Who Has A Survival Binder?

There are many mundane things that can go overlooked and when missed become critical mistakes.  An example just about everyone can understand is stocking up on canned food yet forgetting the can opener.  Sure, you can figure other means to open the a can but the tool that was designed to do so does the job quickly and accurately.  The same is true with knowledge.  If you don’t know how to start a fire, gut a deer, or build a log cabin it is possible one can figure it out but it may include trial and error with lots of mistakes.  In a SHTF situation the clock may be ticking and those mistakes can be costly.  Today we take knowledge for granted.  Don’t know how to do something?   Google it.  This convenience is so taken for granted that we never take it any farther.  It’s a shame too.  I remember my grandfather clipping “how-to” articles out of the newspaper as a kid.  Once that newspaper was gone the chances of that knowledge ever appearing in the newspaper again were slim.  We truly should consider the information on the internet in the same fashion when it comes survival information.

Enter the survival binder.  It’s not sleek gadget, it’s a necessary tool.  A place to save information in an analog form is necessary, when the lights go out permanently all of the knowledge at our fingertips today is going to go with it.  I have two, one that I keep in my home and one that is kept offsite.  In it I store just about every piece of information I will need to survive.  Books are great but they are costly, take up lots of physical space, and sometimes go into too great a detail about a subject.  Picking and choosing what you save will leave you with a trove of distilled information relevant to your survival.

Beyond the basics I print obscure things you might not find in a book but could prove crucial to survival.  Example, here in the North woods there is a source of food that is plentiful, somewhat easily stored, and can be an emergency source of calories should something go wrong.  It is also poisonous in its natural form.  The food I am talking about is the acorn.  Acorns contain tannin, which would destroy a human kidney in short order.  It is, however, possible to leach the tannin out of the acorn to make it a viable food.  While they might exist, good luck finding a book on that subject.  Here is an example of an article I’ve printed and keep in my survival binders:

http://www.eattheweeds.com/acorns-the-inside-story/

The Tin Hat Ranch has begun a soup-to-nuts series on survival.  Nearly every video will be accompanied by a printable PDF that you can store in your survival binder.  If you follow the series it is pretty much a prerequisite.

I would suggest purchasing a cheap laser printer for the best results.  You can get more mileage out of them and they are far cheaper to operate than inkjet printers.  I’ve had the Brother HL-2240 for four years.  It has printed well over 1,000 pages on the original toner cartridge is still going even though it warned me of “low toner” about a year ago.  The HL-2240 might be a little long in the tooth but there are newer versions such as the HL-2270DW that add wireless networking.  To me it appears to be the same printer.  I would recommend it for basic “survival binder” printing.

We can have arguments about acid free paper and such later.  The important part is to get yourself a printer, a binder, some paper and start offloading crucial information from the internet.

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