Post Apocalypse Job Search

YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary

 

Frank Lee, The stream you mentioned? Are there any paper birch trees? These are easy to recognize. Find one and peel the thin bark, it makes an excellent fire starter even when wet. You can also find dry tinder on the underside of downed logs and there are usually dead dry limbs beneath cedar trees too. Back to the birch trees for a moment, the inner bark can be cut and peeled away with your knife and boiled into an infusion that makes a really good pain medication and fever relief, sort of liquid aspirin. If there are pine trees near you, take some of the green needles and boil them into a tea. It doesn't taste like much but is very high in vitamin C and might help your cold. Also, you might find some dried pine resin; this makes a really good fire starter in wet conditions too. You might even damage a pine with your shovel at this time of year and cause a flow of resin that you can collect and dry for later uses. I am also sure there is someone here that can direct you on how to locate fat-lighter.
Because of the flammability of terpene, fatwood is prized for use as kindling in starting fires. It lights quickly even when wet, is very wind resistant, and burns hot enough to light larger pieces of wood. A small piece of fatwood can be used many times to create tinder by shaving small curls and using them to light other larger tinder. In Louisiana "fatwood" is known as "rich lighter" and cut slivers are what is referred to as "kindling" because of the abundance. The pitch-soaked wood produces an oily, sooty smoke, and it is recommended that one should not cook on a fire until all the fatwood has completely burned out. Because of this oily smoke fatwood should not be used for indoor fireplaces. A fatwood pine knot burns hot enough that even one of a smaller size can cause damage to a wood stove and even cause house fires. The smoke produced by "fatwood" is an excellent bug (especially mosquito ) repellent.

 

Finding Fat Lighter - Fatwood - Firestarter
Frank, here is a good tutorial on this site for finding fat-lighter. We have a really good library of this type information to browse through so spend some of the rainy day checking it out. Melbo did a lot of work to get Survival Monkey off the ground, so might consider becoming a site supporter and sending him a bag of that bat ****.

 

Let me add another word it is called...Lighter pine,also pine knot's

 

It hasn't been the best of days for this pioneer. Chills, fever, and a rumbling chest have drained all of my energy. It's been raining off and on all day and I've been dreaming of a warm fire but, unfortunately, the only wood I brought into the cave with me yesterday is too damp to light. I went out this morning in search of some dry tinder. I did as you suggested Mr. Cowboy and found a paper birch and gently peeled some of the bark for tinder. It was pretty damp but thin enough that it would dry before too long. With some effort, I managed to cut some of the under bark to try the tea you suggested but first I would need fire. Those plastic bags I found sure came in handy. I wasn't able to find any dry wood and I was getting pretty wet and my energy waned so I returned to the cave with what little I had accumulated on my morning foray. I was quite hungry but only had the wilted pokeweed and some watercress left, neither of which I managed to keep down.

At least I had the little raised bed of cedar boughs that Mr. Bruce had advised me on. That was a blessing today but I couldn't seem to get warm so I gathered some moss growning not to far into the cave and put that on top of the cedar boughs. It took all of my courage but I stripped naked, layed on the moss and cedar bed and made a little cocoon out of my clothing. I was thinking that if I had a fever, which I most certainly did, my body must be putting off some heat and if i could capture it inside this cocoon, I would warm up a little. It wasn't a total failure but it wasn't the Ritz either.

As I was laying there, fighting off the shakes, I was thinking about the cow poop and making the building blocks. Tomorrow I will start amassing a great pile of cow and bull excrement for future use. Then I remembered reading about using dried manure as a heat source. When the rain stops, as I pray it will soon, I will spread some out thinly on rocks to dry. I've got the birch paper as a fire layer as well as some old wasp nests that will easily catch a spark when piled together and dry manure to burn. If I'm luck enough to find some of that fat-lighter, I might just be able to have some heat and a hot meal of ????

This survival thing is really hard work but I think it will get easier as the days go by. Your advice is saving my life I believe.

