In this episode I went over the 6 guns that would cover 99% of any need most gun owners will ever have. Don’t worry it doesn’t mean you can’t have more than 6, I sure do, just may be cover the bases first.
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In this episode I was joined by Cory McElroy from Aquarium Co-op a tropical fish based business specializing in fish, plants and accessories. I was so impressed by Cory that I literally went to a trade show just to get him on air with us. Well last week John Willis of SOE told me he listens to this episode at least once a year, so I decided to make it our lead off rewind episode for this week while we are conducting the TSP-24 Workshop.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
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In this episode from 2011 I was joined by Bryan Davis of AskBryan.com to discuss what he calls, “the secret of the ancients”. The ancients knew something we have largely forgotten fermented food is good for the body, stores with out refrigeration and can even help to alleviate many illnesses.
The show notes for the original episode with all relevant resources can be found here.
Welcome to Friday Flashbacks, after 16 years and hundreds of interview shows we decided to run them as flash backs every Friday, beginning with the oldest of them going forward.There is a tremendous library of wisdom in all the great interviews we have done over the years.
So sit back and enjoy, whether this is your first or second time around with today’s episode I am sure you will enjoy today’s episode and learn a lot from it.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Today on The Survival Podcast the expert council answers your questions on foreign policy, Nostr Relays, guns, dogs, dental issues, cooking, education and more.
Make sure if you submit content for an expert council show you do the following….
Email it to me at jack @ thesurvivalpodcast.com
Put TSPC Expert in the subject line
Ask you question and state the expert you have the question for in one coherent sentence
Hit the return key a few times and then give all the details you think are necessary `
Following that procedure makes it about 100X more likely your question will get though screening and sent on to one of our experts. All expert council members can be found on the Meet the Expert Council Page.
Join Me Today to Discuss…
Keeping warmongers out of the cabinet, election relief, Elon Musk and more – Dan McAdams & Dr. Paul
Understanding the role of relays when using Nostr – Jesse Markowich
Working with dogs and guns working together – Mike Milito
Dealing with dental fractures in a grid down scenario – Doc Bones
Start archiving family recipes now, if you didn’t how you can try to recreate them – Ken Daniels – Ken’s Recipe
Berkely Prof. says his 4.0 students can find a job and the trend is “irreversible” – Jack – Article Referenced
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Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Every day, I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or that has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Special Note – The video at the bottom of this review includes some additional information not in the write up.
Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the Gagiter Propane Torch Weed Burner. Last fall, I invested in my first really high-power weed flamer and chose the Flame King Propane Torch, and I almost instantly regretted it.
While it worked, it began to literally fall apart almost immediately. I limped it along for a season and a half and simply didn’t recommend it because I knew it wasn’t up to par. Honestly, after buying it, I was unwilling to recommend another brand until I tried it. The Flame King at the time was well-reviewed and well-regarded. The review system has since caught up with it, but it did make me skeptical of trusting reviews.
This year, I decided to try an upgrade and found the Gagiter Propane Torch Weed Burner. I was a little skeptical given that it actually costs significantly less than the Flame King—about 25% less. But based on reviews on Amazon and YouTube, for only 40 bucks, I gave it a shot. I am very pleased with my choice.
Right out of the box, the thing is well-made and heavy, like “beat someone to heck with it” heavy. Not so heavy that you won’t want to use it, but you can tell it’s quality metal when you pick it up. The Flame King felt cheap from day one; in a few weeks, the igniter fell apart, and several weeks later, I had to zip-tie the handle on. If you look at the reviews for it, you’ll see I’m not alone. (This is the one place I’ll link to the Flame King so you can see those reviews – I don’t want anyone buying this total POS by mistake due to me.)
Okay, let’s stop kicking the crappy one and talk about the Gagiter Torch, which is, in a word, awesome. Again, out of the box, it just feels quality when you pick it up. Next, on performance, it has an igniter that is a “spark generator igniter,” meaning no batteries are required. That means no corroded batteries when you forget to remove them for storage and no dead battery when you are working.
Next up, power—this is a BEAST. You can feel the heat like crazy when you crank it up hard, with 1.8 million BTUs of power at your disposal. Yet at “idle,” it is just a gentle flame, and you have control over how much you apply, so it isn’t all or nothing. It does a great job and seems like it will last a long time.
