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How to Build an Emergency Shelter in The Woods

How to Build an Emergency Shelter in The Woodsby Alex P 

Veteran survivalists innately understand the Rule of Threes. The Rule of Threes is as follows: humans will die after 3 minutes with no air, 3 days without water, or 3 weeks of going without food. At least, those are the most commonly known rules. One that is equally essential and that gets glossed over is the fact that people can die in three hours without shelter that thoroughly protects them of fatalities in harsh conditions.

You may not think the weather in your area is harsh enough to kill you but you might be surprised. During a 1964 race in England, three competitors were cut down by the cold even though it never dropped to freezing temperatures.

Even without the threat of imminent death, you can still face abundant health risks if you spend an extended period of time exposed to the elements. You name it, Heat, UV rays, cold, rain, snow, all these and more can quickly shorten your lifespan if you are continually exposed to them without a proper shelter to safeguard yourself.

In this world full of uncertainty, there’s always value in being prepared. Knowing what to do in a survival situation could literally determine life or death. If you know how to create survival shelters in the wild you could survive a situation you would have died in otherwise. That’s why we are sharing our top 6 ideas for creating survival shelters in the wild.

Build a Lean-To

Lean-to is probably the most well-known option for creating a survival shelter. You need to find two trees that are close together and a thick stick that can be wedged between the trees. If you can’t find trees and sticks of the right size, you can hammer two sticks into the ground and secure a third between them.

If possible you should then tie the main pole to the supports to prevent a collapse. From there you simply lean a large number of sticks against the pole to create something that looks like half of a roof. Sticks are essential but they aren’t enough, you’ll need to fill in the open spaces between the sticks with moss, leaves, twigs, and other flora to act as a sort of insulation.

Overall, since the lean-to is open on one side the heat that can be kept in is minimal, the lean-to is mainly for achieving a basic level of protection.

Quinzhee 

Getting trapped on a mountain with nothing but snow in sight is in many ways a worst-case scenario, but that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. Survival structures can be constructed using snow. You’ve probably heard of igloos, and the idea here is similar. It’s just that in our idea you don’t need to have the expertise used by Northern natives to create homes from packed snow. You can create what is known as a Quinzhee must faster.

You begin by piling up your supplies over an area that is larger than your body. You then pile snow up around your supplies and pack it down until it’s about 30 inches thick all the way around. Try to keep the snow-packed smoothly and evenly to prevent collapse.

You then dig your way through the side and to your supplies, remove said supplies carefully, and take shelter in the cave you’ve created. Just make sure to poke a small hole in the top for air to come in or else you might be trading exposure for suffocation.

Basic Teepee

For this famous shelter, you need to start by either finding a thin but sturdy tree or a long pole that you can secure down in the ground. From there you will want to find as many long, straight branches as you can and circle the pole with them, leaning them up against it until you have a completely closed cone of empty space in the middle.

You should then somehow secure the pieces of wood together, tying them at the top with rope or fashioning a sort of cord from materials you find in the woods. Finally, you need to add the insulation, packing on anything you can to contain the heat without leading a collapse.

Debris Hut

The debris hut requires two sticks that stretch a bit beyond the length of your shoulders and one long stick that is larger than your height. You begin by sticking the two short sticks into the ground and leaning against each other so that they form a triangle. You then place one end of the long stick on top of the triangle sticks and the other on the ground around 6 feet away.

You then find as many sticks as you can and lean them up against the one long stick to form a sort of wooden pyramid that leaves just enough room for your body in the space left open. Small debris huts may feel claustrophobic, but that can actually be a good thing.

A small shelter may feel cramped at first but it actually seals in your body heat more effectively. And on the topic of body heat, don’t forget to insulate it, the debris in debris hut refers to the sticks used for the skeleton of the structure and the leaves and grass used for insulation.

Tarp Tent

One of the most helpful things you can have in a survival situation is a tarp. It makes shelter construction so much more simple, all you need to do is find a way to prop it over yourself and secure it down so that it will cover you safely through the night.

The second most helpful thing to carry is probably some sort of rope. If you can tie a rope between two trees and toss your tarp over the rope, you’ll have a tent ready. If you don’t have a rope, then you can wedge a sturdy stick between two trees to create the necessary support.

You can actually make just about any of the structures we’ve listed using a tarp, you simply have to put the tarp on top of the basic support instead of leaves, grass, and other natural types of insulation. Just make sure to secure the tarp with heavy rocks or logs to keep it from being blown away by winds.

