Survival Lessons From Alone

I spent 10 months alone in a partially wooded area hiding to save my life. Goal Survival.
I had one Change of clothing, a half book of paper matches and a pocket knife. The first days were the worst. I found an old soup can the second day and I drank pollywogs and minnows to supplement the miners lettuce I’d been filling up on. My first fire started ok with one match but while I was busy it went out. That wasn’t ok. I now had 9 matches. I quickly learned to bank my fire and to keep a constant supply of fire wood. Since I didn’t have even a hatchet my wood was what I could carry and break. Had to keep piles of it to always have a fire going or coals saved when I was busy so I could easily come back and restart the fire. One day when I couldn’t find much I robbed a packrat nest of its cache of seeds. I washed them by the double handfuls in the little stream and chewed seeds till they were gone.
It took a while to get into a routine of foraging and planning that worked. I prayed at night about how to do things that I didn’t know. Often I’d wake up knowing what to do or I’d see something and understanding was there to do things. I kept a long walking stick that I carefully peeled. It had a short fork at the top that could pin a rattle snake. That was handy in the open area where snakes were often sunning themselves near a group of large boulders or in the deeper woods where snakes announced their presence by rattling from under dense growth. I ate the first snake that struck at me. After that I sort of hunted them. I ate the remains of a rabbit from a large cats dinner hid under a life of leaves. I cooked it on a flat rock in the middle of my fire. I snared rabbits using braided elastic from panty tops and springy saplings. Later on I found a 1 lb coffee can. It became my cook pot and when I moved camp to let plants regrow before using more from them that can came along with peeled acorns that I cracked into tiny bit with a rock and soaked for a day or two in a sandy area along the stream. They were ready to make soup. Just cover with water and cook along the side of my fire. They looked and tasted like beans cooked with no salt. A real salt source would have been good.
Later I made a small bow and arrows to pick apple from the top of a gnarled old tree by the remains of an old cabin near the stream in a deep wooded area. I sometime shot small birds. Gutted and skinned they added flavor to my cooking.
I found a low waterfall had worn a bowl in the rock below it. It was just deep enough to sit in and shower. I could wash my long hair. Just the rinsing was cleaning and refreshing. Sometimes I’d scrub with a bit of sand.
Nights around the fire, I carve little willow whistles like dad had made for me. I’d sing or recite scriptures memorized as a child. Later I made a large basket of long slender willow branches. I used it for foraging, holding acorns till they were peeled ready to break up and soak, and it held my clothing and cooking cans when I moved camp every few days. My coffee can often moved full of ready to cook acorns.
I learned to carry coals from the old fire to start the new one.
I watched as golden eyes stared at me from across the fire. I didn’t stare back. I learned on the nights I was going to be active during the night to not look at my fire. I could sit near and enjoy the glow and warmth. If I looked at the fire I was really night blind if I walked away from the fire. By looking off into the dark I was able to get around much better.
I was always planning and figuring things out. Foods kept changing with the seasons. I had to adapt. I see no time to sit quiet and board.

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I like the folks here. Good articles spawn good discussions.
Turning 74 this month. That article about my 10 months alone was from when I was 21, 1968. Anytime your going off into a wilderness near or far from people you’re stepping out into what has been for eons pretty much unchanged.
The area I went to was privately owned but unused rural land with a tiny stream that came from higher up the mountain.
Dad told Mom to let me go and enjoy that free summer. We’d just moved there and I only knew one friend then. Sun up to nearly sundown i ran the hills and meadows. I’d been a chubby kid. I lost 20 lb and and grew 4″ that summer. So when I took off to hide I headed for a place I once knew. It hadn’t changed much in 10 years. One big Grace, it held happy memories. I’d never searched specifically for food there. If I’d needed to, I could have moved further west. I had to avoid people at all costs. There was still a lot of land without homes lining every dirt road.
That area was one of many fires in California 2020. I can’t imagine it after a fire. I remember it as it was the summer of ’58 when we moved to that area, and the most of 1968 when I lived out there.
