Agave needle and thread

An emergency needle and thread can be made from the Agave plant using the sharp needle like point of the leaf and its adjoining fibers.

It is a known fact that the Apache used these instant needles and thread to sew clothing and moccasins. With this system you have an option of either collecting them as needed on the trail or keep a small supply in your pack for emergency uses.

I have personally used the agave needle and thread to make emergency repairs on my back pack and sew the hood back on my sweat shirt in the field.

You can adjust the size of the needle by simply shaving it to the size you need.

To harvest the needle and fibers you need to cut around the needle and do a bit of twisting and pull hard on the needle then the adjoining fibers will pull away from the plant.

I have used my teeth to grip the needle and pull it free but you have to be careful doing this because it is easy to get a poke in the eye.

Also, some people are allergic to the Agave plant, if exposed to the juice of the plant you can develop poison ivy type blisters on your skin and suffer from extreme itching - I know, I am allergic to this plant and suffered the consequences of getting the juice on my skin while processing the fibers for cordage.

I also have bad hangovers from drinking tequila and I believe it is do to my being allergic to this plant.

Agave hearts(the sprouting stalk)were baked and eaten by native peoples all over the North American deserts.

Agave is most commonly used to distill tequila. In Mexico there are huge farms which grow the plant and process it into my favorite drink.

I believe there is something like 500 different brands of tequila on the market.

There is a bar in Mexico city which features all the tequila found in the world,

Must be cool place!

If you live in Agave country head out and give this trick a try , it is a good thing to know in an emergency.

tomahawk

Deep frying a turkey

Recently a good friend of mine in Montana Bought a deep frier. We decided to test it out and went to cost co to get some cooking oil and a 13 pound turkey.

The frier is fairly easy to set up, has simple controlls , and is easy to use..

The appointed day was a bit cool, we set the frier up out side, hooked up the propane bottle, filled the pot with oil, clipped on the thermometer, and waited.

I cant recall what the required temperature is but once the oil reached that temp I put on my leather work gloves and slowly began to place the turkey in the heated oil.

The amount of steam coming off the bird was pretty amazing and there was quite a lot of loud sizzling as the bird and oil equaled out in temperature.

Prior to frying you need to completely thaw the bird, remove all ice chips if any, and drain / dry the bird thoroughly. Any ice or water will cause the oil to splatter and that can be dangerous.

It took quite a while to cook the bird but the result was visually appealing and very tasty.

I think the amount of things you have to do to prepare the bird, the mess the oil makes ,and the constant vigil around the frier for safety sake are serious deterrents to this type of cooking.

Me personally? Ill stick to the Oven the next time I cook a turkey.

Tomahawk - eatin' turkey

Foraging food on the road

When I was on a recent hitch hiking trip through Utah and Arizona I was running low on grub and didn't have the economic means to buy any so I was fishing at every opportunity and keeping my eyes peeled for any wild edibles.

In my foraging I collected a lot of plantain leaves and seed heads, lambs quarters, sheep sorrel, Dandelion flowers and leaves - I also harvested the "Crown" of the dandelion which is the part where the leave stems and the top of the root come together.

The crown is pretty tasty and I just cooked them up in 2 changes of water to remove the bitterness , then dowsed them in a bit of olive oil, salt, garlic powder and crushed chillies, mmmmm, tasty!

I always carry a spice kit as part of my plunder when on the road or on an extended scout in the wilds. My spice kit consists of;

1. salt
2. crushed chillies
3. 8 oz of olive oil
4. 8 oz of apple cider vinegar
5. garlic powder

you can spice up most things well enough to make them edible, shoot, a little salt on a fish cooked on the hot rocks of your fire is pretty darn good.

I was walking through the small town of Green River ,Utah and saw some cattail plants which had pollen on them so i collected it and put it in a small zip lock bag for later use, i also collected a few stems where they meet the roots, this part is white and easy to chew kinda like a celery stalk.

Cattails are the supermarket market of the forest and every part is edible.

Later on I added the pollen to my granola.

Also, I was running low on coffee so I gathered some Mormons tea and stuck in my bag for a brew up until I could get some more coffee.

The Mormons tea is tasty stuff and the taste, for some reason reminds me of weak root beer. You can make a decent tasting hot drink out of pine needles also, but i like the Mormons tea cold and put any left overs into my Nalgene bottle for consumption while on the road.

