Surviving out of the wild.

 My name is Doug, I have lived in the Ashland,Ky area nearly all of my life. I have learned through my life in the Ashland area how to hunt, as well as fish, trap and prepare my catch. Although I very much enjoy my time camping near the lake, or hiking through the hills and forest in my area, Most of my real time is spent maintaining a full time job, doing household chores, and like the rest of you, paying my bills, car payments, and filling up my gas tank which is becoming more and more of a endless pit suitable for burning any extra cash we may have saved.


 Life is easy enough though, right? When we are bored we can always find something going on nearby. Maybe go see a movie, or stroll around the mall. Not that any of those are things I would consider wasting my time on. The point being, life is easy.  Easy if you have a great job, just as easy if you have the worse job. Even being in debt is living easy. I say this because we don't have to really do anything! If we are hungry, we can simply pull into the drive thru at any fast food joint, or stop by the local Walmart on your way home. Even fixing your own food on your own stove! Food that was without a doubt bought from a grocery store or local deli. Thats living easy!
 Don't misunderstand me! Living easy is how we have been raised to live. We have all been raised to study hard in school, go to collage, grab a good job, and settle down with your own family's and start the whole insane process all over again.

 Do you know how many human beings are currently living on planet Earth today? That number is just below 7 Billion. And out of those 7 Billion people, how many could hunt and prepare food for themselves and their family's? And out of those who can hunt, how many would spoil their meat from lack of knowledge in preservation?  So after playing around with these numbers you have to also ask yourself, how many animals are their on the planet? How many are eatable? and how long can 7 Billion people feed off these wild animals until their are no more? And yes, 7 Billion people could easily eat the worlds population of wild animals in only a few short years.  The animals would not have time to reproduce in the wild as many eager hunters would kill pregnant animals as well as new borns and young mothers. So its safe to assume that the worlds population of wild animals would be gone in a very short time, then what? Yes we could eat fruits and vegetables, but no more respect would be given to the plant life as it was to the animal life. Again the food source would run out pretty fast.

 So again I say, Life is as easy as it gets right now! In our lives we have seen "the easy life" be you rich or poor, you most likely live better than the richest man did 200 years ago. And it comes as no surprise that the worlds population is becoming more and more obese and lazy with every passing generation.  

 If you grew up like me, then your father worked harder in the first 20 years of his life than anyone currently working today. My father worked hard every 20 hour shift, with little to no breaks. No safety regulations or labor laws to ease the load on the blue collar man. You think your job is tough? Ask your parents about how a normal job was before the laws were set in place to protect workers. Ask them about that winter years ago when no paying jobs could be found, no credit cards to fall back on, no in store credit was heard of, and filling up your bathtub with boiled well water was the best part of their day. Long before cell phones and internet, long before cable t.v. and front wheel drive, even long before government funding and welfare programs. Our parents lived in ways that we can only read about today, and in some cases we can peek in on some old black and white photo's. But even they were living easy! Why? Because They still depended on markets and trading stalls to make purchases for things they could not produce themselves. This is the core of the easy life! If you have access to buy or trade for things you need or want, then that in it self is pretty easy, even if it meant working a full week to split one meal into seven smaller meals to make the weeks ends meet. True it sounds like a pretty hard life, and it was, but how was life say one hundred years before our parents were born? I cant say for sure, but Id be willing to bet the trading stalls and markets were a bit harder to find.

 Ready for the point? Great, here it is!! People who lived 200 years ago, were healthier, lived longer, and possessed a far greater understanding and knowledge of how to live, how to raise animals, how to leave animals for future generations, and how to make any tool they needed for any job they were doing. They could build a stronger house in a fraction of the time it would take a modern contractor to build half the house today!

 So by our own understanding, we are being bred weaker and stupider as each generation passes. Why?

 Because a stupid population is far easier to control than a self reliant, strong population. In our fathers time, the American way was the way of life, now the population here in the United States are so stupid and weak that we let laws pass that take away rights that our grandfathers died to protect.

 "Make them stupid of the laws, and the laws can be changed without them noticing"

 This is what gave me the idea to go into the wild. I have never spent long periods of time living off the land and being solely responsible for everything and anything I required to survive. In my lifetime, things have always been easy to come by, in the wild it will be very different. I plan to spend 3 full months in the wild. Taking only a few things that are necessary like flint, matches, a small backup food supply, and some fine rope and twine. Maybe a hatchet!

 I figure I owe that much to all the grandfathers who fought and died, worked 20 hour days, farmed, hunted, built their own homes, worked extra to buy our fathers new shoes for Christmas, and went hungry so that his family wouldn't have to. I want to give at least 3 months of my life to living the way they did.
 I'm no expert, but I wont have it no other way. Most people don't notice their lives are passing by, because they are to busy deciding what they want to do with it. 3 months in the wild, and Im sure I will understand my self as well as my life on a scale that books and black and white photo's will never show.

 In the next few months I will be learning wilderness ways, learning how to build primitive. and live primitive. Everything I do and try will be posted here. I plan to leave for this adventure in May of 2011. Wish me happiness. 

 Doug












 After years of thinking about it, I have decided to leave all my belongings behind and head into the wild. In doing this I have decided to hike 100 miles into the wilderness, as far away from anything man made and live off the land. Build shelter, hunt, learn again how man can live without all the electronics and gadgets we have all grown so attached to.

 A long time friend of mine will be joining me on this great journey into the wild in May of 2011. We will drive from Kentucky to just outside the Canada border. Park the truck and pack our simple "back-up" items that we may need if the worse case happens.
 We will take with us only what we will need. A back-up food supply in case no food can be found, and simple communication devices to call for help if needed.

 As list of all items we plan to take will be posted soon.

 Below are a few pictures of a primitive stove and oven that we have been making for practice. A pot can be placed where the flames are to boil water or cook soups and meats. The other hole can be used for a heat sorce as well as a great place to set some wild potatoes to bake.
 This simple design took only about 25 minutes to make, and about two hours to heat to full temperature.
In this first pic you can see both the fire hole and the feeding hole, the feeding hole being to the left, and fire hole to the right. 

 In this picture to the left you can see the same primitive oven from the front view. A mason jar lid placed on top to show size.
 At about 8 inches into the feeding hole the temperatures reach around 300 degrees, and can bake a potato in only about two hours, once the flames have burnt down leaving only hot coals behind, Mean can be placed over the fire hole with "green" leaves under it to slowly cook.

  Int his picture to the right, you can see the fire hole is burning strong, the feeding hole has reached tempture and is ready to provide heat, or back some simple items.

 Clay bricks can also be fired in this feeding hole after you have reached a suitable hot coal bed.. If you are firing clay bricks, you will want to be sure the temperature is high, then place the clay bricks into the feeding hole and cover the feeding hole completely, and cover the fire hole nearly all the way, leaving a small hole for breathing of the fire.



 This is the first oven we attempted to make and it turned out pretty good. We haven't tried to cook on it as of now, but we plan to do so very soon. Thanks for your time, and more will be added as time progresses towards the launch date of what I believe will be the greatest adventure of my life.