International Rewilding Discussion Forum

I think that for some people, they will have to leave N. America to find a more suitable place to live the way they desire. I have spent several years living in the tropics and sub-tropics now, and have only spent a few months in N. America during the past couple of years. I found the landbase I was looking for in the tropics and  spend most of every year there while I take the steps to obtain residency and deal with immigration. I am writing this from the southern tropics.

I do not desire a return to N. America which I find unsuitable for myself personally. I also find it easier to hunt for food on a regular basis and deal with h-g logistics in a more remote tropical location than the more crowded colder lands of N. America.

The tropics really simplify day-to-day life for someone living out bush. This is from my own experience, I can’t speak for anyone else. Regarding food, shelter and clothing it is a whole other ball game than N. America and especially Canada, where I grew up.

For those that can get something going in N. America, that’s great but for myself the tropics of the southern hemisphere have been much more conducive for long-term living out in the bush and hunting, it’s where my in-laws live, where my aboriginal fiance lives, and where I feel at home, it‘s the place I miss when I leave from time to time. Dingoes and parrots have become more familiar and sacred to me than the coyotes and crows of my childhood. The tropical trees and eucalypts have become the trees I am used to and work with for my daily needs, rather than the aspens and cottonwoods of the American prairies…

To each their own but for some people the grass is greener on the other side.

Pine nuts from the Siberian stone pine are an important seasonal food source for many Russians living in forests dominated by this tree. A good book to read regarding the use of these pine nuts as a food source is "Lost in the Taiga" by Vassili Peskov.

I used to absolutely dread the dead of summer here in the smack dab middle of the United States, but aside from the mosquitoes I've noticed I can tolerate the heat decently if I don't have to be in air-conditioning at any point. The minute the A/C hits me I can't stand to go back out.

Our winters can be sorta brutal (nothin' compared to Minnesota though), especially last winter--though the ice is the only thing that's exceptionally loathsome.

I don't think I could live anywhere that doesn't get a full sample of all four seasons, though. I also appreciate how the wind is always blowing. In fact, still air sorta creeps me out. In the winter it can be dangerous, wind chills way below zero and all, but again with the appropriate coverings, it ain't nothin' i can't deal with. In the summer, tornadoes can be a force to be reckoned with, but if you're on the Plains, you can see 'em from 90 miles away. I would be sorely depressed if I had to spend a full spring and summer away from a thunderstorm prone area.

That being said, I'm a prairie gal through 'n through. My skin (mostly) reacts positively to the sun, too, which helps, since as previously mentioned, we sure get plenty of that.

My dad's family/ancestors have lived in Nebraska for roughly 140 years, so perhaps it is genetic by now, too--I've never strayed far from that state myself. They're all full-blooded Bavarian Germans, too, since the entire area he's from migrated from the same place. He even speaks a dialect he grew up with. I don't know much about the Bavarian climate though. Mom's family is Slavic, though we're not entirely sure which part, since they came from Poland but were reputed to originate elsewhere in East Europe (makes sense, she & my grandmother often were mistaken for an Italian or Jew instead).

EDIT: I just looked up the climates of both Bavaria and Poland and they both are quite similar to my region, albeit slightly less extreme.

Interesting sunflowersFTW, My background is also Bavarian and I grew up on the prairie. A bit north of you across the border. Your post reminded me of all those summer thunderstorms out on the prairie, probably my best memories are all those summer thunderstorms running out in the rain and thunder among the grass and watching the lightning and the roaring thunder.

Every thunderstorm I was always outside in the middle of it running around and walking through the waving grass for hours, never wanted to stay inside. I love the prairie air in general, but during a thunderstorm it's awesome the way the moisture blows across the prairie and fills your lungs. Its similar to what happens when it's about to rain in the desert.

I always feel the same way about you in regards to the wind. If you grow up on the prairie you know the magic of the wind and the way it flows through the millions of stalks of grass. There are certain visual and physical natural phenomena that are the most beautiful and unique to the plains and desert.

Definitely! The only reason I don't write human or woman in place of man is because I tire of writing "he/she" and "her/him" all the time.