Find Natural Shelter 

The final of our top 6 ideas to creating bug out survival shelters in the wild offers something to think about in all the previous five scenarios. When creating survival shelters you don’t have to do everything yourself, and in most cases the less you can get away with doing the better off you will be.

Time and energy are everything when it comes to survival, you don’t want to waste time getting fancy with your construction ideas in a survival situation. That’s why it helps to start out with an existing foundation you can build on. If you can find a cave, cliff wall, large leaning tree, or some other sort of natural wall or enclosure then half of the job will be done for you.

The average entirely self-built structure might last a night but if you could be stranded for a longer period of time then finding something solid and natural to build around will save you time and effort in the long run.

Though at that point, you also need to consider things like access to fresh water and sources of nutrition when choosing where to set up your survival base camp. For your convenience, we put together a List of Emergency Essentials for you to check off. Survival is about planning ahead so life doesn’t catch you off guard

What Did You Do To Prep This Week? [July, 12, 2019]

squash

Well, folks, it’s that time again! Last weeks segment did well with over 150 comments posted. Let’s see if we can pass 200 comments this week.

But before we get started, let’s talk about the changes here, what you can expect and why. I think you’ll love the change and get more out of it.

Five days a week (Monday through Friday) I will get up at 6:00 o’clock, drink a cup of coffee, eat breakfast, pour another cup of coffee and then head to my home office where I will scour the internet for the most 10 recent and vital news and happening from around the world and post those in a ten-point list with my thoughts and options.

This will be a HUGE time-saver for you because I’ll be the one spending several hours each morning putting this all together for you in a form that is easily skimmed over and digestible in the short amount of time.

You will be educated and entertain – I will cut through the clutter and noise of the internet and deliver to you what you need to know each day, including links to the original stories where you can go to read more if you’re interested in doing so.

No bots. No computer algorithms. Just me, each day’s import news, and you. You will be informed, you will be entertained, you will laugh, you might cry, or you might get pissed off by what you learn, but one thing is sure – you won’t want to miss it!

And in this same column (Monday through Friday) I will be posting a daily photo, this will not be a stock image but a photo that I’ve taken for you and publish for your entertainment and enjoyment. 

And that’s not all! Nope, I’m not done yet, there will also be a scripture of the day and maybe even a quote of the day…  

And every Saturday (yes, I’m posting early this week) there will be a new segment of “What Did You Do to Prep This Week”… This is all going to be a great change for the better.

Thank You!

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, I’d like to thank you and give a huge shoutout to Susan H and Barbara H for their generous contributions this week. It’s good folks like you that keep this site going! Thank you! 

If YOU would like to send a monetary contribution then you can easily do that by clicking on this link – this one right here – click it.  Be sure to leave a note in the PayPal form to let me know if you want me to include a shoutout to you here in next weeks segment. 

Click Here to Send a Donation

Okay, let’s get on with this weeks “what did you do to prep this week” after all this is why you’re here reading this right…

First of all, the property that I told you all about last week that I had thought about trying to buy didn’t work out so as of right now I will be staying where I am. Where I am now is a great place; however, I wanted more land to homestead. And I’ll probably move to a larger parcel in the future, but not right now. Maybe next spring. 

When I put my current place up for sale, I will post it here like I did with my other p, and then you all can come look at it if you’re interested in moving to Tennessee. 

As for preps this week – I read “The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History” it’s great. If you are interested in real history and not the crap that you were taught in school, then you need to read this book!

American historyClick Here To Read The Reviews at Amazon.com

I’ve been a fan of the show “The Dukes of Hazard” since I was a teenager and I always loved and wanted one of the Buck Knives like the ones that Bo and Luke Duke carried on the show.

So I bought the one below at a local fleamarket… what do you think?

Buck KnifeClick Here to Check Price and Availability at Amazon.com

Harvested a five-gallon bucket full of squash. And as you can see, more are growing rather quickly.

squash

I also bought a few boxes (5 to be exact) of .22 CCI ammo and ordered “One Month Basic Food Kit” from Valley Food Storage, but I’ve not received it yet.  I’ve never ordered from them before – if you have then, please post a comment below about your experience. Thanks.

Click This Button to Checkout Valley Food Storage

Well, folks, that’s it for me this week. What about you? What did you do to prep this week?

