Earlier this week I was walking down Main Street in town, and I noticed some fruit in a tree. It was a Ginkgo Biloba tree, also known as a Maidenhair Tree, which I recognized by the fan-shaped leaves. But I didn’t know if the fruit was edible, so my research began.
Ginkgo trees have an interesting [...]
Continue reading about Ginkgo Biloba - Urban Edible Tree Nuts
I grew up in the city, and we had common modern-day cooking conveniences. In addition, our house had a fireplace, which by today’s urban pollution laws, may now have wood burning restrictions. However, should an extended regional power outage take place, the fireplace hearth would become “cooking central”. Fireplaces in modern homes are mostly ornamental [...]
By now, just about everyone has seen a luminescent chemical stick in some form. At night-time events you may see sticks of different sizes, bracelets, necklaces and more. They are called many different things, often by brand names such as Cyalume, Snaplight, GlowSticks, etc., but the standard 6″ industrial grade stick is what we’re interested [...]
I’ve met a few folks lately who have shared their experience using a unique cooking method from decades ago… cooking food on a car’s engine. This concept has always intrigued me, and I knew that I had to try it. I began to study this method and apparently it is seeing a resurgence in interest. [...]
Although my primary interest in survival skills revolves around firecraft, I have begun to research alternate methods of cooking without using fire. A growing trend for cooking, especially in under-developed countries, is by using solar technology. Solar cooking takes time, but requires no fuel or flames. Heat is collected from the sun’s rays and [...]
When I was a teen and living in the city, I longed for the outdoors. My cousin invited me to go hiking with him and his dad, his dad’s brother, and the other boys in our tribe for a week in the mountains of California. I had a backpack that I had used for weekend [...]
Here’s an interesting way to heat water when no flames or conventional cooking apparatus is available. A friend of mine used to work in the maintenance department at a facility where an upstairs water leak dripped through to a lower floor light fixture. He responded to a call only to find a water-filled globe with [...]
Not long ago, while perusing a country store, I came across an innovative lantern known as the Dietz “Warm-It-Up” Lantern, also known as the “2000 Millennium Cooker” Lantern. It was developed around the Y2K phenomenon. Folks were concerned about eminent danger back then, and, a decade later, folks are STILL concerned about the future and [...]
The event was “Trail Day” at the W. Kerr Scott Reservoir where volunteers gathered this morning at 08:00 and worked until noon, cutting a new trail by following marked contours along the hillside. The reward: roasted pig, that began cooking yesterday in a huge trailer-mounted smoker. The pit master (and owner) was “BBQ Man” Chad [...]
Well, today I traveled out-of-town to Granite Falls NC to exhibit my teepee and demonstrate some survival skills. It was Boy Scout Day, and many Public Service groups such as the County Rescue and Sherrifs’ Department attended with outreach materials and displays. Various Boy Scout Troops displayed crafts and skills like knot tying, technical wall [...]
