As The Crow Flies

My hot water system.

Cabin's hot water system My winter hot water system is the pot from the 8 gallon turkey fryer that I bought at Costco, for 99.00 dollars. It comes with a large colander. When there is snow I fill the colander with snow and drop it in to the partially filled pot and it instantly melts. It also stores heat from the stove. Whenever I need hot water, I dip it out with a small pan hanging nearby. The only drawback is it takes up most of the room on my stove. There is just enough room left to squeeze my backpacking pot in.

During the summer I use the propane burner that it comes with to heat my water.

Wake up!! It’s 37 degrees!!

noisy thermometer I bought a digital thermometer that tells outside and inside temperature. It has this “feature�? where it sounds an alarm every time it gets to 37 degrees; I don’t know why I need to be woke up every time it’s 37 degrees. So in the middle of the night, I fumble with buttons trying to silence it, and I guess I turn more alarms on when I do, because then it will wake me up 5 or 6 more times. Sometimes I just grab it and sleep with it so I can find it when it rings, again. I’ve read the instructions but there doesn’t seem to be any way to turn the 37 degree alarm off. From the photo you can see that it’s already 27 degrees; maybe I will get to sleep through the night: if it doesn’t warm up.

Related post and how I solved this problem: It’s thirty seven degrees and all is quit.

Self reliant medicine.

I have an interest in wilderness medicine, so when I come across some remedy, I save it. Here are a few that I have found.

Snake bite

“I asked her to prepare a poultice of warm ashes and vinegar, and I applied it to my leg, which was already much swollen. The application gave me some relief, but the swelling did not abate. The dread of being disabled was greater than the physical pain I endured.

My friend asked an old woman, who doctored among the slaves, what was good for the bite of a snake or a lizard. She told her to steep a dozen coppers in vinegar, overnight, and apply the cankered vinegar to the inflamed part.”

“The poison of a snake is a powerful acid, and is counteracted by powerful alkalies, such as potash, ammonia, &c. The Indians are accustomed to apply wet ashes, or plunge the limb into strong lie. White men, employed to lay out railroads in snaky places, often carry ammonia with them as an antidote.�?
(I would think baking soda would work, too, and it could also be used for brushing your teeth, bathing, and indigestion. I would also think that taking some antihistamines might be helpful.)

I copied the following from a book that I read on the Project Gutenberg DVD.

Appendicitis
“I have appendicitis; what shall I do to be saved?

_Don’t eat anything until well. Use a stomach tube and wash out the stomach; then use a fountain syringe and wash out the bowels; take a hot bath as hot as can be borne, and stay in the tub until all the pain is gone, or as long as possible; then go to bed, put ice on the bowels and keep it on until the temperature is reduced to 101 degree F. then apply hot applications or poultices and continue the poulticing until the bowels move, and the bowels will not move until the abscess breaks.Use an enema every night as a routine, and drink all the water desired, when there is no nausea.

Don’t manipulate the forming abscess, nor allow anyone else to do so.

The bowels will move in fourteen to twenty eight days from the beginning of the attack. Then the fast can be broken by giving a glass of hot milk, which is to be chewed well, or given in the form of junket; this is to be repeated three times a day for a week, or give the milk twice a day and a plate of mutton broth for the third meal. I do not give solid food because there is a large abscess cavity opening into the bowels, and if solid food is given before it has time to close, it is liable to find its way into this cavity, thereby preventing healing, and bringing on a chronic condition that will ultimately end in death. The less food taken for one week after the discharge takes place, the better. Any rational individual should see that withholding food is the proper treatment. Milk should be thoroughly mixed with saliva or not taken at all. Remember that if milk is not taken with great deliberation, and great care given to _thoroughly insalivate each sip, then it amounts to the same thing as eating solid food.”

Antibiotics
“Observations of cow tongues have recently revealed the presence of natural antibiotics on the tongue. The antibiotics are peptides that can prevent infection of cuts in the mouth by resident bacteria. Similar antibiotics are presumed to be produced by the human tongue as well.”

Honey is a natural antibiotic, as well. I read about a man that was treating people with infected wounds by dissolving sugar in honey and then packing it in to the wounds. The wounds were healing with very little scaring.

Two of my favorite books for learning self reliant medical care are: Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook and Where There Is No Dentist. I also refer to, The Merck Manual of Medical Information, home edition .

Efficient or just lazy?

I got the wood all cut up. From the picture you can see that there is a large pile of wood very close to the cabin. Instead of hauling the wood over to the stacked wood, and neatly stacking it away from the house, I was thinking of just throwing a tarp over the pile and leaving it where it is: close to the cabin.

Wood pile.

This is my wood pile. A friend of mine said that I should have three times this much.

Hiking in the Rain.

