The Simplest Shepard's Pie Recipe Ever!

In news related to Rhi and Evie's ride, we aren't able to go for medical reasons, so we're obviously disappointed that life decided to become complicated. We were looking forward to a month of hanging out, practicing prepper skills like deadfall traps and cast iron dutch oven cookery... but that doesn't mean I'm not going to have some fun with the preps I had gathered.

One of the things I planned to try while on the trip was a "bastard shepherd's pie". I say bastard because the meat was either going to be smashed spam or tuna instead of ground beef. (Oh quite cringing, it wouldn't have been that bad.)

This recipe is something that I came up with on the fly to see if those packs of mashed potatoes with the little extra seasonings that I mentioned last time would work for said food dish.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs of ground meat. I recommend not very lean ground beef; you'll read why later.
• 1 small onion, chopped (any onions will do, if you want to extra color try red onions)
• 3 stalks of celery
• 2 carrots (size matters not)
• 1 jalepeno, seeded and chopped, about the same size as the onions and celery
• Additional seasonings can be added but they aren't needed. I used some rosemary, sage and chives from my little container garden.
• About 1/2 cup of instant mashed potatoes. I used the Applewood smoked bacon mashed potato pack for this, and the bacon flavor really blended well with the rest of the flavors. 
• If you decide to make the mashed potatoes from scratch, you'll need about a cup and a half of boiled finely diced potatoes. Contrary to popular beliefs, mashed potatoes don't need milk or butter, just salt and black pepper. 
• Salt & black pepper
• A thickening agent. Many people use regular white flour, but one of the things that Rhi and I were going to be playing around with were alternative flours like buckwheat, tapioca and white rice flours. I used white rice flour in this instance; coconut and almond flours would not work for this recipe as they have a stronger flavor than rice or tapioca.

Directions

1. While your beef is cooking down, chop up your veggies and set them aside.
2. Your beef is ready to throw into a mixing bowl or the cooking dish once it's cooked almost all the way through. DON'T THROW THAT FAT AWAY! Leave it in the pan. That's what you're cooking your veggies in.
3. Put your onions and celery in first. Keep an eye on your veggies because you're going to be adding the jalepeno to the mix once the onions have started to turn translucent. You'll toss your carrots in once the celery is tender and mix everything together in the frying pan really well.
4. Once you have everything in the pan mixed, sprinkle some of your thickening agent into the pan and mix well again, reducing heat but keep stirring. You'll probably use at most a tablespoon depending on what you've chosen.
5. Preheat your oven to 350.
6. Turn the water on for your instant mashed potatoes (or if you went with potatoes from scratch, you can have them on a medium boil on the side while cooking everything else).
7. Mix your meat and veggies well. Put them into your baking dish and make sure your layers is flat as possible. 
8. Once you've gotten your potatoes mixed up/mashed up, spoon them on your mixture in the baking dish and carefully spread them with the back of the large spoon. Once you have an even layer, pop into the oven for 30 minutes or until the potatoes have a bit of a crust to them.

When ready, let sit for about 5-10 minutes if possible to let everything settle down a little bit. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Bon appetite! 

Rhi Readies for the Ride

A few years ago, Evelyn and I took a month-long sabbatical, camping out here in my home state of Oklahoma on the land owned by some good friends of mine. We had some interesting adventures together out in the piney woods, with bacon-stealing dogs who let themselves into my tent, horses that decided to investigate Evie's tent, fishing, and one bitey duck who was rather delicious once we got through with him.

We're both in need of another month away from the stress of modern life, and this time, I'm going out to Arizona for the trip.

Equipment
Unlike last time, Evie and I won't be someplace where it will be convenient to hop into town on any sort of regular basis, which means that there are items that stayed home on our prior trip which will go with me this time, like my full blown camp kitchen with its own pop-up canopy, all of my camp kitchen gear, more than one stove, my foldable Coleman camp oven to set up over one of the stoves, and several extra pieces of cast iron cookware that usually only go to Reenactor events with me.

Cast Iron Waffle Maker!

One of the better finds during a recent flea market scavenger hunt for cast iron was a really neat waffle iron! I'm planning on packing it into the camp kitchen gear box, along with some already made up "just add water" waffle batter, so we can have waffles and homemade buckboard bacon for breakfast early in the trip. The bacon is currently curing here at home, and will be going into the smoke house for a 12 hour maple smoke bath tomorrow.

You can see from the photo that the waffle iron I found comes with its own ring stand (also cast iron) to set it over the fire. I'm planning to replace the old handles with a new pair of wooden dowels that will have a nail through the pin hole to hold them in place. It was a truly spectacular find at only $7.

I'm also taking along a custom made cast iron tripod to hang things over the fire, such as my 6 quart dutch oven, my 8 quart cauldron, and the ever important coffee pot!

