Wilderness Survival Books, Part II
Welcome to Part II of my favorite wilderness survival books. In Part I I covered a mindset book, a how-to, and a survival story. This post will follow that same format. Unlike Part I this post will not have a bad example to share…but I will share a bonus book at the end and it’s one of the most fun books in this genre.
Wilderness Survival Books, Part I
I have recently been down a rabbit hole of reading survival-related books. The wilderness survival class I taught a couple weeks ago prompted this reading track and I’m so glad it did. It got me back into a couple books that I have long loved, and introduced me to a few new ones. Here are my favorite wilderness survival books.
Beyond the IFAK: Home Medical Gear
The IFAK (individual first aid kit) has become extremely popular. A number of companies sell purpose-built, military-style IFAKs for civilian use. Many more sell IFAK components. Numerous methods of carry, including wallet kits and ankle rigs have proliferated. I think that’s fantastic. Unfortunately I think the twin Gospels of the Tourniquet and the IFAK aren’t the end of the story as far as first aid for the well-prepared is concerned.
How To Build a Lock Library
There is a ton of material out there about lockpicking and how to get good at it. There isn’t a whole lot of material about actually building a collection of locks with which to practice. As someone who has been very good at lockpicking and taught it for a living for five years I can tell you: having access to a large number of locks is essential. Today I’m going to talk about how to build a lock library that supports learning and progress.
Dry Practice Function Stacking: Targets
With a lot of you working from or otherwise hanging out at home, I hope a lot of my readers are using their time to learn some stuff. One thing I hope everyone stuck at home is doing is dry-practicing. Another thing that might nudge some into dry practice is the current ammo shortage. Today I’m going to talk about some very simple, low-cost things you can to do increase the value of your dry practice time.
Adjusting Your Safety Margins
I could have also titled this article, “Two Places I Don’t Want to Be Right Now.” We haven’t been out much lately. We were about a week ahead of the curve on “social distancing;” we stopped eating from restaurants, going to the gym, and going to BJJ. My girlfriend works from home and my work is travel-based, so naturally that’s shut down right now. As a result we’ve been pretty isolated.
Eating Through the Quarantine: Favorite Recipes
My girlfriend and I haven’t dined out in over a month, or ordered takeout in three weeks. This isn’t totally because of COVID-19. It’s mostly because we usually cook at home for financial, health, and lifestyle reasons, and dine out only occasionally anyway. We are very atypical. With restaurants closed across the country, many Americans are probably having a hard time. Today I’m going to offer a few of my favorite “quarantine” recipes. Hopefully they spark your imagination.
Ammo Rotation with a Heavy Dry Practice Regimen
I have dry practiced every day this year and I dry practiced over 320 days last year. The vast majority of that practice has been with my carry gun. This necessitates a lot of loading and unloading of my carry gun, and some wear and tear on my carry ammo. This is how I manage ammo rotation with a heavy dry practice regimen.
Scattered Thoughts about the COVID-19 Crisis
Today I want to offer just a few scattered thoughts on the current COVID-19 crisis. There really isn’t a common theme to these, they’re just some thoughts I’ve had as I’ve worked my property of the past few days.
My Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK)
I told you guys a few weeks ago I’d give you a look at my individual first aid kit (IFAK). I was kind of hesitant to do this one. First, don’t do what I do just because I do it. Greg Ellifritz says in his classes that if you have training, you already know what you need. As I recently heard in an episode of Uncensored Tactical Podcast (unrelated to first aid but still applicable), “if you know how, you’ll know when,” or in this case, what. Still, everyone loves a gear article, so here goes.