Survival

Haven't written in this in quite a while. No worries though because no one was reading it but me. I write, like I do everything else, for me and not the masses. This blog will now turn from fiber crafts, painting, and drawing. It will now focus on survival.

I am a person who knows survival techniques. I am NOT a survivalist. There is a big difference. Please learn the difference before you start bashing me for this. What makes me qualified to post this stuff? Well, I was in the scouts for most of my childhood. Went from Cub Scout to just a little shy of Eagle Scout. Why didn't I go the distance? because I enlisted in the Army on my 18th birthday. I spent eight years in the possession of Uncle Sammy with six of them as a Ranger. In trade for my service "he" trained me to survive and gave me a set of skills I still use today. I have been out for 17 years but I still enjoy camping and not only using what I learned all those years ago but teaching it also. Since my heart condition set in I can't get out as much as I like but I still like getting ready for when I can. I do not know everything there is to know about bushcraft but I do know enough to survive and am willing to learn, study, and practice what I don't know.

The new direction of this blog will be to record what I did to further my skills, my bush-bag (commonly known as a bug out bag), and other generally related stuff.

Over the past three weeks I have:

• made a self bow out of red oak. It pulls 47# at 28" and is 70" n2n
• repacked and discarded items from my bush-bag. I now have it down to 19 pounds and can live comfortably out of it for a week or more. All I really need is a knife and my firestick but comforts are nice)
• made three slingshots. One each for my son, mother-in-law, and father-in-law
• made two wooden spoons
• made some firestarters with dryer lint and vaseline
• made a new fire-bow set
• made a new walking stick/cane (the two I am now forced to use are too nice to go into the woods to get banged up and I have my first camping trip in a long time coming up in a month or so.)
• practiced with the blowgun
• practiced with the air rife
• practiced primitive fire making using both the fire-bow and my flint and steel.
• learned to make cordage
• learned to make a flemish bowstring
• learned two different knots; the timber hitch and the canadian jam knot
• made a spy capsule to carry my meds in. I made it by hacksawing off the tops of two soda bottles and glueing them together.

You can find instructions on all of these with google. I did. A lot I have known how to do for years such as the slingshots, carving (spoons, cane), fire starters and fire making. Others like the bow, bowstring, knots, and cord making I have learned in just the last few weeks. Currently I have just learned of a creature called a spoon knife (also called a hook knife). I am to broke to pay for one so am now in the process of searching my shop for something I can use to make one. I am debating between trying a hacksaw blade or a butter knife.

This is what I did today. (And over the last few weeks)