While I was able to repair the tent I previously used, it has since gone the way of the dodo and been replaced. My new tent is about the same size as my old one (meaning it technically has room for 12) and is what I still consider to be a pretty near "perfect" size for me. It wouldn't do for backpacking, or even for bugging out unless I had enough warning to pack up the car first, but it's great for my Reenactor Weekends or a long term camping trip such as this one will be.

Food
Many of my food preparations are quite similar to those which Evelyn is making. Foil-packed tuna in several different flavors has become a staple in my home and is a part of my bug out bag. They're cheap, they pack small, and they make great individual size servings. There are also a few types of Ramen style noodles in my kitchen box as well, along with regular pasta, regular rice, and quick cook boil-in-bag rice.

I'm also packing honey rather than regular sugar. It takes the same amount of space, but I like the flavor and nutrient value of honey over processed sugar. Whether it be Honey Stix or the ubiquitous bear, honey is an all-around great way to add some sweet to morning coffee, fireside pancakes and waffles, or just as a quick pick me up when added energy is needed.

I've also been experimenting with pemmican. These days, it's easy to find freeze-dried vegetables and fruits at the grocery store, all of which powder well. There is even freeze-dried cheese powder, if you're willing to look for it. So rather than just the standard pemmican of meat + berry + tallow, there are going to be a few different varieties to try out: I'm adding powdered freeze-dried veggie mix to some, cheese powder to at least one batch, and freeze dried fruit to another batch. I'm also making a couple of batches with just meat, but which will be seasoned with various herbs as they're being put together.

In all, I'm hoping to have about 10 lbs of pemmican ready in time for the Ride. I'll probably also pack along the remaining tallow that I rendered for use in campfire baking during that month. If we get a strong response on our Facebook Group, I'll include my pemmican recipes and methods (along with my notes about what worked and what didn't) in the future.

A Few Thoughts on Sewing

Several people over the years have asked me why I'm so intent on basic skills like sewing and weaving and baking as potentially useful survival / preparedness skills.

It's often difficult for me to formulate an answer that doesn't consist of grimacing, pointing, a few grunts, and "but SKILLS!"

This is not an answer that seems to satisfy very many people.

During late May and early June, though, I had to make repairs to my tent. It was damaged back in October, while Evelyn and I were on sabbatical, when a nursing Anatolian Shepherd momma decided to let herself in to scrounge for food while we were in town.

Anatolian Shepherds are a LARGE breed of dog. They're long haired, extremely intelligent, loyal, loving, and good guard and herd dogs. Did I mention that they're huge?

This is Ivan (lying down) and Max (sitting) They are brothers from a previous litter by the same momma.

Just for comparison, and to get a better perspective of their sheer size, the photos below are of Evelyn petting Ivan, myself petting Max, and a photo we took just to show the size of Max's paws compared to a human hand.

 

Now when you put this all in perspective, its not much of a surprise to know that they can do a significant amount of damage if they really want to -- or even if they just get excited or overly playful or want into something badly enough.

Momma (Ina) apparently wanted into my tent to get at the food stored there, and while she's incredibly intelligent, she can't really manage zippers. Not being able to open the door the correct way meant tearing a hole in the side of my tent to make herself a doggie door. I can't put too much blame on her - she had recently given birth to a rather large litter (13 pups), and nursing moms get hungry.

The Results were Not Pretty.

Needless to say, my first thought was to simply throw this tent away at the end of the trip and replace it when I had the time and money. Then I realized that trying to find the time for shopping before I would need a tent again, as well as the money, was probably asking too much from life. A limited budget due to retirement makes for a lean bank account! 

Replacing my tent would be an expensive proposition. After all, it's a two room cabin tent that sleeps eight people comfortably and 12 in a pinch. Remember when I said that Evelyn's backpacker tent would fit inside mine, and still leave plenty of room for my queen bed? I'd be looking at spending a minimum of $170 to replace my tent with an identical model, or upwards of $1800 to replace it with the really nice canvas period tent that I'd like to have. 

So that was a solid "no" when it came to tossing salvageable equipment.

While I don't have $170+ lying around, coming up with $3.95 for a Coleman Tent Repair Kit wasn't difficult or a stretch. Its a bit more expensive on Amazon than it was at Wal-Mart, but it's still a much cheaper proposition than buying a whole new tent.

I purchased two at the store. The first is currently being used to make the necessary repairs to the tent; the second is going into the tent bag as a permanent fixture in case I find myself needing to make repairs while in the field.

The repair on the upper seam of the rip - visible, but functional.

You can still see where I have more repair work to do on that gaping hole the dog left, in this photo. But I'd made a good start, and each seam only took 15 or 20 minutes to complete. Once I'd done all of them, I hit them with the Seam Sealer that came in the kit, which is intended to finish plugging the tiny holes made by the needle. You can see where I attempted to repair the long vertical rip with the Nylon Tape that is part of the kit. It didn't work as well as it could have, because I didn't clean the area sufficiently before starting - and frankly, that's far too large a hole to use the tape as a repair measure.

Lower Seam Repair - all but invisible and completely functional.

