Category: Traditional Skills/Fieldcraft

Guest Article: It is Hard to Know Wild Food Without Also Knowing Some Wild Medicines, by Linda Runyon

As I observe the current concerns about our food supply and our “health” care choices, I think back to the days in the 1970s when my husband, child and I took off to the wilderness of the Adirondacks.  Even though there’s so much turbulence going on now, I know that being in the middle of essentially nowhere with just your three-member family can be scary no matter how, when, or why you do it.  I was fortunate in that I was trained as a nurse in my younger days, and that experience did come in handy in being able to …


Letter Re: Some Stump Burning Advice

Mr. Rawles, Here is a way to efficiently burn stumps: 1.  Get a 55 gallon steel drum 2.  Remove both the top and bottom 3.  Cut some holes in the lower sides from ground level to about 1/3 the way up. 4.  Place the barrel sleeve over a stump.  Put a few crumpled-up paper sacks soaked in diesel fuel in the bottom and close to some of the holes. Pile all your wood debris in the barrel.  5.  Light the sacks. [The barrel .sleeve contains the heat, creates a draft, and keeps the wood fuel from rolling off.] 6.  Every couple …


Letter Re: Loading Your Own Ammunition

Dear Editor, I have some comments to follow up on the letter from Kent from Illinois. I specifically left out mentioning match primers, salvaging brass with swaged primer pockets, etc., as this article was on the basics, barely touching upon a few advanced techniques. As to touching the primers: My handloads suffered from maddening duds occasionally, until I tracked down the cause. An old timer told me about skin oils and primers. I, being a young know-it-all, could not find this old timer’s story mentioned anywhere (this was way before broad public use of the Internet), so I set off …


A Written Plan for Your Preparedness, by M.B.

I am an active prepper. I do not have a retreat or bug-out vehicle (yet), but I do what I can for bugging-in and preparing for emergencies. I have extensive food and water preps, tactical supplies, and all of the other trappings of modern-day prepping. Although my family is aware of my prepping, and support my efforts, they are not “in the loop” with how to do what, when to do it, and what to do it with. I have come to realize that many of my preps will be useless if anything happens to me. A good example of …


Letter Re: Basic Mechanics Skill and Knowing Vehicular Limitations

JWR,  Keep up the good work! Now that everyone knows the woes of removing a tire, does anyone check the spare tire to see if it holds air etc? Most people don’t check the tires on a road trip, let alone daily driving or the condition of the spare tire. I would ask everyone to make sure the spare tire is not only inflated, but holds air for more than a day or two! This should go before the first post: Do you have a proper (working) and weight-rated jack to lift the vehicle, and do you know where to …


Letter Re: Living Off The Land: Delusions and Misconceptions About Hunting and Gathering

Jim, This letter is in response to your link to a post by Ross Gilmore: Living Off The Land: Delusions and Misconceptions About Hunting and Gathering.  It’s a well-written article and I’d like to expand upon it. I’ve been teaching Stone Age skills for 29 years and I’ve spent most of my adult life in the backcountry of Idaho and British Columbia.  I never purchased meat or fish from a store for about 20 years, though I consumed a lot.  I’ve lived Stone Age for short periods of time, living completely off the land using only the skills and tools of …


Two Letters Re: Basic Mechanics Skill and Knowing Vehicular Limitations

Jim, The king of the hill when it comes to breaking loose lug nuts is the four-way lug wrench. It is also called a “cross wrench” by some folks. I have used them since I was a child learning everyday fixes from my father in the 1960s. But beware of cheaply-made imports. I have bent and actually broken a few of the cheap ones while helping friends break lugs loose on their vehicles using their cheap four way lug wrenches that I had told them not to buy, but they ignored my advise and went cheap. Sitting on a desolate …


Letter Re: Loading Your Own Ammunition

Mr Rawles, I’m writing to make a few points about the article Ken in Montana wrote about reloading, as there are some issues I have with it. I’ve only been reloading since 1999, but . . . . First, Winchester primers are also brass in color, so anything other than silver doesn’t automatically mean they’re Remington. Additionally, people who are just getting into reloading should ask around about the reliability of the primers they’re going to use, as some primers have harder cups and don’t detonate reliably. I generally only use Winchester and CCI. I’d be interested to know where …


