Maybe we can get Steve P. to share some of those pics Steve.  i would love to hear about these adventures some more

I think so also Tobias, just seems it is not a knife we think of for an adventure like this but obviously Colonial has a lot of quality knives that hold up to use , even in some tough environments

I like to see those to.

I think you are right, Ken.

Water and survival go hand in hand. 

We have a water well on our property with a old fashion hand pump. There is also a small Bayou that skirts our property.

Yeah, I know it sounds a little over the edge, but I wonder if part of the future problem of water shortage, in areas normally without water supply problems currently, might be even mild earthquakes shifting the surface water.  Yellowstone's 45 mile diameter super volcano is due to erupt any day, according to vulcanologists who can probably trace their lineage to the "flat earth" scientists or Earth-is-the-center-of-the-solar-system Deans of Dogma.  Nevertheless, a quake might just shift the flow of some of the current spring water underground.  That is, if Yellowstone blows, the spring up in Coon Holler, in West By God Virginia (WBGV) might go dry.

And, the same crust shift (earthquakes) might dry up a bunch of wells by moving the ground water elsewhere or deeper.

Howard, my Grandfather's well in Southeastern Kentucky was contaminated with sulfur due to coal mining on the other side of the mountains in Virginia some 100 miles away.  They set off a charge  to loosen a new vein of coal one day and it shifted the water table.  It was just that simple.  So I would say, yes.  Even a mild earthquake could shift water tables and even surface water.   In fact, earthquakes along  Madrid Fault shifted the flow of the Mississippi River  around 1811 and actually caused the river to flow backwards! 

The Madrid Fault is named after Madrid, Missouri around where the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers meet.  In falls within the States of Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.

For water purity, I would use filters.  For moving around searching for game or food, I have a "Life Straw"  http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=lifestraw+filter&...    This straw works well.  I was developed for children in Africa to get clean water from the foulest sources.

Also, you can make your own filters from charcoal and use plastic pipe to put the charcoal into connecting funnels or hoses to the capped ends.

I also have a little hand pump water filter I carried in Kosovo and Iraq.  Do your research and get-er done.

Yep Clint, I have a Katadyn water filter with extra filter guts (charcoal & ceramic) in my ALICE pack.  Thing is, you can't filter what isn't there or is unfilterable (chemical contamination; natural or man-made).  I'm thinkin that a "100 year drought" - occurring every 100 or so years, coupled with a water table shift might be worse than a 100 year flood.

Wowzers, Steve!  Your house must be an old one, with a hand-dug well under the floorboards.  Not that I go looking for this, but I have only ever seen one local house with a hand-dug well (under the kitchen floor).  You see some yard wells, probably usually fake, but I don't think a hand-dug well under the house is very common these days.

My cousins house next door, was built in 1898 by our Great Grand Father. The house has been remodeled several times. I heard that at one time, there was a water well pump in the kitchen area. Here in south Louisiana, you don't have to drill deep to hit water for a well.  

I use one with a block of some kind of metal. You cut some chips off the block and when the sparks from the steel hit them, they burn very hot. This helps get the fire going quickly. I am not use to using the steel by itself. The name of the metal block, escapes me right now.

Magnesium bar, Robert. 

Modern firesteel is made of ferrocerium, a combination of metals designed to give off sparks when "scratched" by a piece of steel, such as the sharp edge on the spine of a knife.  I think that those sparkers for lighting acetylene cutting torches have ferrocerium in them - same as a Zippo.  The chemical compound might differ since a Zippo "flint" and the torch sparkers wear down fairly quickly while the firesteel rods seem to last a lot longer - maybe cause you ain't using it every day.

I keep a bunch around, hunting bag, field pack, truck, and test them out for spark, but haven't needed them for the campfire since matches and lighters are always available.

The idea is to get some "tinder" (dry bark that you can loosen up to make stringy, or birch bark, or thin strips of wood shavings), or you can cheat with commercial fire starting tinder or cotton balls soaked in melted paraffin or kerosene (prepared ahead of time, of course).  Scrape the sharp edge of the spine of your knife along the firesteel rod pointed in the direction of your little tinder pile.  These sparks are HOT - couple thousand degrees so your tinder will light after only a scrape or two (usually).  Maybe some brands of firesteel spark better, and I have heard that some knife steels work better than others.  And maybe those "coated" blades don't work as well as a scraper; don't know for sure.

Exactly right, Steve.  If somehow you are caught out in the open without civilization nearby, a firesteel and knife [which all here at iKC have on them or in their pockets] would be a lifesaver.  You are not likely to have all the fire "aids" with you since a survival situation means that you didn't plan it.  Some of the firesteels come with a scraper on the rod lanyard, so a knife is not essential - for starting a fire.  But, a knife is essential for other stuff like making deadfall traps or hacking bigger wood into the next stage of fire building from kindling, or spear making, etc.

