Author of Be Ready for Anything and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course
Can you believe we’re already halfway through the month? Well, it’s true – here we are at Day 15.
My computer has the Black Screen of Death this morning, so today’s challenge is brought to you by me slowly typing it out on my phone with one finger. Please forgive any autocorrect-based weirdness. This phone once changed Arby’s to rabies when I sent my daughter a text about lunch, so anything could happen.
Today’s Challenge
Today’s challenge is to find some food. You don’t actually have to harvest it because most things are not yet in season.
But spend some time walking around to find local sources of food. In a bad situation, what could you find to eat? This is a thought exercise with a bit of footwork.
What could you hunt, snare, trap, or forage? Is there a place to fish nearby? Remember, you may be doing this on foot. Try to think outside of the things we’d normally choose to eat.
What is nearby that could keep you sustained? How would you harvest it? I look forward to some creative answers in the comments.
Many methods of harvesting fish and game are today considered “unethical”. For that reason, most people are programmed to put such methods out of their minds completely…refusing to even consider them.
For instance, stampeding an entire herd of animals off a cliff to get a meal would be considered unconscionable. I guess that depends on how hungry you were, doesn’t it?
Shocking a pond or using dynamite to harvest fish for food? Not very ethical you say? Again, it depends upon your perspective.
When staying alive becomes illegal or unethical, we will ALL become unethical criminals…or we will die by law.
Do not allow the thinking of the day to blind you to the truth of the ages. When it comes to survival, the only trophies for 2nd place are tombstones.
all sporting rules become void when hunger sets in
Very true, Ron. I never liked the idea of trapping. I thought it inhumane and only did it when there was no other alternative when dealing with nuisance species. However that is another very efficient way to harvest game. A number2 steel trap can be a real asset and will last for generations. They’re cheap too!
This got me thinking (or rather re-thinking) my position on bow hunting. I always considered it an inhumane method of harvesting animals compared to firearms. Taking it into account in the context of survival situations, it has several advantages over firearms. It is silent, so you won’t give away your position to anyone else in the vicinity. Ammunition is reusable and fairly easy to manufacture by comparison. It’s far easier to fashion an arrow than it is to manufacture your own black powder, cast lead, and make primers. Anyone ever work with fulminate of mercury? You’re more likely to blow yourself up or poison yourself than end up with a working primer.
I was a proficient archer in my youth (thanks, Dad!) but I gave it up by the time I got my first rifle and started hunting. I think it’s time to re-visit the issue while I still have the opportunity.
Thanks Daisy for prodding our memories and motivating us. I think your Dad would be very proud of you!
Foraging…Ok.
Wild and gone wild fruits. A chinquapin chestnut about a mile away. Clams (maybe crabs) dug up at local beaches two miles away. (You need a permit). Fish (maybe) at a pond about half a mile away. Queen Anne’s lace in local vacant lots. Acorns all over. Squirrels and bunnies in the back yard ????. Seagulls and crows????. The neighbors.???? (JK!)
Hi Daisy, first time responding to your website. Within a mile of my house there are mature pecan, oak, walnut trees. Also mature pines for pine nuts, but you would have to use a ladder in winter and fight the squirrels. Also lots of squirrels and rabbits! ????
There are apple trees at the local college that just go to waste. Also local school has a very large field that is never sprayed with chemicals, full of plantain and dandelion, blackberries. A neighbor has a prickly pear cactus (good eating ) and mature peach tree. I really don’t know what we’d do during the winter.
BTW guys, half of my street are democrat gun toting preppers, so we do exist! ???? Have a good week.
oops posted this in wrong day. I gather wild garlic, wild asparagus, mushrooms, sun chokes, berries, found 2 old apples trees that bear small apples but usable
I have an Android device and they can accept a USB keyboard & mouse by using an OTG (those usually come with the phone) adapter.
Bluetooth is another external keyboard option.
I sometimes use that instead of dragging my finger across the GUI keyboard.
As for food, lots of rabbits & squirrels where I live. They would be my 1st victims during an SHTF protein harvest..
Goodness, I’m late to the game. Local foraging right now would include ripe prickly pear fruit, plantain, purslane, mesquite beans, black walnuts, burdock root, chicory, clover flowers, dandelions, gooseberries, elderberries, cattails, mint, Miner’s lettuce, rose hips, watercress, desert dock roots. For protein, bass, sunfish, catfish, rabbits, squirrel, deer.
Gee, I would be out of luck! Or food! It’s too early for acorns, but they’ll be ready in a few weeks. I did see some fiddlehead ferns and a few other plants, mostly stragglers, such as calendula and dandelion. There were a few small anoles and some doves that would require catching and cooking, as well as squirrels. I doubt I could catch or kill a raccoon. Pretty slim pickings!