It took me about six hours, spread over the course of a two week period, but I managed to salvage my tent and make it both creature- and (when combined with a single can of scotch-guard) water-proof again, In a pinch, I could have had the repairs done in about an hour, but since I wasn't under any sort of pressure, I took my time, and did the repairs in small sections while I wasn't working on other projects!

So to the question "Why learn sewing?" I reply that being able to make basic repairs -- to your clothing, your bedding, and your tent -- can mean the difference between having functional items and doing without. Having the basic skill to do simple mending can definitely mean the difference between comfort and its lack.

And to "Why hand sewing in particular?" I say that You won't have a sewing machine with you in a survival situation*, and even if you do, you likely won't have electricity to run it.**
Tents that have large holes in them are an open invitation to critters of all types to come in and look around and possibly set up a home.  Holes mean leaks, and leaks mean wet bedding (uncomfortable at best, deadly at worst) and water damaged gear if you haven't made certain everything is in a waterproof container of some sort.

It might seem antiquated and quaint as a skill, but sewing means having a way to salvage a bad situation into a not so bad, or perhaps even livable, situation. All in all, basic skills -- antiquated, quaint, anachronistic, low tech -- are what will ultimately make the difference between Surviving and Thriving if you're ever in a long-term SHTF situation.


* Yes, I do have a Battery Operated Mini Sewing Machine, and yes, its part of my standard gear if I'm going to be out in the field for long periods without a return home. But I'm a freak of nature, and we all know it!

** No electricity means that machine is useless, unless you're the kind of antiques freak I am, and happen to own a treadle operated machine. (Why yes, I have one of those as well!)

Adventures in Oklahoma

If you will recall, OkieRhio has been talking about our adventure together in Oklahoma. Well, there is at least one story that she can't tell you because she wasn't there for it.

Rhi had gone back to OKC and I was chilling at our campsite by myself for a few days. I decided to go over to the pond and toss a line in for a while, just to relax and pass the time as I had all the camp chores done If I caught something, it was going into the stew pot that day.

After about an hour, I decided to call it quits and head back to grab some delicious, wonderful well water water from the hose. As I was walking back up to the house, I happened to glance over at the calf pen,  and I noticed that Little Red was out and bucking around.

They had four calves at that point in the pen, and I did a head count. Three.

Something was wrong. I charged into the field towards the pen only to find a calf, Erika the Red, was in big trouble.

Somehow she had managed to wedge her head into the gate. Her head was under it, and the full weight of her body was twisted around and sitting on top of the gate. She also wasn't visibly breathing.

My only thought at this point was "Shit. I'm going to have to explain to Jen and Craig why their prize calf has a .45 in the back of her head."

I started tugging on her legs, trying to get her untwisted. When I got her weight off of the gate, she heaved a huge breath and looked at me as if to ask, "All right, human. What now?" 

I was crying at this point, just straight up bawling and talking to her. This was a situation where if she panicked again, she could snap her neck or kick me in the head.

After tugging her into a position where she could breathe easier, I started looking at the gate for where it connected to the fence. Thank the Gods, the owners had only used bailing wire.

Moments later, I was able to disconnect the gate and quickly began sizing up how I needed to move it. I started hauling it up on its side and adjusting Erika's head as I went, trying to untwist her neck enough to where she could slip out.

However, once the pressure from the gate let up, she began bucking and spinning herself in a 360, which caused me to lose my grip on the gate. Then I tucked down and caught the gate with my back
as Erika came crashing down beside me.

She looked at me again. "Now what, genius?"

I extracted myself out from under the gate, and went back to trying to haul it up to where she would be able to work her head out. I got it standing again, and she got to bucking again, but at this point the two of us had managed to get her into a position where she could twist herself free.

One turn, two turns, three turns, and on the fourth turn she managed to get free... and then came down straight onto my left foot. She weighed about 200 - 350 lbs. at that point.

I managed to keep hold of the gate as she got herself clear, and then shoved it over with no small amount of disdain. Then I turned and looked at her. She took several steps away and kept giving me "I meant to get my head stuck." looks. 

"Are you going to let me check you over?"

"Hell no." Ericka the Red became Ericka the Dumb.

I limped my way back over to the ranch house -- maybe 30, 40 yards -- and plopped into a chair with relief. I had managed to keep a prize calf from suffocating to death. Honestly, that's the second worst kind of death after drowning in my book. I didn't have to shoot her to put her out of misery and I would have not felt good about that.

Now, saving Ericka was crucial for the Masseys (the people who own Knight's Rest). This is a $4,500 dollar calf! She is a back-breeding of a Viking Red sire out of a Jersey Dame. and this is a rare breed -- though I'm not entirely sure why,  as they are super milkers. Ericka's sister is 15+ years old and still milking strong on a farm out in California. Assuming Ericka doesn't do anything else stupid, she will be a boon and blessing for the Masseys in about a year.

