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Articles From 2007
#1 January 2007
Rules of Survival by Tim MacWelch
Copyright © 2000 as Earth
Connection Handout Series 1
ALL TEXT, PHOTOS, AND GRAPHICS ARE PROTECTED BY
COPYRIGHT. NO PART OF THIS WEBSITE MAY BE COPIED OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE
PERMISSION OF EARTH CONNECTION, LLC.
What constitutes a "Survival Situation"
If you meet just ONE of the following criterial in the outdoors, by yourself or
in an isolated
group, then you are in a survival situation.
If you are lost, and especially if no one else knows where you are either.
If you are hurt.
If you are sick, more than just a cold or allergies.
If you are cold, and losing quickness in your hands and fingers.
If you are wet.
If you have lost all or most of your outdoor gear and supplies.
From the first second that you realize you are in a "Survival Situation",
S.T.O.P.
S.T.O.P. is a successful lifesaving technique used by the Boy Scouts and other
groups.
Whether you are lost, hurt or both, STOP where you stand, travel no further,
because there
are Survival Priorities that need to be met. The ONLY exception is moving out of
harms way.
Example: Get down off of a ridge if a storm is approaching.
S Stop where you stand. Don't run off looking for help.
T Think about your situation.
O Observe your supplies, resources and surroundings.
P Plan your course of action, according to the Priorities of Survival and the
Rules of Survival.
Don't deceive yourself, by denying that you're in a survival situation.
It is a life threatening mistake to talk yourself out of being in a survival
situation, if you
really are in trouble.
Don't waste time sitting around waiting for help.
Immediately follow your Survival Priorities by doing things to provide for your
needs
and make it easier for help to find you.
Don't try to build a fire before you build a shelter.
Shelter is more important. You could spend a lot of time on fire making and your
fire
making efforts could still fail. Then you could be without a shelter or fire.
Try out your gear and practice your skills before you need them.
Be familiar with the use of all of the gear that you carry, and practice your
survival
techniques to maintain your skills.
Know the hazards of the area, and how to deal with them.
Snakes, spiders, bears, tainted water, rock slides, and poison ivy are just some
of the
troublemakers that can cause harm to you in the wilderness. Know how to avoid
the harmful
things in your surroundings and how to handle the problems that they could
create.
#2 January 2007
Shelter by Tim MacWelch
Copyright © 2000 as Earth
Connection Handout Series 1
ALL TEXT, PHOTOS, AND GRAPHICS ARE PROTECTED BY
COPYRIGHT. NO PART OF THIS WEBSITE MAY BE COPIED OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE
PERMISSION OF EARTH CONNECTION, LLC.
Shelter Location
Click here for our Shelter Building Clip
from Monkey See.com
The location of a shelter is very important. A good shelter built in a bad
location may
have to be abandoned; leaving you with wasted calories, wasted time and no
shelter at all.
Fortunately, a few simple guidelines can help you determine a good place to
build.
It should be protected from the weather, not out in an open field where all
the weather
hits it. It should also not be deep in a forest where it takes longer to dry
out. Try to find
a place in between.
If practical - pick a place out of the wind, but avoid places where rocks,
dead limbs or
entire trees could collapse on the shelter.
Choose a well drained place where no water will pool or run under the shelter.
Build on
a slight hump or rise in the ground. Keep away from building next to any body of
water.
This prevents accidental pollution and keeps the shelter free of dampness and
heavier
dew around water. It also helps avoid insects that live around water (i.e.:
mosquitos).
Face the door to the east or southeast to catch the morning sun and the avoid
the
prevailing wind.
Avoid areas with dangerous plants and animals. This could be anything from
poison
ivy to ground dwelling bees and bears. Scrape the ground bare to look for ants,
mouse
holes, or anything else that would keep you from using that spot. Holes in the
ground,
angry Yellow Jackets or ant activity should be avoided.
Keep fires at least 10-12 feet away and down wind - leaf shelters can catch
fire easily,
and sparks can burn holes in fabric shelters.
Finally, pick an area with plenty of building materials.
Practice making shelters before you really need them.
