Free Pancakes to all Saturday Morning

Don’t forget if you want to get out for a bit and are in or near Utah county, come to our Show Me event. We will have lots of our PST Tarps  set up in various ways as well as the multipurpose PSS set up as tarp, hammock and some to try on. Also practice making fire with our FSK featuring the Doan Magnesium fire starting tool. So if you would like just drop in this afternoon or evening, or tomorrow. You can see the gear in use, work with it yourself trying various configurations. This event is designed to allow people hands on in the outdoors trying out the gear.

You can come by for an hour or overnight if you want to.  Same deal both days.

Also Saturday morning we are serving pancakes to all comers, with Maple syrup or our Elderberry syrup.  The pancakes are the best ever, the treasured recipe from Buchanan Mills in Roosevelt Utah, those in the Uintah Basin all know this mix.

Time: 4 pm Today through 2 pm Tomorrow

Location: Maple Lake Campground, site #1 in Payson Canyon

RAIN or SHINE  why would weather be a factor?

To me this is a bit of a memorial to my dad Perry Dell Peacock who passed away in the past year, who all my life encouraged me to use my imagination and to do things, and was a great example to me, he served our great country as a pilot in the Air Force, in the FAA, and as a Beekeeper. Also a memorial of Shauna’s dad John Rollin Buchanan, who also served our country and was very active in his later years honoring the veterans. He and his brother owned a Feed Mill in Roosevelt, Utah, and as an offshoot business made and marketed their own pancake mix, made of the finest ingredients, thus the pancakes Saturday morning.

Until next time this is Perry Peacock, saluting our veterans and and fore-bearers this Memorial Day Holiday

Here’s what’s going on; every piece of gear we have will be on display so you can see it, try it, play with it, etc. Wear the Poncho, set it up as a tarp or a hammock. Take a look at what you can do with both sizes of our PST’s (tarps), there are 29 set ups that we have come up with. Make fires with our FSK, the best fire starting kit anywhere!! See the bug net attachment for the PSS, even see some prototype stuff no one has seen yet. AND play with all of it.

Location: Maple Lake Campground up Payson Canyon, you can’t miss us.

Time: We’ll be there by 4 pm Friday and and will stay until about 2 pm Saturday. Come for all of it and camp over or come for a couple hours if you want to either day.

Meals: dinner is on your own, bring what you want. Breakfast – we will serve the best pancakes on the planet, from Buchanan Old Mill, my wife’s family started this many years ago at the foot of the Uintah mountains in Roosevelt, Utah, and some other complimentary items as well. Also I will steam up some nice fresh cattails from the lake for you to try if you would like to.

Activities: As mentioned above this is an opportunity to actually use all our gear, and ask questions, check it out fully, compare sizes, test different setups. Mainly we plan to have a blast!! So come on up. Also if you want and have your fishing license try your luck in the lake.

Until next time or until I see you at the “Show Me” this weekend, this is Perry Peacock, “Simplifying Survival”

PS look at our calendar of events on the web page, we’ve started roughing in an event every month for the next 12 months. You can even link the calendar to your own, so you automatically get all the updates, additions and changes.

www.Lawrence.UtahValleyLive.com

We will have a special offer to those listening to the show tomorrow.

We will be talking about our philosophy, a training program, and a little in detail on some of our gear. Hope you can join live, and if not just listen later online.

Also Upcoming for those of you in the Uintah Basin we will be near Roosevelt in Altamont on Saturday June 23rd at 10am. I will be talking on my article “Circles of Priority” which is about common sense Survival and Preparedness, and a method of integrating the two in a simple manner. More info in a couple of weeks.

OH, one other note, we are now, soooo close to launching our Multicam gear, keep watching.

AND, OK here’s another thing, we will have the bug net add on for the PSS (Hammock, Poncho) shortly and some other fun add on’s as well.

Until next time this is Perry Peacock, “Simplifying Survival”

Click for “The Rest of this Story”

Thanks for reading this story, a compilation of my experiences.

Until next time this is Perry Peacock, “Simplifying Survival”

The other day on the farm just South of my place they were out with propane torches setting fire to all the dead grass and weeds in the irrigation ditches. The sight of this brought back memories of my youth when I spent my time working for various farms and ranches in the area. Back in those days we didn’t use propane, things were simple then. We got an old tire put a length of chain around it and then about 30 feet of rope. We’d douse the tire with a little gasoline and light it, then I’d hop on the horse and tie the rope to the saddle horn. Then I’d drag that tire slowly down the ditch letting it catch the weeds on fire.

