I started my #bushcraft journey with #NaturalPathways bushcraft school led by Hannah Nicholls, a genuinely kind and compassionate woman. Hannah is now recovering from bacterial meningitis and unable to work, her family have set up this crowdfunder to help support her recovery.
Camping in the autumn is so much nicer than any other time of the year. The roads are less busy with tourists, the campgrounds are mostly empty, usually camp fires are allowed if it's been rainy. The crisp mornings by a campfire making coffee and scrambled eggs while watching the sun come up through the golden trees just can't be beat for getting away and relaxing.
Also, fall camping is a great way to check out your emergency evac equipment. Most campgrounds that are still open have little in the way of services and good rough camping spots are probably empty so, you can check on how self sufficient your set up is. How does your sleeping situation work in chilly night temperatures? Do you have the right equipment and tools to make a 3 day camping trip comfortable and safe? Have you got a way to carry enough water and perishable food?
Other things can be checked out too, such as adequate night time lighting, fire starting tools and tinder, cooking fuel, and clothing/footwear, staying dry in wet weather. In a situation like camping where you can fairly easily get to help if you are not properly equipped or if something goes wrong, it is a perfect way to reassure yourself that your emergency evac supplies are top notch before an emergency happens.
Getting in a few days away from digital devices and the mundane can be the most refreshing and restful thing to do before winter sets in. This coming weekend I'll be out in the woods by a lake with my grand-littles.
There is an excellent free resource out there for survival situations- military field manuals. A quick search will find you hundreds of different ones. Many are not useful for non-military situations but many have excellent tutorials on bush-craft, field-craft and wilderness survival, urban survival during riots and civil disturbance, hiding in plain site, first survival actions after biological weapons are deployed, field first aid, and my latest find: SERE- Survival, Evasion and Recovery which has a lot of primitive survival info.
The key to using these manuals is disregard anything that doesn't have relevance to you and look for the useful information as it applies which might be only a small section in each. There are lots of different sources for finding these manuals, but here are 2 links for you to get started. The manuals are free to download usually on PDF and are a valuable addition to your preps.