What works, what doesn’t, and why! 4-24-18

So the reason I started this blog was to help other people have a resource to look at for survival techniques and gear. Having alot of land in North Florida means alott of creatures cohabitate my area of operation. Occasionally we cross paths.
Snakes, armadillos, raccoons, black bear, deer, turkey, and various other small game, frequent my fields and woodland areas. I have at my disposal many tools for taking of game and security of the livestock and crops we grow there. I have found by far that my go to for around the farm is the Heritage Arms Rough Rider small bore revolver.
There are a couple of factors I look at when I select a firearm for carry in the field. First reliability, the worst thing that can happen is for your weapon to misfire or fail to feed at the crucial moment when it is needed the most. The Heritage Arms small bore pistol has proven wonderfully reliable. This pistol functions well with great accuracy in between cleanings with large amounts of ammo fired. Second cost efficency. With a price tag less then 200.00 this pistol which comes chambered in .22 Long rifle with the adaptability of becoming .22 magnum with just the simple changing of the revolver cylinder is versatile, reliable, and cost effective. Besides that it is made right here in the USA. You can also purchase multiple cylinders for .22 LR or .22 magnum which makes this gun easy to reload in just seconds. Im often ask how well can you hit the target, the answer is I’m very impressed with the accuracy of this pistol. It is a wonderful inexpensive addition to any outdoorsman, fisherman, farmer, or survivalist. It’s cheap to buy, cheap to shoot, incredibly accurate, decently durable, and impressivly reliable. Don’t hesitate to purchase one if your developing a bug out bag, or planning on hanging out in the great outdoors. Don’t take my word for it though get one for your self and have fun breaking it in!

Next week I’ll review some knives and tell you which one I prefer for in the field!

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Water in a quick!

So for every person there is one crucial element that is required to establish long term survival, that is water. Remembering the rules of 3 will save you some much needed stress and help you prioritize work loads. First rule the human body can survive three minutes without air! There are always anomaly that a person can make it longer but sticking to the rules is a safe bet. Rule 2 a person can survive three days without water. This is the one we will concentrate on for this article, once the rules have been established. Rule number 3 is a person can survive three weeks without food and shelter. Obviously this depends on the environmental factors, it is the rule for all things considered.

Water sources are our primary concentration. In the event of power loss, contamination of Wells by flooding and natural disasters resulting in lack of a water source there are many ways to aquire potable drinking water. First consider indoor sources everyone has storage of water on site in their home and business, you may not even realize your storing it but at least 30 to 100 gallons are readily available at your hot water heater. This is a great source for short term survivability.
Water heater aside having a natural understanding natural science helps with breaking down water barriers.
We all know that heating water to boiling and letting water boil rapidly for several minutes kills patogens. Heating water to boiling and letting it boil rapidly also creates steam which can be harnessed as it cools to provide a great potable water source also.

Lack of fire, no problem for getting water. A piece of clear plastic and a cup used with a rock is a wonderful source of gathering water. Using transpiration to form a team still works great. Dig a hole, place a cup in the middle of the hole, surround the cup with vegetation green and leafy, cover it with the plastic and place the rock directly above the cup on top of the plastic. Having the small rock in place weighs down the plastic just enough to make a drip point on the inside, as the moisture of the vegetation is turned to vapor it rises and condensates on the plastic. As.the condensation forms drops it will run to the lowest point directly above the cup. Then once it is to heavy it drips into the cup as purified water sun distilled from nature. Creating natural filters work also. Sand is a great natural filters if used in many stages. Filling two socks each with sand and hanging one above the other is a great way to filter. Make a couple of passes before you filter just to get the fine particles out. Once you have done that catch water from under the second sock as it drips. I still recommend boiling with this method but takes most things out that could make you sick.

So many ways to get water, these are just a few outside the box thoughts. Remember when in a survival situation your only limited by your own thoughts!

Take care and enjoy!