I don’t wear rain gear that much while hiking; I usually get too hot and sweaty in it. However when it gets cold, windy and wet, it is essential. Mostly I wear my rain gear when I get cold or when in town doing laundry. When my hiking clothes are wet, I wear my rain gear to bed. If it is warm out, rain gear will just make you as wet as the rain will. When it’s warm, I hike with just the umbrella and get wet. If it stops raining, I’ll be dry in a bit, if it doesn’t then I take off my wet stuff when I make camp and wear my dry rain gear to bed. In the morning I put on my wet hiking clothes and hike on.

The one ounce hiking rain skirt:Cut the bottom out of at cinch strap garbage bag, put it on and tie around your waist. This hiking rain skirt will keep you dry and offers great ventilation. Just scrunch up your pant legs to the knee so they don’t wick water and put on your hiking skirt. It’s also nice to have on when you want to sit down and take a break but everything is wet. When in camp, if you hang your food, you can use the hiking skirt as a rain cover for your food bag. Just get the regular garbage bags, not the heavy duty contractor’s bags: some of them weigh 5 ounces a piece!

EuroSchirm liteflex swing trekking umbrella, . I like this one because it’s light, durable and doesn’t have any logos on it. You can order it with a silver metallic coating to reflect the sun, providing you with portable shade. It also is made with minimal metal because of lighting. An umbrella offers protection from, wind, rain, snow, sleet, and sun. It is nice to have when standing in a monsoon-like rain storm and you need to look at your map or get something out of your pack. I find life is more pleasant with out rain, snow and hail falling on my head. If it is windy and you are trying to cook dinner it can offer a wind break … I deploy mine in my tent to poof out the back wall more. It weighs 7.80 ounces. They also make a compact one that weighs a little more that would probably be better for International travel. Update: After putting carrying this umbrella for 3200 miles It has a few small holes in it and the silver is wearing off. I thought about just patching it and repainting in with silver paint but I decided to purchase another one. 3200 miles is 2700 more miles than I have ever gotten out of an umbrella. This is a really good umbrella.

Drop stopper rain gear The Jacket weighs 6.35 ounces . It has pockets and a hood and a zip front. It’s cheap; cost twenty dollars for the jacket and pants. A pair of rains pants is nice to have for when you are in town, washing your clothes. Drop Stoppers rain pants weigh 4.30 ounces. The pants could be improved if they had elastic cuffs and a drawstring waist. The way they are they just drag in the mud. But, like I said, they are seldom worn for hiking. Frogg Toggs are slightly heavier, a lot better looking and cost more. The pants have a drawstring waist, elastic cuffs and side zips on them. Update: My Drop Stopers started to disintegrate after about 1500 miles. They also are not very warm.

Pack liner I always line my pack with a plastic bag. A clear one or a white one are the best choices since a black garbage bag will make it hard to hard to find your gear. Even if it isn’t raining at least have your sleeping bag always in the plastic bag in case you fall in a creek or something. The pack liner can be used as a vapor barrier, inside your sleeping bag, if it gets really cold. Again, don’t buy the really heavy trash bags, they can weigh over 5 ounces a piece.

autumn collage

Bitter Eulogy.

The thing that to this day stands out as most remarkable is the smell: the awful gassy smell of decay. It would get in my nose and would stay long after spending only a few minutes; just enough time to pack his wood in and have the obligatory cup of tea. At first I thought it might be dead mice because sometimes I saw dead mice in traps. But then I started thinking it might be a propane leak; I told him to turn off the tank. Finally I got the odd idea that it was a body decaying under his house. Only I didn’t know who it could be, dead and stinking under his house.

I hadn’t lived in the area long; I had bought the property in the spring, gone away for all summer and came back in the autumn.

I tried to help the old man but I grew to resent him. He was always talking about suicide and playing all kinds of mind games with me to make me feel sorry for him and to feel guilty if I didn’t help him all the time. He lived in a stinking, dirty, rotten, cabin with an old, short, obese, sick, dog that would cough all the time and shit right out side the front door.

He wanted me to cut all his wood for him on my property and then haul it up to him and split it and stack it and then every day come up and pack it in to his stinking house. Now, I was at first willing to help the old sick man: until I grew to hate seeing him. His wood usage was insatiable, I realized he was using, and I lie not, about 3 cords a month! He wouldn’t ever put on a sweater; he just sat around in an 80 degree, leaky cabin all winter long, shoveling his neighbor’s wood into his stove.

He had a catheter with a bag full of pee strapped to his leg that he showed me more than once. Also he took out his partial, once, just to show me. When he would blow his nose he would talk about what was coming out of his nose. And often talked of constipation and how once a nurse had to stick a finger up him to help him shit. Sometimes, when I would come to pack his wood in he would come to the door in his underwear: briefs. God, I hated going over there.

And maybe I could have over looked everything if it wasn’t for that smell that would stay with me and make me feel like I had been permanently damaged by it. There was also the awful feeling, that a drowning man had grabbed onto me and was pulling me under.

Soon I got so I couldn’t stand to go up there. I would time my walks so that I could be pretty sure that I would not run into him on his frequent drives to the mailbox. Every time that he drove to the mailbox he would pick up my one piece of junk mail, put it into a plastic Wal-Mart sack and tie it to my gate. My gate was locked and I parked my vehicle right in front of it, the walk up to my cabin was long, steep and icy, so I was fairly sure he wouldn’t be coming up.

