HAY!

I'm going to look at some first cutting grass hay tomorrow evening. Didn't get to ride today, it was super windy and I didn't want him jumping around on me. Plus I had a buttload of stuff to do. Move clean gourds, move fence so they had more grass, hide inside each time a sudden storm popped up... etc.

We are expecting a delivery of some paperwork for the laptop Tsu won (for real!) so I was concerned about the driveway being blocked by temp fence... so i sat outside working on a commissioned gourd for a while then sat out there next to the temp fence with my feet up on an empty cat litter bucket chilling with my ponies and reading "Hawke's Green Beret Survival Manual" by Myke Hawke.

So far this book is awesome. I borrowed it from the library but I WANT to own a copy. I just finished Chapter 1: the Psychology of Survival... wow. This guy is awesome. That chapter has things that could help people live a better life right now, survival or not. I saw him on Good Morning America and wanted to see if his book was just another useless "if you are lost in the woods with a gun, knife, machete, 10 yards of canvas, and a full week's worth of non-perishable foods this is how you can survive" book or if it might actually have some useful info. So far it looks like the real deal, not useless crap.

I'm half way through chapter 2: shelter. Usually these kind of books tell you how to build a wickiup/wigwam or some other fairly large labor intensive shelter. He explains how to get up off the ground to stay safe and dry and how to get just enough shelter over your head the first night to stay dry until you have time to do something more substantial. Imagine that! Yeah, I want to buy a copy of this one already.

Sprinkled throughout the book are hints at this guy's humour revealed through personal stories, and I have to say... I like this guy. He takes what is a highly technical knowledge base and breaks it down so the average housewife can understand and use the info in an emergency. And if you think you won't ever need this information stop and think for a moment... did the people in New Orleans think they would ever have to sleep tied into a tree while a hurricane whipped around them? What about tornadoes, flash floods, power outages, or crashing economies that leave people homeless? Global disasters like atomic bombs and swine flu epidemics aren't the only reason to learn how to survive if the system breaks down. One good electrical storm could leave you needing to know how to find food for a few days.

I know, I sound like one of those wacky survivalist nuts trying to lure you into reading a wacky book about wacky things you will never need to know. But it can't hurt to know how to tell safe berries from deadly ones, even if you never end up having to live off of them, right? lol.

I'll give a final review when I finish the book but so far it is awesome. As soon as my paypal gets up to enough from doing my paid surveys I'll be ordering this one for sure.