And my foot? After Craig Massey returns and I explained what happened to him, he invited me in to chill on the couch and ice it. The next day I had no bruises and no broken bones. Ericka had come straight down on me, and if she had been an inch in any other direction, I'd have been calling Renee to come get me and we'd have been sitting in a hospital for a few hours.

And the only scolding I got?

Was for giving myself a hard time over it taking me a minute and a half to figure out how to save Erika.

Yeah, you read that right. I'm still pissed at myself at how long it took.

My story here is an example of how quickly things can go wrong on a farm, and that you have to be willing to get dirty and hurt to save your livestock sometimes. They are your life, and they are your keys to a good future.

Just be sure they don't have half the personality Ericka does.

Knightly Bees and Peckish Perch

This will be my final entry about the camping trip from back in October 2015 that Evelyn and I took out to Knight's Rest here in Oklahoma.

Fishing
The Masseys, who own Knight's Rest, maintain a really nice fishing pond on the property, and it's stocked with perch, bluegill, and various other pan fish and sunfish. This little pond is chronically under-fished, and that's both good and bad:

It's good because it means that the fish who live in that water will bite on practically any lure you happen to toss out -- which means you'll almost always have a big pile of fish to cook up for dinner when you toss in a line.

It's bad because some of those fish think they're starving, and will swallow your entire lure rather than simply hooking themselves! I had to put a fresh hook on my line a couple of times due to over-eager perch swallowing the hook sufficiently that it couldn't be retrieved until we started cleaning them for dinner. This isn't a problem if you have spare hooks and lures (we both had plenty) but potentially a problem for someone in a survival situation where they need more than one fish, and taking the time to gut and clean the first in order to retrieve their only hook could be an issue.

While many of us have fishing gear of various qualities (and quantities!) I was putting the test on a mini rod & reel that I had purchased specifically as part of my survival/prep gear. I wanted something small enough to pack out easily, but sturdy enough I wasn't going to be in constant fear of it breaking at a critical moment, like when I was depending on it for eating vs. going hungry.

What I settled on was this little gem: the Zebco Dock Demon Spincast Combo

http://amzn.to/1WlAJ2w

• Available through Amazon for $16.80, but I picked mine up at Wal-Mart for less than $10.
• Very light, with less than 11 ounces total weight to worry about carrying. 
• Small enough to be easily handled by anyone, even a small child, but not so small that full-sized adults can't use it.
• Sturdy enough that in the several months since I got it, I've managed to land catfish and bass that had a whole lot more fight to them than the perch we were pulling out of the pond.

If you're looking for a really light weight, easy to pack fishing set, this is definitely one to consider.

Cooking them up was a bit of trial and error to top off the adventure of extracting eaten lures. Evelyn decided that roasting sounded like a great idea, and set about building a green limb roasting spit arrangement similar to those used in the 1600s and 1700s by various Native tribes.

It managed to stay together just long enough to finish roasting some of the fish.  The rest went into a stew pot, as being the easier route to take for dinner!

Seasoning
Now Evelyn and I are fairly passable cooks, both in the home kitchen and using a grill or campfire set up. One of the reasons that we manage to eat well is because we both maintain a good selection of herbs, spices, and spice blends to use in our camp cooking, even when what we're eating is fresh fish or a duck we took 2 hours to pluck.

A little bit of seasoning can go a long way towards staving off food boredom, and its resultant lack of desire to eat anything at all. In the field, especially when situations become critical, making sure that you eat enough to keep your strength up -- and that you actually enjoy that food sufficiently that eating doesn't become a chore to be avoided -- is critically important. Good nutrition can mean the difference between seeing tomorrow's sunset and your tribe having to take time out of their survival to bury you.

There are dozens of easy methods of storing small amounts of spices and seasonings in airtight packaging to stash in your gear. Even a 29 cent packet of Ramen is a lot more palatable with a bit of extra spices tossed into the mix while it's boiling. And that plain beef or chicken broth from a cube and hot water actually becomes a passable soup when you throw in a little bit of something other than salt.

Bees! BEEEEEEES!
We were at Knight's Rest just before winter truly set in, and the Bees were busy gathering as much as they could during those final warm days. In the early mornings we could hear the huge wild hive come awake as things began to warm up for the day.

The ever-productive girls from that wild hive were frequent visitors to our camp. Yes, girls; honeybees are female, except for perhaps 6-10 males produced once a year for the sole purpose of mating with the hive queen. They are also surprisingly docile as long as they don't perceive you as a threat to themselves or their hive. Stinging you isn't on the agenda -- it's a death sentence for them -- so simply leaving them alone to do their thing is the best way to deal with them coming into your camp.

Bees are just easy-going working girls, wanting nothing more than to go about their job. I keep telling myself this, because even though I know that it's the case, I'm still rather paranoid about getting stung. That paranoia cost me a bit of pain towards the end of our time at KR.

