WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2010
Are you making a living, or making a "dying"?
You woke up this morning to the sound of your screaming electric alarm clock, or phone alarm and you dragged your rat-race-ravaged body to the bathroom, flipped on the light, stared in the mirror at yourself for a second, and wondered…..how much longer do I have to do this? …..as you made your way through your morning routine and commuted yourself to the job you’ve hated for years, after stopping, of course, to get your $4.00 coffee, which will probably be the only breakfast for which you have time. 8, 10, 12 or 16 hours later you commute yourself home and collapse in your favorite chair. You have survived another day.
Or did you?
Did you make a living? Or did you make a “dying”? Did you live this day to its fullest potential, as though it was the last one you had? Or was it simply a means to transport you one day closer to your death date? Those are tough questions we all face and answer quietly to ourselves.
What if society as we know it today, suddenly was disrupted and ceased to function?….by economic collapse, war, natural disaster or other catastrophic events…..and your daily routine; you know that one you’ve done so long, you can’t remember when you didn’t do it, was ended ?
Now, my friend, you will truly begin “making a living”. How you have trained yourself with survival skills…or not…..may be the difference between the ability to sustain life for you and your family, or it may be your undoing. Do you possess even the simplest of survival skills? Sort of like, “so easy a caveman can do it?” Do you have the skills that even the most primitive humans on the planet possess?
Do you have the skills to provide water for you and your family?
Can you start a fire with no special equipment?
Can you find, kill and prepare food?
We have all, at one time, or another watched the news and seen disaster struck areas. We see people who are struggling for survival who are waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to assist them. Why? They don’t possess the skills to help themselves. Every time I see scenarios like that on the television, I deepen my commitment to myself and my family that I will NEVER be one of the people waiting for help. Never.
Come along with me over the next few weeks and discover your inner caveman or cave woman. I have faith in you, that those primal, survival instincts we all have, are not lost to you; they are merely sleeping and need to be reawakened. Be the one in the disaster situation who IS the help, not the one waiting for help. Lay your head on your pillow knowing every night, that if disaster strikes….you are prepared!
Got Fire?
From time to time, my husband and I watch the shows on the Animal Planet channel….One show in particular (I Shouldn’t Be Alive), we have dubbed, “I’m Too Stupid Too Be Alive”….while we joke at the title we have given this show, we can’t help but be curious as to how people get themselves into the situations that we witness them experiencing (via actor re-enactment). It is very frightening for me to think that anyone I know, love or care about would ever find themselves in some of the life-threatening circumstances portrayed on the show.
Life essentials: Air, Water, Food….in that order, by priority.
For me, there is another component essential for survival.
Fire.
I would squeeze in the “ability to start and maintain a fire” somewhere between Air and Water, in the above list, to me, it’s that important. You could be saying to yourself…..”Well, sure. Fire is nice, but is it a life essential? “
What fire can do for us in an extreme survival situation: It can…..
Make that nasty water you just found in a rotting tree trunk or mud hole, drinkable.
Cook that piece of whatever-it-is, you just found, and you’re thinking about eating, and kill entities in it, that might otherwise invade your digestive system and kill you later.
Provide protection from animals, and even human predators when used as a weapon.
Provide a ray of hope, through its light and warmth, that will sustain you through darkness and cold.
The ability to make fire, without the use of matches, flint and or magnesium fire starters is more of a challenge than one might think. Oh sure, our survival manuals all tell us to keep those items on hand at all times, and if you’re a fellow survivalist, you do have those things on hand. But what if……..
I challenge you today….yup, today…..do a bit of online research, learn what you need to do to start a fire, UNASSISTED, then get off the computer, and go outside and make fire!
The first time you do it, is a once in a lifetime feeling….
Come back and tell me how it went….pictures would be nice too J
FarmGirl
Chickens anyone?
Chickens anyone?
Possum Living
One of the greatest books I have ever read on survival, really was not intended to be a survival manual. The book is entitled, Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and with (Almost) No Money, written by, then (1978), eight-teen year old, Dolly Freed. (you can find it very inexpensively online). My copy of the book, is old, yellow, with dog-eared, high-lighted and underlined pages. Briefly, it is the true story of a young girl and her father, who literally make a living using just their basic skills and land they OWN. I won’t go into a lot of detail here, since it would ruin your reading of the book, which I would not want to do. If you’re thinking you don’t have time to sit down and read another book….let me just say…it’s a quick and easy read (I read it in 1 night) and it will make you laugh out loud and it will make you think to yourself: If they can do it, I can do it!!!.
As a matter of fact, when I read it, I was thinking that her growing up years were really not that different than mine and we would be about the same age. Like Dolly, our family raised meat rabbits. We also had what I would describe as a working farm…where everything had a purpose and everyone in the family played a key role in making it all work.
The chickens on the farm were always my favorite. (along with horses, but that’s a whole ‘nother chapter) My parents used to say I hypnotized the chickens. I can remember the summer I was eleven, my dad had hatched out a bunch of bantam hens…and to anyone else the six of them all looked the same. They were the same breed, about the same size, and to anyone not prone to studying chickens, they were identical. To everyone, but me, that is. I would sit in the barn with my favorite, “Albert” (should have been Alberta
Chickens used to be a farm staple. It was hard to find a working farm and family without at least a few chickens. Most of the time, these chickens just roamed around the barn yard and scratched and pecked for food, and would get an occasional handful of cracked corned tossed their way. They were low maintenance, always nested or roosted in the same spot each evening, laid eggs in the warmer months, and were an important contributor to meal time at the farm….you know, back when life was simple…..
If you’ve never had the opportunity to watch a mom hen with her chick as it emerges from the shell, you’ve missed one of life’s simple pleasures.
Owning and keeping chickens in this day and time, is a bit of a challenge, unless, like Dolly, or my parents, you have acreage where your flock can roam free and not be eaten by predators who have been squeezed out of their native hunting ground by the subdivision that just went in, where they used to hunt and catch their prey.
If you are thinking about raising chickens, I don’t want this to come across as discouraging. I want this to depict reality, because as we all know, this is not yester-year.