I learned lessons I need in life that I still use today. I’m not totally alone. I’m married but my husband has alzheimers. Sometimes we have nice discussions but he’s mostly silent.
In the woods I avoided memories that flared anger. They wasted my time and my energy and clouded my thinking. As much as I loved my 2 sons thinking about them created a deep lonely ache inside. Hard to think clearly giving in to that pain. So I saved them for occasional visits in the evening at just about bedtime.
I sang when I was down and afraid. I sang when I was happy. I talked half outloud to myself when working out how to do things. And I prayed day and night. No begging and moaning and groaning. Most I prayed thankfulness for a new day or that I’d made it through another day. I’d ask for wisdom and protection. I knew any little injury without help or even a bottle of alcohol, could be life threatening. I quoted poetry and Bible verses and made up poems to keep my mind busy. At first I longed for books. I loved reading. I finally settled into a routine of forraging, cooking and eating whatever was found. Then hunting for food and firewood. Often nibbling on greens I knew were safe through the day or making a tea of pine needles or yarrow. Both added flavor to the boiling water that had to sit for a short bit to cool enough the hot metal wouldn’t burn my mouth. I stacked my new firewood or inventory what i had edible and think about how I would prepare it. I made my beds of springy pine bows piled several inches thick to stay off of the heat sucking dirt. Then piIes of dry leaves, if available, to burrow into as my covers. Cool foggy mornings it was nice to be curled up near the trunk of a big evergreen with bows touching the ground . It held my body heat in that space. I only remember one tree like that. Most of the evergreens had long bare trunks.
During the long insane lockdowns of 2020 I’ve had time to remember. I’ve thought a lot about my grandmother. She was the oldest of a large brood of chiIdren. She’d attendead school 2 months of each of the first three grades in the area school then worked on the farm. At 13 she left home to run the big farm kitchen for a neighbor while the farmers wife was in bed with a hard pregnancy. She made meals for the family and farm hands. Then for big harvest crews that gathered when needed. She worked for others everywhere to support herself till she married at 21. Then she helped clear land, plant apple trees, helped build a home and barn then a wearhouse for the bushels of apples they believed would come. The raised a few calves and pigs each year. Butchered meat for them selves and sold butcher ready animals to buy other supplies. Grandma cooked and sewed for them while working beside her husband. She also built a springhouse to store milk in to sell and use from. Butter, eggs and garden produce all had a place in that cool room. She built with stones they clearing as they used the land.
She used a hay box to prepare many meals. Bring a heavy pot to a rolling boil then with a lid on the pot burry it deep in the hay to finish cooking. That way she could build, tend a big garden or stay with her canning. She made pretty quilts with every little scrap left from her sewing. She made rugs also. When the apples finally were producing she set up a row of hay boxes and picked apples with the hired crew and her husband. Then hurried home to bake the loaves of bread she’d set to rise that morning. Seasonings were checked and stews set on the stove to be thickened and kept warm while dishes were set out to serve a crew.
The apples were put in bushel baskets with wooden lids and hauled by wagon to the train to be sent to contracted markets. Grandpa was his own sales man each spring for the fall crop that was their main income. Mostly selling in the New England and upstate New York area. Grandma had cousins all over that area. Many had little country stores and some in Boston had bigger businesses. It started out mostly relatives buying, then it grew.
At home he pruned and cared for the trees and built a big smokehouse. Once the smoking was finished he helped move the barrels of salted meats into the springhouse and two would sit just inside the smokehouse. Those were the first ones used. One beef and one pork. He eventually built grandma a summer kitchen and a store room full of shelves for canned goods and a space to keep empty jars.
Grandma was 27 when Mom was born in 1904. Then Aunt Betty in 1906 and a little boy in 1908. He died of flu. No one ever said his name. He was once mentioned as “my little boy”, and Mom twice mentioned him as “my little brother”. She was given a doll by a grandmother who had saved the one doll with a China head and feet. The tiny hands were leather. She still rests in the watch box an uncle gave her from his shop. Its a tight fit but she fit. One hand had been lost by the time she became mine. Mom was inconsolable when her brother died. She’d sit and hold the doll and cry or sleep with her snuggled close.