One poor little bee decided to land and rest. Unfortunately for me, where she wanted to rest was on my face. And then in my hair. And then back to my face. And of course, I made the mistake of trying to brush her away, which knocked her down the back of my shirt - trapping her and agitating her at the same time. The results were not pretty: one dead bee, one panic stricken Rhi, one highly amused Evelyn, and a chuckling Jen Massey, who provided us with a surprisingly effective remedy for the sting.

While most folks consider it a wives' tale, meat tenderizer actually works to take the pain out of a bee sting. A paste made of meat tenderizer and just enough water to turn it into a slightly sticky clump, when applied directly to the area where the sting happened, will feel like a miracle worker within a couple of minutes.

While you might not keep meat tenderizer in your kit for cooking, keeping a small sealed jar of it in your first aid kit as a cheap, effective means of dealing with stings isn't a bad idea.

The Takeaways From Our Adventure
Personally, I learned a lot during that month we spent in the field. I learned just why we in the community seem to harp so often on actually using and maintaining the various skills you have.

Keeping a fire going for days or even weeks at a time isn't easy. Keeping a fire going in adverse weather conditions can be a serious trial of patience, but is even more important than keeping it going while the weather is nice and cooperative. If you don't practice starting and maintaining a fire in all sorts of conditions, along with any other potentially critical skills, you might just find that you've forgotten something important when your life is depending on your knowledge base.

I have a deep-seated appreciation of those who actively choose to raise and grow our food, and I learned that while I "can" live off the land, I like my creature comforts too much to ever actually look forward to a situation where I have no choice but to do so.

• Plucking a bird is time consuming, frustrating, and messy. I'd rather spend $18 on a bird at my local grocery store, buying one that's ready to cook, than spend $10 (or the time to trap/hunt) on a live bird and then 2 hours getting it ready just to begin the cooking. 
• Gardening may sound like a fun hobby, but its also time consuming and labor intensive to grow all your own food, and greatly restricts what is available in your diet to things that will grow in your area. 

Don't ever forget to be thankful for global transportation, groceries that carry produce year round, and the convenience of not having to carefully hoard every spare scrap of food to make it through non growing seasons!

I learned that sometimes an old remedy (meat tenderizer on bee stings) continues to get passed down for generations because it actually works.The science backs it up, and so does empirical data!.

I learned that a determined enough animal will find a way into your supplies, even when you think those supplies are secure. Large enough animals can do a considerable amount of damage, even when they're not "predatory" in nature. So never make the assumption that you've covered all the contingencies.

I learned that a rattlesnake will keep moving after you shoot it, even after its been blown into two pieces. And that I never, ever want to make Evelyn decide that I'm a valid target!

Practice your skills, folks. Even the minor ones you don't think you'll ever need should be practiced regularly. Its no joke -- we weren't in a life or death situation, and we were camped where we had plenty of backup and leeway close to hand if it was needed, but that won't always be the case.

Whatever you happen to do... just make sure to bee prepared!

Horses and Cattle and Snakes, Oh My!

During the month of October 2015, Evelyn and I had a bit of a sabbatical out at Knights Rest here in central Oklahoma. This is a continuation of some of the things we learned during that month long camping trip and prepping hide away.

We talk a lot in preparedness circles about Situational Awareness. We talk about how important it is to be aware of our surroundings, and what things within our area can potentially damage us. However, we don't spend much time and effort discussing situational awareness in the context of something bad happening to our gear, or what our plans are if Something Bad happens and leaves us whole and hale, but destroys something critical to our continued comfort or well-being.

Twice during our trip, lack of situational awareness got the better of us. The first time, it cost us convenience and gear, and in the long run it cost Evelyn money replacing that gear. The second time, it could easily have cost one of us our life if we hadn't been lucky.

Animals
The horses, dairy cattle, and sheep that are part of Knight's Rest have free roam of the entire 166 acres that it rests on. This is only fair, since it's their home, and grazing is a much more economical means of feeding ruminants than supplying endless amounts of hay. They don't typically wander into camp, preferring to stay in the "unoccupied" areas of the farm. At least, they don't usually wander into camp while people are there. This doesn't mean that they can't, or that they won't -- just that they usually don't.

The Anatolian Shepherd farm dogs are a completely different story: they'll stick around camp if you're there, because you might give them treats! Or if you forget to put away the pound of bacon that you intended to cook for breakfast, and leave it laying on top of your camp kitchen table like a doofus (don't ask).

Animal Incident #1

So just what happens when you leave camp for a couple of days, thinking everything is secure? Well, if you're lucky, nothing at all happens, and you arrive back at camp two days later and everything is just how you left it.

If you are not so lucky, you come back to camp to find that a 2500 pound horse with feet the size of a dinner plate has decided to walk through the middle of your camp -- and the middle of your tent! KR's horses are beautiful Shires and Shire/Arabian blends, which means they're draft animals. They're only slightly smaller than the Budweiser Clydesdales, in fact, and can easily stand as much as 6 1/2 feet tall at the shoulder -- and those are the dainty examples.