Other plants I managed to forage were Thistle, Barberry, and water cress just to name a few.
I also managed to shoot a few Jack rabbits with the .22 I had with me, and caught lots of fish . I would also look for cray fish or "craw daddies" as some people call them when i was foraging along streams.

All in all you can eat pretty good if you know what to look for and how to find it. Personally I am not against dumpster diving and have always been amazed at the useful and edible things that people throw away!

There is a guy who lives outside of Moab ,Utah in a cave and he lives good on the things people throw away, he simply goes to town and searches the dumpsters and forages as he walks to and from town.

Remember to Always keep your eyes open and look for anything edible and useful, it is a good practice to get into.

Tomahawk, signing out!

Tinder Bundles

My friend and I went out today and did a little fishing . I saw some dead cotton wood trees along the river and was able to harvest a large bag of cotton wood cambium(the inner bark).

This stuff is excellent to use for tinder bundles in all types of fire making. I usually carry 2 in my pack in a duct tape reinforced zip lock bag.

All you need to process it in the manner I prefer is a bandanna or something similar to catch the dust you make from roughing the bark up.

1st take some of the stiffer bark and wrap it around your hand to form a "nest" - you know, the basic bird nest shape. there should be a decent size concavity in the nest.

The cambium is a little stiff so you need to take a bunch in each hand, and then rough it up over a bandanna (or something similar) to make it soft, the resulting dust and softer bark is saved and used as a filler in the concave part of the bundle.

gather the dust in the center of your bandanna then place the nest on top of the dust with the concave part facing down.

holding on to the nest with 1 hand, reach under your bandanna with the other then flip it over.

The result should look like a bird nest filled with dust - That, is your tinder bundle.

Which ever fire making technique you use like flint and steel, bow and drill, ferro rod, matches, magnifying glass etc.,Your fire will light a lot easier using this type of tinder bundle then it will just using pine needles or grass or (ugh!) paper.

When I'm out on a scout or an extended stay in the wilderness it is a habit of mine to keep my eyes peeled for usable resources, it is a good habit to have, that way you are rarely caught short in a desperate situation.

I have attached a few pictures of the tinder bundle making process for your fire making enjoyment.

please feel free to drop me a comment or question.

Tomahawk

Bow and Drill Fire making (continued)

There seems to be a lot of interest in Friction fire making, especially the Bow and Drill or "Bowdrill" as folks commonly call it.

I have always found the B&D fire making method to be pretty easy once you make a set to fit your body and apply the proper technique.

A B&D set consists of 5 components;

1. Tinder bundle - can be made out of any combustible materials that have been softened, I like to use cotton wood cambium or juniper bark. Other materials I have made into tinder bundles include milk weed and dog bane fibers, grass, aspen cambium etc. there are countless things to be found in the outdoors that will work.

You can also add extra combustibles to your tinder bundle if you cannot find enough of one type of material, things like thistle or cattail down, birch bark, and pine pitch are excellent fillers.

2. spindle(or Drill) - the spindle for your personal should be about as big around as your thumb and as long as your hand and should be made from a wood that can be easily dented with your thumb nail. Good types of wood in North America are Alder, cedar/juniper, sycamore, cotton wood, or willow.

I have a personal list of over 200 different woods I have made friction fires with over the years, some are hard woods like oak, and maple and my list includes Poison Ivy vine. yup, poison Ivy. I cut a large piece of the poison Ivy then tied a cord to it and threw it in the creek for 5 days, after that time I dried it out and made spindles/fire boards with it. The result was an odd colored wood but it worked and made an ember easily enough.

3. fire board - the board is made from the same material as the spindle and needs to be about 2 fingers wide, 1 finger thick , and about as long as your foot.

4. Bow - your bow can be made of any type of wood you like but it needs to be from arm pit to finger tip in length. some folks like a flexible bow with an acute bow in it but I prefer a straighter stiffer bow with no flex.

5. socket, (bearing block, top rock etc) - My socket is the handle of my old Green River Butcher Knife I have been carrying for 20 years. I also have sockets made from Mule deer antler, and have a few lying around made of Cow bone, and some of various hard woods. I have also seen a few made from stone.

Recently in Arizona, I went out in the desert and made a complete set entirely from the soap tree yucca plant to include the tinder bundle.