Raising Pigeons for Meat [What you need to know]

Raising Pigeons for Meat

by Lorenzo

Pigeons are a cheap source of good meat. Pigeons also produce fresh meat during the winter months. The frequency of breeding is dictated by the abundance of food available to the parents. The eggs take 18 or 19 days to hatch with both parents incubating the eggs.

I would like to make the case for raising pigeons for food as an urban livestock. Pigeons have lived alongside man for thousands of years with the first images of pigeons being found by archaeologists in Mesopotamia dating back to 3000 BC.

Throughout human history, the pigeon has adopted many roles ranging from symbols of gods and goddesses to sacrificial victims, messengers, pets, food and even war heroes. A pigeon is about 13 inches in length from bill to tail and weighs a little less than a pound. Males are slightly bigger than females.

The feral pigeon that we see in our towns and cities today is descended from the Rock Dove (Columba livia), a cliff dwelling bird historically found in coastal regions. The word ‘pigeon’ is actually derived from the Latin word ‘pipio’ which meant ‘young bird’.

The word then passed into Old French as ‘pijon’ and from that, the English name ‘pigeon’ was derived and is now used the world over as a common name for the Rock Dove. Other common names include ‘domestic pigeon’ and the ‘feral pigeon’. In 2004 British and American Ornithologists officially re-named the bird the Rock Pigeon.

Since their initial domestication pigeons have been seen as a cheap source of good meat. The Romans kept pigeons for food as evidenced by the fact that they were familiar with the practice of force-feeding squabs in order to fatten the young pigeons faster.

Pigeons were especially prized because they would produce fresh meat during the winter months when larger animals were unavailable as a food source.

The feral pigeon mates for life, (but if one is killed the other will seek another mate) and can breed up to 8 times a year in optimum conditions and will set on two eggs each time. Often older pigeons will lay more than two eggs in a nest. When this occurs the extra eggs should be discarded as two young is all the parents will be able to feed.

The frequency of breeding is dictated by the abundance of food available to the parents. The eggs take 18 or 19 days to hatch with both parents incubating the eggs. Young dependant pigeons are commonly known as ‘squabs’.

A squab is a young pigeon from 1–30 days old. Both parents feed the young with a special ‘pigeon milk’ that is regurgitated and fed to the squabs. Each squab can double its birth weight in one day but it takes 4 days for the eyes to open. At approximately 2 months of age, the young are ready to fledge and leave the nest.

This much longer than average time spent in the nest ensures that life expectancy of a juvenile pigeon is far greater than that of other fledglings. When ready to leave its nest, a squab can sometimes weigh more than its parents.

Ten pairs of pigeons can produce eight squabs each month without being fed by the pigeon keepers. For a greater yield, commercially raised squab may be produced in a two-nest system, where the mother lays two new eggs in a second nest while the squabs are still growing in the first nest fed by their father.

Establishing two breeding lines has also been suggested as a strategy, where one breeding line is selected for prolificacy and the other is selected for “parental performance”. Pigeons are also quite territorial about their nesting area.

Pigeons co-exist much more harmoniously when each mated pair has two nest boxes of its own. Because pigeons are also territorial about their perch, it is best to ensure that every pigeon in the loft has lots of places to perch.

Establishing more than one pen is a strong strategy for raising pigeons. Extra pens allow for the keeping of spare, unmated females and males which can be used to replace mated pigeons which might perish from disease or predation. Because it is sometimes difficult to determine the sex of a young pigeon, it is also handy to have another pen for pigeons that have been weaned but which have not yet given external indications of their sex. Unmated birds, however, should not be released to feed as they may mate with someone else’s pigeon and take up residence at their cote.

A pigeonnaire (dovecote) can be constructed on the urban compound in an area easily accessible to the garden for the use of the manure if care is taken during planting time as pigeons will feed on your freshly planted seeds. Plans for your pigeonnaire can be found at several online sites and in “The Have More” book.

The major points being that it should have an entrance way that can be converted to one way entry only, room to exercise, usually 8×10 with 8 feet of headroom, enclosed with wire mesh or hardware cloth that would prevent snakes from entering, and a small fountain for the pigeons to wash in.

This basin would need to be either removable or coverable to limit use to specific times of the day to keep the pigeons from soiling the fountain…

Pigeons also have an advantage in that most urban dwellers ignore them/fail to see them as a food source. With the properly constructed loft pigeons can be released to forage during the day and they will return to roost and care for their young in the evenings.