One day I saw him on the road. He said the doctor told him he had 6 months to a year to live. So he was going to have hydrogen peroxide injected in him to cure him of the cancer. You’d think that I would go up there and help him out….but I just couldn’t ….I just couldn’t stand to be around him.

Last time I saw him he had the catheter tube coming right out of the fly of his pants and the bag just hanging there. He said he was moving to Palm Springs.

The other day, I heard he died. I felt relief.

Inside sunset

My favorite wood splitting tool- the twisty wedge

With a twisted wedge, I can split any piece of wood, no matter how knotty or green, and it never gets stuck. I just put it on the log, hit it with a sledge hammer a few times, and the log splits.

A Vagabond’s guide to kitchenware and dishwashing.

Whether you are on the road, trail or home this is a simple system for cooking and cleaning that will save you time and water:

Cook dinner in pot
Eat heartily, out of the pot, with big spoon.
Lick spoon clean
Scrape out pot with spatula. Licking off the spatula as you go.
Fill pot with water
Heat
Pour hot water into Nalgene bottle and add instant coffee, hot chocolate, or tea.
Drink up.

Now your pot is clean and you didn’t have to waste any water or time to clean it.
I have gone 6 months without ever washing my pot. . Total mess kit weighs 6.80 ounces (193 grams)

Pot I have the MSR Titan Kettle. It weighs 3 oz (85 grams) without the lid. This pot cost a lot. You can find a small aluminum pot in discount stores that will be just as light for 3-4 dollars. Don’t look for the pot in the pot section, look for it in the section that has cheese graters and lemon juicers. I found a pot there that holds a liter of water, weighs 3.5 ounces and has a handle. It was called a chocolate melting pot, I think. For more pot options see this helpful page on pots: Zen Stoves- pot page.

Foil lid– Weighs .10 (2 grams) Makes a lighter weight lid then the one the pot came with. It can also be used as a pot holder to grab the hot handles with. Also handy to have if you need to funnel a seep into your water bottle. A piece of foil probably has hundreds of uses.

Spoon. My favorite spoon was a metal Chinese spoon that I got in Thailand, but it disappeared and I can’t find another in the US. Right now I’m using a polycarbonate spoon, it weighs .35 ounce(9 grams).

Bottle. The 16 oz nalgene wide mouth loop-top -polyethylene water bottle weighs 2.5 ounces (70 grams). The Nalgene bottle of course is also useful for carrying water, dipping cup for shallow water sources, a teapot, and a hot water bottle. I have kept warm on many cold nights with a nalgene bottle filled with hot water in my sleeping bag. It has never leaked. Eventually the Nalgene bottle gets pretty stained and sort of gross looking. Just fill with water and a little bleach and let it soak for a bit, add the spoon while you are at it. It will be clean in no time. The hard clear Nalgene lexan bottle doesn’t seem to stain, as badly, but it weighs an ounce more.

Spatula head. I find the smallest most flexible spatula I can, and take just the head off of it. Here is one that also has a scraper on one side of it.

P-38 can opener. Weighs .30 ounces (9 grams) Tie a piece of flagging tape through the hole so that it is not so easily lost.

Knife– weighs .75 ounce (21 grams) I pack the Swiss Army Classic Pocket Knife. Again, tie a piece of flagging tape through the eye so you don’t lose it. Besides a knife it also sports a pair of scissors- that are strong enough to cut my toe nails, a tweezers, tooth pick, file and screwdriver.

Mess kit:

Pot 3 oz (85 grams)

spoon .35 oz (9 grams)

piece of foil for lid .10 (2 grams)

Spatula head .25 (6 grams)

Nalgene 16 oz bottle 2.5 oz (71 grams)

Knife .75 (21 grams)

Total weight: 6.80 oz (192 grams)

Oasis of hell.

There was a trail angel that lived close to the Pacific Crest Trail in southern California. His house was where the hikers stopped to rest and get water through a particularly hot, dry stretch of the trail. When I got to his house, another hiker in his yard, told me that the man was taking a nap. His house was covered in homemade signs that said stuff like “I hate everyone equally.�? Some of the signs I didn’t understand. At the bottom of every sign was his name.

Since I had been hiking at night to avoid the heat, I laid down in the shade of a tree and went to sleep.

I woke up to an old big man standing above me. He said, “Who the fuck are you?�? I introduced myself and he said, “Well, you better go inside and sign the fucking guest book.�? I went inside and he gruffly and with many obscenities explained that his well pump was broken so he couldn’t offer hikers a shower and ice water like he usually would. There was a tank of water that we could fill our bottles for drinking but no washing. He told us to just shit anywhere, but not where he would step in it. There was a turd in a newspaper outside his garage.

He asked us to pay him five dollars each for the shade and drinking water. We all paid, filled our water bottles and hiked on.

A month later, I heard, he shot himself.