This was the resulting damage to the tent poles: a 90 degree bend in a place that isn't supposed to bend at all!

Both poles for Evelyn's original tent had a bend like that in it. While it was a nice little tent, and set up easy, and didn't weigh her down much, it could not withstand having a full size draft horse decide to walk across the space where it had been set up. Needless to say, that was one completely trashed tent.

We were fortunate because nothing inside the tent was seriously damaged. A lot of it (practically everything, in fact) was soaking wet, because it had rained after the tent got stepped on, but otherwise everything inside was undamaged.

Lesson Learned: Don't think that the relatively domesticated animals in your vicinity won't suddenly decide to come investigate you and your stuff. They probably will. Be aware of the relative sizes of those animals, and how much unintentional damage they can do in their fits of curiosity about this newcomer to their domain.

Animal Incident #2
October is one of those times of year in Oklahoma when the weather isn't cold enough to be considered "winter" yet (but it's closing in) and it's no longer really hot enough to still be considered "summer" (even though the temperatures can still reach the mid 80s on any given afternoon).

One thing is certain about what passes for Autumn in this area: many animals are looking for a warm place to hole up in and sleep through til spring. And when I say animals, I also mean the slithery kind, like snakes and frogs and lizards.

While we don't have many snakes here that are envenomed in a manner that is dangerous to humanity, we do have a few, most notably rattlesnakes of several sub-species. This includes pygmy rattlesnakes, which seem to have a Napoleon Complex, territorial aggressiveness, and the bad attitude you would expect from a grizzly bear with a toothache.

Rattlesnakes love warmth. They don't move well when it starts getting colder, and will look for places to curl up where it's sunny and warm and comfortable. The piles of collected pine duff -- the fallen needles, etc that are scattered around in any given pine grove -- seem to be just the sort of thing that they're looking for, because of their high insulation value.

Our camp was in a clearing of a pine grove. Originally planted as a potential Christmas Tree farm project, it was allowed to grow wild when the project was scrapped, and natural clearings and glades were allowed to develop. One of these natural clearings is where I've chosen to make the Valeda's Grove (Wise Woman's Grove, for those unfamiliar with Viking and Norse usage) that is "my" permanent camping spot out at Knight's Rest.

One of those sunny, warm, and comfortably-insulated spots created by fallen pine needles is about two feet off the path into camp. The trees form a bit of a natural arch leading into the clearing, and naturally funnel the flow of traffic in the area. One afternoon while we were out and about, one of those pygmy rattlesnakes decided to take up residence in the pine duff at the entrance to camp, two feet away from where we walked several times a day.

Neither of us initially noticed the pygmy rattlesnake when we got back to camp. That's right, neither of the two women -- both armed, both relatively well-trained in looking after themselves, both familiar with camping and the various potential dangers that it can encompass -- noticed the venomous snake lying curled up and napping two feet from where they were walking.

What alerted us to the danger (and pygmies ARE dangerous!) was one of the farm dogs alerting to the snake and us wandering over to investigate what had caught the dog's attention.

Lesson learned: I learned several valuable lessons that day.

• I am still utterly terrified of snakes, even if I am armed, unless they are safely ensconced behind inch-thick glass at the Zoo.
• A .45 caliber bullet, placed correctly, will effectively rip a pygmy rattlesnake in half -- and it's rather satisfying in a strange, visceral way, to watch that happen.
• Even when it has been ripped in half by a .45 round, a rattlesnake will continue to move for a while, and will look like it's still attempting to strike. 
• When in doubt about whether the snake is dead yet, beating it repeatedly with a BIG stick makes a satisfying thunk. 
• A rattlesnake can only strike at things within a distance of approximately half its body length. 
• I'm too much of a coward to get close enough to figure out how long a snake is in order to determine a safe distance. 
• Always make sure you check the sides of the trail that you're walking, even (or perhaps especially) the trail into camp, to make certain you aren't missing something critical that could kill you. 
• Evelyn is a good shot, and it's not wise to piss her off! She can hit a pygmy rattlesnake that's moving and attempting to strike (even though we were out of range) without flinching.

(Editor's Note: My mother was bitten by a pygmy rattlesnake in 2013. If you want to see pictures of the snake and the bite, go here.)

When Things Go a-Fowl

This is the second installment of Rhi and Evie's Adventures at Knights Rest, where we take a bird in hand and discover it's worth more than two in the bush.

While out at KR, Evelyn and I had to deal with livestock of various sorts. Knights Rest is a working farm, after all, and there are horses, sheep, dairy cows, chickens, ducks, and the attendant working dogs.

One of the things that we did, both as an exercise in off-grid grocery skills and because Evelyn had never had any, was to acquire a duck for our dinner one night.