Why did we do that? If you don’t live in the West or where farms are watered by ditch irrigation, this may be unfamiliar to you.
During the year grass and weeds will gradually grow in the ditches, in the fall this all dies off. To assure good water flow to the crops all this dead material is easily burned out in the spring. Weeds in the ditches acts like friction slowing the flow of water, also the weeds occupy space in the ditch reducing the volume of water delivered. Burning the ditches solves these problems.

In relation to survival there is the matter of preparation as well as analyzing limiting factors that influence our effectiveness. We could also learn from this example to have a seasonal routine for improving our survival gear, skills, and knowledge.

Some examples might be:

• During the year we accumulate things into our gear, look at what works and pare down the unnecessary, it is too easy to get cumbered down over time into a set up that’s too big.
• We should never get a bug out bag or other setup and always thereafter assume it’s still OK, being lean and mean is a constant effort.
• It’s not just about gear either, to be effective we should always be honing our skills and adding to our knowledge.
• We must have a plan to be constantly learning or we become sluggish and ineffective.
• Just like burning may seem a drastic measure, there are times in our lives that we need to take a step like that and “burn” out all the stuff that holds us back and keeps us from getting to where we want to be.

A while back we did a video entitled “Magnesium Fire Starter Fraud” many of you may have found us as a company through that very video. It has had some popularity, and has received tremendous feedback on YouTube including many people who went and tested their magnesium fire starter and found out that it in fact did not work. They were able to go out and get one that did work and practice with it, to ensure that they could light a fire when the time came that they would need to in a survival situation.

Upon doing a little research we found that this video may have been taken out of context (most likely the video was not viewed in it’s entirety) and some people may have got the wrong impression. Today I write this post to clear up a few issues and make sure that we are getting across our true reasoning for the video and the tests that were done.

The research and tests that were made on the magnesium bars that were shown in the video, are  just a few that are available in the marketplace today. We were not able to test all generic magnesium bars that are out there, because there are so many available. A couple years down the road, and after testing several others including inexpensive options that can be found in hardware stores around the nation, we have found the magnesium itself in most of these will in fact produce fire. There are still several issues with the generic brands and the striker rod falling out, so be aware of that issue and check your gear often if you have a generic version.

There are still several generic versions out there, like the one shown in the video that WILL NOT produce flame. This is due to faulty magnesium that cannot be scraped, no matter what way you try, to start a fire.

Test Your Survival Gear

Our main emphasis of all this is to make sure that you get out and test your survival gear and practice with it. Make sure that in your EDC, survival pack, bug out bag, or whatever you carry your survival gear in, you have tested and used the gear that you carry, so you are rest assured it will work when you need it to most. Hopefully after further testing of your gear (if you haven’t already) you find that what you had works just fine and you do not need to replace any piece of gear. Generic version or regular brand name aside, if your gear does not work, it should be replaced.

The reason we carry the Doan magnesium fire starter and have chosen it as our primary fire starter option in our Fire Starting Kit is, with the right training, practice, and preparation it will start a fire 100% of the time. With the Doan, we never have to worry about any issues of the striker rod falling out, it will always be there. The Doan magnesium bar was the originally patent fire starter for the US military and is still today.

Bottom line, test your gear, know how to use it, and stay safe in the wilderness!

If you would like to see the “Magnesium Fire Starter Fraud” video, check it out below:

We were able to catch the Utah Valley Super Preparedness Fair last year and had a great time sharing our products with everyone that we were able to meet. There were many vendors with awesome products and from what we have heard, there should be even more this year, along with great seminars that you are able to attend.

As a company we are SO excited for the Utah Valley Super Preparedness Fair this year. At each of the shows we attended last year, we were able to bring something new to the show that we didn’t even have for sale on our website at that point. At this event, it will be no different.  We will be debuting our MULTICAM line of our products! We have had so many people excited and asking about our survival gear in MULTICAM, and that day is finally almost here!

To officially hit the ground running with our new MULTICAM survival gear, along with adding some excitement to the show, we will be doing a drawing each day (both April 6th & 7th) where we will give away one MULTICAM Fire Starting Kit. So make sure if you are able to make it to the show to sign up for the drawing! After the show we will be officially launching the MULTICAM survival gear line on the website.

