Category: Outdoor Skills

How Well Do You Know the Night Sky?

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Perhaps reading the stars is one of the most overlooked survival skills.  Knowing how to do so gives you the ability to navigate and to keep time.  The best part about this skill is that it requires no expensive equipment, no physical prowess, and everything you literally need is right over your head.

All you have to do is to look up…and observe.

What is does take to obtain this skill is time. Continue reading “How Well Do You Know the Night Sky?”

Weather Apps

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Following the weather is a must for the prepper.  In fact, I have written a four-part series on just that.

But we often have busy lives, and observing and tracking the weather can be one of those tasks that gets pushed aside in favor of doing other necessary things…that is…until the weather gets ugly.

There are loads of weather apps available on the market…and I don’t have the time or the resources to try them all. Therefore, if you are looking for a thorough review of all that is available, this post is not it.  This post is just a sampling of the apps I recommend.  Many people have other favorites, and that’s ok.  As for me, the weather geek in me wants something more substantial than just the temperature, cute weather graphics, and the five-day forecast. So here you go: Continue reading “Weather Apps”

Celestial Navigation …why the Navy is using it again…and why you should too…

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Just recently, the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland had announced that it was planning on reinstating instruction in celestial navigation. It hadn’t taught this subject since 1998.1

Why the change of heart?

First one needs to go back to see why they discontinued teaching it to begin with. By 1998, at least a dozen Global Positioning System satellites had been launched to continually circle the Earth, providing GPS receivers with latitude and longitude coordinates more accurate than any other sort of navigation could previously. By that time, celestial navigation, which had been around since ancient times, was dubbed outdated and unnecessary.  Computers were (and are) the answer to everything, right?

Continue reading “Celestial Navigation …why the Navy is using it again…and why you should too…”

Dust Storm Survival

There are many instances of nature’s fury for which one should be prepared. Which scenarios you should prepare for are mainly determined by where you live. Some areas are prone for earthquakes. Other locations are susceptible to tropical storms and hurricanes. Some are at risk for severe blizzards, while others live with the significant probability of tornadoes. I live in the American Southwest. We don’t get a lot of rain, (although we do get significant flooding,) and we don’t get a lot of tornadoes or earthquakes to brag about, but we do get dust storms… a lot of them…and this time of year is the main season for them.

And they don’t look like this…

the-dusty-road

They look like THIS… Continue reading “Dust Storm Survival”

Finding North (or for some…Finding South)

I will admit I am a bit of a nerd…actually…I am a complete geek.   One of the many hobbies I enjoy is astronomy. I own multiple telescopes, filters, eyepieces, astrophotography equipment, a solar filter, etcetera and etcetera.

Now…I understand what may be of interest to me may not be as fascinating to you, but there is true merit for the prepper to become familiar with the night sky.

Why?

If one learns the positions of the stars in sky, one can gain valuable information. Continue reading “Finding North (or for some…Finding South)”