Sunday

Today is Sunday, not our usual Sunday but meaningful. Just to the Northwest of us a tropical storm is passing. We are little effected by it but the sky is overcast and the wind is unusually strong. I’m spending the morning camped out on the couch under a blanket with the fan blowing on me. I know that seems like an oxymoron but it is enjoyable. My blanket smells delightful, fresh out of the dryer after being washed, hints of lilac and flowers from the perfumed laundry detergent. Even though the television is going, I have mostly spent my time staring out the window watching the wind blow around the lower limbs of the great oak that stands firmly behind our house. The limbs of the great oak covered in colorful fall colors and drooping with moss, intertwined with tangles of wild grapevine, wisp around in the winds. Our mornings have been getting cooler even though it still gets hot in the day. I have been staring at my stone covered fireplace with dismay because it is still way to warm to light it and enjoy the smell of hardwood burning. I recall back to days of climbing out of my hunting stand, shivering and cold and making my way across the 70 acre tract toward the comfort of home. Walking toward it I find the faint smell of cured oak burning in the distance and realize that my lovely wife has the home fire burning. Just that smell gives a comfort to the soul that warns you. I yearn for that smell and wish it was feasible to use it all year long.
Our three year old has been playing all morning up and down the hallway. The pit patter of little feet moving around the house fills my ears. Harvest season is in full swing and the aromas of seasonal candles burning fill the house with sweet smells of apple, cinnamon, and Vanilla. The couch is a cozy place with a direct view of the outside. Often I have laid here and watched both Doe and spotted fawn come in to eat falling grapes from the vines that grow wild here. Out the other window the view of a field covered in waves of Sage brush with a random pecan tree shooting up high above the blanket of Sage below. A few clear spots in the sage offer glimpse of wild rabbits moving around from time to time. These clearings also fill with morning dove frequently. Occasionally a flock of wild turkeys break thru the sage into openings in search of great things to eat. There is no shortage of wildlife to watch around here, last year we had a beautiful red fox that would cross the back yard in the early evening, searching for rodents and rabbits on the move, trees are filled with the chatter of both grey and majestic fox squirrels. If there was ever a place I wanted to be, this is it. So much to enjoy, a life worth living with people worth sharing it with. I look forward to every Sunday!

Picture collage

Peaches from our homestead canned for winter cobblers

Mixed berry jam fresh made with a few jars of peach jam

tomatoes from our garden ready to be processed and canned for winter chilli and spaghetti

grapes from our vines soon made into jelly and wine

Fresh picked blackberries from our canes.

Our winter raised beds full of lettuce

lettuce in beds made good

our Blueberries

nope not tomatoes, sweet plums.

right out of the field to the ice box

Pepper harvest

chickens!

they do good!

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing a knife

Making a second knife

okra daily harvest

snap beans

 

Not all pictures were taken this year, this is a collection of the past two years from our homestead. We are proud of our productions and strive to live a healthy wholesome lifestyle!

The power of HELLO

In almost any survival situation your odds increase exponentially if you have two. The psychology of not being alone is enough by it’s self to save your life. Very few people function without human interaction. Relationships are the fundamental that forms communities. Every animal on the planet develops relationships. People however develop intricate relationships of codependency.  It all begins somewhere.

It all starts with a simple word, every relationship human endear start with one simple word “hello”! This is a basis for building and developing a intricate system of emotional attachments and dependency which exist in every level of relationship. This is block One for building, the base of all things to come.

The question we all ask our self is what is life’s objective? It has been argued that the objective of each of us is always going to be different but I offer an alternate solution and say that the objective of us all is the same. Here is where a simple statement makes so much sense. Life’s objective for all living things is to Live. Now with animals more then people this is a very basic pursuit, however humans objective for life is a little more complex. We need to Truly Live. Now there’s a concept. what is truly live? To embrace and enjoy our existence, to experience wonderful and happy memories. This happens more commonly when experiences are shared. Relationships built on a fundamental base help people truly live. We wild the word hello everyday and we do not truly understand the power that this word has on our existence. In some way this word is the beginning of every single relationship we have. I know what your thinking, what about a child born to a mother, a relationship not founded on a casual meeting. But how did the child come into being? The fundamental meeting of a man and a woman. This is still the product is a built relationship. The word hello is a dynamic word that engulfs our future and shapes our being. What a powerful word. The kicker is the answer was always there and we somehow missed it. This is what the word hello means in a nut shell.

• H-help
• E-everyone
• L-learn
• L-life’s
• O- objective

By meeting and using this little word we are helping everyone achieve the true objective of life. To truly live with shared memories and companionship. Go wild the power now!