Don't forget that your clothes can be stuffed with insulating leaves, grass,
pine needles, moss
or plant material if you get cold.
Remove shelter bedding and shake it out daily to avoid insects and snakes.
Shelters can be smoked out to remove insects. Remove the bedding completely and
place a
fireproof container of coals and rotten wood or wet dead leaves inside the
shelter. Let it
smoke for several minutes every couple of days. Be careful that the coals don't
start anything
smoldering. Natural material huts catch fire easily and could start a forest
fire.
Leaf Hut Materials and Construction
The Leaf Hut is a wilderness shelter that needs no sleeping bag or fire for
warmth, just
your body heat. Variations of it have been taught by many authors, teachers and
agencies,
but it has been popularized most by Tom Brown, Jr. This shelter protects from
the cold, wind,
rain and snow. It can be made from wet or dry materials, and when properly built
it can hold in
most of our body heat. Dead air space is the key to its insulation. As your body
heats the air
around it, the shelter keeps the warm air from being lost to the weather.
Supposedly modeled
after the nests of squirrels, it's rounded covering of debris sheds water and
wind. The
bedding traps body heat, while a frame of sticks and brush keeps everything in
it's place.
BEAM (RIDGE POLE)
Select a long, sturdy pole. It should be at least as big around as your arm and
strong
enough not to break under the shelter's weight. The pole should be 9 to12 feet
long.
BEAM SUPPORT
This can be a sturdy tree, sapling, rock, stump or two prop sticks. These should
be
tested for strength and set up to support the beam. The height of the raised end
of the
beam should be about 3 feet tall. Set it up so that there is no danger of
collapsing.
RIBS
These can be made from dead tree branches or extremely thick and rigid bark
slabs.
These are placed at an angle along both sides of the ridge pole. Crawl inside
during
construction to make sure the shelter is wide enough. 9 inches on both sides of
the
body is about right. Place the ribs close together so that the leaves don't fall
through.
LEAVES AND DEBRIS
Next, leaves can be heaped over the frame work. This can also be anything else
that
traps air: grass, ferns, moss, pine needles, brush and tree boughs. It can even
be wet.
Live materials can be used, but dead materials are best. It takes larger amounts
of
green material because it wilts and matts down making less dead air space. Using
dead materials makes more insulation for the same amount of material and it also
conserves and protects the landscape. But if you're in trouble, use what you
need. 2
to 3 feet of leaves covering all sides of the shelter is enough to stay dry.
Think of the
hut as an empty tent. It can now protect from wind, rain and snow, but you could
still
freeze to death inside without proper bedding.
BARK AND BRUSH
The rounded dome of a leaf hut resists most wind and water, but bark slabs can
be
placed as shingles for even better wind and water resistance. Remember that
these
huts are water resistant, not water proof. A layer of brush (sticks, twigs and
branches)
should be thrown over the whole dome to keep the wind from stripping the debris
away.
BEDDING The inside of the shelter should be packed with debris, twice as much
underneath you
as is covering you. All corners inside should be packed with extra debris to
prevent
cold spots. A large pile of debris can be placed outside to be pulled in as a
door plug.
HINTS AND VARIATIONS
Natural shelters like this are difficult to see from a distance, so mark the
shelter with
something that can easily be seen such as a scrap of colored cloth or plastic.
A reduced size opening just big enough to squeeze through can be added onto the
regular
doorway opening for better heat retention. It will also make the shelter deeper
Two woven mats of sticks with leaves or grass sandwiched in between makes a good
door.
Make sure that no rib sticks poke up through roof of leaves, because rain will
run down each
stick into the shelter and warm air can escape out through the roof.
#3 April 2007
Finding 2000 Calories A Day In The Eastern Woodlands
Part One (the introduction and spring menu) by Tim MacWelch
Copyright © 2000 as Earth
Connection Handout Series 1
ALL TEXT, PHOTOS, AND GRAPHICS ARE PROTECTED BY
COPYRIGHT. NO PART OF THIS WEBSITE MAY BE COPIED OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE
PERMISSION OF EARTH CONNECTION, LLC.
