Category: Traditional Skills/Fieldcraft

Tea for Two Hundred, This Year and Next- Part 2, by Sarah Latimer

While “tea” is technically reserved for the plant camellia sinensis, in common language we often call many herbs by the name “tea”, especially when they are capable of being brewed into a flavorful beverage all by themselves. Additionally, there a many plants whose fruits, leaves, and flowers can be grown to add a variety of enjoyable flavors to traditional tea. Here are some we grow and use at our homestead: Chamomile Chamomile is probably one of my top three flavors for tea, and it has health benefits as a bonus! It has so many wonderful benefits besides being a flavor …


Letter Re: Lost Knowledge

Hugh, My great grandmother was born in the late 1800’s and was raised in an orphanage in a rural area. This orphanage had an on-site school where, in addition to the 3R’s, all the girls were required to learn to “Cook, Clean, Sew, Crochet, and Knit”. All of the boys were required to learn to farm and master carpentry skills. At aged 16 ,when she graduated school and left the orphanage, she was equipped to run a household and earn a living as a seamstress. My great grandmother lived through the 1918-1919 flu pandemic and a typhoid outbreak. She died …


Letter Re: How To Trim Your Horse’s Feet

Hugh, There’s a lot of good information in the article on trimming horses’ feet. The old saw is “no hoof, no horse.” So you have to be able to provide good hoof care. I don’t have the education or breadth of experience that RB does, but I’ve been trimming my band of horses for more than 20 years. I’ve found some things over the years that make things easier that folks may want to consider. I prefer to trim sitting down. I’ve never developed the skill that lets me trim comfortably standing the way a farrier does. I bought a …


How To Trim Your Horse’s Feet- Part 2, by R.B.

Using the Hoof Knife The next step is cutting away dead sole at the toe to find the white line. Dead sole is hard, flaky, and depending on the moisture of the foot may come out with little effort. If you live in a dry area, I recommend watering down an area about 10 feet in diameter around your horse’s water trough for about a week before you do your trimming. This way, every time they drink they will stand in water and mud, which will soak into the sole and make the trim a lot less work. After cutting …


How To Trim Your Horse’s Feet- Part 1, by R.B.

For starters I should let you know that I was school trained as a farrier at the Oklahoma Horse Shoeing School in Purcell, Oklahoma. I went there right after two tours in the U.S. Army. I worked full time as a shoer for about 10 years, then part time for another 10 years, and now I just shoe my own horses. In short, I have about 30 years and thousands of horses under my belt. I suspect the readers of this blog have already read JWR’s Patriots, which was the inspiration for this article. The purpose of this article is …


Notes from “The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs”, by ShepherdFarmerGeek

Did you know that you can get an estimate of distances and elevations conveniently using nothing more than your eyes and your hands? It’s really quite amazing and useful; hikers, hunters, and preppers really need to learn these skills. Ol’ Remus at the Woodpile Report (www.woodpilereport.com) recently recommended a book by Tristan Gooley entitled The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs: outdoor clues to find your way, predict the weather, locate water, track animals and other forgotten skills. It sounded downright intriguing, so I’ve been reading it on my Kindle and enjoying it quite a bit. The first Appendix had …


How to Make and Utilize the Most Excellent Tinder Sticks For Starting Fires, by D.A.

Okay, when the lid comes off civilization and things are fun again, you don’t want to be the numbskull sending up a smoke signal that can be seen from space, just trying to get a fire going. You want to be the guy who kneels down for a bit and brings forth fire, like Prometheus or somebody that gets things done. I am going to teach you to make tinder that will stay lit and accelerate your fire. It will be inexpensive, too. Then you will achieve success in building a fire so you can finally crack open that can …


“Recycle, Repurpose, and Reuse”, by Regan and Hawk

My husband and I fall into the category of people known as “preppers”; we store food, weapons, supplies, and money for when it will be needed in the not too distant future. We track our stores and make sure that we won’t be caught short on many different things. However, one thing both of us have found is that all this prepping is not really enough. What do you do when something breaks or wears out and the stores are closed or it just can’t be found? What happens when you need something out of the norm for a project? …