Return to roots

This morning the skies were overcast and the wind pushed the tree tops around outside my window. The temperature was a cozy 75 degrees and the gloom of the impending rain forced the children to remain inside. The television seemed a viable option even though we don’t tend to make that a habit for them. Amazingly enough we were able to find some good wholesome cartoons from my youth that are still being aired. I thought this would be the perfect time to take the kids back to a time that I grew up in. But how could I get that feeling of childhood enjoyment that I felt when I was so young? Cartoon selection was a good start. I flipped thru the hundreds of channels that grace our television the whole time recalling that only three channels existed in our community when I was there age, turning the old rotary dial televisions. Now staring at my 52 inch digital high definition television with hundreds of channels I realized how hard this may be. Scrolling thru I found old reruns of Tom and Jerry that would run for hours. That was a score even though Tom and Jerry was more of an after school thing when I was coming up, at least it was from my time. The children quickly became engrossed in the shenanigans of the Cat and Mouse games of the dynamic duo of mayhem. But there is only so much nostalgia involved in Tom and Jerry, however it would buy me some time.

I thought for a second and came up with a nice Saturday morning breakfast thought. But what would Nana have made on Saturday morning? Let’s start with eggs, being on the homestead here we have an abundant supply of eggs anyway. So I started some raw butter melting in the pan. I could still see thru the bedroom door that my wife was sleeping in this morning, what two birds with one stone? Breakfast in bed for her was a score of major brownie points and a good nostalgic farm breakfast for the kids. I whipped up a batter for muffins and dropped some fresh blueberries in it, popped it in the oven, started the eggs scrambling, carved a piece of maple cured ham off and started it in a pan on top of the stove. Started putting slice of bread into toaster two by two. I might actually be able to pull this off. I’m not accustomed to do the cooking even though I’m very well capable of making a good meal. My wife does most of the food preparation unless it involves a grill. My oldest son still at home strolled thru the kitchen on his way to plop down on the couch and enjoy the television phenomenon that was occuring in the living room. He gave a quick confused glance at me and ask ” your cooking dad”? I told him breakfast would be ready soon. Shortly after the alarm went off alerting me that the muffins had reached the eminent cooking capacity that would make them light and fluffy, I unloaded and reloaded the toaster, and flipped ham, as I was finishing the nice fluffy scrambled eggs. I quickly placed plates out and filled them with ham, egg and cheese sandwiches on toasted honey wheat bread. Blueberry muffins were placed on each plate and glasses were filled with orange juice. Looking up I could see my wife stirring a little, she had just reached for her phone to check the time when I pulled thru the door with a plate of piping hot breakfast and a tall glass of milk. She was almost surprised to the point of amazement ” what did you do” she ask. While she sat up to receive her food, I placed it in front of her fluffing up a pillow for her lap while she held the plate. As I came thru the door I watched children greedily stabbing at their plates with an eagerness I had not seen in a pretty good while, the whole time recalling how much I loved the scrambled eggs and hoecake that my own Nana use to prepare on Saturday mornings, I could still taste the syrup, as I peered thru the arch between dining room and living room,of the house I grew up in, to watch the cartoons that graced the tiny screen of our television. Now my vary own kids peered across the table at the TV to see Tom chase Jerry around, as they hungrily devoured the breakfast that had made the house smell wonderful. Had I reached success? I’m not sure, but now that we had eaten and returned to the living room I would sit in my recliner and enjoy the cartoons also. The youngest child barely 3 climbed into my lap wrapping his blanket around him to enjoy the festive cartoons. I glanced around the room and realized that everyone was happy. I had achieved a success that was satisfying me. But a premonition hit me as I smiled at the victory, I probably didn’t instill a moment of my youth in the children, they didn’t have a clue that this was a piece of my childhood, the only person that had a return to roots was me.

How to start a fire with household items!

During times of natural disasters help is not always immediately available. Mobilizing large scale disaster relief is a daunting task. You may be left to fend for your self for days, even weeks right after a hurricane, large scale fire, earthquake, flood or other natural disasters. One of the most important things when in this situation is how to deal with getting clean water, and food. Fire is an almost necessary provision in this circumstance. Matches, lighters, and other flame producing devices may not be readily available. Some ideas for starting a fire.

1. A small dry twig soaked in gasoline- soak one end of a twig in gasoline for a couple of hours and then light it with the igniter on you grill. Gasoline can be found in weed eater, lawn mowers, boat motors, tractors, vehicles. Igniters can be found on grill, gas water heaters, gas fireplaces. Also a 12 volt battery and jumper cables make a nice spark.