It ships in a rather short box—so short I didn’t even realize it was here. My wife set it on the dining room table, and I assumed it was something else since I was expecting a 3-4 foot box. It’s only about 2 feet long, which I am sure saves on shipping and hence cost. It’s a two-piece torch that you simply screw together. It also comes with a very well-made gas hose that attaches to standard grill propane tanks, along with a storage bag for when it’s not in use. You can break it down and put it away in about a minute flat.
So, what can you do with it? As the title indicates, most are purchased to flame weeds and garden beds before planting. A key with this is you don’t “burn off” weeds; you flame them, effectively roasting them like wilting greens in a pan. They turn bright green, the cells rupture, and a few hours later, they are dead, wilted, and mostly lying flat. I explain their use extensively in my cover crop course for terminating covers before main crops.
Another use is for people who use weed blocker fabric for gardening. You can simply heat up the bell and then melt perfect holes in your fabric wherever you want to drop in plants. They are the perfect size for typical 4-inch nursery pots or smaller, and also perfect for those of you, like me, who use red Solo “party” cups as starting pots.
Then, of course, you can use it for all sorts of burning and fire-starting. When we do fires in the pit, I do not mess around – 30 seconds of this thing blasting it, and it will all burn, and really, really burn. Lighting up that charcoal grill? Forget lighter fluid and charcoal chimneys – just hit that lump or briquette charcoal with this guy, and you will soon have flaming coals. And when I make biochar, I always light my kilns with this. Sometimes getting a kiln going enough to deal with the initial oxygen deficiency can be a pain, well, not with one of these.
Finally, what red-blooded American doesn’t want a powerful blow torch just on principle! Seriously, folks, this is a great tool that will last a long time if you take care of it. For 40 bucks (current sale price), you won’t ever regret picking one up. So check out the Gagiter Propane Torch Weed Burner, and if something needs burning, I promise you it will get the job done!
I am running this rewind today as a tribute to Lyn and Ross Ulbricht. Ever since meeting Lyn almost a decade ago and seeing how broken she was over this I’ve wanted nothing more than to see Ross fee from Federal Prison. The trial was rank with corruption, investigators were literally sentenced to prison themselves for it but the judge never allowed the jury to know this. Things like this happen all the time to people but in this case a man was sentenced to double life for the non violent crime of building a website.
We now have every reason to believe by January of the coming year, Ross will be a free man and Lynn will get to hug her son. This one if for both of them. TSP will return to our regular show tomorrow.
The original show was titled Episode-2201- Lyn Ulbricht on Silk Road Going to the Supreme Court and was first published on 4-11-18 and the original notes and resources for this episode can be found here.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
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Join us at 9:30am for our first Tuesday Coffee Chat. State of the world, preparedness and modern survival, small business start up, growing things and more are likely to come up. Some stuff we will cover today will be the tragedy of Peanut the Squirrel, some fan polls, will we have riots tonight and more.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
I have said very little about the elections this year other than covering the attempt on Trumps life in PA because frankly it needed covering. Today we look at the election though because it will be effecting all of us one way or another. I will also ask you this, are libertarians incapable of winning? Not as in “can they win” rather can they “accept winning” in any small way or are they incurably autistic as a group?
Join Me Today to Discuss…
What are my predictions for the election
Trump wins in a big electoral college margin
Republicans increase house margin
Republicans take the senate over by 1-2 seats
Why I could have this all wrong
Women are out voting men
I do think they are trying to cheat (many examples already)
The propaganda is a Jedi mind trick with a lot of weak minds in the mix
Why a Trump win is the best possible out come
Deescalation of wars
Free Ross
Leave Bitcoin Alone
RFK running HHS – so much here!
Must and may be Ron Paul cutting expenses
Borders will be closed
A severe blow to DEI, Transing Kids, etc.
