Improvising: Rocks, pens, and cedar trees...

[Greg Davenport]

Note: Try to answer this before reading the responses of others.

You find yourself in a survival situation (reasons unknown). You have limited resources...yet you still have to meet your "five survival needs".

Following my survival step by step process you:

1. Stop and recognize the situation for what it is.

2. Recognize and prioritize your "five survival essentials" (listed below) in order of importance.

3. Improvise to meet your needs ("five essentials").

while going through the steps of improvising you inventory your manmade and natural materials. One of the things in this inventory is a small pile of small rocks (1/2 inch diameter and less), your clothes and mid calf high boots with leather strings, 3 - 12" of parachute cord (which has an outer sheeth and 7 lines of innercore), plastic garbage bag, gold wedding ring, plastic bic pen, cedar tree, vine maple, small creek, squirrel midden, an large dead fallen tree with thick peeling bark, a can of coppenhagen with the tin top, and small folding blade knife. You may need to write this down to remember the items. oh yeah... it starts raining like your worst nightmare...

Question:

List at least 1 improvised item for each of the "five survival essentials" and their sub-categories... using the various items at your disposal.

Five survival essentials"

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire)
2. Siganling (manmade and improvised)
3. Sustenance (water and food)
4. Travel (with and without a map and compass)
5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries)

Good luck!

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 

[Plainsman]

The first thing I have to say, "You trying to kill us quickly with this one, Greg?"

Now I'll get to work!

Prioritizing my needs:
1) SHELTER! FAST!
2) Fire!
3) Signal
4) MORALE
5) Water
6) Food

So in order:
Shelter: cut a hole in the bottom of the garbage bag and use it for rain gear, don't forget arm holes!

Then take the peeling bark and cover a small area for a shelter to keep the ground dry. Build a FRAME afterward. Keeping the ground dry first should help in the long run. Then use the bark for "shingles".

Gather dry wood quickly and throw under the bark to keep it dry as you work. You want #1 and #2 as quickly as possible to keep warm and LIVE!

Once my shelter is up and a fire is going, use the cedar bark for tinder, I would get to work on the other necessities. Keeping busy with my "gear" would help as would chewing some tobaccy!

Signaling would come from fires, and possibly using the top of the can for a mirror. But if it is raining it won't do any good for a while!

The can can be used to drink from...but watch the WAX. That would probably be good for fire starting.

The creek would be good for water and food. You could heat some of the rocks and use the can to boil water. It wouldn't be a LOT, but it would be healthier.

The para cord could be pulled apart for fishing line or build a small net. If used for line, then the RING could be used as a lure such as a shiny spoon! A gorge could be carved from a piece of wood or a hook from the can's tin cap. This could be a lure in itself.

The boot's leather strings could be used for snares. Two could be used as a sling with your 1/2" rocks.

I suppose the bic pen and tobacco could also be used for a PIPE!

Definitely a good morale booster for smokers or tobacco addicts. (I'm glad I never got hooked on chewing when I did it a few years ago!)



------------------
Plainsman
primitiveguy@hotmail.com

You use what you have on you, then you improvise!

 

[Big-Target]

And don't forget Ron's Rule of three's:

-you have three seconds without thinking
-three minutes without breathing
-Three hours without shelter
-Three days without water
-Three weeks without food
-Three months without hope
-Three years without sex(my personal addition)

------------------
Big-Target>>>>>>SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM

 

[Stryver]

Wow... Everything I need....

First, garbage bag becomes poncho.

Second, I see how much shelter that old dead tree provides, and how easily I could add to it. Assuming it could be easily improved greatly, I make a lean-to out of it, quickly. Then I move squirrel midden into lean-to for bedding. I check the midden quickly for any good leftovers, and if I see signs of them, I look a wee bit more, but can save that for bedtime snacks too...

If I'm warm now, I'll stay where I am, and save the rest till morning. I'll move the garbage bag from my person to the inside of the roof, so I don't build up so much perspiration. If I'm not warm, or I wake up cold, I'll work on gathering firestarting stuff in the hopes I can get a bow drill fire going. I would use an old dead cedar for the drill part, hopefully I can manage to split a dry piece, and try another piece of cedar for my fireboard. My shoelaces can make the string, and if I can find a flat, dimpled rock, I'll use it for the handpiece, elsewise a lubricated piece of wood.

COme morning, I'll assess my situation. Do I expect rescuers shortly? Do they know where I am? Do I have good resources around me? These will decide whether I move or stay, and how quickly I work on large signals. The copenhagen tin will work nicely for a mirror, and I'll dump the tobacco on some stump in hopes it poisons some animal that I can come back and pick up later

I can make a sling, and use the rocks as ammo.

When the rain stops, I can use the garbage bag to store water, and to make a solar still, and I can use the plastic pen to suck water out of my still. If the still does not produce enough water, I can drink out of the creek as well.

The paracord will be saved for whatever I need paracord for, parts of solar still, clothes repair, tie waterbag shut, etc.

Other things to be improvised are limited only by imagination...