Most wild birds which aren't raptors (i.e. falcons, hawks, eagles, owls) or straight-up carrion eaters (vultures) can be consumed by humans. Varieties of songbird and game birds -- including several species that we modern Westerners wouldn't even consider putting on our dinner plates, such as peacocks -- have been part of the dinner menu in the past. Ducks, geese, guinea fowl, and chickens have all been kept as farm livestock for several thousand years for their meat and eggs, as well as their feathers being useful for clothing and bedding once the bird is headed for the cook fire.

Unless you live on a farm and routinely harvest your own animals, though, its rather easy to forget just what goes into getting a bird ready for human consumption. As a society, we've been conditioned to consider it "no big deal" to run down to the grocery store, grab a ready-to-cook bird from the frozen foods section, take it home, and deal with simply cooking it.

Our duck dinner started with figuring out which members of the flock (a mixed flock of domestic and originally wild ducks who've chosen to stick around at KR for the abundant food and safety) were "excess" males, and therefore prime candidates for harvesting. Fortunately, with so many previously wild ducks now making their home at KR, there was an over-abundance of brightly plumed semi-wild drakes that were easy to identify.

Of the available ducks ready for harvest, we picked out one that could be easily identified by his markings, and proceeded with the task of capturing our dinner. This meant getting him out of the pond, into the pen, and then cornered so he could be collected. While we "could" have simply shot him, neither of us has done much in the way of hunting in several years, and the chances of spooking the flock and scattering them, ending up empty-handed, was higher than either of us cared to risk.
Don't ever believe that chickens, geese, and ducks won't bite. They will and they do. I got nipped (fortunately very lightly) in the process of cornering our duck in the pen. Then came the Messy Part.

Why yes, ducks DO bite - those are serrated edges on that beak!

A log with a pair of nails forming a somewhat open V was used to stretch out our bird so we could slit his throat and chop off his head. Make sure your knife, axe, machete, etc is sharp when you do so, preferably sharp enough to take off the head in a single stroke rather than having to whack at it several times. We didn't pause to sharpen the blade being used, and it took us 3 tries to finish severing the neck all the way through.

Once the head is removed, holding the body by the feet so it drains of blood is both straightforward and a relatively rapid process. By the time we'd walked from the butchering block at the main house back to where we were camped, the bird was ready for plucking.

If you aren't planning on saving and using the feathers, then skinning the bird in the same manner you would skin other small game is a simple task and works to remove the offending plumage so you can get on with the task of cooking the bird. 

But if, like us, you are thinking, "Hey, these feathers will be great for stuffing a pillow, fletching arrows and darts, making quill pens for writing, and let's not even start with the 1001 decorative uses for them", then you'll want to pluck the bird.
That day taught me a rather valuable lesson that doesn't get stressed often enough: Understanding the theory of how to do something, even when you have the proper tools for the task, is a lot different than having actual hands-on experience! And having hands-on experience once or twice during your life is a far cry from actually KNOWING what you're doing. Practice the skills you have and will need in an actual SHTF, folks, or you will find yourself saying, "But I know how to do this! So why isn't it happening?"

Evelyn had never plucked a bird. I had only done so once prior to this point. In theory, we knew what to do.

In Theory. In fact, Evelyn had never taken part in taking dinner from field to table through all the steps. 

We both had the necessary knowledge base, the book learning, for the task. We had the proper tools ready: our hands, a bag to hold the feathers (we wanted them for other projects, after all) and a pot to put the bird in a boiling water bath for a few seconds once most of the feathers were gone, to get the final few.

What we did not have, collectively, was any comprehension of just how labor-intensive getting a bird ready for the pot truly is. We (mistakenly) estimated that it would take 10 to 15 minutes to divest our duck of his colorful coat of fanciful feathers. We were off in our estimates by more than an hour.
Pulling the feathers, while not a particularly difficult task, is time-consuming. It also caused our hands to cramp after a while, so we traded back and forth as to who was working on pulling plumage from Monsieur Canard. But Evelyn, true to form, insisted that she was going to do the majority of the work on plucking that bird, simply because it was her first time and a serious learning experience for her!

MaggieDog was just SURE I would drop that bird for her!

Finally ready for a quick scalding bath to loosen those final feathers

Nearly ready for his hot bath

Once we'd managed to remove the majority of the feathers from our bird, we gave it a 15 to 20 second dip into water which had 3 to 5 drops of dish soap added and had been brought to a low boil.

Why dish soap? It helps to cut the oils that coat the feathers, making them just a tad easier to pull. It doesn't take long, and you don't want your bird to soak; just a fast in and out, no more than 30 seconds tops, and then those last few feathers (while wet and pretty much useless for any "projects" you might have in mind) will slide out much easier.

At the point where the feathers are removed, fluffy stuff and all, gutting it is just like you would with any small game, as is removing the feet. When dealing with fowl, feet can actually be stewed and eaten, though it is an acquired taste.

Daffy in all his tasty glory!

We wrapped him up in aluminum foil, along with a bit of salt and pepper and sliced garlic, dried mission figs, and onion, then tossed him on the grill over our camp fire. He'd been feeding on acorns for a while, so he was incredibly tasty - his diet left a wonderfully rich sweetness to the meat. Of course, taking a bite out of something that tried to bite me might have had as much to do with it!

