Portable Shelter Bundle

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Here is an idea for a small kit that could be used to construct shelters in a rural or wooded environment in a bugout situation.  The kit would consist of a roll of chicken wire, a roll of wire, a roll of visqueen, a roll of braided cord, a bundle of metal fence posts, an axe w/hammer, an army shovel, a knife & a folding pruning saw.  I don't have dimensions for any of the materials, but you could figure them out yourself with a bit of research.

In a nutshell, you'd cut saplings with the pruning saw & make usable posts/beams/ridge poles out of them.  You'd use existing trees to build off of, probably wedging/attaching saplings to existing branches and stretching them between two or more trees to create ridge poles, then strengthening those ridge poles with vertically-placed poles or fence posts.  Any poles that touched the ground could be packed into holes &/or placed on stones to add support strength.  Metal fence posts would only need to be pounded into the soil.  Poles could be attached to one another with wire or cord.  Over the frame you constructed you would attach a layer of chicken wire (with wire or cord), which could stretch all the way to the ground (to form walls) if you wanted.  Over the chicken wire you might insert a layer of insulation, such as blankets, sleeping bags, old clothes, etc.  Over that would go a layer of visqueen, & over that would go more saplings to hold the visqueen down, plus layers of dirt & foliage (for further insulation & camouflage).  You could build any size structure you wanted, from a tiny 1-man emergency structure to a large, semi-permanent, multi-room "home".

I've seen visqueen/sapling living structures built in the forest, & the example above is a combination of multiple structures.  I've also had a small amount of experience building such a structure, using only natural materials.  Building shelter using the "kit" materials listed above would be creative, fun & relatively easy.  You could build a very livable structure in less than a single day.  There would be no straight edges or right angles to maintain, nor any nails or precise measurements, & you could free-form the structure into the forest landscape.  It would be fully waterproof, too.  I personally would also build it low to the ground & dig the floor down into the earth, for further insulation & camouflage.

One last thing: The kit supplies listed above would be too heavy to carry, so you'd need a vehicle to haul them.  However, you could design a simpler & lighter kit (of visqueen, cord & a saw) for your BOB if you wanted to.

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Paradise

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A little piece of paradise: Shade, sun, a breeze.  A hammock, a bench, a fire pit.  Lawn.  Tomatoes, strawberries, citrus, apricots, almonds, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, pole beans, carrots, collards, aloe, summer squash, potatoes, blueberries.  Time does not exist in this place, except in terms of the seasons.

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What I need to do is put together a bag that is more than a bugout bag.  A pack for long-term nomadic travel.  Real basic, some hi-tech gear but also a lot of low-tech gear.  Get rid of the bullshit.  Real food, simple tools.  

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The British re-make of The Survivors is good, and has grown on me.  Yet I am continually surprised by the lack of preparedness shown by the characters.  They are almost always completely unarmed.  There are almost no firearms.  People wear regular, brightly-colored clothing.  People don't have EDC kits, they don't carry survival gear.  Many of them don't have gardens, no one is hunting.

If I lived in that world, I'd have a Leatherman and a Mora knife on me at all times, plus a blade strapped to my ankle.  I'd have a firearm, preferably a sawed-off shotgun, with shells.  I'd have a pack in the vehicle, and food and fire on me at all times, as well as a sharpener, cord, a poncho, a canteen.  I'd wear green clothes and have a black jacket for nights.

The scene where they are trying to break the slaves out of the coal mine: I'd be running around with a razor-sharp Mora knife in hand, stabbing all the guards.  No time for anything but straight-up CQB assault in a situation like that.

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Spring

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Dear God in Heaven.  You have an awesome day and think everything's fine and then you spend twenty minutes hunched over the toilet bowl, pissing out of your ass.

There are no ass-pissing atheists, let me tell you.

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So, my new house has a unique energy field.  It is located within a Cone of Silence.  Well, it's not QUITE a Cone of Silence, because I can hear everything that goes on around me, but it's got a very unique vibe to it nonetheless.  You see, my cottage is surrounded on three sides by a school, a park, and a pedestrian thoroughfare.  And together they all emanate noise, mostly talking and shouting.  But my backyard seems to exist in a sort of nexus or "eye" in which all of this activity goes on around it while none of it touches it.  It's just so damn perfectly peaceful and warm in the center of it all.  It's a blessing, this house, nothing less.  I know when I have it good.

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Have you ever noticed how EVERYTHING GOES BETTER WITH ZOMBIES?  I am watching the 2-season British TV show SURVIVORS (the recent re-release) and it's great, but it's a boring world they've created.  Why?  Because civilization collapsed and almost everyone died...but there are no zombies.  It's just too easy.

