The wilderness survival guide by Joe O'Leary

Author:Joe O'Leary
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Survival
Published: 2012-12-01T15:51:48+00:00

Bottom right and left: an alternative to mopping dew up with an improvised mop. Tie absorbent clothing around your lower legs, go for an early morning walk in the tall grass and wring out the moisture into a container!

Dew

First thing in the morning and late in the evening, grass and exposed vegetation are covered in water, albeit tiny droplets. These can be absorbed with a clean item of clothing and wrung out into a container. Sounds like a lot of work, but walking through long grass just before the sun comes up, dragging an absorbent piece of material on a stick will produce quite a lot of water. Dew will also collect on any cold surface, so smooth rocks can be collected and placed in a plastic-lined shallow pit to attract moisture, which then dribbles down into the bottom of the pit. In a hot climate, you’ll need to make use of this moisture before the sun comes up or it’ll be gone again. Much larger dew ponds, following the same principles, have been used to provide a self-sustaining water source for livestock on high, chalky Sussex downland in south-east England for centuries.

Trees

In the winter, trees pretty much shut down and go into a stage of dormancy until the spring, but once the sap starts flowing again there are some that can be tapped. Silver birch, in particular, can provide an emergency drink during a 2- to 3-week window in early spring. Find a good-sized tree, preferably with a slight lean, and carefully use your knife and a batten to pierce a hole through the bark on the side with the lean. If the conditions are perfect and it’s the right time of year (usually around late February/early March) you will see a dribble of sap appearing in the hole, which very quickly becomes a trickle, then a constant drip. If the tree has enough of a lean, the drips should fall clear from the trunk and into a collection container. If not, you may need to fit a little protruding drip-director so that they go where you want them to. Over time, your container will fill up and provide a very slightly sugary drink that is lovely and refreshing and can even be boiled down to produce syrup if you’ve got an excess. (Once you’ve had your fill, be kind to the tree and plug the hole with a little section of wood.) The sap isn’t pure enough to be used as your only source of drinking water, however, but if you’re in the vicinity of silver birch then the chances are that there’ll be a better source available nearby if you look hard enough.

Trees also give off water through their leaves when exposed to sunlight – a process known as transpiration. If you have a transparent polythene bag, this water can be trapped and collected. Choose a particularly leafy branch or bundle of foliage from a non-poisonous tree in a place that gets sunlight for most of the day, and enclose them within the bag.

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