Letter Re: The Fallacy of Hunting as a Survival Technique

HJL, In the article he omits two important points: Are you willing to leave your safety, family, and supplies to wander out into an “anything goes” environment? You can bet there will be no one wearing fluorescent orange. You are not the only one “hunting”. You are also “game”. When you are dragging home your equipment, weapon, and your kill as well as possibly a few bits of yourself, who is going to stay home and guard your door? When it goes up, all bets are off. All the “rules” are no more. Better to store than go out in …


Friction Fire- Part 2, by N.E.

Some people like to carve this ember notch before the hearth and drill have mated. I do not. The reason I do not carve this ember notch earlier in the process is that you can ruin the ember notch before the drill and hearth have mated. This can happen from applying too much pressure too soon, causing the drill to kick out of the mate and then splitting the hearth or ruining the ember notch. Also, where the mate actually takes place may not be aligned perfectly with the ember notch, which means more carving. If you ruin the ember …


Friction Fire- Part 1, by N.E.

I believe fire by friction is one of the most valuable skills we can have in our bag of tricks. Beyond “simply” making fire, the process provides a sense of freedom that people interested in prepping, survival, and outdoor skills no doubt highly value. It also provides important insight into human ingenuity. It can enhance appreciation for those who came before us and exposes how dependent we have become on the modern, consumer-based system. In this post I will demonstrate how to successfully create a bow drill set. To demonstrate fire by friction, I have made a bow drill set …


Occupy Wall Street Versus Occupy Malheur: Clear Cases of Selective Prosecution

This news headline makes it clear that the BHO Administration is widening their net:  Nevada Standoff Indictment Names Bundys, Five More.  These “add-on” indictments are quite troubling. I believe that the assessment by Brandon Smith’s (previously mentioned in SurvivalBlog) may be correct:  A Warning To The Feds On Incremental Prosecutions Of The Liberty Movement.  There may be dozens of more indictments of people who attended the Bundy Ranch protests in 2014 that filter out over a the next six to nine months. Let’s draw a comparison: There were overt and quite visible physical threats and considerable actual violence in the …


Sarah Latimer: Unrealized Expectations – Part 2

In continuing with the idea of not relying upon others for the “sweet” wants and needs we have, here are a few more ideas that you can provide for yourself (and feel quite good about your independence in doing so!): Fresh and Dried Fruits and Vegetables– Want organic, highly nutritious fresh or dried fruits and vegetables year around, economically? Plant fruit trees and bushes and grow a garden as well as consider using a greenhouse for winter produce. Then, can, freeze, dehydrate, and/or freeze dry your excess produce for later seasonal use. We are still enjoying freeze-dried cubed tomatoes from …


Letter: Advice on Establishing Retreat Group SOPs

Dear Mr Rawles: I wanted to reach out. I am now reading your novel Patriots and in it the topic of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) is addressed. Do you all have a good template example to help me get started in this arena? Thanks, – Jon B. JWR Replies:  There are no “one size fits all” SOPs. Your SOPs should definitely be tailored to your particular circumstances. Military SOPs are usually a good starting point.  (These include: immediate action drills, perimeter security (including challenge and password), patrolling, field sanitation, communications CEOI procedures, OPSEC, COMSEC, et cetera.)  I don’t want to …


Noisy Cows and Other Animal Noise Issues, by B.O.C.

I will start this by saying my farm experience range from South Florida to Maine and in climates in between. I also have experience from hobby farming to production on a large scale. From rabbits, chickens, pigs to beef and milking animals. My tenure in these areas has encompassed about 30 years of my life in one form or another. A lot of this is some common sense as well, so forgive me if I dumb this down too much. A few days ago I read an article on this site about the farms in Venezuela and their government taking …