2. Starting a fire is easy with lint from your dryer and a sparking device. The spark needs to be more substantial then an igniter designed for grills and such. Look toward car batteries, and jumper cables, or Flint and steel. This is also great to start with matches that are designed to be weather resistent.

3. Cotton balls, petroleum jelly, and a spark. Coating a cotton ball with petroleum jelly, then fluffing it out will quickly go to flame with a light spark.

4. Steel wool and a nine volt battery- we are all familiar with how a light bulb works. Electrical current through a strand of fine wire heats up to glowing and produces light. Rubbing a 9 volt battery into the steel wool creates heat in the wool. Blowing into the heated section of wool will quickly bring flame.

 

These are some good examples of how to create flame for building a fire quickly and efficiently with some simple household items. Building fire increases your chances of survival exponentially. Purifying water and cooking food is a must in any survival situation. Please check back with me later for more clever ideas!

Understanding the Hydrological Cycle

Everyone got this lesson in school. My Third grader can teach the cycle to about anyone. Just in case you are not familiar this is the cycle of water. There are six phases to this cycle.

Precipitation, evaporation, condensation, transpiration, runoff

Now I know your dying to ask me why is a third grade science lesson our topic today? Well simply put using this concept can save your life when clean water is not readily available. Let’s talk for a few minutes about filtration. The earth naturally filters water in a couple of ways.

1. By using the ground- as water filters thru layers of soil, sediment, and rock you end up with clean purified water.

2. By solar evaporation- the Ray’s of sunshine heat water to a vapor leaving behind most particulates.

How does this help you ask? Well it gives us two ways to create natural filtration in a scary situation.

1. Creating media filter- by using clean natural medium you can create a natural filter of earth to purify water. The stages should lay out from most dense to least dense. You can use sand, gravel, small rock, wood chips ( with caution some woods are toxic), and Charcoal from your fire.

2. Creating a solar still- ever seen moisture condensate on the lid of your McDonalds cup when your drink got left in the car. Ever notice it’s not like the drink itself but just clear water? This is the very concept I’m talking about, a transparent trash bag, some vegetation and a catch container. Easy to get that drink. Dig a hole in the dirt, place your container in the center of the hole, pack green vegetation on the outside of the container but still inside your hole and cover with clear plastic. The sun does the work and you rehydrate.

Nothing like a clean glass of water please look out for my next blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

Alpha Wolf Survival

Welcome to my blog. Today is day 1 and it’s exciting to share with you.

The first step should always be introductions.

I’ll start this introduction with some information about myself. I currently operate a 35 acre homestead in North West Florida about 45 miles north east of Panama City. The geographical location is important to understand what we produce on our homestead. I am a combat veteran of OIF having formerly served in the United States Army. I’ll break down my experience a little later on. I grew up in the Panama City Area and spent a lot of my time hunting, fishing, and camping. The homestead I live on has been in my family for better than 80 years. My great grandfather homesteaded this land as a way of life. We still have his traditions on the farm and everyday life is nothing compared to what he did.

My experience comes from combination of training, military service, and education. Let’s look at that

Military Service- I spent 17 years in the Army serving a tour in Iraq. My occupation changed a couple of times while I was there but I started my career in the Infantry serving as a rifleman in a regular line unit. I became an NCO while serving in the Infantry, and I’m proud of the honor and prestige of the Infantry corps. I retrained into the ordnance corps training in munitions and explosives, this training offers real world understanding of traditional munitions and safe handling and employment of explosive devises. I was not finished with learning I later retrained again into the quartermaster corps where I specialized in water purification, understanding proper water filtration and the effects of contaminated water is important in survival scenarios.

Education- I graduated from Gulf Coast State College with a degree in Accounting. While attending I served as president of one of the honor societies. I served in Student Government and learned a lot about parlimentary procedures.

Training- growing up I was taught about fishing, hunting, and outdoor recreation I spent a lot of time in the swamps around Dead Lakes, and around the Appalachicola River. I fished the Gulf of Mexico and hunted the river swamps.

I’m glad we got to share today I’m looking forward to many days of exciting blogging ahead and look forward to sharing what I have learned with you.

Thanks for Stopping By!

 

 

 

First blog post

 

Thanks for checking out my blog! I’ll have content soon!