A high probability of significant tax cuts
The media and establishment need to lose, badly
Why Libertarians are in my view Terminally Autistic
At least 8 of the 9 are wins for libertarians and Libertarians alike
Harris is worse on EVERY issue libertarians consider important
I really think Libertarians can’t accept winning at all, I am not sure why
Think of who is aligning with Harris, lifelong bureaucrats, big pharma, woke celebrities and billionaires
Potential Fall Out
There will be riots, no matter who wins, with Trump winning it will be worse
They will try to impeach Trump before he’s even sworn in
The right will fight the election if they are declared losers
In the end the economic doom will not be altered much, we are still screwed
My final prediction is if you don’t know who won on election night the winner in the end will most likely be Kackles
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Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
In this episode from 2011 I was joined by Tim Glance is the owner of Old Grouch Military surplus and a veteran of the US Army where he served for 18 years as a Construction Equipment Mechanic. In this episode we talked prepper vehicles, mil surplus vehicles, converting waste oil to fuel and more.
The show notes for the original episode with all relevant resources can be found here.
Welcome to Friday Flashbacks, after 16 years and hundreds of interview shows we decided to run them as flash backs every Friday, beginning with the oldest of them going forward.There is a tremendous library of wisdom in all the great interviews we have done over the years.
So sit back and enjoy, whether this is your first or second time around with today’s episode I am sure you will enjoy today’s episode and learn a lot from it.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Special Note – This item is back on sale and I don’t know for how long. Today it is 22% off and remember as always you get another 5% off with my special discount code at check out. Worm compost is amazing and this is one of the easiest to use worm bins I have ever found.
Today’s Item of the Day is from Vevor—it’s their 5-Tray Worm Composter. Remember to use the code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy from Vevor with my links. I mentioned this item in a recent podcast about various methods of composting. Enough of you guys got one that my Vevor rep literally reached out and said, “Hey, let us send you one for a proper review.”
I figured this one was safe to recommend without a review, as screwing up a worm bin isn’t easy to do, at least not from a manufacturing standpoint. Now, management of worms you can screw up, but that is on the worm keeper, not the bin maker. (More on that in the video at the end.)
I have to say, I am very glad to have accepted a sample of this worm bin. This bin is well-made and well-designed. Every aspect of it is well thought out. And, ole Jack discovered something for you guys on this one that makes it a hell of a good pricing deal. Here is the deal: one of the top-selling all-time worm bins is the VermiHut Plus 5-Tray Worm Compost Bin. The ViermiHut has over 1600 reviews with 4.6 stars overall on Amazon. It is all over groups and forums about worm composting, and everyone loves it. They sell for about 100 bucks on Amazon and other sites. Though they are on sale as of 10-21-24 for about 78 bucks, which is still more than the Vevor model.
Well, what if I told you the Vevor bin, at $69.00 when bought directly right now, was the exact same bin? I don’t mean almost the same; I mean THE SAME. Same accessories, same parts, same instructions, same everything. My instinct from my research is the only difference is the color; the VermiHut is green and the Vevor is black. It isn’t a car, folks; the color doesn’t matter. When I say the same, I mean they are likely made on the same molds in the same factory.
So out of the gate, you get one of the best-thought-of worm bins on the market for $20-40 off the cost of the competition on any given day. Can I be 100% sure they are the exact same bin? Yes. How? Because I know how private label products work, because I read the instruction manual for product reviews fully, and because we all know documentation from China on products is something that can miss things in translation.
In this case, the name of the private-labeled product I am sure mistakenly remains in the user’s manual. Click the image on the right to enlarge it, and you can see right in the product manual it is referred to as the VermiHut Plus. Clearly, Vevor made a deal with VermiHut to private label this product which means you get it for $20-40 less. Then don’t forget to use my discount code VVPROMO for an additional 5% off.
Now let’s talk about the bin itself. First, I was impressed by two things included that you normally need to buy separately. First, there is a brick of coco coir—call that about a $10 bonus item. It also includes a fiber top mat to cover the top tray of worm food. Additionally, they provide a small rake that may not be a big deal, but it is perfect for scraping off layers of the coco coir when soaking it for initial setup.
This system is designed in a way that should make the vermicomposter think a bit like a beekeeper. What I mean is the instinct of many will be to put it all together and fill it up fast; don’t do that. As you will see in my video, the best thing to do is start off with good bedding and one tray. As that tray begins to fill with castings, add a new tray on top with some bedding, food scraps, and inoculate it with a handful of castings from the lower tray.
