I was told about this book by my good friend, Jim Tompkins.  The complete title is “The Complete Handbook of Solar Air Heating Systems” and is written by Steve Kornher with Andy Zaugg.  It is a soft cover 8″ x 10.5″ format with 350 pages.  It is in black and white and has a lot of photos and many exploded view diagrams with plans to actually make some of the systems shown and described in the book.

Initially, the book goes through the principles of solar heating discussing Passive and Active systems and Site-Built Collectors.  It explains the difference between the active and passive collectors.  The Passive, Convective type air heaters, such as the Thermo-siphoning Air Panel (TAP) and… Read More

Over the past month or so I traveled to the most northern part of the state of California and Nevada.( Good enough and close enough for this article) I was the hired gun so to speak for two seperate “groups” as a consultant and observer generating a report card on the areas they wanted advice on. This worked for me as the groups are not known to each other. But are within a 100 miles of each other.

I cannot and will not give specifics. However, so many things are generic and important and are often over looked either by small family groups or larger groups who are well backed by money.

I start out meetings with groups like these… Read More

Recently I saw comments, many of them about the “costumes” that “Survival Instructors” wear, also included were the so called survival “types” , and you know what I mean, and who you are.
We all wear a costume of some sort. We may think we do not but we do. Even you.  Over the course of a year if you took a picture of yourself everyday you will see a pattern. Most do not recognize it as a costume, and that may be an extreme observation of your outfits, but a pattern will emerge.

All the years I was in the music biz you could tell who were the writers, the wanna be artists, the managers and producers the… Read More

“But do not be scornful of comfort, for a true woodsman does not rough it ; he makes himself as comfortable as possible with the means he has at his command.”— Ellsworth Jaeger

It seems that with the never ending advancements in technology, a whole new breed of woodsman have sprung up over night like mushrooms in a yard. In many cases, I’ve seen the wheel being reinvented by would be woodsmen who had an epiphany through something they saw on You Tube, forum, or blog. But, lest not forget, many of these woodsman skills have been around for longer than many of us have been alive. And folks like Dan C. Beard, Ernest Thompson Seton, Warren Miller, Kephart, and others were… Read More

If you’ve kept up with our blog you’ve noticed that we have a new member in our household by the name of Scott.  Scott is taking his first steps now and he’s an inspiration to me.

Have you ever thought about what it means to learn to crawl, walk, or feed yourself?  Babies are born into this world with virtually no self-controllable muscle functions.  Every day is a day of learning.  It’s fun to see them discover that the hand they see waving around at times actually belongs to them.  Then they learn to control their movements … slowly at first.  They learn to wave their arms on demand.  Then come hand and finger movements that they control.  They learn… Read More

It is no secret tourniquets are responsible for saving more lives overseas than any single other first aid tool. Where tourniquets use to be Taboo, they are widely becoming accepted by various agencies in the United States.

Recently, a question sprang up on our forum regarding the efficacy of different tourniquets and how they measured up against one another, so I decided to write up a comparison between two of the more popular tourniquets and how they stacked up against each other— The C.A.T Tourniquet and the SOFTT Tourniquet.

The Combat Application Tourniquet, or CAT for short, is the tourniquet most commonly found amongst military men and women. Distributed by North American Rescue it brings with it a MSRP $35… Read More

Almost a month ago, I purchased the Everest Large Canvas Backpack (Initial review can be found here http://dirttime.com/?p=2341).

I’d been undecided on which waterproofing method I was going to use, since there are so many. I figured, however, since Craig from the Outdoor Podcast was using Sno-Seal and linseed oil, I may as well use something else, just so we have a varying degree of results readers can better choose from.(His articles  on his results can be found at http://blog.outdoorpodcast.com/) Instead I chose to go with a product called “Tectron Water Repellent”, found at my local sporting good store.

Would it really work as advertised? Would it leave a tacky feeling once it was applied? Would it leave… Read More

On January 11, I performed my annual birthday ritual of running one lap for each year, and recalling the details of each year as I ran. After I was done, and after I took a remarkably hot “memory bath” outdoors, and after rubbing my body with Peruvian mint leaves, I met with Urban Nature Girl Helen at Whole Foods in Pasadena to share a light birthday lunch.

Helen’s schedule only permitted her a brief time in the early afternoon, so we met and ordered our soba noodle soup. We also purchased some juice, and a small raspberry cake that we’d split.

My legs and hip were still buzzing from the 57 years of memories, and I was in relaxation mode… Read More

We have many threats that could can could turn our day upside down.  These can be caused by nature to include blizzards, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, etc.  They can be man-cause, such as power outages, the collapse of our monetary system, nuclear or normal war, etc.  As Self-Reliant people, we endeavor to prepare for such emergencies so that we are not at the mercy of other people, or the government, for assistance.

We must be aware of threats in order to be prepared for their possibility or eventuality.  One of those threats, that you hear very little about. is EMP -Electromagnetic Pulse.  It is just another threat to our existence.   An EMP occurrence could, within a matter of seconds, shut… Read More

Some time ago, an editor of a magazine called and asked me to write an article for his readers about “low budget camping.” My first question was, “What do you mean by low-budget?”

He thought about it for awhile, and then told me to keep the total shopping list under $2,000. Wow! That’s low-budget? He then explained that he was assuming that the reader had absolutely no equipment at all, and he or she would have to go out and purchase everything from scratch.

I eventually wrote the article, entitled “Backpacking on a Shoestring,” and everything I suggested could be purchased for under $300 or so, if you followed my instructions. You have all read some of Dude’s articles on… Read More