I will post some pictures of it for you Bow and Drill enjoyment,You can take a look at my old video on B&D fire making, its an oldie but a goody.

You might get a kick out of it. It is actually informative and shows the proper B&D technique, it also features a cameo appearance by my dog Hunter.

you can view the video here:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&channelID=201453078

Tomahawk

Deer sinew

Yesterday I found some Deer Back strap sinew laying around and decided to process it into some useful stuff, Deer sinew from leg tendons or backstrap is excellent material for everything from sewing wounds to binding arrow heads to their shafts.

I have processed Moose, deer, elk, caribou and it is all about the same, the first you need to do is pound it with a stick to loosen the outer skin and seperate the fibers.

Then it is a simple matter of shredding the fibers, It is important to use a stick instead of a rock because rocks tend to break the sinew fibers and you will end up with a bunch of small, broken, useless pieces.

In my plunder I have arrow heads that I bound to Cane and wooden shafts with sinew many years ago and they are still held firmly in place.

My way of using sinew is to put a few strands in my mouth to soak in my saliva, once it is softened up ill either bind the item using my teeth to manipulate the sinew or take it and do a semi dry wrap.

There is no need to do any knots or use any type of other glue.

I read that there is something in your saliva which activates the natural glue in the sinew.

Anyhoo, here are some pics.

Tomahawk

Pictograph Day Hike - Huachuca Mountains,Arizona

Took a hike today to look at some pictographs I had heard about in the Huachuca mountains of arizona .

I grabbed some grub and water, stashed it in my well used Camel back HAWG and hit the door.

Walking out to my Blazer I noticed that is was going to be another beautiful southern arizona day, Im not talking about places like tucson or phoenix, those places are horrible. The area Im talking about is Cochise county in the SE part of the state.

If I had to make a choice as to where I wanted to live permanently in the whole world, I would take the wide open spaces and clear blue skies of cochise county.

The Blazer seem to drive itself up to the trail head parking area, on the drive up I saw a few Mule deer and the odd horned toad on the road.

Upon arrival at the parking area I backed in , grabbed my gear and hit the trail.

While on the hike I ran into 2 Military Police customs officers on patrol in the back country, I informed them of what I was doing, and they told me that there are over 150 different archaeological sites on the Fort Huachuca Military Reservation.

That was an interesting bit of Information, I know the Chiricahua Apaches used these mountains to camp and hunt but never had permanent camps there, These sites must have been from paleo Indians. The type that drew the pictographs.

I continued on up the hill and toward the Pictograph sites, along the way I saw several sonoran coues deer - a sub species of the white tail.

Outside of the keys deer I believe it is the smallest of the white tail sub species, Im not sure tho..

I also saw a Lone Prong horned antelope.

Back in the 1990's there was an Antelope reintroduction project here in the Huachucas but I had not seen any for several years. It was my assumption that they had migrated toward mexico and the wilder parts of the desert. Apparently not!

Anyway, this guy had the most impressive set of horns I had ever seen on an Antelope.
For 7 years I had guided Big Game Hunts in Montana and New Mexico and saw some pretty Impressive Antelope but this old boy "takes the cake" in Horn size.

I dont speak horn or antler talk anymore but it suffice to say that horn wise - He was Bad.

Other animals I saw were numerous Rabbits, Hawks, a rattler, humming birds and the most butter flies I have ever seen.

When I got back home and did a net search I found out that Cochise county Arizona has 38% of all the butter files found in North America, and the Huachuca mountains are the Humming bird capitol of the USA.

Anyway, on to the site! After about a 3 mile hike from the parking area I came upon the sign marking the Pictograph site.
I hiked the short distance from the road to the pictographs, dropped my day pack and got out my camera.

There were only a few but they were interesting. Almost monochromatic in color, and looked like they were drawn by a 9 year old, there were spirals, eagles (thunder birds?) effigy men etc, kinda cool.

It is important to mention the difference between pictographs and petroglyphs. Pictos are Drawn onto the rocks and Petros are carved into the stone.

I snapped a few pictures, stowed away my camera, grabbed my pack and headed up the trail to the next site.

This site had only 3 pictographs visible, they were drawn in red on the tanish colored sand stone and you could see them pretty well.

The area where the pictographs are located is beautiful , it has plenty of water and great shelter in the form of overhangs. It is not surprising to me that the primitive peoples of the area chose this site to live in. Heck, if I had to pick a place to hide in or live out an economic disaster, or some other type of scenario Id come here.

