Showing all posts tagged "Action Item"
The Wilderness Survival Skills Everyone Should Know
A few hours watching the Discovery Channel can prompt extreme survival fantasies involving frog licking and urine drinking, but what basic skills would you actually need to survive in the wilderness? Here's a look at the basics you need to become an adult Boy Scout straight from a cadre of survival experts. P
Blast from the past is a weekly feature at Lifehacker in which we revive old, but still relevant, posts for your reading and hacking pleasure. This week, we're talking about how to rough it on your own, or survive out in the wilderness if you go camping, get caught away from your friends, or just need to make it home in one piece. P
The key to surviving in the wilderness is preparation. But this post isn't about stockpiling food or preparing for disasters at home (although both are a good idea). This is about the skills and tricks you can learn and remember now that will help save your life if your car breaks down in the woods, you're lost while hiking, or a terrible disaster strands you in the wilderness. Before we get started on technique let's make a list of priorities to keep you alive and we'll go through them in more detail in a moment. P
How to Prepare for and Survive a Disaster
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan, followed by tsunami warnings in Hawaii and across much of the…Read more
Know Your Priorities P
I talked with survival teacher and founder of onPoint Tactical Kevin Reeve for help coming up with a list of priorities for survival in case of a disaster. This is what he suggests: P
- 1Immediate security: If the building is on fire, get out. If someone is shooting at you, move to cover. Whatever the immediate danger, get away from it. P
- 2First aid: Attend to any medical problems that may have happened in the original event. Check yourself for injuries and treat them. P
- 3Self protection: If you are at risk from predators, two-legged or four-legged, you must arm yourself. This might be a sharpened stick, a knife, machete, shotgun, or banjo. Just have something to attack the zombies with. P
- 4Physical needs (in order): Shelter, fire, water, food, and hygiene. P
It's also worth noting that nearly every survivalist, doctor, paramedic, and teacher recommends one key survival tool everyone should follow: positivity. It seems silly, but it can provide you with the mental endurance to stay safe in any number of situations. A recent study in Psychological Science also suggests that your own perception of illness and the potential for treatment has an effect on the outcome. In short, the idea of mind over matter can help you survive. P
Let's look at each of these in a little more detail, starting with your first priority after making sure you're not it in immediate danger: first aid. P
Learn to Perform Basic First Aid Techniques, Kit or No Kit P
Basic first aid is a good life skill to have in general, but it's an essential survival skill to have in case of an emergency. Knowing how to fix three common injuries will usually get you by. Performing these on yourself will probably cause some tears, but at least you will be able to move to safety. I talked with firefighter and trained paramedic Philip Carlson to find the best solutions if you're stranded without a proper first aid kit. P
Cut and Scrape First Aid P
In most cases, you can ignore small cuts, but keep the wound clean and watch it for infection. If the injury is deep and you can't stop the blood your last resort is a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood. Tourniquets should be at least one-inch wide (a strip of shirt, belt, anything like that will work) and tightened around the limb above the injury. Tighten the tourniquet until the bright red bleeding stops and cover the injury with any clean material you have. P
Mend Fractures and Dislocations P
If you dislocate a bone you need to get in back in place. For shoulders, you can roll on the ground or hit it against a hard surface to reset the bone. Kneecaps can be popped back in place by stretching your leg out and forcing it into the socket. For fractures, you need to find material to create a splint. In the woods, a couple sticks will do the trick. Stabilize the fractured bone with the sticks and tie them together with shoelaces to hold the brace in place. P
Treat Burns P
To care for a first (reddening) or second degree (blistering) burn from fire, remove any clothing and find lukewarm water to run over the burn or coat it in honey if it's available. Wrap the burn loosely with a wet piece of clothing. If water is not available, clean out debris, dirt, and any loose skin as best you can and find water as soon as possible. Keep the wound elevated whenever possible and do not open any blisters that may have formed. P
Self Protection P
SExpand
While Liam Neeson can get by punching wolves in the face, that's generally not the best way to approach a dangerous situation. Instead, it's best to get away from the animal slowly. P
The Boy Scouts recommend a simple approach for wolves, coyotes, and cougars: face the animal and slowly back away from it. Don't play dead, run, or approach the animal. If you're cornered, make yourself as big as possible. Spread out your arms and make a lot of noise. If this still doesn't work, throw anything you can find at the animal. P
