Find resources where others don't look.

Surviving a disaster is all about being smarter than the next guy. This means exploiting resources that others will overlook.

Lets say its a disease, a global pandemic.  The first thing that will happen is everyone flees the city looking for somewhere safe. Anyone who's seen a zombie flick can get an idea of what the highways would look like. Thousands of abandoned cars packed together, never to move again without the gas they need to run. Cars can be a huge resource reserve, even a nearly dead battery can be used to get a fire going. But what I'm thinking about is years after. Well past the point that you could use the small amount of fuel in the tank or the electrical system.

If you look at newer model cars, many are equipped with projector headlights. They use a parabolic lens to focus light instead of a large reflective housing. They're very easy to spot, it looks like a glass orb behind the lens. These make a great magnifying glass, and we all know you can make fire with a magnifying glass.

So find a suitable lens, grab a rock, and at midday you can make fire. I used the lens pictured to light a cigarette in about 20 seconds.

Less is more

I'm a fairly experienced hiker and outdoorsman. I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means, but I get in about 3 or 4 primitive camping trips in a year. Normally the basics for this are my Osprey 65 pack, a tent, sleeping bag, food and water. Along with about 15 pounds of stuff I really don't need, including booze, a stove, deodorant, all things that increase comfort and convenience.

For this trip, I cut most of that in half. Ditching the tent and going with a tarp that doubles as a survival wrap. Cutting fuel for my stove in half and relying on the fire for cooking. (surprisingly it turned out to be way more than I needed) Being that it was warmer out my sleeping bag was much lighter so that helped. I have to admit I still brought a couple of flasks of bourbon. All this and still my pack weighed in at 34 pounds. My friend Anthony (pictured right) decided to go with even less. By decided I mean he forgot the survival wrap he was gonna use for his lean-to. We built his shelter using pine boughs. All that being said, that's not what this post is about. We also decided to go barefoot


This is something I've been thinking about doing for awhile now. I'm a big fan of "Dual Survival", and couldn't wait to try out Cody Lundin's barefoot philosophy. I know for a fact that most of my back problems start squarely with the shoes I wear. So we strapped our boots to our packs and gave it a shot. The first few hundred feet were pretty rough, and my feet were sore almost immediately. After a bit I noticed how slow we were traveling, with every step being deliberate. I started to worry about how long this would take, and how my feet would feel after a four mile hike. After an hour, I was still doing ok, and I noticed a few familiar landmarks on the trail. When we stopped for lunch, I checked the time and realized we were moving at a similar speed to what I normally do in boots.

Funny enough, I never thought to just slow down. We stopped less, drank less water, and ultimately barely even broke a sweat. The slow deliberate steps, picking and choosing where to place my foot every time, had slowed my pace to a point that we never needed a break. We rested our feet on occasion, but normally I would have to stop to catch my breath regularly, the steady pace more than made up for the loss in speed.

When we arrived at the campsite, my feet were feeling great. Along with my back, and my legs. Normally quite sore by the end, this time I felt really good. This will definitely be the way I hike from now on, and I'm sure once my feet toughen up it will be even easier. Maybe next time I won't have to carry the boots along at all.

Viking Champagne

My recipe for hopped, carbonated Mead. Not a very common concoction as far as I can tell. (For those who don't know, Mead is a honey wine) Now I'm not a wine guy by any means, just beer and bourbon for me. As you can tell, I want to be self sustaining after I can't run to the store and grab a sixer of Long Trail IPA. So I thought to myself, all alcohol is made of sugar, what are my natural options in the state of New York? Apples, grapes, maple syrup, and honey.

My first foray with homemade alcohol was with apple cider. This went pretty well, but unfortunately New York has passed laws that force orchards to add potassium sorbate to their cider. So it takes forever to ferment, and gets a very acidic flavor. So until I get a good cider with no preservatives, I wont be posting a recipe. The second was with grapes growing in my backyard. I would say good, not great. Still working on it. As far as maple syrup, I'll follow up on that one in the spring.

So, on to honey. My first mead was awesome. The trouble is, being a proof of concept, I didn't write anything down. I mentioned before that I'm not a wine guy, so I decided to go with an ale yeast the first time. Because it was an ale yeast and not a vinter's yeast, it had more of a flat, sweet, beer flavor (compared to a wine taste). By the way, yeast is an ingredient people really don't give enough credit. It can completely change the flavor of what you're making, so keep this in mind when you get your yeast for whatever you brew. For this brew I used Nottingham ale yeast, but any ale yeast will go pretty well.

After my first batch, I started to wonder: what about a hopped, carbonated version? With my particular palate, I'm an American IPA fan. Low malt, heavy hops. The honey in mead is perfect for this, since you don't have to rely on malted barley for sugar content in your wort. (Wort is unfermented beer.) So I did a 2 gallon batch of hopped mead as an experiment, which was awesome. And because it was so awesome, I'm going to share my recipe with you.

This recipe is fairly approachable for any beer drinker. With a hop character close to a pilsner, (about 20 IBU) and some flavors akin to a mulled wine. It should be noted that you will get a bit of a musky after taste that many may not be used to. This is the lack of malt to balance the hops. My next batch will be tripling the bittering hops, and using amarillo hops instead. These have a higher acid content and bitter the Mead further. This should put it at about 70 IBU (International Bittering Unit)

Ingredients

-12-16 lbs of honey (more honey = sweeter/higher alcohol mead, depending on yeast used. Use a hygrometer* to measure sugar content and compare to what your yeast is capable of)
-4 gallons water
-5-7 0zs fresh ginger (peeled and roughly chopped)
-2 sprigs rosemary
-5 tbs cinnamon, or 6 whole sticks
-1 lemon
-8 oz raisins
-1 oz perle hops (pellet)**
-1 oz cascade hops (pellet)**
-1 packet Nottingham yeast

Bring water to a rolling boil and add honey, bring back up to boil. Add ginger, cinnamon, rosemary and perle hops. Boil for 60 minutes to obtain highest bittering from hops. In the last few minutes of boil, zest lemon and throw in the rest of it. Add raisins as well, this is mostly to sterilize. Allow to cool and pour into fermenter, lemon, cinnamon, raisins and all.  (glass fermenters are always best) While your brew is cooling, make a yeast starter.

Microwave some water to sterilize, just bring it up till it barely boils, and add a little corn sugar if you have it or some  honey will work. Pour your packet of yeast into it after it cools to about 75-80 degrees. This helps the yeast to procreate quickly before adding it to the wort. When the wort has cooled to below 90 degrees, add your starter, along with the cascade hops. Let it sit for a few weeks until you stop seeing bubbles for your airlock.***

When your mead is done fermenting, it's ready to drink, but if you really want Viking Champagne, you need to carbonate. Bottle conditioning is the most low tech way to do it, but if you have a keg and CO2 tank, that the easiest.

For bottle conditioning in a 5 gallon batch, mix in 8.5 oz corn sugar, and bottle. Grolsh beer bottles with silicone seals work really well. I also got some really good pop-top bottles at Ikea. Store at 70 degrees for about a week and they should be done. For carbonation in kegs, add about 30 psi and refrigerate.


*Hygrometer measures sugar content of wort, can be purchased on Amazon for like 5 bucks.
**Will be swapping out for 3 oz Amarillo bittering and 1 oz Fuggle in the next batch for a 60-90 IBU brew.
***Airlocks allow C02 to escape without allowing oxygen in, can also be purchased on Amazon very cheaply.