Growing up I never was a fan of liver, and to tell the truth, I am still not a fan of most liver, but I have started acquiring a taste for fried rabbit liver. I blame my bride for that.
Normally she is helpful, but not exactly excited with my experiments and attempts to videotape our work at learning how to prep and become more self-reliant. However, when I started butchering our animals she became more that helpful. She became quite insistent that whenever I butcher a rabbit I have to fry the liver for her. If that’s all whe asks for, then I am happy to oblige.
Rabbit livers are larger than chicken livers, but the taste and cooking methods are identical. However, when you are handling a rabbit liver you need to be aware of two things. The first is not to burst the green gall bladder that is attached or you will ruin your liver. The second is that since the liver functions to filter toxins from the blood, it is important to only use healthy looking livers. If your rabbit has a liver with white spots don’t eat it.
Pan frying them is pretty easy too. I just rinse the liver off, dredge it in flour mixed with a little salt and pepper, and throw it in a skillet filled with hot oil. I fry for a couple minutes on one side, then flip to finish cooking.
I am sure there are lots of other ways to cook rabbit liver, but this is easy, and the liver is gone before anything else is done, since my lovely bride thinks this is a treat…
This post is about gun safety, and avoiding a gun tragedy by locking up unused firearms.
As advocates of gun rights and personal responsibility, it’s extremely important that we understand that, with the right to bear arms, comes the vital obligation to treat those arms with great caution and respect for others. Let’s not pretty things up here: Guns are designed specifically to kill people and animals. You might use yours only at the shooting range and have never harmed a single creature with it, but it is still primarily a device for killing. Never forget that for one second. A gun in the wrong hands is about the most dangerous thing most of us are ever likely to encounter.
A stolen gun can very easily end up in the hands of a criminal, of course, but that’s not the only moral reason we need to make sure our pistols and rifles are locked safely in a well-secured gun cabinet. The papers are full of instances where improperly secured guns were stolen from various people and used in suicides. You do not want the pain of knowing that your carelessness with a gun made it easier for someone with severe psychological problems to harm or kill themselves or others. The person who stole your gun may be responsible for his or her own actions, though many of those suicides are committed by teenagers, but you are just as responsible for keeping your dangerous weapon far from the hands of a troubled person.
That’s why you want to keep careful track of the weapons in your possession and where and how they are secured. At home, there is never an excuse to leave a gun unattended anywhere outside of a safe or gun cabinet. When outside, on your way to a hunting trip or a visit to the firing range, keep your gun either with you or well secured in your vehicle at all times. This might sound like super obvious common-sense stuff, but you’d be surprised how uncommon sense can be sometimes.
(Edit: This prepper precept came from my time working in correction, and as I have just went back into that world as an instructor for new officers, I find this to be doubly important to avoid offender manipulation.)
I avoid ethical spirals, its better to admit you’re wrong up front and apologize rather than hide it and play the “big lie”. I’d rather take a small lump up front than a huge hit later for hiding my mistakes.
I learned this from the prison, where inmates constantly tried to get officers on the hook.
The other thing I learned was “never tell a convict to do something you cannot make them do.
These precepts are my creed, and having prepper precepts guides me when I face tough choices. A wise man once told me that when facing a moral problem, the right choice is usually the action you don’t want to take.
I am not a pollyanna person that is wishy washy or blindly follows rules, heck I have a little rebellious streak and love to know the WHY of rules, but I do respect and understand the need for law and know how vital it is for a society to have a moral code.
By knowing what I believe in you can know how I will act. This is very important in times of stress. If you don’t want to read these precepts one by one, the completed list can be found here: Completed 27 Prepper Precepts.
This following is a guest post from Nadia Jones about colloidal silver. As with all medical posts, please use your own judgement and consult a doctor. I have no firsthand experience with colloidal silver taken internally myself, so I have no opinion on either side of the debate.
One of the most important aspects of being prepared is addressing medical concerns — having a first aid response kit and solutions to medical problems of any sort as they arise. If our society were to collapse, we would no longer be able to rely on hospitals and doctors, so we would have to cure our ailments ourselves.
This post deals with the question: Should You Trust Colloidal Silver?
Over the years, various propponents of preparedness have offered solutions to medicine after a collapse of society, but the one that stands out as probably the most controversial is a literal solution. It’s called colloidal silver.
Colloidal silver is a suspension of silver particles in water that purportedly has a kind of miraculous healing power. Given that silver ions are bioactive, can kill bacteria in vitro as well as in external living tissue wounds, are disinfectants, antiseptics, and are regularly found woven into wound dressings, the hypothesis that silver can act as a universal antibiotic isn’t all that surprising.
And if you had to fend for yourself medically, the wide availability of silver and the relative ease of making a colloidal silver suspense would make it an excellent and obvious candidate for medical treatment.
In fact, before antibiotics were introduced into the medical system in the 1940’s, silver was widely used in the medical field, treating everything from infections to epilepsy and gonorrhea.
With all these reported usages and alleged benefits of colloidal silver, you may begin to wonder why silver isn’t used more extensively in the medical field now, especially since silver is so abundant, and relatively inexpensive.
There is no shortage of theories explaining this phenomenon, most of them conspiratorial. (Doctors, hospitals, and governments wouldn’t make any money if they used silver.) The theory that shouldn’t be ignored, however, is the one that is based on scientific tests and trials.
While colloidal silver hasn’t been proven to have any adverse health risks — except for argyria, which is a silver coloration of the skin due to high silver levels in the body, which is only cosmetic, as it were — doctors and scientists have yet to find definitive and consistent evidence that colloidal silver has any curative properties whatsoever.
Silver by itself is not ionized, and it is only ionized silver that has been proven to cure and treat ailments. The silver delivered to the body by colloidal silver suspensions is inactive, and therefore should not have the same properties as silver ions.
The FDA has prohibited manufacturers of colloidal silver to market it based on any medical claims — in fact, it is illegal to do so — and practicing doctors will never prescribe or even recommend colloidal silver to patients. Claims made about the effectiveness of colloidal silver are largely unsupported, and where they are supported, the evidence is spurious.
It is possible that colloidal silver is a kind of placebo, in that if someone who truly believes that colloidal silver will cure their ailments administers a dose to herself, it might actually work. But whether you want to base the success or failure of your post-collapse society on colloidal silver is, in the end, up to you.
Author Bio:
This is a guest post by Nadia Jones who blogs at online college about education, college, student, teacher, money saving, movie related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5 @ gmail.com.
This following is a guest post from Nadia Jones about colloidal silver. As with all medical posts, please use your own judgement and consult a doctor. I have no firsthand experience with colloidal silver taken internally myself, so I have no opinion on either side of the debate.