Shelter - then water - then fire - then food. This is
the mantra chanted by survival instructors and students alike throughout the
world. But when the time comes to practice, or do it for real, the first
words out of everyone's collective mouth are "So what's for dinner??".
This is the age old question with an infinitely variable set of answers.
Questions must be asked before we can make a guess of our prospective dinner
menu. Where are we? What time of year is it? What has the
weather been like? Is the season running early, late or right on time?
What is abundant and obtainable with the least expenditure of energy? That
last question is the deal breaker right there. If we must wade out into
the cold, spring time swamp water, and lose many calories through the exertion
and heat loss into the cold water for a 50 calorie pile of cattail shoots, which
we will have to make fire to cook, which means finding and dragging in firewood,
and rubbing two sticks together... etc... We just burned 1000+ calories to
get 50 calories. That's not a very productive or reasonable scenario.
But I know for a fact that it's been done. I've done it. But now I
know better. Hopefully you'll pick up a few things from my mistakes and
successes, too.
First off, here's a few guidelines to think about in wild food collection
Seek out the most calorie rich food sources available. This is usually
the pursuit of plant or animal fats, like nuts that have a high oil content, fat
little animals, or fat big animals. Good sources of sugars and starches
are also very important, but remember that fat has twice the calories of protein
or carbohydrates per unit (gram, ounce, wooden spoonful, etc.).
Don't spend more than you make! If you burn 2000 calories to
get 200 calories, you won't last too long in your pursuit of wild foods.
Try that with your household budget, too.
Learn about wild plants from a good field guide, or better yet, a reputable
class. Then make 100% certain that it is the exact genus and species of
plant that you think it is by checking it against a good field guide. My
favorite is Peterson's field guide to edible wild plants. There are about
400 plants listed in the book.
Make sure your animal prey is dead before you start carving off steaks!
Poke it in the eye with a stick, if it twitches, kill it some more. A
hardwood club to the back of the head is probably the safest tactical move for
dispatching smaller animals. Bigger prey will have too hard of a skull for
that, so use more of whatever you brought them down with to finish the task.
Any animal will defend itself with it's best available tactic like biting,
scratching, kicking, etc. if it wakes up from being stunned.
Learn about the dangers of your local animals. Rabbits get tularemia.
Deer can have Lymes disease infested ticks and a host of other parasites.
Mice can have Hanta virus. Your prospective dinner could have Rabies,
distemper, plague, cat scratch fever and so on. Learn about the animal's
healthy habits, outward appearances and what healthy organs look like.
Look at the liver and other organs for spots or growths. The animal's coat
should appear clean and groomed, but remember that everyone looks a little rough
in the spring as the winter coats shed.
Once you've learned about the dangers of infectious animal diseases, be
cautious in your handling of animal prey. Don't carve your cooked meat
with the same knife you gutted the animal with. Wash your hands and all
items involved in meat processing thoroughly to avoid cross contamination.
So now you've read a book, taken a class, gone out camping with someone
experienced, and you're ready to find your own food. All of
your own food, for the day. Let's check our current spring menu.
Today's menu
salad
more salad
Residual nuts from last fall, like acorns, black walnuts, hickory nuts for a
few lucky finders
shoots and other tender spring vegetables
more salad
fish of the day
goose and duck eggs, and the birds that laid them. You may want to skip
the furry critters right now since they are having their babies, such hunting
ethics are frowned on unless you're dying of hunger.
and for dessert, slightly sweet flowers like Redbud and Violet
That doesn't sound too bad, right? But there are two main problems with
this menu. First, luck. You have to be pretty observant and lucky to
get eggs at any stage, especially eggs that are just laid, unless you don't mind
scrambled chick instead of scrambled egg. Any fishing is a luck and timing
influenced activity. The lucky finding of nuts leftover from two seasons
ago is possible, but again, not a sure shot. The second problem with this
menu is plant matter volume and it's accompanying fiber in the pursuit of 2000
calories a day. This is a year round problem, not just a spring time
issue. If the average wild salad is about 50 calories, and lets say
conservatively 20 grams of fiber (it's probably a lot more fiber on average)
you'd need 40 bowls to get 2000 calories from just salad. You couldn't
choke that much down, and if you did, you couldn't access all those calories
because of your impacted and fatally clogged intestines. You are not a
goat, only they can get all the calories from the 800 gram fiber wad in their
gut. We're omnivores, we need variety. Let's limit our daily salad
quota to four bowls, giving you 200 calories, about 100 grams of fiber (or
more), and a big dose of vitamins and minerals. And spread out that salad
consumption throughout the day. So we still have 1800 calories to account
for. We did, however, already get our daily allowance of fiber, and most
vitamins and minerals from the salads. We are short on fats, protein, more
carbs and calcium. So for fats and proteins, we need meat and/ or nuts.