Loading Your Own Ammunition, by Ken in Montana

With the current shortage of ammunition and the consequent high prices, it makes more sense now than ever before to learn how to reload your own fired brass casings.  I even suspect that in the future, this may well be the only way for the ordinary citizen to obtain ammunition. It’s not at all difficult, it only requires a little understanding of the process, and the ability to follow directions. This will become very important later, as each caliber requires its own set of powders, charges, primers, and bullets. No one can learn them all, there are millions of potential …


Letter Re: Basic Mechanics Skill and Knowing Vehicular Limitations

Dear JWR, Instead of a breaker bar, which while good to have is large and hard to store, I’ve found extendable lug nut wrenches to be the ideal compromise.  Easily twice as strong as the much thinner wrenches that come with the vehicle. The only caveat is that I’d recommend a long/deep wall socket that’s the precise size of your lugs to ensure you don’t damage and/or jam or lug nuts inside your socket… I’ve tried both the Torin (sold at Wal-Mart stores) and the Grizzly (sold by Amazon.com) with satisfactory success.  Both are over 20″ extended, and even slightly …


Life on the Edge: The Importance of Blade Maintenance, by Dr. DAC

INTRODUCTION Most of us use a cutting edge every single day, be it a chef’s knife, pocket knife, or scissors.  We typically suffer with overly dull cutting surfaces, and that is OK for cutting a zucchini after the daily nine-to-five routine.  However, when faced with a long-term survival situation, the importance of cutting edges will skyrocket, quickly shifting this humdrum facet of daily life to center stage.  Knowing how to restore and maintain blades and edges will take on new importance, as sharp tools will be necessary for survival, and sharpening will be a marketable and barterable skill. Besides knives …


Letter Re: Basic Mechanics Skills and Knowing Vehicular Limitations

James, Thank you for your contributions on SurvivalBlog. I read with interest the article on basic mechanical skills.  Changing a tire can be a difficult process,  last summer I had a blow out on a 100 degree day, found that changing a tire in the severe heat was a difficult task  and for an older man, and possibly dangerous.   I decided to decide to find a workable solution for this problem. At first I tried the 12 volt DC impact wrenches but found them unsatisfactory. My solution was to take a 1,700 watt inverter that I placed in a tool box …


Basic Mechanics Skills and Knowing Vehicular Limitations Part 1, by “Zachary Taylor”

Basic mechanical knowledge and skills are something that any person who hopes to be successful in TEOTWAWKI must have. I am not speaking just about vehicles, but vehicles are an excellent avenue to learn them. I can only talk with authority on my own past, but I know that the wealth of much of my knowledge comes from my extensive background in working on cars. I won’t claim that any of this post is going to be something that you have never read before. Heck, I am willing to bet that you heard much of this speech by a parent …


Letter Re: Wool Carding Questions

Avalanche Lily & Mr. Rawles – Just wanted to say that Survival Blog  never ceases to amaze me!  As you may know I’m not a fan of the entire survivalist or “prepper”  craze, but I have to admit the drum carder and angora bunny advice posted today was spot on.  I would not have guessed that SurvivalBlog [readers] would have been as knowledgeable about home textile production. (However I did  take exception to the sheep recommendations.) You may be interested in my “dish towel” project.  Sometime within the next couple of weeks the flax straw from this summer will be …


Letter Re: Wool Carding Questions

This is in response to the recent question re wool cards for angora fiber. Please let me add a few important facts on this subject. Angora fiber needs to be processed on cards with a fine tine. The fibers are comparatively short and incredibly soft and fine. Buy cards referred to as cotton cards or recommended for carding exotic fibers or cotton. Yes, one can pluck and spin the fiber off a rabbit in one’s lap, but that’s generally a trick for fiber shows. Really, please, just pluck the rabbit and let it down to run around while you spin. …