Here’s a few things you can do, in no particular order, to help you get through these last formal weeks of winter:
- Detail disassemble, clean, and lubricate (“Frog Lube” is the cat’s ass!) your Personal Self-Defense platform.
- Check the edge and hone your primary fixed blade ‘field knife.’ If it’s not razor sharp, it’s not ready for the field.
- Continue with your regular PT program.
- Empty your ruck and LBE/LBV, and go over it looking for rips/tears and make repairs as needed.
- Repack your ruck and LBE; get your ‘temperate’ load out set to go (keep your cold weather set up for now…you never know, really.)
- Check your compasses for correct operation.
- Continue with your regular PT program.
- Re-read, “A Failure of Civility.”
- Re-read our series on Basic Patrolling here, here, here, and here.
- Empty any ‘ready’ magazines, disassemble them clean and lightly coat the spring with a good rust preventative lubricant (‘lightly’ means barely discernible) and reassemble.
- Set up all the ammo taken out of your magazines as this year’s ‘training’ ammo and load your freshly cleaned and lubed magazines with ‘fresh’ ammo. (Tip: To keep finger oil off the brass that will eventually cause corrosion, consider wearing rubber gloves while loading the fresh ammo.)
- Change up and continue with your regular PT program.
- Clean, disinfect and refill your water carrying equipment with stabilized oxygen treated water.
- Practice your dry fire a couple times a week or more with both carbine and pistol (you always ensure you drop the magazine and check the chamber before this practice, right??)
- Check your field boots for tears, rips, or frayed laces and replace/repair as necessary. If you wear leather boots, now’s a good time to Sno-Seal them and carefully melt it into the leather with a heat gun on low.
- Continue with your regular PT program.
- Register for our April 25/26 Land Nav class here.
- Read M. Stanton Evans’, “The Theme is Freedom.”
- Inventory and cycle your ‘Shelter In Place’ food supplies; add what you can where you can.
- Sign up for our ‘online’ classroom here. Lots of good downloadable NPT related information for not much money…just sayin’.
- Help plan, get involved in or host a Neighborhood Protection Association meeting as outlined in, “A Failure of Civility,” here. (If you don’t have a book, keep watching their website. Even with the price increase, it’s the best money you’re going to spend on a ‘how to’ for your local neighborhood.)
- Continue with your regular PT program.
Obviously, these aren’t the only things you might consider doing, the key is to not get so bored you don’t do anything, and you basically waste good prep time.