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Rough Camping & Survival Tips
I haven't been in a life or death survival situation. There was a recent comment elsewhere by somebody who has the training and the skills - and ended up in a situation. However, he thought that the ONE thing that SAVED him was managing not to panic. He said it was hard.
The first things that he actually did was make some sort of a shelter and a little fire. That may have protected him from the elements but, perhaps even more importantly, it also helped him to calm down and assess his situation - instead of running blindly into the wilderness and getting hurt, exhausted, and even more lost.
The first things that he actually did was make some sort of a shelter and a little fire. That may have protected him from the elements but, perhaps even more importantly, it also helped him to calm down and assess his situation - instead of running blindly into the wilderness and getting hurt, exhausted, and even more lost.
Pheroze
AH ambassador
This ignores bioavailability of the protein and iron. Animal and dairy protein and iron is readily available to the body, while other source foods just aren't. No amount of lobbying will change that.
SEKEL BOS
Plant a Sickle Bush (Dichrostachys cinerea) in the corners of your garden, you’ll thank yourself later. Better yet, plant a hedge of it against your back wall. This “weed” (as they’re known on nature reserves and farms) is 100% local and is an incredibly important part of any ecosystem throughout Africa.
Sickle bushes are aggressive pioneer plants, and are amongst the first woody plants to re-colonize an area after a fire or overgrazing has knocked out the grasses.
They grow fast, blanket whole areas, and spread like wildfire in disturbed soils, and are covered in vicious thorns that making clearing them a nightmare to clear. All this makes them one of the worst invasive in the world (in areas that they are not native to, mostly the Americas).
This is a GOOD thing if you are a South African gardener who lives anywhere near open plots of land (which are likely smothered in aggressive alien plants)
Sickle Bush is one of the few local plants that can outcompete alien species that are destroying our South African ecosystems. They are also members of the pea family, making them nitrogen fixers, and thus improving soil quality in the areas they occupy. Pea family members have bacterial galls all along their root structures, housing cyan bacteria that convert ammonia (commonly found in plant-killing dog pee) into nitrates and nitrites, which are highly beneficial to plant growth, unlike said dog pee.
Sickle Bush is also 100% non-toxic, with the seed pods, flowers, and leaves being a HIGHLY important food source to monkeys, birds, and other critters. Next time you complain that the monkeys are stealing your food, remember that we cut down all their edible trees and flooded our suburbs with “pretty” toxic trees from Asia and the Americas.
Birds and monkeys will also help spread these seeds to outlying areas, passively helping sickle bush compete with alien vegetation. The Bark also is good for people, making a great tea for curing stomach complaints.
Sickle Bush is also an incredibly important habitat plant for prinias, larks, cisticolas, and various other little passerines, which are very territorial and will take control of one of these bushes for their little empires. Shrikes also thrive on sickle bush for them to mark their territories with dead insects, as they are incredibly thorny.
These thorns are of particular benefit to SA gardens, as the thick wall of thorns provides much needed security to out garden, without the ugly overhang of rusty razor wire.
Sickle Bush is also, quite simply, extremely pretty. The fine leaves and lovely, bicoloured flowered will remind many of a touch-me-not. The pods, besides feeding our local animals, also have their own charm. Just be ready to weed out any new seedlings that pop up in your garden. Better yet, put the seedlings in bags, and give them to people who want them. The old branches make GREAT firewood, as they’re slow burning and completely safe to cook on.
Do yourself a favour and plant a sickle bush in your garden...
Plant a Sickle Bush (Dichrostachys cinerea) in the corners of your garden, you’ll thank yourself later. Better yet, plant a hedge of it against your back wall. This “weed” (as they’re known on nature reserves and farms) is 100% local and is an incredibly important part of any ecosystem throughout Africa.
Sickle bushes are aggressive pioneer plants, and are amongst the first woody plants to re-colonize an area after a fire or overgrazing has knocked out the grasses.
They grow fast, blanket whole areas, and spread like wildfire in disturbed soils, and are covered in vicious thorns that making clearing them a nightmare to clear. All this makes them one of the worst invasive in the world (in areas that they are not native to, mostly the Americas).
This is a GOOD thing if you are a South African gardener who lives anywhere near open plots of land (which are likely smothered in aggressive alien plants)
Sickle Bush is one of the few local plants that can outcompete alien species that are destroying our South African ecosystems. They are also members of the pea family, making them nitrogen fixers, and thus improving soil quality in the areas they occupy. Pea family members have bacterial galls all along their root structures, housing cyan bacteria that convert ammonia (commonly found in plant-killing dog pee) into nitrates and nitrites, which are highly beneficial to plant growth, unlike said dog pee.
