Ways To Survive An Active Shooter When Trapped Unarmed In A Closed Room: No Martial Arts or Strength Needed

98% of all "survive an active shooting" articles concentrate on the same old things: run away or hide and call 911. Cute slogans: "Run Hide Fight". But when it comes to practical suggestions for the "Fight" part, most include more tips on how to keep the police from shooting you by mistake if you do escape or survive, than information on how to foil the attacker.

This article by Eric Spitznagel at Men's Health, "The Smartest Thing To Do In An Active Shooter Situation" is the most useful Active Shooter video & article that I have seen. Even a handicapped person or kids could do this, even if trapped in a room unarmed. The video actually shows us how to do it.

Filled with practical advice from former member of Israeli Special Forces & self-defense expert Alon Stivi, the article points out details we have all known in our hearts such as:

 "Nobody has ever survived an active shooter by ducking under a desk or a table. It just doesn’t happen. And do you know why?"
"Because they were sitting targets?"
"That’s right. Every shooter knows that’s where people are scrambling to hide, and that’s where they look first. And then they shoot you at point blank range."

Or:

 "Maybe I’m confusing how to survive a shooter with what I learned as a kid about surviving a fire. My instinct is to “Stop, drop, and roll.”
"That’s actually not that far off from the standard operating procedure. It’s called lockdown. Which means, you just stay where you are.
But if you look at most of these shootings, you realize that people died because they were in a lockdown."

I really appreciate that he says we should approach training - practical, like fire drills and unafraid:

 "I haven’t become paranoid, and I’ll tell you why. It’s pretty simple. There is only one antidote to fear. Well, maybe two.
First is the belief in fate. You believe that everything will somehow be fine and you’ll be taken care of by some higher power, and that’s great. "
"And for the rest of us?"
"The real antidote to fear is knowledge. I know what to look for. I know what to do if something bad happens. I have a plan of action.
This knowledge is what allows somebody to live a life free from fear. ...."
"....I’ll give you an example. When you came to the office today, you probably crossed a road, right?... And before you crossed, you looked left and right, just to make sure there wasn’t a car coming. Because if you didn’t, you might die. If you get hit by a car going 60 miles an hour, you will be obliterated.
So you check for that car, and you don’t feel paranoid or stressed about needing to do that, do you?
"Not at all. It’s just something you do."
"Exactly. It’s a part of your life. It’s a part of the world we live in. Two hundred years ago, there were no cars. We looked for, I don’t know, mountain lions."

Go to Men's Health to read the whole enlightening article.

No "Learned Helplessness" For Us After The Paris Massacres

Paul and I have decided we will no longer willingly enter businesses that ban legal guns from being carried. God gave us sense to protect ourselves and defend others. "Learned helplessness" while waiting for a rescuer is a lousy and unhealthy tactic, whether in one's emotional life or in the very dangerous real world. "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." 2 Timothy 1:7

How To Make Your Own Artist Charcoal From Grapevine

You might be surprised how easy it is to burn your own vine charcoal to use for drawing. I used wild grape vines, but you can use other non-poisonous vines or small sticks - even thin dowels will work. Experiment with the nontoxic materials available to you locally. While I burned mine in my wood stove, this technique can be used in a camp fire the next time you go camping, or in your charcoal grill.  

How To Make Homemade Shake And Bake For Chicken Or Pork

This is almost a clone for the commercial Shake n Bake product. It is very tasty! :-)

How To Make No Knead Ciabatta Bread

The person who has never made yeast bread before might enjoy making ciabatta bread to start. This recipe lets you be very stingy with the Yeast and flour both, so it is super economical... and there is no kneading at all!  Although I used my mixer to stir it up, it would be about as easy to use a spoon. There's also no "mix the yeast with warm water and wait": the yeast goes right in with the flour.  The only thing is, you do have to start the day before!  Try it, and enjoy your own delicious artisan sandwich bread.

Grocery Diary Middle Of January & Thoughts on Panic Buying Before a Snowstorn

I started keeping a grocery diary to track how my shopping has changed since I began raising and canning much of our own food, and since I resumed stocking up as a part of preparedness. I don't have to shop as often, and spend far less when I do go to the store. It also takes less time to shop now that I only have to walk around the perimeter instead of up and down every aisle! :-)

How To Create A Morel Mushroom Habitat and Plant Morel Spawn

Morel mushrooms are a rare delicacy.  Like truffles, they have their own unique flavor that is nothing like the usual mushrooms that can be grown in cave-like "farms". They only grow in nature, and have peculiar habits.   I've never lived where they grew naturally, but I've heard tales about people passing knowledge of their secret morel gathering place down through the family.  They are expensive, and I have only tasted them once, when a restaurant used a small dried one to flavor a sauce for pork chops.



Who knew? Someone has a strain of Morel mushroom spoor that can be semi cultivated, and now we can each try our hand at developing a morel plot of our own. Here is my video showing how I dug my habitat for them. The link to the company that I bought them from is on the video comment. :-)

Giveaway For Reaching 100 Subscribers on my You Tube Channel!