Although pigeon poo is seen as a major problem for property owners in the 21st Century, it was considered to be a valuable resource in the 16th, 17th and 18th century in Europe. Pigeon poo was a highly prized fertilizer and considered to be more potent than farmyard manure. It was so prized that armed guards were stationed at the entrances to dovecotes (pigeon houses) to keep thieves from stealing it!

In England in the 16th-century pigeon poo was the only known source of saltpeter, an ingredient of gunpowder and was considered a highly valued commodity as a result. I

n Iran, where eating pigeon was forbidden, dovecotes were set up and used simply as a source of fertilizer for melon crops and in France and Italy, it was used to fertilize vineyards and hemp crops. It can also be used as a tanning agent for certain leathers.

So, self-feeding, easy to raise, with large amounts of fertilizer. Win, win, win!

Scientists attempting to open portal to a parallel universe

‘Could 2019 be the year humans open the first portal to a shadowy dimension which mirrors our own world? 

Scientists in Oak Ridge National Laboratory in eastern Tennessee hope so, and have completed building equipment they are to test this summer which may allow us the first glimpse of a parallel universe which could be identical in many ways to our own, with mirror particles, mirror planets and possibly even mirror life. 

That is according to Leah Broussard, the physicist behind the project, who described the attempt to reveal a hidden shadow world as “pretty wacky” in an interview with NBC last week. 

The discovery of a concealed mirror world may sound like science fiction from the Stranger Things series, but it has been repeatedly suggested by physicists as a tempting means of explaining anomalous results. However, as yet, hard evidence such a realm exists has refused to manifest itself. 

 

One set of anomalous results, and the ones which inspired the research, date back to the 1990s, when particle physicists were measuring the time it took for neutron particles to break down into protons once they were removed from an atom’s nucleus. 

Two separate experiments saw the neutrons broke down at differing rates, instead of decaying and becoming protons at exactly the same rate, as was expected. 

In one, the free neutrons were captured by magnetic fields and herded into laboratory bottle traps, and in the other they were detected by the subsequent appearance of proton particles from a nuclear reactor stream. 

Those particles fired out in the stream from the nuclear reactor lived on average for 14 minutes and 48 seconds – nine seconds longer than those from the bottle traps. 

It may sound like a small difference, but it has troubled scientists. 

But the existence of a mirror world offers a credible explanation: That there are two separate neutron lifetimes, and it could be that around 1 percent of neutrons could be crossing the divide between our reality and the mirror world before crossing back and then emitting a detectable proton. 

The new experiment will fire a beam of neutrons at an impenetrable wall. On the other side of the wall, a neutron detector will be set up, which normally would expect to detect nothing.’ 

Read more: Scientists attempting to open a portal to a parallel universe 

U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin Officially Introduce Directed Energy Weapons Into Warfare

‘Nearly 4 years ago, I wrote an article entitled, “Lasers and Electronic Warfare To Be Used in New World of Drones and Anti-Drones,” wherein I detailed the trend toward using directed energy weapons in warfare. Unfortunately, it appears that much of the speculation at that time about whether or not this was merely the military-industrial complex looking to fund more boondoggle projects that would never see the light of day actually has become reality. 

Fox News reports: 

If swarms of enemy small attack boats armed with guns and explosives approached a Navy ship, alongside missile-armed drones and helicopters closing into strike range, ship commanders would instantly begin weighing defensive options – to include interceptor missiles, electronic warfare, deck-mounted guns or area weapons such as Close-in-Weapons System. 

Now, attacks such as these will also be countered with laser weapons being added to the equation, bringing new dimensions to maritime warfare on the open sea. 

By 2021, U.S. Navy destroyers will be armed with new ship-fired lasers able to sense and incinerate enemy drones, low-flying aircraft and small boat attacks — all while firing at the speed of light.

The system is called HELIOS (High-Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-Dazzler with Surveillance,) which appears to be a similar system to that of another one that I covered in that previous article from German company, Rheinmetall Defense Electronics, simply called HEL (High-Energy Laser), which they referred to as “HEL on wheels.”

As nation after nation becomes wired for war and neutralizes then surpasses each other, new methods must be developed to maintain military supremacy. This is the nature of military conflict and one of the prime reasons why the world seems to have new security threats each and every day. It becomes one endless problem-reaction-solution loop that only serves to benefit those who are invested in each of the three components. 