If you don't have a scraper with your fire steel and don't want to use your knife. A small piece of a hack saw blade works great. Just cut off a piece 3" to 4" long and use that instead. It even has a hole in the end of it, so you can tie it to your equipment.

  Thanks Howard for the detailed info.

  Around here there is a lot of Palmettos. The dead ones make excellent fire tender. I just crush them up and make a small pile of them. My fire steel and block and I'm ready to go. I got use to the fire block because sometimes in south Louisiana, things in the swamp can be damp. The block gives you the edge.

  If you carry water proof matches and your fire steel, always use the fire steel first and the matches as a last resort.

Good point, Robert.  That magnesium bar you can shave pieces off to use with a firesteel, will give you one high intensity burn for damp conditions.

Steve,

Here is a video comparing the Doan magnesium fire starter bar with a Chinese magnesium fire starter bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frDMAOlIGaY

You'll notice the guy in the video using a blade edge on the ferrocerium (firesteel) bar, which will give you shivers.  However, it is recommended that you use a knife blade edge to shave the pieces of magnesium from the bar, which is a lot softer than the firesteel that is provided in the channel of the magnesium bar.  Use your Rough Rider pocket knife for this, hahahaha.

Yep, your knife will shave little slivers of the bar just fine and won't hurt it.

Convenience of carry will determine whether or not you do carry it

That's what I've always said, Miss Jan. If it's comfortable people will carry a knife. A high ride sheath helps keep the knife out of trouble.

Steve, neat web site.  I saved it going back to read some more.

I sure didn't.

Steve,

Meanwhile, decayed, naturally occurring, non-enriched uranium = lead (4.46 billion year decay cycle) seems to be getting harder to find.  No wonder they are using depleted uranium in projectiles.  Apparently, the half-life is lots shorter since fission (nuclear power plants) "eats up" the more radioactive 235U within 238U.

Ron,

Supposedly, the lead (Pb) we find/mine today, from which we make car batteries and jacketed bullets, started out as uranium 238, some 4 billion years ago, but decayed to non-radioactive lead in all that time.

Hahahaha. I admit it was a stretch from uranium on ebay to how hard it is/was to find lead-topped cartridges in recent years, and prices have severely increased on both ammo and bullet components - if you reload.  But Bananas?  Who knew?

8 Soda Can Survival Projects

Great video.  Thanks Jan.

Those were some good ideas and good food for thought. Thanks Jan !

Saw this on the survival blog and thought it just seems like a good idea

I never see recommendations for chainsaw spare parts. 

Recommend:
Sharpened chains
Bar and bar nuts
Air Filter
Primer bubble
diaphragms
spark plugs
Bar Oil
2 cycle engine oil
Anything you tell yourself that you can just run down to the store and get.

I dont use mine very much so when I do end up getting it out, I find the primer bubble cracked and the diaphragm in bad shape. I take the time to take it in to the local small engine repair guy, and have him fix it while I play the annoying customer that asks too many questions. Then when I get the bill for the parts, I purchase spares. I also try to keep all my 2 cycle equipment, (ie, chainsaw, weedeater, trimmer, edger, blower) all in the same family.

Hint: I keep my spare chains in a zip lock bag with extra bar oil coating the chains.

Glock-The knife, reviewed

Jan when it comes to chain saws and survival first on my list would be to get a chainsaw and then for back up another chainsaw.  As it is, I don't think it is going on my list of survival equipment.

Praying that I don't regret this decision but you can only carry/store/afford so much!

I have a backup to my chain saw, it is a bow saw.  The handle is aluminum and I could cut through a foot thick log or tree if necessary.  I can cut through a six inch limb in just a few minutes.

Chainsaw:  If you are surviving on your own, you are up against it to begin with.  I mention this because while one of the various pocket chainsaws will serve you well, it takes two to work it under some conditions.  These "handsaws" are very compact, and come in lengths up to 48" and some are lengths of motorized chainsaw chains.  I have found them to work very well unless you are cutting off an overhead limb.  As you get near the end of the cut your hands get closer together, and it is difficult to prevent the pocket chainsaw, made from chainsaw chain, from binding - unless you have a partner who can work the other end and widen the angle of attack.  You can't fell a tree with em, but otherwise you can get plenty of firewood , cut to length, fairly easily by packing one of these pocket chainsaws.

I dont think this list was meant for  something along the lines of bugging out but staying put.  Living in an area with hurricanes I see the reasoning behind this information.  But I dont know it is enough.  I think the back up info below is great but everyone should also have some sort of hand saws and either know how to sharpen them or have additional blades 

I carry this with me in the bush all the time:

Pocket Chainsaw - by Supreme Products

Shlomo, that one works pretty well.  The other kind, using chainsaw chain also works well, but as I mentioned, it tends to bind toward the end of the task.  The one you showed doesn't bind as much as you near the end of the cut, but it takes a little longer to do the work than the chainsaw chain models.