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If one pursues the Survivalist Path far enough, one comes to the conclusion that Humanity, at this juncture in the cosmos, is poised at the edge of a perilous possibility.  The possibility is that of profound spiritual advancement, and the peril is the turmoil and upheaval that will accompany the birthing process of a new consciousness.  What I am saying is that Survivalists who miss that part of the collapse equation are not seeing the whole picture.  They will not fair well if they don't understand that the spiritual element of the coming trying times will require them to adapt to new paradigms.  If they don't adapt, they will perish with the old paradigms.  This is fact.

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A fatal flaw in the Survivalist mentality is the reliance upon "stuff", by which I mean guns, ammo, canned food, fuel, generators, etc.  There is nothing wrong with these things per se, but none of them are sustainable.  They are all one-shot items.  You eat the MRE and it's gone.  You fire the bullet and it's gone.  You burn the diesel and the truck won't run.

The truth is that the individual himself is the tool.  If I want to truly be ready to survive apocalypse, then I need, in addition to my material stores, the adaptability, knowledge, imagination, and skill sets to survive.  Because I will bring those things with me everywhere I go and I cannot run out of them.

Community is absolutely essential for survival.  Community can change the world.  A smart survivalist will figure out how to create community - that is the greatest survival tool beside adaptability.

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I have begun meditating again, the way I used to when I was a teenager.  Back then I had many profound experiences while meditating, and I have recently learned that this is because I was practicing "concentration" meditation (as opposed to "awareness" meditation), and it caused me to experience some of the inner states that the Buddhists call janas.  Among other things, I experienced energy phenomena, ecstasy and profound peace and stillness.  Those experiences changed me forever, in profound and lasting ways.  I went from being a non-believer to distilling a metaphysical cosmology and worldview.

In Eastern traditions much emphasis is placed on aiming for enlightenment and ignoring things like the janas.  I would like to say that I have a problem with that.  I understand that everything in existence is a dead end and that God-realization is the only escape/cure.  I am willing to acknowledge that yogic powers and the janas and even samadhi are not truly spiritual in and of themselves, that they are more akin to powers than to wisdom or spirit.  But yogic powers, the janas and samadhi ARE all metaphysical in nature, and herein lies their value.  They allow us humans to expand our range of experience, and to understand that the world is far vaster than we previously realized, and I find that vital.

Let's be honest.  God-realization is pretty much a pipe dream.  We are all caught up in this grand Illusion, no matter how much we struggle and strive.  No matter how hard we strive to find God, we're gonna be captives to Existence for a long, long time.  How long?  Meher Baba said that the human soul experiences 8.4 million lifetimes before finding spiritual release.  And that's AFTER the soul has evolved from the subtle gas states up thru the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms...each of which takes an eternity also.  I happen to believe that Meher Baba knew what he was saying.

Read THAT and weep.

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I try to be spiritual, but then I find myself craving pussy and wanting to drink whiskey while I fire an automatic rifle.  That's my plight.

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The author and two of his trusted minions, discussing war and world

domination from the safety of the Urban Fortified Food Farm.

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The Filthy, Savage Bastidges

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Good morning, my Peeps.  Here I sit in my own backyard food garden, blogging from a wireless laptop.  Pretty cool, and far more than any human deserves.  All these modern comforts are gravy, Brothers.  Hard-earned gravy, but still gravy.  Let us remember that.

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The food farm is an ongoing project and I am still busting hump on it.  I now have 7 wine barrels total for planting in.  Two have citrus, 1 has an almond, and 1 has a 3-graft peach.  A potato patch will go in the 5th barrel (3 types of fingerling seed potatoes on order), and veggies will go in the last 2.  All 3 earth boxes are now planted with tomatoes (early & heirloom varieties), and 1 blueberry has gone into a real pot.

I'm trying hard to maintain the awesomeness of the backyard landscaping that came with my cottage, but at the same time incorporate the food garden.  Thus the layout shown below, which limits all food plants to containers, and superimposes them on top of the existing lawn without ripping the ground up.  I went for some symmetry, and hopefully when the dead tree on the bottom left in the photo below is torn out (within the week), the lawn will remain a fun and attractive part of the yard, 1/2 shaded (right) and 1/2 sunny (left).

I want to install a shed in the far right corner of the photo below, but that plan is on hold until I determine if a sewer lateral runs thru that corner.  If it does, I'm SOL, and I'll have to figure out an alternative arrangement for some kind of workshop and more storage.