Two or three fish, a couple handfuls of shelled out nut meats or one fat
squirrel, will cover our daily fat and protein requirements, roughly.
There isn't much data on the nutrition of wild foods and wild animals, many of
the comparisons available are just based on available conventional foods.
Simply put, if you start adding notches to tighten up your belt in the woods,
you aren't eating enough of the right foods. Now all we need to finish out
our wild foods diet are some carbohydrates in the form of sugars and/or
starches. Get a few cattail shoots when they are a foot tall. just
squeeze them hard as low on the stalk as you can grab, pull up, and they'll pop
off in your hand. Boil the bottom ends in water for 10 minutes and suck
out the starchy core. It's a good, root-crop-tasting starch source and a
fist full is probably about 50-100 calories, maybe a little more. Other
good spring time starch and sugar sources include burdock roots, wild carrot,
acorns, spring beauty corms and the like. Just remember that a cup (8
ounces) packed with raw or cooked non-starchy vegetables is about 50 calories,
give or take. One cup of starchy nuts or vegetables (like acorns or
starchy roots) will be between 100-200 calories. Since it's hard to milk a
bear, or anything else in the woods, try simmering your fish bones for a few
hours in water until they are soft enough to eat without choking yourself. One
fish worth of bones, plus your salads, should cover your calcium for the day.
Try to mix up and balance your outdoors diet as much as you can, at home doesn't
hurt either. Use caution and reason in your harvest of wild foods, and
you'll be well on your way to not starving to death.
Bon appetite
Tim
#4 September 2007
Finding 2000 Calories A Day In The Eastern Woodlands
Part Two ("It's not what you make, it's what you keep" & Fall Menu)
by Tim MacWelch
Copyright © 2000 as Earth
Connection Handout Series 1
ALL TEXT, PHOTOS, AND GRAPHICS ARE PROTECTED BY
COPYRIGHT. NO PART OF THIS WEBSITE MAY BE COPIED OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE
PERMISSION OF EARTH CONNECTION, LLC.
Have you ever gone a few days without any food whatsoever?
It is absolutely miserable. Food becomes the main object of your thoughts.
Some food, any food, will do in a circumstance like this. You may know the
old adage "Beggars cannot be choosers". Or if you have taken one of
my classes, you've probably heard me say "Any port in a storm".
Back in article #3, I set out guidelines for wild food harvest, a spring menu
and some advice on finding enough of the right nutrition. Now I would like
to provide some insight on calorie conservation, because as I mentioned in the
long winded title of this article "It's not what you make, it's what you keep".
I will also include a Fall Menu for wild food ideas.
So how do we conserve calories? Here are a few
ideas.
Look before you leap. Observe your surroundings for the most
likely places food will be found, before you go stomping and hiking all over
creation, wasting precious calories. From your camp, or where ever you
are, look around at the landscape with an eye for food. You can learn the
color, texture and shapes of many useful trees at a great distance (like the
acorn bearing Oaks). You can look for low areas with water. Most
importantly, look for areas with water and sunlight. These two things will
usually provide the building blocks for plants to make food. My best acorn
trees are in full sun, by themselves. Production of gallons and gallons of
nuts per tree is common in sunny spots. Deep forests have a lot of
competition for sun and nutrients, so nut production is usually less bountiful.
Transition areas are also great spots for biodiversity, and that can mean food.
Look for places where the river edge meets the woods, or where the field meets
the forest, etc.