Follow this method until you are working on the 5th tray as new; at that point, remove the bottom tray’s castings, and it becomes your top tray. Once you get a system running, you will be harvesting castings say every couple of weeks. Again, think a bit like a beekeeper; you add those supers on top of the hive as the lower areas are full of brood and honey. Do the same here as the worms have almost filled the lower tray; add the next one.
Again, I give more tips in the video, but I want to say something here about any worm bin. There are two reasons for most worm bin failures (other than murder by invading fire ants). They are, in order, too much liquid and too much food, and sometimes too much of some foods that have a lot of water in them, is part of the first one. This bin, like many, has a spigot for removing leachate. This is a good thing, and leachate is a great thing to water down and spray on your plants or drench soil with (an ideal dilution rate is 10:1), but it is NOT something you want to produce in high quantity with a worm bin.
Look, folks, the more leachate you get, the more you are overwatering your bin. Now some say you should get exactly none. Like many things, I am in the middle on this issue. I expect to get some drainage over time; when I do, I back off the moisture, but I don’t freak out and simply see the leachate as a resource. I have never had issues with this approach. And as well as this thing can drain, I can’t see why anyone would.
Problems arise when new worm compost folks think leachate is something you want on an ongoing basis, so they add moisture until they damn well get it daily. Then the worm bin becomes too active, active composting starts, like compost pile style with HEAT, and your worms fry. Unlike a pile outside, they have nowhere to go; you made a worm oven. You can also end up with just being too wet, then they drown or create anaerobic pockets that are bad for worm health.
Next, on overfeeding, most new folks totally overfeed, and one of the reasons is really a surprise to many. Here we go, worms don’t even eat most of what we feed them. This is the real key and why new worm keepers often have catastrophic loss very quickly. We tend to think of a worm bin like, say, a mealworm farm; you feed the worms, they eat it. But compost worms, and honestly, most earthworms do not actually eat the stuff we put in bins, just as they do not eat the mulch on top of your gardens.
No, worms partner with microbes, many actually, that pass through their guts. These microbes break down the food; the worms eat that food partially broken down, they eat the microbes’ waste, and they even eat some of the microbes. I found this fascinating when I learned it; check out this video from Ray Archuleta of worms on a farm literally “farming microbes” by pulling corn refuse just slightly into burrows.
What this means is a new farm should start light on worms and lighter on food. Allow the microbe population to come up as the worm population does. Once you get going, just keep an eye on things, and you will, in time, learn what to look for. One big thing is if you feel significant heat when you open your bin, you are likely overfeeding; again, you have gone from a slow compost to fast thermophilic compost. To correct this, remove some food and add some carbon and stop feeding for a time. Again, more tips in the video.
Let me finish with one more thing here, the value concept. Many pride themselves on “homemade bins” for their worms, and if you are a major operation doing 100 giant long beds and selling commercially, well, you may very well want to do that. But for the average person, you need one or two of these tops, and blatantly, you can’t make anything this good, with 5 layers using something like Rubbermaid tubs for less than 70 bucks. Just price 5 tubs in the 3-5 gallon size, and you will see what I mean, not to mention the drainage and spigot, separation screen, etc., for bottom leachate removal and the ant traps for the feet.
Y’all know me, I am all for making things yourself and DIY and such, but I am not for spending more money to get something that doesn’t work as well as an off-the-shelf purpose-built product like this. It just makes no economic sense and has a bad price to value ratio. Once you take the additional 5% off, the cost of this item is $56.99; it comes with bedding and a mat to cover the top tray, so you don’t have to buy those. You can set it up the day you get it with zero tools. If you build your own instead of getting this, I will say what I say often, “You hate money, and if you hate on money, it will hate on you.” This is a well-respected $100 product for $60 bucks; you just can’t beat that in 2024, and if well cared for, it is also a very long-term investment.
So, check out the 5-Tray Worm Composter (Remember to use code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy from Vevor with my links) and up your composting and fertility game today. Again, check the video for more tips on bin management, including how to accelerate microbe inoculation, where to locate your bin, and more.
And remember you can alway help us out by beginning your online shopping starting at TspAz.com first and when you do so, on Vevor items always use discount code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy.
Check Out this Video Review with TONS of Griddle Tips Even if You Already Own One
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Remember My Discount Code Works for ANYTHING in the Vevor Store, just use my links to get there and use VVPROMO at check out for 5% off literally anything they sell.