Not much to say at this hour on this day.  Got chores to do.  Just remember this: When the filthy, savage bastidges come galloping over the hill, shoot and run, shoot and run, shoot and run.  History has shown us Americans that it's the only viable way.

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More Aural Vomit & A Damn Cute Kitty

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Recovering from the sting of femalien rejection is never fun.  I'm trying to use the experience to detach from desire.  It's a Buddhist concept, but quite honestly it's also my own conclusion.  Desire is suffering.  If I can let the desire be there and not let it consume me, I am a better man.  The same goes for the other emotions and thoughts connected with rejection - anger, hurt, self-pity.  There's nothing wrong with any of them, they are as natural as pie.  It's only my attachment to them that hurts.

I'm not trying to preach here.  Nor am I trying to be a Buddhist.  I hate that shit.  The truth is, when I get rejected by a womanoid, a whole series of unpleasant thoughts and emotions come to the forefront of my stilted, white male psyche.  And I don't like them and I don't like the pain they cause me.  So, I deal with them as best as I can, and as far as I can see, it is my relationship to them that is the problem.  I could drink my sorrow away, but that would not change my relationship to the pain, it would merely mask it.  I did it for years and not a goddamn thing changed, except that I ran the ever-increasing risk of becoming an addict.  So, fuck.

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I always thought that the coolest kind of assault rifles were ones that were belt-fed, and full auto, like the ARES-16 AMG-2.  Why are they so cool?  Well, cuz belt-fed and full-auto means they aren't really assault rifles.  They're light machine guns.  :-)  And that's some awesome CQB shit.

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The cat is nervous cuz I moved the couch, which has become her sanctuary in this new house.  I fear she will make a break for it if she spies an open door before she calms down again.  Everything is locked down tight.  Why do I love the damn creature so much?  Well, she's atrociously cute.  She was a wild kitten when I found her, many years ago, and it took me 2 months to tame her.  Of course, she's been a commanding bitch for nigh on a decade, but what the hey, sometimes a man needs a strong female presence in his life.

My relationship with her is unlike any other relationship I've ever experienced.  I call her my "companion", for lack of a better descriptor.  She climbs under the covers on cold nights and keeps me warm.  It's like sleeping with a hot, heavy, heavenly feather. Sometimes I annoy her.  Sometimes she annoys me.  Sometimes she gets spanked right on her skinny little cat bum a hundred futile times in a row, and sometimes I get ripped apart by her brutally sharp claws.  Credit where credit is due: She's got class, and she stands up for herself.  I admire both characteristics.

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I bought this fucking cottage, and I love it, it's beautiful and full of light and has an awesome backyard with a big hardwood deck.  And right away I start turning it into a survivalist outpost.  I've been working my ass off for weeks now, and I'm starting to think, Am I crazed?  Why can't I just veg on the fucking deck like an American?  Why am I buying 1/2 wine barrels and fruit trees and a security screen for the front door when I could be buying a deck lounge set and drinking beer on it like a normal human being?  I suppose that I am crazed, and that's just the way it is.  You can't un-know what you know.  And I know that human history is full of pitiless strife of every caliber and color, and this century will be no different.  I guarantee that if the people like me out there all said Fuck It and gave up the Life and buried our heads in the sand of mindless suburban consumption, the shit would immediately hit the proverbial fan.  Sometimes it doesn't rain because we are carrying umbrellas, Folks.  Wake up and smell the cordite.

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I had a thought the other day.  It was a big one.  It really filled a hole that I couldn't get around for a long time.  Here's what it was: The anti-gun people are kind of right because guns make it really easy to kill people, maybe too easy.  Probably too easy.  And the pro-gun peeps are kind of right because if we were all armed then criminals would get there nuts shot off if they tried to pull their shit in public.  Both sides seem kind of right-on to me.  THEN IT DAWNED ON ME: The issue has gotten confused. Cuz here's the way it is: Owning guns is not going to address the root causes of crime.  But it does help stop criminals from doing bad shit.  And that makes sense to me.  It's like everyone has forgotten the basic truths of the situation.  The anti-gun people think it's immoral not to address crime as a social ill that must be lovingly nipped in the bud, and the pro-gun people think that shooting criminals is stopping the cause of crime.  So, yeah, this was something that I ruminated on for many years, and I feel good now that I know how things stand.

Well cripes - I could talk all day, but there's an urban retreat still to be built, so I'd better get on.  Rest well.

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A New Day

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Fer fuck sake.  I had today's blog entry 80% complete and I somehow hit delete and lost the entire fucking thing.  That really hurts.  So, Take Two:

The eternal question: How many times can a man crap in one day?

