Fire Kit And Learning Lessons

We started out working on Thomas’s fire Kit to use in scouts. But quickly it turned into a lesson on practicing skills, patience and setting priorities.

I know that the Bible requires leaders to be married and have raised kids. I knew why intellectually but didn’t fully understand until I had kids in my life. Most of the truly important lessons aren’t the ones we set out to teach.

I hope watching this video helps you start making a fire kit and you stick around for part 2 next week. But most importantly, I hope you learn to get out a practice your skills and learn to stop wasting time on stuff you don’t really care about. I know I need to.

Setting Our Priorities Straight

Sarah and I are pretty bad at organizing both stuff and what order task need to get done. And I am a lot worse.

So we have been working on ways of organizing our top priorities. For wedding planning we had a lot of success using a scrum board. We have modified the way it works to make it better for us.

We have also added four – and soon to be more – goal tracking charts to the wall, all of which need work.

The first one has our levels of preparedness: (https://www.jonmagnus.com/levels-of-preparedness/).

Second is home repairs and remodel.

Third is our exercise plans.

Fourth, and the last one for , is our preparedness budgeting.

For our daily to-do task we use Nicole Sauce’s “my three things”. https://www.livingfreeintennessee.com/2023/01/02/establishing-your-vision-my3things-step-one/

Who Are We

https://youtu.be/9EkicJQehtU

In this video we talk about the direction our lives have taken this past year and the new directions our new family will head in the future.

By extension this will add new things to our channel including cooking videos that Sarah will be doing using food that we have stored to help ourselves and you learn how to cook delicious meals from shelf stable foods.

I will continue to do the kind of videos I have been about our journey to self-reliance and building a more resilient community around us.

I will also be adding more Bible study videos along with continuing the videos of people in history that we can learn life lessons from.

The channel tagline will continue to be: “We his servants will rebuild”

Word Of The Year (2022 Review And 2023 Plans)

I was inspired by Nicole Sauce to try to do a word of the year this year. I decided to us the word grow.

In order to measure how I have grown I decided to pick some areas to look at. I went with Rabbi Daniel Lappin’s 5 F’s and then add some more of my own.

Faith
Family
Finances
Friendships
Fitness.
Group
Youtube

Some of the areas I grew more in than others. To find out more or to learn next years word please watch the whole video.

I hope this helps you to make improvements in your life, not just in setting New Years Resolutions that you give up on by February 3rd.

5 Minute Emergency Shelter

This week I wanted to show how to build a hasty ridgeline that is used to make tarp shelters when camping or in emergency situations. It really important that you do the prep work before hand and practice. That way when you are cold, wet and tired you can make a shelter when it counts. After I made the video I put the shelter back up to time my self and it took about 4 minutes. If I got caught in a sudden freezing storm being able to put up shelter quickly to stay dry may save my life.

In the near future I plan on making a video showing a few other ways of making an emergency shelter using the same ridgeline and 4 stakes.

I hope that this inspires you to make you own setup and get outside and practice with it.

The bank line I use
https://amzn.to/3PclQhV

The nice 10×10 tarp I have been using for years
https://amzn.to/3hdIgCR

My website: Jonmagnus.com

Making The Most

Most people will throw away one or two leftover turkeys and maybe a few leftover chickens.

This is a lot of food being wasted. Then people spend money on buying dog treats and broth. So a while ago I started making treats and broth from the leftover bits of turkeys and chickens.

This year Sarah joined in. This means that instead of wasting money on Black Friday shopping we are saving money and doing stuff as a family.

I see a lot of people complaining about the holidays not being the same anymore. Well, if you want your family to do more holiday stuff together, then you need to organize some of it and make more traditions like making treats and broth together.

You Need This (Basic Emergency Kit)

This is a simple Emergency kit that will get you through most things. Most of it you probably already have so it won’t cost much.

Most emergencies aren’t the big Hollywood Disaster or something you would see on doomsday preppers. They are relatively minor things in the big picture, but they can be life changing for you and your family. This is what this kit is for. Stuff like taking a loved one to the hospital for a few days or dealing with an emergency evacuation order. Both happen to people every day but we don’t usually hear about it. So please take some time this weekend and put this together. When you are most stressed out it will really make a difference.

Honey Stinger Gluten Free Organic Waffles – Variety Pack $30
https://amzn.to/3GAPJGn

Sawyer Products MINI Water Filtration System $20
https://amzn.to/3ADk43h

LifeStraw Flex Multi-Function Water Filter System $35
https://amzn.to/3AC7GRl

Winter IS Coming. Are you Ready

Sunday I woke up to about an inch of snow. I was not expecting that. I decided I need to go though my winter clothing and make sure I had it all ready.

It’s a good thing that I did because I had trouble finding everything and some of it I still don’t know where it is.

I have a lot of winter clothes. You have heard to dress in layers. Well I have 4 layers. I don’t wear them all a once. Except when I came down with covid on a winter camping trip, LOL. But having all those layers means I can pick what I need so I can work or play outside regardless of the weather. From a nice winter day in the 50’s to freezing rain.

Even if you don’t go camping or do other winter activities it’s still a good idea to invest in good Winter clothes. Not only does most of it last a while but you may have to work outside even when you don’t want to. I’ve had to both fix a car in sub zero weather and take care of animals during a polar vortex. Having the right clothing made both of those things pretty easy.

Next we need to get Sarah and the boys’ winter stuff all gathered up and see what they need.

I put together a list of everything that I could find on Amazon. These are all affiliates so I will get a small commission if you buy something through them. And I would greatly appreciate it as well.

The 5.11 coat that I show in the beginning and the snugpack poncho liner I showed at the end are unfortunately no longer available.

Here is a list of every thing else I use in the winter to stay warm or something similar by a reputable manufacturer.

Altama Boots
https://amzn.to/3Ga6KqQ

FUN TOES Merino Wool Sock
https://amzn.to/3UAY1lJ

Mechanix Gloves
https://amzn.to/3hANloK

Rothco Fleece Jacket
https://amzn.to/3X1xeR8

Rothco Mid-Weight Bottoms
https://amzn.to/3g5tZaT

Rothco Mid-weight Top
https://amzn.to/3TOmi6Z

Minus33 – Midweight Neck Gaiter – 100% Merino Wool
https://amzn.to/3E8ExhD

Minus33 Ridge Cuff Beanie
https://amzn.to/3E8otfy

Primaloft Extreme Cold Weather Pants
https://amzn.to/3O2R9Lv

Helikon-Tex Level 7 Lightweight Winter Jacket
https://amzn.to/3tpxjRl

Snugpak Patrol Poncho
https://amzn.to/3X1x5x4