Our favorite part of these events is connecting and meeting new people! We are very excited to meet the people that follow our company, and receive feedback on how we are doing. So if you are able to make it, make sure to stop by and say hi!

If you have any additional questions on this show please let us know at Info@WildernessInnovation.com or through our Contact page.

The title seems like a ridiculous question, right?

• Shelter
• Fire
• Water
• Medical
• Food
• Social/Rescue

BUT… And you know something is coming anytime you see a “but”… anyway, food is essential for certain, however, it’s not as urgent as we might think.

So here’s the deal, most people are rescued in less than three days, and are found at or near where they were lost or broken down. The average person  can live longer than three weeks without any food at all. Knowing this, is it essential to immediately go out setting traps or start foraging for plants to eat?

No. A person would be better served setting up a comfortable enough shelter to allow for a good 8 hours of sleep each day, to arrange fire as needed, and a water supply, set up a pre-staged signal fire, have mirrors handy, etc. then get cozy and relax. Did you know that young children are among the best survivors? They lay down and sleep.

Years ago I had a good friend in Canada that was a trapper. I used to go around with him sometimes on his traplines. One thing is certain that I learned from that experience; many traps need to be set in order to have a chance at food, they have to be checked often as some will false trip, or if an animal is caught, it is easy prey for predators and you’ve got to get there before they do. You need 12 to 24 traps set. Also it’s not just setting the traps, it’s being familiar with the animal life and patterns in order to set up properly for the  type of game you are after. It can be a lot of work, building traps, setting them, making rounds checking them, resetting them and all, and that effort = CALORIES.

There are two mindsets on this, one says unless you really know what you are doing you’ll be better off calorie wise to just rest. The other says you need the calories, so go get “em. The caveat is if you spend more calories than you get in food, it’s better to rest. The same applies to eating plants, if you are not thoroughly familiar with those in the area, it may not be worth the risk.

In the end you have to evaluate the options and risks based on likelihood of rescue in a few days to a  week.

Does anyone know approximately where you are? Are you missing now? Or soon? If so it’s probably best to get comtfortable, get ready to signal, and wait for help.

Over the years I’ve studied certainly hundreds of survival accounts, and a good number of them have gone over a month without food and still been healthy enough to recover quickly after rescue. One preeminent case I recently talked about in a blog was Helen Klayben and her pilot Ralph Flores, who crashed in the Yukon in the winter, enduring temperatures of -40 F and living 49 days with virtually no food, just what they had on the plane for lunch.

So yes food is needed for survival, but perhaps we spend an inordinate amount of time on it as related to a survival experience. Of course each situation demands it’s own set of rules, but don’t think all is lost without an immediate known source of food. I certainly would not want to go a long period of time without food, but I would not want to give up hope early due to a lack of it.

Until next time, this is Perry Peacock, “Simplifying Survival”

So how do we maximize the value of our gear?

One word. Multipurpose. When I was growing up I would think of my Boy Scout knife, or a Swiss Army Knife. When my boys were growing up it was MacGuyver who was the king of multi-function. Then there was the coming of Leatherman, and now all the others making similar tools. Remember however, there can be too much of a good thing. Another consideration in multi-tools is this, the various tools on one of these rigs are not as good as the separate individual tool is, so it’s a compromise. Anything you really need to make full use of would be best as the real thing. If you frequently need a certain screwdriver or wrench, it would be best just to have it, rather than make do with a multi-tool.

This is all much more than tools, it’s all our gear, food, and supplies of every kind.

For ages it has been considered wise to carry only items that have many different uses, at least 2 or 3 anyway. That’s how you get more “bang for your buck.”

Look at the graph for our CSK (Core Survival Kit), it shows how many ways each kit component can be used in relation to the Six Elements of Survival. In our training we divide up Survival into Six areas that we call “Elements,” these are essentials without which, if lacking any of them, our very lives are in danger. These are, in no particular order; Shelter, Fire, Water, Food, Medical, and Social/Rescue. You can see from the graph that many items have functions in two or more Elements, this is ideal. 

When you are gearing up, besides the initial function of an item, consider how else it may be used. You may find a better gear choice this way, something that can help you in many areas.

Ideas–

Now you don’t need to have our gear, but for the sake of illustration I want to use it as an example of some things that can be done.