Multi-task. Have dozens of traps set out while you are fishing
somewhere else. Look for edible plants as you walk there and back.
Try to think "Where are my next couple of meals coming from?". Don't put
all your hope in one food item or one strategy, like only trapping, or only
fishing, or only acorns. You may not get anything. And even if you
get something, you probably won't get enough.
Don't waste a scrap. Eat every edible part part of whatever
you collect, hunt, catch or harvest. Make sure that the part is edible,
then don't turn your nose up at it. I remember vividly a class a few years
back where we roasted squirrel heads and cracked them open for their chewy
little tongues and scrambled egg-like cooked brains. Yummy.
I'll break down more edible components further in the article.
Don't spend more than you make! I mentioned that in the
previous article, but it is so important, that I need to repeat it. If you burn
2000 calories to get 200 calories, you won't last too long in your pursuit of
wild foods.
Don't waste your energy. Why chop wood in two? The fire
will burn it in two for you. Why chase a squirrel through the whole forest
with a throwing stick? Just set some traps, and have a snack, and wait.
Why shell all those difficult hickory nuts, when the squirrel will do it?
Just eat him, and the shelled out, pre-chewed "nut butter" from his stomach
(cooked, of course). Get the idea. Let someone or something else
do it for you.
So what is our outdoor skills culture throwing away?
What is wasted on a campout or survival trek? Plenty... that's what.
Wood Most of our fires are too big, or burning when they are not
needed. Firewood collection is a big calorie burning chore. Use less
wood and you'll use less calories. However, you should strive to keep a
few coals alive constantly. Starting your fire over again from scratch is
usually more effort than keeping a few coals fed. Mound up a big heap of
dirt, ash or sand over your bed of coals each night to keep coals burning until
morning.
Organs and other animal parts Don't throw out your critter
scraps. The heart, liver, kidneys, brains, eyeballs, tongues, lungs,
chitterlings, tripe and mountain oysters of any critter will be just as edible
as the meat. Exceptions must be made for Arctic animals, but temperate
region animals are good to go unless diseased. The skins usually have most
of the fat in them, or just underneath them. Eat the skins whenever
possible. Remember that fat means calories. Stewed is the most
calorie conserving method. Just think of chicken skin. Pluck your
birds. Burn and scrape your mammal's fur. Then stew it. If we
roast our skins over the fire for better flavor, then precious fat is lost,
dripping into the fire. Don't forget fish skins, and fish head soup.
Bones The lower leg bones of a deer sized animal have
about 1000 calories of fat and some protein. These "Marrow bones" can be
cracked in half and stewed for a while to get most of the calories out.
Then suck on them, and/or dig around with a twig to extract any remnants.
Cook up your fish bones for a while to tenderize them and eat your fish bone
soup, bones and all, for your calcium supplement.
Paiute style little critters The Paiute indians, among
others, traditionally cooked rodents and other very small game whole (guts,
bones and all). The cooked critter was then pounded to a paste with a rock
hammer, and cooked again before consumption. That's getting your moneys
worth out of a mouse.
So there you have some more ideas on calories and keeping them. With
fall fast approaching, the nuts are starting to fall and becoming a valuable
food source for humans and animals alike. Other foods are finishing their
growing season and storing up calories for winter. Here is a sample fall
menu to give you some ideas about wild food this season. Always make sure
that you have POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION with a good field guide.
Today's Fall Menu
salad (for example - Curly Dock, Rumex crispus, leaves are the most tender
and tasty in the fall)
more salad
New nuts from this fall, like acorns (green or brown), Black walnuts,
Hickory, Chinquapin, Beech, Hazelnut, and very rarely American Chestnut for a
few lucky finders
Cattail rootstocks full of white starch (and lots of big fibers)
Roots of biennial plants that have finished their first year of growing, like
Burdock, Wild Carrot
Jerusalem artichoke tubers
more salad
fish of the day
Birds and mammals that are fattening up for winter
and for dessert, in August, Paw Paw fruit are available - then nothing for a
while
Then from October on into winter, Persimmon fruit are available, delicious...
Happy harvesting,
Tim
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