If it comes down to it, you might have to weather an attack. In his book, Emergency, author Neil Strauss provides a means to defend against wild dogs that can apply to other animals in an emergency: If the animal does attack, block its mouth with your non-dominant arm and smash the heel of your hand into its snout or hit it in the eyes. If you can temporarily disable the animal, run and find a tree to hide in before you attempt first aid. P
Photo by Dennis Matheson. P
Physical Needs: Build a Shelter and Start a Fire P
In order to survive, you need to maintain your body temperature. On one end of the spectrum, this means keeping warm, but you also need to know how to keep cool if you're caught in a desert. In either situation a shelter is your first order of business. P
Build a Shelter to Protect You from the Elements P
Even if you can start a fire with everything ranging from your glasses to a bottle of water, you're going to need a shelter at some point. Thankfully, the human body doesn't need the Hilton to survive, and your shelter only needs to meet two requirements: it has to block the elements and insulate for warmth. P
The A-frame shelter in the video above is the simplest to build in a hurry, but anything that gets you out of the snow, rain, or sun will work. Location and comfort are also two important details to consider, and Kevin Reeve has suggestions for both:http://youtu.be/kS5ZEBYdp-chttp://youtu.be/LpyqkTTqhbw P
Focus on finding a shelter that protects you from the ground, the wind, that insulates from the cold or heat, and protects you from rain and snow. A tarp or garbage bag is a lifesaver if stuffed with leaves or grass to form a wind/cold/rain barrier. P
Once your shelter is built, it's time to make a fire. P
How to Start a Fire with Nearly Anything P
Firefighters recommend keeping two things in mind when starting a fire: the wind direction and the surrounding area. A fire is an important part of your survival, but you don't want to catch the entire forest on fire just to attract the attention of rescuers. The USDA Forest Service recommends building your campfire away from overhanging branches, rotten stumps, logs, dry grass, and leaves. Fire might have been one of the first things we humans learned how to make, but that doesn't mean it's easy to start a fire. Let's look at a few tricks for using materials you might already have. P
- ·Start a fire with eyeglasses: In order to properly start a fire with glasses, your best bet is a pair of far-sighted glasses, which better resemble a magnifying glass. To use eyeglasses, spit on the lens and use the lens to angle the sun at a pile of kindling (dry leaves, twigs, or Doritos all make great kindling). It will take a while, but your kindling will heat up enough and smolder. Carefully blow on the fire to start the flame. P
- ·Start a fire with a bottle of water: The same idea as the eye glasses can apply to a bottle of water (or a condom or ice). Focus the sun's rays through the water so that it creates a single point of heat. Eventually, it will catch fire. P
- ·Start a fire with you cell phone battery: The above two methods require a sunny day, but you won't always have that luxury. If you're stranded, there's a decent chance you have a lithium battery. It may be far-fetched, but if you also happen to have some steel wool you can create a short between the positive and negative terminals to cause a spark. If you don't have steel wool around, you can use your knife or any conductive material you can scavenge. P
- ·Start a fire with sticks: This is by far the hardest method, but it's also one of the most likely scenarios you might find yourself in. This method requires you to quickly roll a stick on a log and use the friction to start a fire. This will take a while even if you have practice. The good news is that you can safely practice this in your own yard. It took me almost an hour to get a spark this way, but I leapt for joy when I did. P
Physical Needs: Learn How to Find Water and Feed Yourself P
Your fire-starting skills are great for keeping you warm, but you need to find something to eat and drink to keep you alive. Your first priority is water, so let's take a look at how you can find and sterilize water for drinking. P
How to Find Water to Drink P
In many parts of the country you can find water by following the sound of a flowing river, but that's not always the case. If you have trouble finding water, a few pieces of knowledge will help you on your way: P
- ·Grazing animals usually head to water near dawn and dusk. Following them can often lead you to water. P
- ·Flies and mosquitoes tend to stay within around 400 feet of water. P
- ·Dew that hangs on grass in a field is an excellent source of water. You can collect this by running an extra piece of cloth through the grass as you walk. P
- ·Stagnant water is not usually suitable to drink even if you can boil it. P
- ·In the desert you can often find water if you dig up a dry creek bed. P
- ·Once you find a source of water, bring it to a boil if possible. Even the cleanest of mountain streams can have microbes and parasites in the water. If boiling isn't not an option, search out water from a flowing stream or the dew on leaves. You can also create a filter by layering bark, stones, sand, and charcoal and running the water through the materials. Remember, no matter how hungry you are, water is more important to your survival. That said, you can settle your gurgling stomach as well. Let's look at how you can do it without killing yourself.