This was brought up in the chat tonight.  What do you think?

http://www.101waystosurvive.com/survail_tips/creating-a-survival-ca...

I think this is a good idea.  One should have a treasure map so if the owner is not available or passes on, the family and friend survivors can retrieve the stashed items.

Thanks, Jan.  Sounds like a reasonable idea for small things.  That suggested 3" PVC can be made to work for MREs, but you have to break em down, and that eats up a 12" length.  Also, living here in eastern PA, I am trying to figure out where to bury the cache on a bug-out route.  That is, the area is pretty built up, and open land is owned by somebody (farmers, etc.).  You have to go pretty far to find lightly traveled back roads that will give you unobserved time to bury/dig up a cache of stuff - on somebody else's property, and in my case, my bug-out destination is most quickly reached by main routes, and any bury-spot far enough away from your home area to be useful, is too far away to observe how good a spot it is.  That is, if you are bugging out, a few blocks or a few miles away, where you can scout a spot's usefulness, might be too close, and are you going to need the cache that close to home - or closer to your destination?  But the further you get away from your home, where you might need the cache, the less you can really scout a spot to bury your cache, unless you have unlimited time to camp along a lightly traveled route well before the need to get out of town.  Probably burying stuff on your own property is the most sure and secure as long as the cache is some distance from the house that may be destroyed in some scenario.  Even a 1/4 acre lot will have some room for a cache.

Possibly a better solution would be to get real friendly with someone like Steve Hanner - living on a farm along the way to your bug-out destination where you can park your 10' Wells Cargo trailer, filled with essentials, that won't be bothered by anyone and won't seem out of place on a farm.  Of course, food items would almost certainly have to be freeze dried because the inside temp of a trailer, in the summer, will degrade MREs and home-canned goods over time.

LOL, Steve.  I've spent lots of time watching archeology shows, Sci-Fi, and even some real-life (local school alumni tried finding their time capsule recently only to dig a lot of dirt on school property to find nothing).  Your grandchildren will probably forget that there is a time capsule, cause they weren't paying attention while playing Play Station, and likely will put a concrete pad over the location some time down the road.  Then there is the possibility that way, way down the road, whoever finds your time capsule might not be able to read (the way things are going), and might not be able to read English, or understand concepts we take for granted today.

Saw a quote recently on Facebook:

"Man is the most insane species.

He worships an invisible God and

destroys a visible Nature.

Unaware that the Nature he is destroying

is this God he is worshipping."

- Hubert Reeves (French-Canadian astrophysicist)

The thing is, the last time all the plants and animals were destroyed, Mother Nature herself did it, not man. (Comet or meteor strike in the Yucatan which, according to scientists, killed all the plants and dinosaurs.)  Not to say categorically that man can't destroy his environment, but Nature does what it does without regard for man - earthquakes, volcanoes, El Nino, La Nina, melt polar ice one year, freeze more polar ice the next, etc., and man can but chronicle the events, and sometimes lie about the causes, for power and control - of man, not Nature.

Still, it behooves each of us to pay attention to what is going on around us, and take precautions.

Nice quote.

The thing to keep in mind is that man is dependent on Nature, Nature is not dependent on man.

Exactly, Gary.  Despite Man's best efforts, (actually, no effort as near as I can tell, because it would be useless), Kilauea volcano continues to claim land and destroy Man's stuff.  Even though Nature continues to flood New Orleans, and other spots on the Mississippi & Missouri rivers, man continues to re-build where he shouldn't, incurring huge monetary costs which would better be utilized elsewhere, by letting Nature have her way in these usual flood areas.  Plus, the magnetosphere is fluctuating, and changing, as evidenced by the movement of magnetic North, and I haven't heard how the Greens are going to fix that.  Once the magnetosphere weakens and a solar flare hits, we is done.

Thanks, Steve.  Good to know.  Freeze-dried looks like a good alternative.  Of course, home canning is still pretty good since the cost is lots less, and it doesn't matter how much liquid there is - it's free, sorta, and you can drink the water in canned fruits. 

Say, I should take a moment to mention "Backwoods Home" magazine.  I think it is a good resource for Preppers.  www.backwoodshome.com

Thanks Howard I was looking for one to subscribe to and that looks like just the one for me

If you want to talk end of the world as we know it, my money is on the Yellowstone Caldera.  Who needs comets or man made climate change when we have a super volcano overdue for eruption!

Yes Tobias, it's a ticking time bomb.  If it erupts you can kiss the USA good bye.  It's likely that the world will experience a new ice age.