Practice your skills, folks. I can't stress that enough. When you're facing a situation where you can't simply run down to the neighborhood grocery or the fast food place around the corner is not the time to realize that you're clueless about feeding yourself and your tribe.

Rhi and Evie get a good Knight's Rest

About two months ago, Evelyn and I got to talking. After comparing notes, we decided that we both needed a bit of a sabbatical. We needed to get away from "civilization." And people. And stress.

You know, go hide in the woods away from the modern world for a few days - or in our case, just shy of a month - to re-center ourselves within ourselves. by getting our hands dirty destroying a few things, and building a few other things, and generally just hiding in the woods for the sake of hiding in the woods.

Since I have multiple ongoing projects out at a farm owned by friends, where we're busy trying to build a reproduction Viking Village, I offered Evelyn a chance to come visit rural Oklahoma and help out with a few projects out there.out at Knight's Rest Retreat, in Bristow, Oklahoma. Those of you who are regular readers probably remember me mentioning projects on the Village when I helped build the Earth Oven.

Over the next several weeks, Evelyn and I will both be posting various stuff about our Most Excellent Adventure. Some will be individual efforts, some will be joint efforts, and they will be a mishmash of things ranging from product reviews (we both tried out several new gear items) to general knowledge & advice for prepping and camping, to some of the more wild (but true!) tales of what all happened during Evelyn's month here in Oklahoma!

Just to whet your appetites, some of the things we'll cover will include:

• What happens when horses decide to go stomping through your tent?
• Dealing with pregnant livestock and getting kicked by calves
• Butchering Fowl 101
• Puppies, and sheep, and horses, oh my!
• Stumbling across wild bee hives
• Old wives' remedies - bunk or beautiful relief?
• Pygmy rattlesnakes and Evelyn's skillful shooting
• Underfished ponds and lure-eating fish
• Dogs that can work zippers
• Why camp cooking doesn't have to taste nasty

Needless to say, it was an educational and entertaining month full of both fun and surprises. Some of the surprises started before we ever left for camp, when Evelyn decided to raid my yarn stash because she decided we were going to need pot holders for the various pots and cast iron that were going as part of our combined camp kitchen! Those are the pair of potholders and the dish cloth that she completed in about an hour the night before we headed out.











This was Evelyn's original tent, while she was still busy organizing.  Oh, the joys of figuring out where to put everything on that first day in camp!  This tent did not survive the month, thanks to one of the horses.

Evelyn uses a tent that can be easily carried as part of a backpacking rig. It's a great size for keeping in your bug-out out gear, and easily sets up in just a few minutes. It doesn't have a lot of weight to deal with either, so it won't weigh someone down while hiking out to a location away from chaos in the event of needing to get the heck outta dodge in a SHTF.

My tent, unfortunately, is a massive beast of a cabin tent.  It will sleep 8 comfortably, 12 in a pinch if everyone is really cozy and concerned with staying warm.  It weighs a significant amount (about 65 lbs, when you count fabric and poles) and is absolutely not suited for something like backpacking to your bug out location. It will fit comfortably on a travois though, which would help in the event of being unable to use the car to get there. My cabin tent takes much longer to set up than Evelyn's smaller one, though if you're very familiar with the set up of whatever tent you choose, that cuts down on the time spent.

This is my tent. And my bed. That's a king-size air mattress on a queen-size expanding accordion frame.

Just for perspective - Evelyn's tent will Comfortably fit INSIDE my tent - and still leave room to set up my bed!

This was our camp kitchen, other than the fire pit which was off to one side. I've had this particular camp kitchen table for about 9 years now, and it has seen some serious use during that time. It's still dependable as ever and going strong, being an old model of Coleman Camp Kitchen. You can find something similar at Amazon for about the same price that I paid so long ago. Bass Pro has a slightly nicer model, but it's significantly more expensive, so unless you have extra money to throw at a camp kitchen or plan on using it a lot for a long time (like I have) it isn't necessarily the best choice available out there. Personally I'm looking to upgrade my camp kitchen to this setup, simply because I use it so frequently. However, this upgrade is much more expensive than either of the first two, being a "gourmet" model with sink included!

This was the fire pit we used the first couple of days in camp. It is a backyard fire pit that my boyfriend and I purchased 2 years ago during Black Friday sales. It's fantastic for a little fire in the back yard, but not so great for camping! So we talked to the great folks who own Knight's Rest, and they delivered something better to our camp up in the pines: a recycled tire rim from a tractor! They use several in the main camping area for moveable fire pits, and it didn't take Evelyn and I long to figure out why!

 

That's a full-size grill across the top of that bad boy! And it could take a lot more wood, of a lot larger diameter and length, than my rather limited backyard fire pit.

That's all for now. We'll both be writing up the rest over the course of the next few weeks, so don't worry - you'll get the whole story before we're done!