MR,

I think we are taught to deny many instincts and natural behaviors in order to function and "get by" in modern-day society, especially in the cities. In order to meet our subsistence needs we are programmed to obtain money for the grocery store. We are taught to deceive ourselves that we can't get better, healthier meat through our own interaction with animals out on the land. That killing and cutting up an animal is disgusting, un-civilized, etc etc. All lies to keep us lazy, eat chips and pop, pay taxes, be apathetic, watch TV.

IMO we have to go back to living on the land as that is where the meat always is (as opposed to urban environments), go back to clan-based social arrangements, go back to carrying weapons, go back to hunting for our food and stop buying meat in the grocery store.

I am the most drawn to hunters and nomad herders because I have found I prefer hunting and herding compared to any other full time job and associating and living with those who do the same, people who don't mediate with alien social groups (like the big man) to obtain their meat. How can you feed yourself WTSHTF if you are always buying meat from someone else?  It will always be the most nutritious and important food so it makes sense to hunt or herd it yourself!

It's natural that a man feels empowerment when he obtains his own meat through his own effort. Likewise, it's natural that a man feels disempowered when he buys meat from some foreigner (clerk) and is cut off from the whole process of obtaining it himself (hunting-killing-butchering-cooking-eating-satisfaction).

I think people need to stop working jobs they hate and at least hunt/herd/keep chickens or pigs for half of their meat needs, and go from there. That's the only solution I can think of for people looking to re-wild. Start somewhere. I think it's the starting somewhere that have most people stuck.

I think the meaning of Wild man without predating in the natural way, is Domestic man predating on other domestic men, women, children, etc and getting in fights at the bar, at the football game, hitting the wife, and all the other modern ways men expend their predator energy when they should be utilizing that energy for hunting food.

I really want to learn to slow cook in a stone lined grass & sedge sealed earth covered pit!

Quote

The Buckeyes are placed in the conventional stone lined baking pit which has first been made hot with a fire; they are then covered over with earth and allowed to steam for several hours,until the nuts have acquired the consistency of boiled potatoes. They may then either be sliced placed in a basket and soaked in running water for from two to five days ( depending on the thinness of the slices), or mashed and rubbed up with water into a paste (the thin skin being incidentally separated by this process) and afterwards soaked from one two ten hours in a sand filter, the water as it drains away conveying with it the noxious principle.  It was customary to eat the resultant mass cold and without salt."

The use of the phrase "conventional stone lined baking pit" reminds me most primitives knew how to use this and cooked the vast majority of there meat that way plus other hard to digest items like nuts and camas.

The Zalabiyeh Bedouin use this method:

Find a big ol oildrum barrel, dig a hole in the sand big enough for the barrel to fit inside ( takes a while, I helped dig a few for a camp once) , and when the hole is dug put the barrel in.

To cook, start a fire inside, let it burn till it's almost all coals and then place a cover on it. They use a big metal bowl placed upside down to fit overtop or the top of an oil drum flattened a bit for the cover, but you could use any circular piece of iron or steel that was hammered to the right shape I would think.

They place the food on a sort of circular grate that is a few inches smaller in diameter than the barrel so it fits nicely inside the barrel and the bottom rests on the top of the coals. The meat and veggies are placed on this grate, seasoned and then placed on the grate, the grate is placed in the barrel and then it is covered with the cover.

Then sand is shoveled on top of the cover so it is completely covered. Several hours later, the sand is brushed off with a broom, the cover opened, and the grate removed, steam rushes out revealing the barbequed/pit cooked meat and vegetables.

The tourists who have never ate pit-cooked meat before frequently say that it's the best tasting chicken they have had and so on, it lends a superior flavor to most other methods of roasting , IMO.

This method of pit cooking/earth oven roasting in the sand is called zaerb. Other times meat is just broiled directly on the coals of an open fire or boiled but the zaerb is more practical for roasting a large amount of meat for lots of people while allowing one to concentrate on other tasks (such as preparing other food) until the meat is ready to be taken out of the pit.

Here's a pic to better illustrate:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/calendo/2015143243/sizes/l/in/set-72157603164462746/

Check out "The Technological Society" by Jacques Ellul. It's more of a scholarly book, and a bit dry in many areas but if you can get through those parts it's the most accurate depiction of our times vis-a-vis the paleolithic IMHO, compared to any other book I've read. He doesn't suggest going back to h-g life and he's non-biased which is something I haven't found in a lot of authors, anyways one of the best reads for people wishing to understand our social situation.