Learn the Big Four to Always Find Edible Plants
The easiest solution is to remember plants indigenous in most areas. Kevin Reeve suggests being familiar with four plants:
- 1Acorn from Oak: The entire nut is edible and they're easy to stockpile. P
- 2Pine: The nuts and inner bark of the tree are edible. You can also make pine needle tea. P
- 3Cattail: This is one of best options out there. The base stalk is like celery, the root and tuber can make flour, and the pollen is very healthy. P
- 4Grass The corm (aka the base) is starchy, but edible and filled with water and carbohydrates. P
Learn the Universal Edibility Test
You might have heard the old rule of thumb that you should follow animals around and eat what they eat, but that's not a foolproof method. In order to find if a plant is edible, you need to test it. You can follow the Universal Edibility Test, which requires you to place a small piece of plant against your lip, then your tongue, and finally in your whole mouth. Unfortunately, you have to wait for eight hours before you know if the plants safe to eat and it's still possible a plant can poison you.
If you're more of a berry fan, you can follow a simple mnemonic from former Green Barret Myke Hawke to remember which berries are edible:
White and yellow, kill a fellow. Purple and blue, good for you. Red… could be good, could be dead. P
Like the edibility test, the mnemonic isn't fool proof, but it's useful if you have no other options.
Physical Needs: The Basic Hygiene You Can Ignore (and What Not To)
If you end up in a long-term survival situation you need to keep up with a few hygiene habits. For the most part, you can ignore a lot of it, but I spoke with Dr. Dan Weiswasser, a primary care physician in Massachusetts about a few hygienic issues you shouldn't ignore:
If you're keen to pay attention to hygiene while stranded somewhere, I would primarily address dental care. Dental plaque can build up in a hurry, and dental infections are painful, dangerous, and expensive to repair. Brushing and flossing require relatively universal, rudimentary tools and can go a long way towards preventing such infections (you can make a toothbrush from birch or by just wiping your teeth with a clean piece of cloth). P
Beyond that, I would say that a lot of hygiene consideration depends on what conditions are like where you are stranded. Bacteria and fungus flourish where it's moist, dark, and warm. If you're trapped in the jungle, you'll want to keep intertriginous areas (areas where skin touches skin such as the armpits, under breasts, in groin, between the toes, and in other skin folds) as dry and aired out as possible. Again, this can simply be an issue of wearing dry clothes. Baby powder or corn starch can also be helpful for absorbing moisture. P
But what do you do when the call of nature is too strong and you need to find toilet paper? Kevin Reeve has a simple solution:
As for primitive toilet paper, in the winter, a snowball is actually quite invigorating, but most of the time, leaves of a plant like mullein are the go-to method. Sometimes an unopened pine cone will work, but ouch! One of the keys to this is to squat not sit. This forces the cheeks apart and means that there will be far less cleaning necessary. P
Navigation Methods to Help You Find Your Way Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5ZEB... If you're lost, the Boy Scouts recommend a simple mnemonic: STOP (Stop, Think, Observe, Plan). In most cases, you want to stay where you are and wait for help to come. If it starts to get late, you can build your shelter, start your fire and search for food. If help doesn't come, it's time to move on. The first thing you need to do is find north.