For Shelter, our PST’s (Personal Survival Tarp) are made in a way that they are very adaptable and can be set up in many ways, 18 to 25 ways. They include 100 feet of parachute cord, 6 tent stakes, and shock cord. Many uses for each of those items as well. Our PSS (Personal Survival Shelter) is one piece of gear that does three main things, it’s a Tarp, a Poncho, and a Hammock and it comes with 40 feet of parachute cord as well. You can even add the liner, to make a jacket or sleeping bag out of it.

Food/Water, our new Firebox Folding Stove Combo Kit gives a stove that can burn most any dry fuel, and our FSK (Fire Starter Kit). With this kit you can cook, boil water, start a fire in the stove or almost any where else, so it can contribute to Shelter, Fire, Water, Food, Medical, and Social; a very valuable asset.

Even a pot like the Billy Pot we are testing has a number of uses. It can be used for cooking, it can be a container for storage, it can also be a shovel to dig with. So it’s Elements are; Food, Water, Medical, Social/Rescue.

So whether you choose our gear or something else the important thing is to consider all the possible functions of every item in your kit. Over time your gear will be streamlined as you find things that fit better with your needs.

Have fun gearing up, I hope you are able to use some of these thoughts to make more effective kits, and utilize better gear.

Until next time, this is Perry Peacock, “Simplifying Survival”

Stephen Callahan in his book “Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea” notes the following sentiment many times during his intense ordeal.

“Clouds ease the roasting afternoon sun, but deny me maximum water production. (from solar desalination still) Life is full of paradoxes. When the wind blows hard I move well toward my destination, but I am wet, cold, scared, and in danger of capsizing, when it is calm I dry out, heal, and fish more easily, but my projected journey lengthens and my encounters with sharks increase.”

In the book “Island of the Lost” the crew of the Grafton shipwrecked for nearly two years on a sub-antarctic island, in warmer weather the men face a devastating scourge of blowflies, who lay eggs on literally everything, hatching maggots everywhere, and biting flies that are so visious that the men are disfigured by the sores that develop, the warmer weather is however a relief and allows harvesting plant life in a challenging diet. In the cold the seals are closer to them are easier to kill for food.

Years ago I took some training from Jim Phillips on “Living in Sub-zero conditions, without Fire or Shelter.” One of the first exercises in the class was to make a list of things that were advantages while camping in the winter. Things listed would be such as. No snakes, no bugs, plenty of water, choice of camp spots, ability to use snow for shelter. The list would go on and on, soon it seemed that perhaps it was better to camp in the snow and cold of winter, than the traditional summer camp.

In the WWII story of Jan Baalsrud, “We Die Alone,” he is nearly killed by an avalanche while skiing the mountains along a fjord in northern Norway to escape capture by the Germans. Jan winds up injured and seriously frostbitten. When he finally gets to a cabin for help, they are afraid to keep him there for fear they would all be killed for harboring a fugitive. Jan is unable to walk at all due to his injuries. They end up stashing Jan strapped into a sled, high in the mountains, where people from a remote village are supposed to come by and ferry him into neutral Sweden. He is lowered into a drift well around a large boulder, they left him supplies for a few days. As it turned out German movements and storms made it impossible for rescuers to come for him, it was 27 days before he was rescued! Snow had practically buried him, yet he was able laying in his sled, to melt snow and ice in his mouth and hands from the roof that drifted over him,  additionally the drifted snow insulated him from the arctic cold and winds. He was able to survive, though just barely.

The challenge really is to use adversity to your advantage, sometimes the positive effects accompanying change far outweigh the trouble that is seen. If we only see a scenario as a negative we may fail to sincerely look into it to discover the good effects that we may use to benefit us. A kite cannot rise without the force of the wind opposing it. If we only see the wind, we fail to see how it may be used by us to our advantage.

One ancient writer who knew many difficult and challenging times stated, “there must needs be an opposition in all things…” further indicating that troubles and hardship make the good times better and more appreciated.

The other day I was hiking in a canyon that has one section that in the summer is filled with boulders and rock debris that must be navigated around. This time of year with snowfall and drifting, the path is almost as smooth as a sidewalk.

It is difficult to find a book telling the story of some survival experience, where the survivor does not in some way become involved in a dichotomy, where the seeming death knell blow ends up providing the energy or means to forge ahead, to actually ease suffering, or even provide the means for rescue.

Until next time, this is Perry Peacock, “Simplifying Survival”