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I moved.  Been busting ass to install a food farm ASAP in time for this Spring's growth spurt.  To date I've planted/transplanted/installed/etc.: a Meyer lemon, a limequat & a self-pollinating almond (all dwarf) in 1/2 wine barrels.  4 early-bird tomatoes in 2 earth boxes.  A Mandarin orange & 2 blueberries in other containers.  Also: a San Pedro cactus, White sage, lavender & aloe in ceramic pots.  Still to fill: 4 more 1/2 wine barrels (an apple, a vertical potato patch & kitchen veggies), 1 more earth box (more tomatoes) & 3 wall-mounted hanging window boxes (strawberries).  Can't have chickens here cuz it's a co-op & there are HOA rules, but I plan to sneak some quail in under the radar, for their eggs.  Below is a photo, several days out-of-date, of the food corner of my yard.  This will be a compact but highly productive food farm, as I want to use the rest of my yard for a shed workshop & summer fucking.

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Below, a Spetsnaz fighting shovel shown next to a regular trowel for size comparison.  I have sworn by this shovel for years.  Designed to be thrown and used in combat, it also functions as a trowel, a spade, a hatchet, and a transfer shovel.  I use mine every day in my yard, and when I'm done with it I fling it into the ground, where it sticks.  You can sharpen the four edges, too.  I've thrown this little bitch dozens of times and it is supremely satisfying to see it stick in a redwood round from 10 feet. It's WAY more effective than a tomahawk, too - vastly more blade area for vastly more damage and sticking power.  It can dig a hole, move dirt, split kindling, chop off an offending root, or cut off Charlie's head.  These things cost between 15 and 20 dollars on the internet.  Get one today and keep it in your garden shed or your truck box.

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Are you the kind of guy that gets irked when there are cracks in the backyard fence and gate that allow strangers to catch a glimpse of your bug-in pad?  Of course you are.  All Hippie Survivalists are.  Well, you can chill the fuck out, because I have come up with an ingenious solution to this vexation.  You just staple an inner tube the length of the offending crack.  It's effective and virtually free.  Below are photos of  a vexing crack, and then the solution (on a different vexing crack):

 

Hint: On the hinge-side of the gate, staple the inner tube to both sides, as it will bend inward when the gate is opened (left).  On the latch-side of the gate, staple the inner tube to the gate only (right).  This works!

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Hello, little black owl!  Would you like a bowl of milk?

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Methinks the 20 gauge Howdah hunter and the customized 12 gauge Mossberg 590A1 Mariner make a fine CQB combo.  Yes, the Howdah takes time to re-load, but it can bust 2 balls into Charlie's face at point blank, no?  And the Mossberg has limited range, but we ARE talking CQB, aren't we?  Ka-chink, BOOM, ka-chink, BOOM, ka-chink, BOOM, ka-chink, BOOM, ka-chink, BOOM, ka-chink, BOOM! When TSHTF, my CQB shottie combo will surely fill the emotional void left in my white psyche by the collapse of the entire Western paradigm and the loss of all that has ever been dear to me.

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Mark my words: Two movements will go mainstream and become worldwide in the 21st Century: Environmentalism and Survivalism.  They both emerged in the 70s and mark the dawn of a new, post-modern era.  They will become increasingly important movements as time progresses and society and nature disintegrate into anarchic, polluted chaos.

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Not long ago I had a large-ish reserve of collapse-proof investments that gave me more than a little comfort when I contemplated the end of Western civilization.  Now that reserve is gone, replaced by an urban farmstead and a monthly mortgage payment.  I may have less monetary security now, but I have more peace-of-mind.  I no longer worry like I used to.  This adventure either works out or it doesn't, but either way I give it my best.  Sometimes you just have to go where life, and your heart, point you.  Amen.

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My new place is beautiful.  It's a cottage that was built in 1941.  Morning light streams into it, and at sunset the interior glows.  The light and air outside are infinitely better than my last home.  The cottage opens into a beautiful backyard that has a hardwood deck and an 8x10 laundry/storage room.  I'm gonna like it here.

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Success!  This blog entry is published!

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New Fury Road photos from Namibia!

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I get it now...the new Mad Max look is live-action manga!  Picture Rat Fink funny cars in-the-flesh.  Over-the-top, but looking fun as shit!  This is going to be fun!

These 2 images below are of a vehicle called The Gigahorse, which consists of "two '59 caddy bodies and two blown V8s, with the engines coupled by a tractor pull-style planetary coupling and dumptruck-type 4WD diffs."  Note the duallies in back.

Below is a concept drawing of the vehicle from the October 2010 issue of Street Machine Magazine:

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