Funny the things you remember when you do have time on your hands. I still have some castiron cookware passed down from a great-grandmother to grandma, mom and finally to me. Little old fashioned kitchen tools, hand cranked meat grinders, a ricer and more. I still use many of those things today.
The lockdown has become insane. 1 1/2 hours out in the cold wind, in line, wearing a mask, 6 foot distance from everyone else, so I can buy fresh milk for my husband. He likes milk with his meals. I make a list of things we need or might want so I don’t have to go through that insanity very often. I aim at once every 2 or three weeks. Alone I’d just keep buying canned fruit and things with meat such as chili and eventually stop going except to fill propane bottles. I could easily live without the propane as well but hot running water is nice and heat in the bedroom on really cold nights feel good.
My coffee table is an opening folded bed, ” hard as a rock”. I just bought an air mattress to put on it if we need it. Then he could sleep on the daybed and I’d sleep on the coffee table bed and air matress. Staying near the rocket stove, that is now a pellet burner with a gravity fed hopper on it. Makes good sense.
In winter i mostly cook on the 16″ flat top on the heat collector. I keep a whistling tea pot there or a perculator in the morning or evenings so we have fresh coffee or water for tea or hot cocoa. For over two years I heated water in a 3 gallon pot to bathe or wash dishes with. I can do that again but a hot shower sure is nice.
We have power on 200′ of #10 extension cords from a shop building so hubby can sit and watch TV this winter and a fridge, washing machine, and one lamp are on it. Not everything going at once of course.
I’m gathering materials to rebuild my solar array, another for the well, and a small array for a sons tiny home here on the property. He will need to add batteries. I may add solar to the old mobilehome a friend is living in. I could then park an old motor home where it can plug in at the pole. Sure will cut down on what I’m paying every month.
I’m also ( between storms) building a new chicken coop and enclosing a 10×20 metal frame for the chickens and ducks. I’m using welded field fencing, chicken wire, and hardware cloth. The original tarp top is going back on top. I’ve laid out pallets for the coop floor and some that came with plywood tops for the storeroom. All my solar power bank of batteries, charge controller, combiner, et and barrels of grain for us and the critters will be there.
Too much time to think and too little work time this winter. So I think up future work to stay busy for months … lock downs or not.
Somethings are the same for us all. We eat, sleep and have to fill up our days or find ways to decompress and relax a bit. Kids being taught at home and not out playing with friends need activity times. AduIts need physical activities as well. That’s why the chickens and ducks are getting a new home here.
We can’t be focused on fear, anger, or boredom. Some days I refuse to watch news or talk programs just to escape the negativity and hatred. I learned that during that 10 months. No fear, no anger, no boredom. Stay busy doing or planning. I worshiped God everyday. Sure I love church and people but when that is taken away, God wasn’t taken away. My friends haven’t all been taken away. I still have a phone. I can make or receive calls, text, e mail, and messenger to reach out to family also.
I have 5 new ducks this winter in big dog crates until their home is ready. I carry 3 gallons of water to them every day. 5 rabbit moved down to a shed nearer home. I top off their water bottles with a gallon carried out there at feeding time. The new pullets still in the laundry room for 2 months need most of 2 gallons of water and I refill their bucket of grain from a barrel out by the ducks once every 5 days. Little boredom allowed here.
I’m regaining strength slowly. I have fibromyalgia and periferal neuropathy. They are flared up since i was so sick in the Spring. I work 30 to 45 minutes then sit and watch tv, draw out something I’m planning to build, check eBay auctions for things i need. Read a friends email and answer it, then up again for a bit more work. I’m slow but things are getting done.
I found a source of blackberries and raspberries for my planting zone. Hope to make an order by spring. I want more fruit here. Blackberries with harsh thorns will be good along the fence where theiving teens once made a path coming here. I love blackberries. Fresh, canned, in pies, and cobblers. Mmmm
Back to work time.

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