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May 21, 2013
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With our wounded economy limping along as pathetically as a run-over possum, and no apparent relief in sight, you might be wondering if you can afford to buy emergency supplies and survival gear right now. Car and home payments, light bills and groceries do seem to have most of our attention these days. But does this mean that we just forget about preparedness? Or put off our purchases until “better times?” What if there are no “better times” ahead?
Most often, if you really want something, you’ll find a way to make it happen. So let me offer five ways to come up with the cash and five high-value/low-cost preps.
[ Read Full Post ]May 21, 2013
by The ability to communicate with your friends, family, and loved ones anytime, anywhere is one of the most undervalued features of the modern world. When an emergency cuts off this ability, we can be caught off guard and out of the loop if we are unable to reach out to those we wish to contact.
There are a few things that can help us, if we should find ourselves in this disorienting situation.
[ Read Full Post ]May 20, 2013
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Fish traps may be as old as fishing itself, and can prove vital during a survival situation. Even if the fish you catch are not big, getting any amount protein is worth the trouble when you’re up against it. A funnel fish trap can be used in two different ways to get you some small fish, either to eat directly or to use as bait for other things.
One way is to build a large, cone-shaped funnel 4- to 6-feet long; and place it in running water, preferably with a blockade around it to direct the fish into the trap. The pressure of the moving water tends to keep the aquatic creatures packed down in the bottom of the trap, but you need to be right there to lift the trap from the water and retrieve the fish, eels, or crustaceans. The other way to make a funnel trap is to have an insert in the trap that allows the fish to go into a container, but prevents them from coming out. This is the style we will work on today.
[ Read Full Post ]May 10, 2013
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The strategy behind growing a survival garden differs from that of growing a standard vegetable garden. Sure, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs taste great, but they are all low in calories. A savvy survival gardener will grow a diverse assortment of high-calorie food crops.
[ Read Full Post ]May 8, 2013
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Last week, I had the pleasure of being a guest in the home of a truly fascinating person and a master at his craft. Rod Morey is a locally renowned herbalist and knife maker in the Virginia panhandle, and he was gracious enough to spend a day with me to share some of his wild medicinal plant secrets.
I have long been a dabbler in medicinal plants, curing bee stings with plantain leaf and mending scratches with yarrow. But my focus has always been plants that can be used to make a friction fire and good-tasting wild plants. I had always steered away from deeper studies in medicinal plants because there was so much bothersome stuff associated with the trade.
[ Read Full Post ]May 6, 2013
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If you are fortunate enough to live within the native range of birch trees, then you have a lot of interesting survival options at your disposal. Birch can provide you with firewood and containers, and the right species of birch can even be turned into a tea and sweetener.
Fire
For friction fire building with birch, you can use the dead and dry branches for your drill and fire board. These materials are effective, but not quite as easy to use as willow or cedar. By far, the best fire related use of birch comes when you burn the papery curls as your fire starter. This birch paper is like a stepping stone between tinder and kindling. Whether wet or dry, these birch bark curls will burn strong, creating a black oily smoke. Any birch species that produces papery bark will be useable, but the white birch (aka paper birch) is the most effective. You’ll need an open flame like a match or lighter for best results in lighting the bark. Spark-based fire starting methods are not particularly effective for lighting the bark strips.
[ Read Full Post ]May 1, 2013
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When you think about bow fishing, you might naturally jump to the idea of shooting harpoon-tipped arrows attached to a reel of line. Sure, that’s how most folks do it, but there’s another fish bow out there. This one isn’t for arrows, but in fact, it’s an improvised spool to store your fishing line.
[ Read Full Post ]April 29, 2013
by Dan and Kate Suski, along with an unnamed captain and first mate, are counting themselves lucky after they were forced to swim for their lives for more than half a day in the Caribbean waters off St. Lucia.
The brother and sister from San Francisco had chartered a boat to do some fishing last Sunday. When the 31-foot fishing vessel began to take on water, the siblings and crew had no choice but to abandon the boat. They put on their life jackets and jumped into the open water.
“It was completely surreal watching the boat stern go down, go subsurface underwater,” Dan said.
[ Read Full Post ]April 23, 2013
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The maddening itch of poison ivy is something that most outdoor lovers know all too well. Poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac are all capable of torturing us at some point during the course of the year. But the shiny, oily springtime leaves of poison ivy seem to be the worst of the bunch.
[ Read Full Post ]April 18, 2013
by Oregon authorities, along with search-and-rescue crews, have been looking for an Oklahoma teenager who is believed to be in trouble in a remote area of southeastern Oregon.
Dustin Self, 19, decided that he wanted to live off the land after watching the movie Into the Wild. A dedicated vegetarian, Self reportedly wanted to see if he could live in a wilderness area subsisting only on wild foods, other than meat. The teen had also mentioned that he wanted to investigate some “churches” that practice a South American religion that uses a hallucinogenic tea as part of their religious practices, one of these groups being in Oregon.
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