I hiked up to the top of the cliffs and took a few pics before I began the Hike back to my car, I really liked this canyon and was a little sad that my day hike had ended.

Making a promise to myself to return soon, i chucked my pack on the back seat and fired up the blazer then headed for home.

Here are a few pics.

tomahawk

My personal guns

,

My personal gun collection is only 3 guns, I use to have more but never used them , and I have always found going to the range to shoot a little boring and not worth the effort, Going to the range also conjures up nightmare memories of being in the Army. I always hated Getting up at 0300 to do something at 0900, wearing Kevlar, web gear, gas mask and other B.S. then either freezing my ass off or baking in the blazing sun all day - no thank you.

Im jaded I guess.

anyway, I as I said I only have 3, a .22 marlin "Papoose" take down rifle, a 12 guage break action shot gun, and a chinese pellet rifle. I Had a 50 cal Black Powder "White mountain" hunter but sold it recently.

The guns I have would provide for me If I ever need to count on them for Survival hunting/ forageing purposes. shoot, a .22 rifle and a brick of 500 bullets is really all you need for long term survival.

With My 12 guage (75 cal) I can kill any big game found in North America , The ammo can be reloaded with smokeless or Black powder providing i have the caps.

The Chines air rifle id use to keep farmints out of my garden if need be or for target practice.

Im a little amused at "survival types" who hoard guns and ammo just in case they need them to fight a corrupt governments soldiers etc.

You will not win a fight against Hardend troops in the event of martial law. it is silly to think you would.

Anyhoo, you dont need 50 guns and thousands of rounds of ammo to survive an economic collapse , kill the zombie hoards, or fight government troops.

Just get a couple of practical guns that are easy to fix, simple to use, and come in common calibers, keep in mind that the 12 guage ,30.06, and .22 are the most common rounds in the USA.

My Friend Jager and I were attempting to fire my Marlin Papoose.22 rifle the other day only to realize that the firing pin was broken!

after consulting the internet for Papoose plans and scematics, assembly/dissasembly instructions my friend Jager called the local gun repair shop and located a Papoose firing pin for 8 dollars.

we shot down (no pun intended) to the gun shop , picked the firing pin up, hit a couple of pawn shops on the way back, got some coffee and cinnamon rolls and we were in business.

it took less than 5 mins to install the firing pin, reassemble the papoose, and test fire it.

again Im amazed at the information you can find on the internet.

I have posted some pics for those of you interested.

tomahawk

Arab Gutrah or Shemagh

While living and working in the Middle East i was turned on to the use and practicallity of the Arab style head dress call the Gutrah or Shemagh, I bought one in down town Doha,Qatar and have been carrying it ever since.

This large, soft cotton garment has served me well and I have used it for everything from a blanket to a towel, I have also used it to filter water and to carry my extra plunder in(tied up like a "Hobo" bundle).

Most recently I used it as Mosquito protection while camping along the San Juan River in Utah and in the Forests of Arizonas white mountains.

There are several ways to wear the Gutrah and all are easy put on and adjust to your comfort.
they are fairly cheap(around $10.00) and easy to find, I usually get mine at the PX, Most U.S. Military Bases in the Middle east have this item in stock .

During WW2 the Long Range Desert Groug (LRDG) learned the value of this item of kit, and there are many pictures out there of members in this Unit wearing it. The Present day american and coalition forces in the Middle east and Afghanistan have began to employ this garment in every day use.

You can check this link to the LRDG website to get a little more info on the Unit and this item.

http://blindkat.hegewisch.net/lrdg/lrdg.html

Here is a discription of the complete set up Borrowed from the LRDG website;

SHEMAGH/Gutrah:

Arab Head-dress: While the traditional Arab head-dress consist of three parts: Thagiyah a tight fitting white skullcap, the flowing white head covering called Gutrah, and a black chorded band called an Ogal, the LRDG issued a sand colored Gutrah and the black Ogal.

It is unclear if the Thagiyah was issued. Most sources say the LRDG placed a folded cloth between the scalp and the Gutrah to create an air pocket. This may have been the Thagiyah.
In my attached pictures you can see my set up employed as a complete unit and also various other uses of the garment.

Lemme know what you think.

tomahawk