Sickle Bush is also 100% non-toxic, with the seed pods, flowers, and leaves being a HIGHLY important food source to monkeys, birds, and other critters. Next time you complain that the monkeys are stealing your food, remember that we cut down all their edible trees and flooded our suburbs with “pretty” toxic trees from Asia and the Americas.
Birds and monkeys will also help spread these seeds to outlying areas, passively helping sickle bush compete with alien vegetation. The Bark also is good for people, making a great tea for curing stomach complaints.
Sickle Bush is also an incredibly important habitat plant for prinias, larks, cisticolas, and various other little passerines, which are very territorial and will take control of one of these bushes for their little empires. Shrikes also thrive on sickle bush for them to mark their territories with dead insects, as they are incredibly thorny.
These thorns are of particular benefit to SA gardens, as the thick wall of thorns provides much needed security to out garden, without the ugly overhang of rusty razor wire.
Sickle Bush is also, quite simply, extremely pretty. The fine leaves and lovely, bicoloured flowered will remind many of a touch-me-not. The pods, besides feeding our local animals, also have their own charm. Just be ready to weed out any new seedlings that pop up in your garden. Better yet, put the seedlings in bags, and give them to people who want them. The old branches make GREAT firewood, as they’re slow burning and completely safe to cook on.
Do yourself a favour and plant a sickle bush in your garden...
A sharp knife and biltong....
Make sure you cook your critters to well done!
....double plated 'survival' stove.....
Good article...
There’s a fantasy feeling out there that living off the land is as easy as walking in the woods with a good knife. While a trained survival expert with years of experience could make it through many situations with just a knife or at least minimum gear, your average person doesn’t stand a chance.
Thanks to survival tv shows featuring people or whole families who seem a little off their rockers bumbling through the woods yet always coming out just fine in the end everyone assumes it mustn’t be too hard to survive in the woods.
Production companies love to edit things so the people look dumber and the situations more serious than they really are too.
“If the Alaskan Bush People can walk into the woods and live in a tree through the winter, then I’ll be fine!”
“If Bear Grills jumps off a waterfall, I can too!”
“If Grady can find berries and trap game on the side of a snow glacier, then my power bar is all I need!”
I’m not picking on these people by any means, but many of these situations are typically set up for the cameras or outright fabricated in the editing room.
Some made-for-tv survival experts sleep in hotels and eat pizza when the cameras go off. They all have a team of safety experts at arms reach, or in the case of realistic shows where the participants actually DO survive like Survivor-Man and Alone a team of experts is still just a button press away in case anything goes wrong.
Many tv “experts” are within 500 ft of busy roads (and rescue) the whole time, and many of the jumps they risk are really much smaller thanks to camera angles and clever editing.
In reality, surviving in the wild is hard, very hard. Physically, mentally, and emotionally it will be about the hardest thing you EVER have to go through. It’s not an extended camping trip.
Don’t take it for granted. Learn the basics of survival now before you need it, prepare well, and always try to maintain a way to contact the outside world in case things go bad.
There’s a fantasy feeling out there that living off the land is as easy as walking in the woods with a good knife. While a trained survival expert with years of experience could make it through many situations with just a knife or at least minimum gear, your average person doesn’t stand a chance.
Thanks to survival tv shows featuring people or whole families who seem a little off their rockers bumbling through the woods yet always coming out just fine in the end everyone assumes it mustn’t be too hard to survive in the woods.
Production companies love to edit things so the people look dumber and the situations more serious than they really are too.
“If the Alaskan Bush People can walk into the woods and live in a tree through the winter, then I’ll be fine!”
“If Bear Grills jumps off a waterfall, I can too!”
“If Grady can find berries and trap game on the side of a snow glacier, then my power bar is all I need!”
I’m not picking on these people by any means, but many of these situations are typically set up for the cameras or outright fabricated in the editing room.
Some made-for-tv survival experts sleep in hotels and eat pizza when the cameras go off. They all have a team of safety experts at arms reach, or in the case of realistic shows where the participants actually DO survive like Survivor-Man and Alone a team of experts is still just a button press away in case anything goes wrong.
Many tv “experts” are within 500 ft of busy roads (and rescue) the whole time, and many of the jumps they risk are really much smaller thanks to camera angles and clever editing.
In reality, surviving in the wild is hard, very hard. Physically, mentally, and emotionally it will be about the hardest thing you EVER have to go through. It’s not an extended camping trip.
Don’t take it for granted. Learn the basics of survival now before you need it, prepare well, and always try to maintain a way to contact the outside world in case things go bad.
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Everyone always thinks about the worst thing that can happen, maybe ask yourself what's the best outcome that could happen?
