to know is to see how it actually performs.

In this case, it performed amazingly well. The round entered between ribs a little higher than I wanted. It then traveled through the interior, tearing up everything except the meat.

The buck took one step forward and its left front leg gave out. It fell the rest of the way to the ground with a short scream. Its smarter brother had already taken off. Stopping at the 75-yard range.

By the time I got to the buck, it was dead. Almost no blood outside the body.

When I field dressed it, the main cavity was full of blood. That round did a number. One shot, one kill, about 30 seconds.

When I got to that left front shoulder, I found that the scapula(?) was cracked. I believe that is why it stumbled. No signs of bullet damage there.

The load was 160gr Hornady FTX over 33gr of LeveRevolution. DON’T USE OR TRUST MY LOAD DATA!

Bacon wrapped backstrap steak for dinner tomorrow.

I’m going to do a product review on the Weston #32 meat grinder soon. Having that tool was one of the reasons I went hunting this year.

Oh, why the wait? Because I am an ethical person. I can still close my eyes and see the sight picture, feel the recoil, hear the round going off. I can still see the ejected casing flying off to my right as a chambered the follow-up, in case it was needed. I can still hear the cry it made.

It took a while to be able to write about taking a life. We wasted nothing. The hide is going to a good home. The bones are being used by people that create things the “old ways”.

All in good fun:

The petition for writ of certiorari before judgement has been filed.

The state has until March 13, 2024, to respond. We should see a spat of the regular suspects chiming in over the next 3 weeks on why this case should not be heard by the Supreme Court.

This petition was submitted to Chief Justice Roberts.

We want to see when it is distributed to conference.

There is some interesting timing going on. Oral arguments are calendared for 2024/03/20, 7 days after the response is due.

I’m not quite sure how you can as an individual care about students, but as a group not do so. — Paul Koning

There is study of people as a group that is very successful. We know how people, in mass, will respond to different stimuli.

This is one of the reasons that mobs are so dangerous. They react as a “mob” and not as individuals.

Some of the worst mass casualty events in our recent history have come about because of mob mentality.

Look at the doors of your home, the screen door, if any, opens outward, the main door opens inward. Now look at the majority of business doors. They open outwards. This is so universal that people will insist on pulling on business doors that open inwards, even with signs.

This is because of that mob mentality. When an individual is trying to exit and needs to pull the door open, they will do so, not issues. The people behind him will give them room to do so.

In a mob event, the people in the rear will push forward, causing the people in the front to be pushed forward, making it impossible to pull the door open. This leads to crush deaths at the front. The people in the rear are then trapped.

Unions are controlled mobs. The people at the top manipulate the lower down, and they use mob manipulation to accomplish these things.

What this means, is that good teachers, and there are many of them, will sacrifice their time, their emotions, and their money to help their students. Many of those teachers purchase extra supplies for their students. Spend time out of contract hours to help students. Will invest their emotions in the success of their students.

This is the individual acting as an individual.

I listen to the complaints of teachers. One of the huge issues today is safety in the classroom. I’m not talking about “school shootings”. I am talking about out of control students.

Every year, one or more of the elementary school teachers is injured by a k-5 student seriously enough to require a trip to the hospital.

Every week, a classroom is taken over by a student and the classroom is evacuated for the safety of the other children.

Every day, there is a story of another student who is holding a class or school hostage. I’m not talking about nationwide, I’m talking about a single school.

So it was time for contract negotiations. The biggest issue I’ve heard from any teacher is classroom safety. Instead of talking about classroom safety, the union was thrilled they got another pay raise. As were the teachers.

As far as I can tell, not a single teacher has bothered to ask, much less demand, that their union work towards a safe working environment for their members.

They are afraid of “rocking the boat” or “the union can’t help”.

This is mob mentality. The union isn’t willing to do battle for the students and the safety of their members, they just want more dues, they want more money. The teachers hear they are getting another pay raise and are happy.

I despise what unions have become.

(1500 words)
Out in California, Virgina Duncan has been fighting the state and the Ninth Circuit court since 2019. Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where it was Granted Certiorari, the decision of the Ninth Circuit was Vacated, and the case was Remanded (GVR).

The Ninth Circuit court then kicked the case back to the district level for more “fact finding”. The California statute was found unconstitutional, again at the district level. It was appealed to the Ninth Circuit court, where games were played.

A year and a half after Bruen Virginia is still being screwed by the state.

At the same time as the Supreme Court GVR’d Duncan v. Bonta, they also GVR’d Bianchi v. Frosh. Yes, the same day, at about the same time.

The Fourth Circuit Court took a different approach. They acted rapidly, and a three judge merits panel heard the case in December of the same year. This is amazingly fast for the appellate courts.

Then they sat on the case. For over a year, they sat there, doing nothing.

Finally, in January, we heard that the Fourth was going to hear the case en banc. Normally, the three judge merits panel would have issued their opinion.

The plaintiffs (good guys) have taken a highly unusual step. They have moved for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court before the appellate court issues their opinion.

Here are some highlights from the motion for writ of certiorari.
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