Cold Weather Survival

Cold weather survival is really dependent upon a number of things, but the most important is shelter. While one can survive for 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food, in extreme weather conditions one can die in three hours. There are two basic types of shelter; structural and wearable.

Structural shelter is what first comes to mind when one hears the term “survival shelter”. In an outdoor situation that can be anything from a tent to a brush teepee to a cave. However, most people don’t really consider clothing to be a source of shelter, but anything that will protect you from the elements can be considered. Continue...

Wilderness First Aid

It is not surprising to learn that when it comes to basic first aid, few people outside of the Boy Scouts of America and the national park rangers have even a basic knowledge. Camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, or even fighting in foreign lands can be made safer by at least knowing simple first aid.

One does not have to go camping in the forest to need first aid knowledge. A choking at the office, drowning in the back yard pool or any type of feasible life-threatening situation could require basic first aid.. Many of these situations necessitate the need for on-the-spot first aid, and fast. For that reason, several different aspects of wilderness first aid can be applicable in everyday life. Continue...

Hunger Survival

In an urban situation, surviving hunger can be somewhat different than in a wilderness location. In the wilderness, depending on the season, it is possible to find edible plants and to capture by snares and traps animals for protein.

Avoiding starvation in an urban survival scenario isn't much different. It is possible to find wild edible plants, although care should be taken to avoid plants that have absorbed contaminants from vehicle exhaust. For the real hungry, there's a variety of urban livestock that can be captured and added to the cook pot. Continued....

In the Company of Dogs, Part 3

Aside from training your dog to fulfill certain duties and thus contribute to his own continued existence, dog owners must consider how they are going to feed their dogs. In a long term survival situation, eventually those bags of kibble and cans of Alpo are going to run out. You need to be thinking now of how you are going to feed your dog.

Rabbits!

That’s right. Already many people raise rabbits for the sole purpose of feeding their dogs. They don’t give them to them live, of course. But after butchering, the dogs are fed the rabbits raw. The advantages to a raw meat diet are healthier teeth, less plaque, fewer vet visits, more energy, etc.

Since you can easily grow or gather the food necessary to feed your rabbits, they can then be raised to feed your dog(s). A side benefit would be that you can also eat the meat. Want to learn more? Check out “Raising Rabbits for Meat” an e-book by CL Hendricks.

In the Company of Dogs, Part 2

From the beginning of domestication of wolves/dogs man has found was to put them to work. Working on some part of their natural instinct, man bred so that those characteristics were strongest, resulting in dogs that guard sheep, work cattle, pull a sled and protect their territory.

Many in preparedness are already training their dog to fill a role and pull their own weight (sometimes literally). In a walking bugout, medium to large dog can easily carry a pack with his own food and water bowl (collapsible) or even pull a travois with a small load.

Dogs can be trained to guard livestock to prevent wild predators (4 and 2-legged) from making off with the family’s meat stock (chickens, rabbits, goats, etc). They can also prevent deer and other grazers from invading and destroying your garden.

Speaking of “gardens”, do you know that those hybrid seeds will be good for only one planting and after that you could starve? Order “/Survival Seeds/” today.

In the Company of Dogs, Part 1

Many of us find ourselves regularly in the company of dogs because for us, life just wouldn’t be as rich and rewarding without our canine companions. Whether they guard us, serve us, or just allow us to pet them, to one extent or another they are members of our family.

With that in mind, what are you doing to prepare for your pet’s survival in the event of a disaster? For most people, the answer is “nothing” just because they aren’t even prepared for their own survival. However, for those in the preparedness community, most realize they need to make preparations for their pets.

Of course, most will tell you that in the event of a mega-disaster, people come first, and that’s as it should be. However, in the event of the type of disaster that leaves you on your own without government assistance (interference) for years, a long-term survival situation, then everyone, including dogs will have to contribute to the survival of the group.

If you are not preparing for your pet’s survival, there’s still time. Get “/Preparedness for Pets/” and learn how to protect your furred companion.

Contriving footwear Part 3

High moccasins rarely used a front lacing unless it was covered with a spat type wrap. Front laced high moccasins would allow snow and wind to penetrate chilling the skin. Side lacing was the preferred method of drawing the moccasins tight around the leg. The leggings were stuffed into the high moccasins and then laced.

If the weather was especially frigid or there was a lot of snow, an outer “boot” was made. These were usually made from a small animal. A simple sock type design pulled over the high moccasins and tied below the knee. The larger surface allowed for better walking on the snow preventing one from sinking into it. They lived close to nature and developed ways of surviving harsh winters.

Just remember that one of the skills that could be invaluable in the future is the ability to tan hides. Without commercial production of shoes and many other items we take for granted now, having a material like leather will make life much easier.

For more information on how to tan hides, without the chemicals used today and unavailable tomorrow, check out “Raising Rabbits for Meat”. Not only will you learn how to raise rabbits to feed your family, you will learn how to use the brains of almost any animal to tan it’s own skin (with the exception of the cow).

Contriving footwear Part 2

Both genders wore leggings, usually made of fur lined thick leather. If you were a female you wore a thick leather skirt on top. You would then slip into your high moccasins. High moccasins were modified versions of the style of moccasins worn by any particular tribe.

All tribes had some form of winter moccasins that were adaptations of their summer ones. Tall sides were added, some extended the fold over collar to become sides and some just fashioned a type of spat. All of these were insulated inside and on the sole.

Soles were also modified, much like a Duck shoe, a thicker and occasionally rawhide sole would be used. These soles were dipped in goose grease, tallow, beeswax or bear fat to provide waterproofing. While the inner sole was still warm insulating materials would be added. Most tribes used either duck or goose down, felted animal hair, and animal fur. Some tribes used down from plants like Milkweed and Cattails. Some tribes would weave grasses and place these inner soles between the layers of insulation. (Learn other uses for common plants from the “Coast to Coast Survival Plants” ebook

Once completed the high moccasin’s seams were coated with a waterproofing such as tallow, beeswax or bear grease. The moccasin was placed near the fire to allow the material to seep deeply into the seam. There is a trick using heat on leather. Many times I have seen winter moccasins passed on to another because they were placed too close to a hot fire which caused the leather to shrink.

Contriving footwear Part 1

When thinking about what things will be in short supply in a post-TEOTWAWKI world, many people forget about footwear. However, like it or not, shoes, boots, sneakers and sandals all come to their inevitable end. Of course, most people have never actually worn a shoe long enough to wear a hole in the bottom or to have the sole separate from the upper portion of the shoe. They simply have no idea just how fragile is that bit of gear that we put on every day that protects our tender feet.

So what will you do when the time comes that your shoes wear out or even worse your kids outgrow their shoes? You’ll get by. You’ll get inventive and devise ways to protect your feet. In fact, some of those ways may seem a bit outlandish in America, but in some parts of the world today people are using things like 2-liter soda bottles, tires and cardboard as shoes.

Now, before there was ever a cobbler to hang out his “open for business” sign, people were pretty clever about contriving footwear. In our own country, the Native Americans developed some very effective footwear with modifications to increase their effectiveness in all kinds of weather and use.

While the styles of Native American footwear varied somewhat from tribe to tribe, they were basically the same: made out of leather tanned from animal hides and cut to fit the individual. These were usually called “moccasins”. Some moccasins were only ankle high, while others were much higher; up to the calf and even the knee.