Stryver

 

[Greg Davenport]

anymore takers on this scenario? Step up to the plate and take the challenge. Use your mind... it is the best survival tool you'll ever have

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 

[MichLee]

Ok I will give it a go. Lets see:

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire) – First is use the plastic bag for a rain poncho. When it quits raining keep it ready for this same use for later possibly. Use the dead tree for shelter, look at it carefully to find best possible use, but more than likely a lean two type shelter using loose bark as shingles in a wickiup (sp) type manner and thin whippy pieces of the vine maple for cordage. My boots I try to leave alone and tied as long as I can because I may have to travel on foot. I will try to improvise either a firebow, or fireplough using the deadwood and maple. Use the rotted punk wood for tinder for the fire.
2. Signaling (manmade and improvised) – The bright silver top of the can will serve as a signaling device for any air rescue or planes. I think but I am sure I will be told different if I am wrong, but the tin can from the tobbaco could serve as a water cup. Heating small tones in fire and dropping them in the water could boil it , not sure on this one as I am not that familiar with chewing tobbaco can properties. The same thing could be done with my hat which is water proofed, a piece of wood could be lain in the crown for the hot stones to lay on so they would not burn the material.
2. Sustenance (water and food) – Fish the stream using strands of paracord. Cut the wedding ring in half and scrape a groove around one end to attach the line, then sharpen the other end to a point using a stone to make a lure. Clip from bic pen would make another lure, this one might be best tried before wrecking wedding band as the wife might make survival a moot point.

4. Travel (with and without a map and compass) – Follow stream.

5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries) – Entertain myself by chewing tobbaco and seeing how green I can turn. Start canoe building project out of dead tree with pocket knife for long term use in stream if it is deep enough, this should provide months of entertainment and purpose.

3 Years without sex? Sure its survivable, but is it worth it?


------------------
Lee

LIfe is too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde

 

[HM]

Let's try:

Personal protection:
-stuff clothes with soft cedar bark and leaves for insulation
-garbage bag as poncho and with paracord as improvised tube tent
-cedar drill and board, leather shoelace as string for fire starter
-cedar bark as tinder
-cedar branches as sleeping pad
-Coppenhagen tin can (Greg, BTW how many people carry chewing tobacco in these days?) as rainproof tinder carrier
-cedar bark as fire bundle to carry fire when on travel
-remove bark of large fallen tree to use as shingle for shelter
-look for rotten punk as tinder in dead fallen tree
-if there is tinder fungus: use as tinder or carve a cap out of it if big enough
-look for quartz stones in creek bed and try to start fire by sparking (good luck!)
-look for stones in creek bed to improvise stone axe, arrow head, spare head
-use cedar bark to improvise cordage, basket

Signaling:
-carve signs into smooth maple bark for rescuers
-set fire fed with green cedar branches for signaling smoke
-use tin can top as mirror
-plastic bags as large signaling flags or land to air signals on snow or on light colored rock

Sustenance:
-water from creek
-tap maple for syrup (sugar+water)
-eat cedar berries (high in carbohydrate!) and use to spice meat
-make tea of cedar twigs
-cedar berries are eaten by birds and animals so try for trapping, also used by birds for nesting (look for nests for tinder and eggs to eat), deer (book says) frequents cedar for twigs, so hunt for it
-look for grubs and bugs/ants under bark of fallen tree
-trap animals (like bear

) that eat ants from roten logs
-make charcoal and use to filter water bu poking small hole in garbage can and fill up water and bottom with charcoal
-make straw from bic pen and stuff with charcoal for same purpose
-improvise sling from leather boot lace and piece of plastic bag or clothes to hunt with your stones
-use inner cord from paracord to improvise snare for squirrel around its midden
-use gold ring cut up and reshaped for fishing lure
-make fishtrap from branches to harvest fish from creek (use stones to narrow creek)
-look for sweet water shrimp under stones in creek
-spear frogs if around
-look for game trail around creek for hunting (with sling,throwing stick and spear) and trapping
-store water in plastic bag

Travel:
-use pen as sun dial to determine North
-use pen to measure distance with triangulation method (use knife to groove scale marks into plastic)
-cut up plastic bag into stripes (if not needed for more important things!) and mark trees to keep direction of travel

Health:
-improvise flute from bic pen to stay in practice

and entertain yourself
-use concentrated tobacco extract for arrow poison (as I just learned on other thread)
-use tobacco against GI tract parasites
-use tobacco as mood enhancer
-cedar berries contain vitamin C
-depending on what cedar it is, oil might serve as: strong antiseptic, astringent, diuretic,expectorant, sedative

That is it. Now, let's see what others wrote.

HM

 

[Greg Davenport]

Plainsman, Stryver, MichLee, and HM (I am sure I missed someone and for that I appoligize),

You have done great at these exercises and you are mastering the art of improvising. Your ability to ID your manmade and natural resources and then imagine how you can use them to meet your "five survival essentials" is the key...

Kudos to you. I appreciate your desire to learn and help others through your posts.

Once again, I'd like to invite the readers to post their thoughts when viewing these types of exercises. The post not only allow you to challenge yourself but also teach others about options they may have overlooked. Please join us

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 

[Tuff]

I'd post Greg, but I'm still trying to learn this survival stuff. A lot to it, any seemingly many different variations. I'd probably get shelter done (if that) and get stuck after that

More answers the more ideas I get though...