Woohoo! I've reached a great milestone and want to say thanks to all of you for an awesome beginning!  To celebrate, I am having a little give away. :-)   To Enter: Subscribe to my "Pecan Corner" You Tube channel, then comment on You Tube on this video (click through to watch it on You Tube, then you can see the comment box) answering this question: "What are the best kind of gifts for celebration give-a-ways from individual channels?"

Must comment on You Tube before Midnight Saturday night, January 24th 2015. Winners will be announced on Monday Jan 26th 2015. Winners must message me within 48 hours (by mid-day Wed the 28th) with their mailing address and their choice of prize. Thanks a bunch!!!

Grocery Diary Week 1 January 2015

I've decided to track my spending on groceries this year, as I am growing and preserving more and more of our own food.  I will note when we eat out in these as well, but that is very seldom. We are starting also with a freezer full of various meats, a good stock of flour & sugar, and a pantry from my canning over the past 6 months.  This is the second video I've made on this. I can already see a strong drop in how much I spend each week for food, as well as a reduction in the amount of garbage we have!



I'd love to hear your tips or your reflections on the difference food storage or preservation has made for your family.  If you enjoy the video, please give it a "thumbs up" on You Tube & please subscribe to my channel there. :-)

Planning This Years Garden & Reviewing Last Year's

In which I talk about the things I learned last year: what worked (Deer Netting!!!!) and what didn't (Oddly colored Heirloom Tomatoes!!!), and what I am looking for when I start going through the seed catalogs this year. Also, some tips on buying onion plants for Southern gardens.  If you like the video, please give a "thumbs up" and subscribe on You Tube. Thank you so much :-)

Top Prepper Websites Voting! :-)

What do you think?  Do you like my blog and my You Tube channel as good sources of preparedness info?   Please vote for me! Your vote will also take you to a list of other great sites. Thanks and please don't forget to subscribe to my You Tube channel! :-)

Canning Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit

This is the season when Texas citrus are ripe. It is surprisingly easy to can fresh grapefruit  (or oranges) - and it tastes so fresh when we open it in the summer, when the refreshing sweet flavor is welcome for breakfast on a bright summer morning! These videos show how I do it!

Frozen Water Pipes: How to Work in the Kitchen Without Running Water

My video on working while waiting for frozen pipes to thaw. :-) I hope this will be helpful to you in keeping "real life" going while conserving water in the kitchen when the water is off or the well is dry!  I am going to use these techniques while camping too! :-)

Picking and Cooking Wild Greens From Our Yard

How I gathered, prepared, and cooked Shepherd's Purse and Henbit to have as mixed greens for New Year's!   Shepherd's Purse is a member of the Mustard family, and Henbit is a member of the Mint family.  I was interested to learn from Wikipedia that Shepherd's Purse is a regular part of cuisines in Japan, Korea, and parts of China.  Both are winter annuals that are readily available this year on New Year's Eve in Texas, as they will tolerate freezing temperatures for a while.  I think they are VERY tasty!

Why Waste Lump Charcoal?

Once in a while I put the ashes on the garden, but there is too much to do that with all of it, since our primary heat is from the wood stove. However, I never realized what good stuff I was throwing away! Here's how to save genuine hardwood charcoal from your fireplace ashes, that burns better, longer, hotter than glued-together briquettes! :-)



If you enjoy the video, please "Like" and subscribe on You Tube! There is a wonderful community over there and I am having a blast making new friends. Come visit! :-)

Introducing... Pecan Corner on You Tube! Canning, Cooking, Southern Food and Budget Abundance

As Paul has gotten better, he is now feeling like doing more even though he is still mostly house-bound. He has watched a lot of You Tube during this past year, and we've been discovering the amazing channels ordinary people have.   Now we are one of those!  :-)

Pecan Corner on You Tube won't have any political content (that is for the blog! :-) ), just my natural life-long "how to" preparedness. I have always kept a well-stocked larder, and we practice a concept I call "budget abundance" that allows us to still enjoy a high quality standard of living without debt and within a tiny budget. This is especially important during difficult economic times,

Videos so far include how to make prickly pear cactus jelly, canning apple pie filling, seasoning your own breakfast sausage, and inexpensive old fashioned home-cooked meals that can feed a family healthful food for very little. There are also recipes of products I make for my little Cottage Food home business - things to sell at farmer's markets and roadside stands. As we go along, I'm sure my other hobbies will find their way into it as well: letterpress printing, gardening, foraging wild foods, and our new-found fun: Living History and historical reenacting!

I hope you will subscribe, there will only be one a day so it won't overwhelm your inbox. They say You Tube now rates channels by subscribers as well as views, and I have monetized the channel so perhaps one day it will contribute a bit to the household. If nothing else, it is something fun we can do together, to make new friends and enjoy trading knowledge with others.

Here is a sample! Thanks for checking it out! :-)