In order to figure out your basic directions, remember that the sun sets in the west and rises in the east (just think about which coast starts their work day earlier if you struggle to remember this). There's also a few simple tricks that will help you find north quickly,
- ·Use a stick to judge the sun's movement. You can see our own Adam Pash try it out for himself as well. P
- ·Use your watch to find north. P
- ·Locate the Big Dipper in the night sky to find the North Star. P
Finding north is only half the battle. You still need to know which direction to head. If you have a general understanding of an area, head toward the nearest road or town. If you don't know the area, follow a water source downstream, or head toward a clearing where you can better signal for help.
How to Get Rescued
In order to get rescued, you need to know the most basic hand signals to alert a helicopter or plane you see pass overhead. Curiously, a wave is considered a sign to not land. Instead, if you see a helicopter or plane, form your arms in a "Y" as if you're ready to perform the Village People's "YMCA".
If you have a signalling tool like a flare, flashlight, or mirror, make use of them the second you see a rescue helicopter. Reflect the sun off the mirror in the direction of the helicopter to attract its attention.
If you hear rescuers in the distance but don't have any way to signal them, you can call in a deep voice. Normal natural sounds are usually a high pitch. Call out in a low tone so rescuers know you're a human.
If everything goes well, you won't ever need these skills, but even if you don't venture into the woods on camping trips, the chance of a disaster in your city or being stranded on a road trip is always a possibility. With the above survival techniques you can get yourself safely out of any number of situations.
Have some tips you'd like to share? Sound off in the comments.
Photos by Thomas Quine, Daniel Oines, Andy Arthur, and Anthony Kelly.
Posted on August 4th, 2014
Top 58 Most Creative Home-Organizing Ideas and DIY Projects - DIY & Crafts
Posted on August 2nd, 2014
34 Ingenious Ways To De-Clutter Your Entire Life
34 Ingenious Ways To De-Clutter Your Entire Life
Time to get ruthless. posted on Oct. 4, 2013, at 2:01 p.m.
1. When buying electronics, download the manual and store it in the cloud.
If you’re positive you won’t be returning it, you can safely discard the manual. Uploading an electronic copy to the virtual cloud of your choice keeps you covered in case the manufacturer stops producing the item and takes the manual down from their site.
Read more here about archiving your manuals into iBooks (if you have an iPad).
2. Enlist the rule of five every time you clean.
Whenever you’re cleaning a room, get rid of at least five items, whether it’s a piece of trash, an old magazine, or just something you haven’t used in ages.
4. Hang your bags with shower curtain hooks.
The hooks take up less space than hangers. And it’s a great way to compartmentalize the things in your closet that don’t have a place — scarves, belts, socks.
6. Make the kids a stuffed animal pen with bungee cords.
They’re easier to find, easier to put away. And your child gets a kick out of having a zoo-like pen for all the stuffed animals. Get the directions here.
7. When cleaning the bedroom, always make the bed first.
There are a myriad of reasons. 1) It serves as a mission control center for organizing and folding, 2) you’ll be less likely to climb into bed and take a nap in the middle of your cleaning sesh, and 3) your messy stuff will look weird and out of place once the bed is all neat.
8. On a super hot day, clean out your fridge and freezer.
It’ll feel less like work and more like a treat.
9. Limit your closet to 40 hangers.
Sometimes you need hard and fast rules to keep organized. Here is a great resource for donation places where your clutter will do good.
13. Use compartmentalized boxes for small things you need to keep organized, like batteries.
14. Declutter your Facebook feed.
Tip #1: When you see pesty updates from Candy Crush or Spotify which you seriously could care less about, hover your mouse over the post and click “Hide all stories from ______"
Tip #2: Make friend lists. Only follow your close friends. This also comes in handy later on when you want to post an event or news item that you only want your legit pals to see.
16. Employ the “Crap Basket" system for your family.
Everyone gets a crap basket. If you see or collect anyone’s crap throughout the house, it goes in that person’s basket. And then they’re responsible for putting it back into their rooms.
17. Hang your mail holder on the side of a table or kitchen counter.
It’ll keep the clutter off your precious visible surfaces.
18. Always open your mail next to the recycling bin so you can immediately purge unwanted junk mail.
19. Hang your lesser-used cords on Command hooks on the inside of your cupboards.
Command hooks are magical.
20. For the garage or backyard, hang a basket so you can wrap the hose around it and keep the sprinkler inside the bucket.
