Learning wilderness survival skills?

[vtsnowedin]

http://www.greenmanbushcraft.co.uk/As far as preps go;

3 weeks worth or food and water are a minimum.

Solid fuel cooking stove, firewood and axe obv.

Warm 4 season sleeping bag and goretex bivvy bag.

Water filtration equipment.

!

+1

[GlynG]

Wilderness survival skills could be handy, but no matter your skills, survival in the woods on your own isn’t likely to be feasible or pleasant for long. Perhaps in a low population density country like Canada or New Zealand, but there’s just too many of us here.

I would recommend training up in a career/craft that makes sense and is useful to others in a low energy / collapsed world – if you’re not sure what now spend some time trying many and various different things and see what suits you. It took me till I was 28 to work what that was but now I’m going into organic farming and forest gardening for example. I second the recommendation to check out The Archdruid Report if you’re not already familiar with it as it has a lot of good discussions of low tech living and post peak lifestyles.

Have you considered WWOOFing? It’s an international scheme whereby you work for 30ish hours a week in an organic farm or garden in exchange for free food and accommodation. There are loads across the country and you can choose the ones that sound the most interesting and it can be an excellent way to learn to grow food, look after animals, etc. A friend of spent a whole year volunteering and getting involved in sustainable/permaculture projects such as building roundhouses with that Tony Wrench chap.

Good luck!

Torch and headlamp. As far as a torch goes check out the jetbeam BA10. I've been testing them for selling the past 3 months and they're the best small LED out there. Using a single AA cell and putting out 160 lumens they last for almost 3 hours. They can be switched to 20 lumens and last 30 hours from a single AA. Incredible really for the price.

You could be better off with an an ultra-capacator torch the chap in the other thread sells. £19.99 for a torch that lasts for many years without needing batteries sounds like a good investment to me.

[UndercoverElephant]

The Archdruid Report

Superb.

[MrG]

As others have said or implied, there will be so many people trying to live off the land when TSHTF that all resources around cities will disappear rapidly.

I've never met anyone else foraging, except for brambles (blackberries). Once, while picking plums, I was asked what they were. When picking cherries, was asked if they were safe to eat. I think the number of people out there who can identify edible plants or fungi is very small. There is, I suppose, always the possibility that hungry people will eat anything, in which case they risk poisoning themselves.

That said, trying to live off the land solely by foraging all year round in the UK would be very difficult, even for someone like Ray Mears.

Oh don't!! I know it's ridiculous. People don't even recognise fruits which they would go and buy in a shop.

I was asked while collecting pears, f*cking PEARS, from a tree OUTSIDE TESCO'S!! what on earth I was doing. I said "well what does it look like I'm doing" which was met with a dumbfounded stare. I said that I was picking pears and these chavvy lads asked me (amazed) if you could eat them, if they were the kind of pears you could eat. I just shook my head, said nothing and went back to what I was doing.

There are cherry trees outside the same tesco in full fruit while the cherries are "on offer" inside.

I was once asked what I was up to by suspicious police officers no less when I was picking blackberries. again my response was "well what does it look like I'm doing"... they weren't sure. On this occasion I did attempt to engage them in conversation since the WPC was bang tidy but there we go.

I did someones garden once, she had a cherry tree and I was eating the cherries. She says "oh I lovely didn't know you could eat them"

What is wrong with people?

[DominicJ]

And you wonder why I'm more worried about vandalism than theft of food from my little orchard.....

[UndercoverElephant]

I was asked while collecting pears, f*cking PEARS, from a tree OUTSIDE TESCO'S!! what on earth I was doing. I said "well what does it look like I'm doing" which was met with a dumbfounded stare. I said that I was picking pears and these chavvy lads asked me (amazed) if you could eat them, if they were the kind of pears you could eat. I just shook my head, said nothing and went back to what I was doing.

I've had precisely the same experience picking apples (russets) from a tree outside a drive-in McDonalds where the A272 crosses the A24. Food comes in small brown paper bags, not from large trees...

What is wrong with people?

I wish I knew.

