Deep Woods
When I talk to novices about getting into the woods, I ordinarily downplay the role of gear in preparedness, persuading instead that the emphasis should be placed on mental and physical preparedness.
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Flaco the Free Bird
The threat of starvation was mentioned more than once, reasonably, since this bird had only ever had food handed to him. It was also notable though that the two other stories sharing Flaco’s page were a piece on the rats infesting the mayor’s row house rentals and the sad story of a pink NYC pigeon.
Read more "Flaco the Free Bird"Just the Basics: Foraging
The following is given as a starting guide for the recreational forager, not for hard-core woodland survival.
Read more "Just the Basics: Foraging"Just the Basics: Winter Warmth
My opinions on all this stuff have changed and matured over the last thirty years or so and I now know what works for me and I don’t worry about the cold too much anymore. This isn’t to say the danger posed by hypothermia and frostbite aren’t real though.
Read more "Just the Basics: Winter Warmth"Just the Basics
This post is about training to maximize your outdoorsmanship, stretching your capabilities. It’s about being ready to paddle, portage and carry a pack.
Read more "Just the Basics"Walking
Walking can be thought of as the basis of almost all your further activities in the wild.
Read more "Walking"Sylvania
But we don’t think much about the trees that lay horizontal now; they’re not special to us. But that’s because we didn’t know them the way the birds did who nested thirty or forty feet off the ground in their strong green branches.
Read more "Sylvania"The Soft Chains of Comfort
I wasn’t hopelessly tied to the comforts of home and work life. I could still make it out here. I could adapt – I’d done it before.
Read more "The Soft Chains of Comfort"Risking it All
In my 2016 book, The Dying Fish, I tried, in Chapter 28, to capture an idea I felt was important as I went on with my long walk and talk on nature and attempted in this chapter to merge those ideas with some much more human concepts. The excerpt below pertains to risk and I […]
Read more "Risking it All"No Need to Starve
At the store there’s no 2% milk or the hotdog bun section is bare or our favorite breakfast cereal has all been consumed by the locust swarm – the shoppers who got here a little earlier than we did. Immediately, the mind turns toward survival snaring, the digging of choice tubers or the use of […]
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the dying fish 