 

Did nobody notice that he used "Gun Kid" as a "reference"? What does that tell you, lol!

 

It tells me that he got bad information or misinformation and is now paying the price;How do you separate the wheat from the chaff on the internet, GRANNY? That is both unfortunate and sad but he seems to be trying to make the best out of it. I haven't heard one one word of complaint, not one word of opinion, one word of sarcasm, one word of hopelessness, not one word of advise to anyone, nothing but someone needing guidance in helping themselves and gratitude towards anyone and everyone that has offered one word of suggestion or advise and even politeness to those that have been assholes towards him; how many of us can say the same about ourselves Granny? he hasn't asked anyone for anything that he isn't willing to work for.

 

I do believe your right...Post #30...+1
O.P. seem's well trained and a aficionado of the engish language...To the point of being a writer perhap's ?

 

Try chicken soup!

I'm enjoying the interaction between Mr F. Ticious and the rest of the monkey tribe....quirky and eccentric is good....and the assistance given is helpful to more than just the bespectacled gentleman monkey.

I hope he is able to give one or two pointers on the niceties of constitutional law to the Dominionists, Reconstructionists and Christian Nation~alists here...but I digress....

Mr F. Ticious....pay no mind to the mean nay sayers...just keep on doing your own thing...in your own inimitable way...for your sniffles, I thoroughly recommend Jewish antibiotic (chicken soup) oy vey...it can't hoit! Take care and keep warm.

 

Mr. Ticious, you mentioned finding some plastic bags and that set me to thinking about other useful items you might find lying around. There are often discarded items near highways, rivers, and streams that may be of use to you. Bottles and cans come to mind first, and maybe discarded pieces of line and rope. There always seems to be fishing tackles caught in limbs on rivers, boards, planks and used nails are almost always found in flotsam, as do plastic jugs and such. These make great storage for water.
I also found a useful video on the subject of pine resin that I mentioned to you earlier. I hope it helps.
"Discovering the Power of Pine Sap with Trapper Jack - YouTube"

 

Ghrit is setting snares Frank...He's an engineer and by definition, had way too much toilet training. I am thinking he needs to point that motorscooter South and come shoot some sporting clays with me. The club here waves membership fees for deposed Yankees.

 

Isnt YMMV = Your METHOD may vary?

 

This a a 360 degree view of where I am except for the rocks and a cliff.

 

I have plenty of cattails in my pond right now. Early spring is the best time to extract starch from the roots
and eat the shoots.

 

Too hilly to be Alabama, I am going to guess either Georgia or Texas; not enough palmetto for Florida.

 

What have you got in your pockets Mr. Grits? What would you have in them if you thought today was the last day of Walmart and there were Walmartians running helter-skelter through the land shouting “OMG! OH Noz! OMG!” *Burial is probably a real good way to cache but what’s the point when you have a cave for anything except what you think might get eaten by gophers and bats? There was a very nice tent in my Escalade and I really wish I had it now. The camera built into my Tough-book takes snap shots and can do Skype too! *But I actually do have a small digital pocket camera; it’s a Pentax Optio and is quite water-proof to maybe three meters deep, but it was here with my wheel-barrow and didn’t make the swim. I have some really nice stuff here, my Benelli, for example. I also have a small Sony television and more other useless items that I had envisioned or been recommended would be essential. The Machete is really a big Rambo kind of knife thing that someone on a survival board told me would be needed. I sometimes get confused, but I am certain it must have been here at the cache because I do not believe those mutant ninja zombies would ever have let me keep anything remotely useful.
I initially just went where the urge hit but once I began to get organized, I found a pair of forked saplings *and placed a pair of poles between them to improvise a seat. This is located at the edge of the little river downstream from my camp. OMG….it just occurred to me that I might be endangering those down stream of me by pooping in the water supply!

 

LOL..FLMAO ROFLMAO

 

You shouldn't laugh at your friends, Mr. Seacowboys; it is not that difficult to carry a shotgun on a motorcycle. Here is a picture of a Lawyer/survivalist shopping day. YMMV