Now that lasers are being applied to ships, we should be seeing further rollout across the military. Here is a video from all the way back in 2012 which showed where we are probably heading. If this is what is being shown to the public, one can only imagine what is really being planned for the future of warfare.’ 


Read more: U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin Officially Introduce Directed Energy Weapons Into Warfare 

What Did You Do To Prep This Week?

Good morning everyone… I hope everyone had a great fourth of July Independence Day and didn’t over do it with the hotdogs, burgers, and fireworks. 

Sadly, the main threat to what resemblance to freedom that we have left isn’t from a foreign power but our own government. We live in a country where we have to get a permit or a license for just about everything we do, and or follow a law or ordinance or be fined and or jailed and since 9-11 we have been on a fast downhill slide as far as individual freedom and constitutional rights are concerned. 

Granted we are better off than North Korea for example, however, “our” own government and the powers that be continuously chip away at the freedoms that we still have and will continue to do so no matter who is in Congress, The Senate, and the Whitehouse. 

That’s what governments do… they chip away at freedom while dipping more and deeper into our wallets via taxation and then when the people push back they might back off a little, you know take three steps forward and one step back, and then start again.

It’s never-ending and we have to always be on the lookout for the never-ending encroachments. Sometimes the powers that be will even allow a new president to be elected to calm one political side down for a while so that they think that they have a choice and a say in how things are going while in reality they continue on with their agenda.

It’s like professional wrestling… it’s all a show to keep everyone entertained and pacified while “Rome” burns…   

Okay, now on to the next topic… I still get an email or so each month asking why I stopped posting the original “what did you do to prep this week” segment… so I’m going to answer that for everyone here today all at the same time.

I stopped posting it because it turned into a circus of whining, complaining, and ridiculousness. Every day I’d get emails from the main commenters (probably 70% of the comments were from the same five people), complaining about someone else comment that didn’t agree with them. Ban them or I’m leaving was the general and common thread of the emails.

Oh me oh my, if for some reason the system held their comment for moderation – here came the emails accusing me of “censorship” because their comment wasn’t approved instantly. If you’re going to turn into a dictator and censor comments I’m leaving the site.

And this from people who are supposedly preparing to survive TEOTWAWKI – newsflash, if you can’t deal with a comment in a blog comments sections without falling all apart then you’re probably not going to survive TEOTWAWKI. 

An then there was this one guy who thought that it was his personal mission to reply to EVERYONE else’s comments with his opinion. And even when asked by other comment posters to stop replying to their comments he still would not stop.

This is also, the same guy who publicly stated in the comments that he purposely avoided clicking on my affiliate links to Amazon.com because he didn’t want me to earn anything for my work here on the blog, even though, clicking an Amazon affiliate link costs the reader NOTHING extra when they order. 

And there were the ones who are horrified at the thoughts of me actually making a couple of dollars from my efforts here. I remember back when I first bought my solar panels and posted a photo of those on the site, several left nasty comments saying I should be ashamed, that I was getting “rich” off them somehow. 

And then there were the ones who when a few loyal readers would send a small donation to help support the site and I’d then thank them publicly for their support in the “what did you do to prep this week” segment, the jackasses would respond with the “here MD goes begging for money again” or the “looks like a scam to me” or other stupid crap.

To be honest I just got sick of all of the bullshit and the whining people that came with the segment so I closed it down. And then when I did they really showed their true colors yet again by going to another site and talking about me like a dog in the comments section there.

Some even came back here using different names and posting comments asking others to stop reading this site and to come to the other site… this went on for a couple of months before they “the wolf pack” got tired of trying to destroy me simply because I had decided to shut down their gossip column. 

Anyways, as you can see I decided to post it again today to see how it goes… so feel free to comment below if you have anything to say that you want to share.

As for my preps this week I ordered this, this, and this from Amazon.com – not really prep items but that’s what I’ve ordered.

I’ve also been working in my garden with my three sisters experiment and it’s coming along nicely, however, the weeds are trying to take over, I had hoped that the squash would shade out the weed growth but that’s not been the case. So I’m going to go pull some weeds after I get done writing and posting this.

Also, I’ve been thinking about selling my homestead and moving to another location with more land. While you can do a lot on three acres I could do a lot more on 13 and a half which is what I’ve been looking at buying. 

Oh yeah, for those who think that I’m getting rich running a prepper/homesteading blog I’ll post a couple of screenshots of my recent earnings below…

What did you do to prep this week?