The do-nothing article

Codger_64 said:
Modern agricultural crops are evolved from far less productive wild grasses, grains, berries, roots and fruits. More food to feed more people with fewer acres. I am not aware of any farmer using modern methods and crops who renders their soil sterile. The fact is that food (plant and animal) is at an all time high in production while the number of people engaged in agriculture is at near an all time low. Likewise the variety of foods available year round has never been better. I well remember when a special Christmas treat, in mid-winter, was an apple, an orange and a tangerine. They were exotics at that time of year. Now grocers in even small towns stock pineapples, apples, bananas, citrus and other fruits and vegetables year round, much of it from South America and around the globe if not California or Florida.

While I am not a fan of industrial agriculture for many reasons, there is no escaping the fact that there is no going back to small family farms, rural living and trying to subsist on locally grown foods and wild gleanings. For one thing in this country alone, our population has more than doubled since 1950. And much of that population lives in urban areas where growing food is not possible. IF they even had the time, ability and inclination which they don't.
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Quoted for truth. Thanks Codg. That is exactly what I wanted to say. Well said sir.
 
Thanks for posting this. I eventually converted to a lazy survivalist as well. I used to work my butt off trying to set up a primitive camp for every possible need. The goal was to make the area my home. A wise man once said... "I found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don't have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell ya... it feels phenomenal." Peter La Fleur - Dodgeball
 
I went for a great hike up a seldom-traveled canyon near my house the other day. Took the dogs.

fkfpo.jpg


And then, at an appropriate spot, I busted out my hammock, kicked back and contemplated the vicissitudes of the sporting life for what most would think was a totally unproductive, irresponsible amount of time. Goal achieved.

tvcd.jpg
 
Codger_64 said:
While I am not a fan of industrial agriculture for many reasons, there is no escaping the fact that there is no going back to small family farms, rural living and trying to subsist on locally grown foods and wild gleanings. For one thing in this country alone, our population has more than doubled since 1950. And much of that population lives in urban areas where growing food is not possible. IF they even had the time, ability and inclination which they don't.
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And I live in that reality. Outdoor recreation, and driving five hours each way to enjoy a certain location is a luxurious by product of my modern lifestyle. I never will and cannot pretend to have outdoor skills rivalling individuals that made their living outdoors. I do not have the time or, really, the level of interests to commit deeply into outdoor skills. The best that I can do under my circumstances is to learn rudimentary\basic emergency survival skills. That is all that I ever wanted from this site, and I am receiving it, so I'm grateful that members post their knowledge and save my time.....As for aboriginal hunter\gatherer societies, I don't romanticize them. Their constant movement to follow or find new resources after local depletion, seasonal changes, warfare from encroaching upon different tribal territories etc. was a hard life. The further north one goes the more fragile and tenuous life becomes due to climate related lack of resources........ Fur traders in Canada noted in their journals that western Aboriginal groups were far more interested in smaller utilitarian trade goods. A nomadic lifestyle dictated by following food sources does not lend itself to a heavy material culture. Boiling meat on site in a buffalo hide with hot rocks, then disposing of it, requires much less effort than constantly transporting an iron kettle.
 
Smithhammer said:
I went for a great hike up a seldom-traveled canyon near my house the other day. Took the dogs.

fkfpo.jpg


And then, at an appropriate spot, I busted out my hammock, kicked back and contemplated the vicissitudes of the sporting life for what most would think was a totally unproductive, irresponsible amount of time. Goal achieved.

tvcd.jpg
Click to expand...

Cool. It is what it is, as long as we enjoy ourselves. This past weekend I took a couple of toys up to the Boreal. I have aprox. ten minutes of use time with the little hatchet and Mora. The rest of my time was hand peeling a couple of shopping bags full of birch bark to take back down. And I poked around a river bank with a metal detector looking for fur trade remnants. This is the first time that I've ever used the old Canon 570 to video tape. And the first time taping period. I just never had any interest in it. But it is outdoor related so I'll try to drop a link in here. I really don't know how to do all this video stuff.............. Anyway, that is a typical outdoor weekend for me, fairly eclectic, as my interests vary and time is often limited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jydGKI_NJRg&list=UUN7QED1jpOAZThkk02qSNOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kxr9TVdnhE&index=2&list=UUN7QED1jpOAZThkk02qSNOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9nfvt6Cs1s&index=3&list=UUN7QED1jpOAZThkk02qSNOw

 
JV3 said:
it's a hobby...
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That's it. That's all "bushcraft" is. Mainly it's a pleasant way people spend time. Also, don't forget that the pesky Puritans helped make us believe that sloth was the work of the devil and we must constantly toil or face hell and damnation. Idle hands are the devil's workshop and such. That garbage can carry over to your off time if you're not careful;)
 
I like this article. When folks ask me and the old farts what we do when go camping the answer is automatically "A whole lotta nothing." After pressing us further we respond with eating, cutting wood, sitting, sleeping, reading, tending the fire, looking at what we can see around us while we're sitting down, more eating, watching Indian TV, praising and thanking God, discussing a wide variety of semi-meaningless things, cooking, more eating.....................
 
Codger_64 said:
Modern agricultural crops are evolved from far less productive wild grasses, grains, berries, roots and fruits. More food to feed more people with fewer acres. I am not aware of any farmer using modern methods and crops who renders their soil sterile. The fact is that food (plant and animal) is at an all time high in production while the number of people engaged in agriculture is at near an all time low. Likewise the variety of foods available year round has never been better. I well remember when a special Christmas treat, in mid-winter, was an apple, an orange and a tangerine. They were exotics at that time of year. Now grocers in even small towns stock pineapples, apples, bananas, citrus and other fruits and vegetables year round, much of it from South America and around the globe if not California or Florida.

While I am not a fan of industrial agriculture for many reasons, there is no escaping the fact that there is no going back to small family farms, rural living and trying to subsist on locally grown foods and wild gleanings. For one thing in this country alone, our population has more than doubled since 1950. And much of that population lives in urban areas where growing food is not possible. IF they even had the time, ability and inclination which they don't.
Click to expand...

Very true. If you look at the % of income needed to buy food it's at near records lows. Also while we hate the use of herbicides no till farming has really preserved topsoil over the old practice of plowing.
 
There is nothing more rewarding than sitting enjoying the view
Reading, writtin, playing tin whistle, or watercolors
Basically doing nothing much

To get that, I carry backpacking gear, so my setup and cooking is dead simple
No time spent on shelter or cooking
I am not talking about ultra light, just regular gear
It is so much lighter than the historical canvas and wool, that there is no weight penalty for carrying gear

Wilderness and survival skills?
That is knowing how to use your gear appropiately, and how to recognizes as stuff goes wrong and what to do if stuff goes wrong
 
This was an eye-opening article for me and the rest of the thread was good to read also, thank you to OP and the rest. You all take the rest of the day off.
 
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