21. Run a power strip through the back of a nightstand so you can charge your gadgets out of sight.
Most nightstands with drawers should have a gap in the back.
22. When you buy a new shirt, donate two from your closet.
Or just do the one-in one-out rule for ALL possessions. ESPECIALLY if you’re a shopaholic.
23. Put your cosmetics into palettes.
You’ll feel so good after you do this. It’ll make getting ready so much faster, too. Z Palettes makes customizeable magnetic ones.
24. Use a pegboard and zip ties underneath your desk to keep your wires neat.
Check out the before and after here.
25. Keep your discount cards virtually on your phone with the Key Ring app.
Get it here. And if you don’t have a smartphone, hole punching your discount and gift cards and adding them to a single keyring can keep your purse organized.
26. Find ways to get rid of your old books.
1. Donate any children’s books that the kids have outgrown to a local library.
2. Give books away to family and friends you believe would enjoy them.
3. Sell your old textbooks for a little extra cash.
4. For cookbooks, only keep the ones with a large number of recipes you plan on making. If there’s only a couple useable recipes, photocopy them and keep them in a binder and give the cookbook away.
27. Keep your cleaning supplies in a mobile bucket caddy.
You (or anyone else) will be able to go room to room to clean very easily with this handy bucket.
28. Use hooks, not towel bars.
They’re much more likely to keep your towels off the floor.
29. Wrap the cords around your unused appliances and secure with velcro.
It’ll keep your spaces neater.
30. Get rid of your board game and puzzle boxes and keep them in bins instead.
31. Identify your clutter traps. Then divide and conquer.
Is there a certain place where everyone just dumps their stuff out of sheer laziness? Is it the entryway? Under the kitchen sink? A junk drawer? Identify each of the clutter traps and dedicate an hour each weekend to each one. See if there’s an easy way to compartmentalize the stuff you really need while throwing out the things you can bear to part with.
32. Use your iPhone or iPad as a pocket scanner with Genius Scan.
You can keep all your documents electronically without having to invest in a scanner. Get the app here.
33. Limit your dish sets to two or three more than the required place settings.
This keeps your dishwasher from getting insane, and if you don’t have a dishwasher, household members will be more prone to actually do the dishes if there are none available to use. And you have enough extra place settings for guests.
34. Spread your minimalist lifestyle by only giving gifts that people can use.
Take a friend out to eat for their birthday. Give a coupon for a free oil change as a Christmas gift. A bottle of wine is always handy. This cuts down on lame gifts and people will learn to reciprocate similarly.
Looking for more life-saving tips like these? Sign up for the BuzzFeed DIY newsletter!
Posted on August 2nd, 2014
Food Storage Moms | To share ideas about food storage and preparedness and help one family at a time.
Posted on July 27th, 2014
Zombie Facts: Real and Imagined (Infographic) | Zombies Pop Culture | Night of the Living Dead | World Zombie Day | Zombie Ants & Zombie Caterpillars
Video no longer available
Posted on July 27th, 2014
Zombie Squad • View topic - Prioritizing Preparations: A Layered Approach
 
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As usual, if you have reads this far, you have some right to critique this.
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I'm printing it out for the fridge door at home.| EricinVirginia |
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oh well. 
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Posted on July 27th, 2014
Deter Spiders with Peppermint Oil and Vinegar
We've discussed how to manage pests like spiders, but weblog Housewife How-to's has a good tip: Spiders don't like peppermint or vinegar. Spray a mixture of peppermint oil and vinegar around your home to deter them from coming inside. P
The goal here is to make your home less inviting to spiders: P
Spiders don't like peppermint oil or vinegar, so use a combination of the two against them. Spray windowsills and entryways with a solution of 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1 1/2 cups water, and 20 drops of peppermint essential oil. (Eucalyptus oil purportedly works, too, but I find peppermint a more pleasant scent.) P
Also, try to keep your home as clean and clutter-free as possible. A messy home is attractive to spiders and other pests. Of course, if they do end up in your home, you can always use this awesome no-kill DIY spider catcher. P
How To Get Rid Of Spiders In Your Home | Housewife How-to's P
Photo by Bjorn. P
Posted on July 27th, 2014