south for the winter

I made it to New Hampshire at about 6 am on Friday morning after driving straight through from Louisville.   I’m visiting my Mother until tomorrow morning when I’ll be heading south, first to New Jersey for another Tracker Class then to Florida to visit with my Dad and most likely hang out around Florida until the last throws of winter in Indiana, around February, March, or April.  Looking forward to the warm weather, the 6inches of snow on the ground in New Hampshire is nice, but it’s going to be -1 degrees tonight…

My main focus for this winter season in Florida will be food: gathering plants, hunting animals, and tracking.  I’m excited to get some dirt time dedicated to these survival skills as they are multidisciplinary skills and practicing one furthers ability in other areas.  Gathering plants is all about knowing the landscapes and habitats, hunting is all about understanding ones game including habits, preferences, personality, etc.  Working on these skills improves other skills (shelter building, cordage, bow drill, etc.) as at the end of the day the art of finding food and nourishment in the bush is grounded in observation and awareness.  They’re gateway skills, physically and spiritually.

Last Monday Patrick and I did some hunting in Vermont.  We followed coyote tracks back to a den but never did see the Coyote.  Later we chased down some squirrel tracks and a partridge but ultimately came home empty handed.  It was a quiet, still day, nothing moving or chirping and as for my own state of mind, having just driven 16 hours a few days before, I was not exactly in a hunter’s mindset.  Still it was great to get out for awhile and look at some tracks in the fresh snow and taking a gander into at a coyotes den was cool.

Patrick brought along an AR-15 rifle and a single barrel shot gun.  As a former Marine infantryman and three time rifle expert I have to admit seeing an AR-15 did have me salivating a bit. The hunting I’ll be experimenting with this season will be much more primitive, sticks and stones mostly, perhaps a few other primitive weapons which I’ll be sure to tell about here.  I hear Florida is a good place for primitive spear fishing.

I’ve been keeping track of the Copenhagen climate summit.  If nothing else it’s a good opportunity to compare how independent media differs from corporate media in their interpretations of the events. Climate change is shaping up to be this generations struggle between empowering the individual (“power to the people”) vs. another form of corporate servitude through the centralization of clean air and water which – once all the free stuff is gone – will be available only in exchange for various forms of labor.

Also went to a live theater broadcast of Living in Emergency in Burlington Vermont.

That’s about it for now.  Soon I’ll be posting some thoughts on wilderness shelters.  I have a completed new understanding of what a shelter is and, more interestingly, how shelter, and the art of survival in general, changes when looked at within a modern survival context.

Finally a bit of advice for the holidays. If your a starving artist or just on the road for the holidays like me, questing after a quick and dirty last minute Christmas or Hanuka present, you might consider stooping into your local McDonald’s where they’re giving away coke glasses with every value meal.  The glass comes pre-gift wrapped right out of the drive through.

Guess which present comes gift wrapped right out of the drive through...