[MrG]

And you wonder why I'm more worried about vandalism than theft of food from my little orchard.....

I didn't wonder why. I think your quite right to be worried. I just didn't think of it myself till you mentioned it.

UE - I'd forgotten that one. There's an apple tree outside my dads flat where I'm sat right now and last autumn someone asked me if the apples were eaters when she saw me picking a couple for my lunch. Its a funny variety, half red, half white and to be fair she meant she didn't know if they were cookers I think.

Just eat one and see isn't it!! Its not gonna kill you its an apple

[kenneal - lagger]

I know someone who couldn't be bothered to pick the rhubarb at the bottom of her garden because it was so cheap in the supermarket? Sad to say but she's a relation!!

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

Torch and headlamp. As far as a torch goes check out the jetbeam BA10. I've been testing them for selling the past 3 months and they're the best small LED out there. Using a single AA cell and putting out 160 lumens they last for almost 3 hours. They can be switched to 20 lumens and last 30 hours from a single AA. Incredible really for the price.

You could be better off with an an ultra-capacator torch the chap in the other thread sells. £19.99 for a torch that lasts for many years without needing batteries sounds like a good investment to me.

I use my torches when working so a wind up never suits what I'm doing, never having a spare hand, plus I need a torch that throws a beam a fair distance, at least 25 yards, not 25 feet.
For general use that looks fine, but compared to a 900 lumen tactical which throws a strong 100 yard beam, can illuminate the entire area behind my house and is powerful enough to blind any intruder it really doesn't compare at all. Rechargeable too.

[DominicJ]

I know someone who couldn't be bothered to pick the rhubarb at the bottom of her garden because it was so cheap in the supermarket? Sad to say but she's a relation!!

Hmm, I dont grow veg for basicaly that reason.
But if it was already there....

[UndercoverElephant]

I know someone who couldn't be bothered to pick the rhubarb at the bottom of her garden because it was so cheap in the supermarket? Sad to say but she's a relation!!

Hmm, I dont grow veg for basicaly that reason.

Then you've got considerably more money than you like to let on, Dominic.

Potatoes aren't worth growing for this reason, but the same does not apply to tomatoes, lettuces or all sorts of other things.

[DominicJ]

UE
I only really eat garlic, onions, carrots and potatos.
I buy all of them in the class 2 packs from supermarkets.

Eggs and fruit make economic sense today.

Tomatoes would be, but I am incredibly lazy, and they sound like a lot of work....

[MrG]

I know someone who couldn't be bothered to pick the rhubarb at the bottom of her garden because it was so cheap in the supermarket? Sad to say but she's a relation!!

Hmm, I dont grow veg for basicaly that reason.

Then you've got considerably more money than you like to let on, Dominic.

Potatoes aren't worth growing for this reason, but the same does not apply to tomatoes, lettuces or all sorts of other things.

Potatoes are a funny one. They aren't worth growing on a money saving basis. They aren't worth me growing because I have a plentiful supply of skip potatoes and I don't eat a lot of potatoes anyway.

But I do grow them because they are good for the ground as part of a rotation.... well actually I grow them to break in new ground.. but I always seem to be doing that.. greedy see!

Onions are only marginally worth growing (economically) Why do I do it!

It isn't about learning growing skills for when TSHTF is it coz I still use heat treated sets. I need to learn to grow from seed.. and save the seed. Haven't got round to doing that yet

[kenneal - lagger]

Onions are quite easy to grow from seed, MrG. We sow them singly in cells indoors in January and plant out when the ground is ready. That's when we remember that January is onion planting time. If, no when, we forget we rely on sets.

Home grown spuds taste much better than bought ones.

[UndercoverElephant]

Tomatoes would be, but I am incredibly lazy, and they sound like a lot of work....

Tomatoes don't have to be a lot of work. You have to make sure they get enough water, and you have to pinch out some sideshoots and tie the plants to a stake. You have to be incredibly lazy if you think that is a lot of work.

Cheap supermarket tomatoes also don't taste of anything. You have to buy on-the-vine tomatoes if they are to be anything like as nice as homegrown.