Thanks, Truth. Just trying to do what I can here, you know. :)

DJ, I'm not leaving this state. I have family all over here. My family has lived in Texas since the 1850s. I'm more concerned about reaching them and protecting them than I am about my own self, actually. I'm not one of the people who one needs to worry about. I'm going to try and make it to my family and make sure they are safe, and it's a ~600 mile round trip which I can easily do without refueling now.

Edit: I'm my parents' only kid living here in Texas. If they needed something, I'd be on the road to help them. Because I can and after all they suffered raising this little hellion.

I've always had an interest in primitive survival and I've got a pretty extensive knowledge of it, but not a lot of practical experience

I've focused on three basics things in actual practice:

1) Starting fires. That is, with NOTHING. Can you walk into the woods without even the clothes on your back and get a fire going fast enough to stay warm?

2) Food. Can you walk into the woods naked and feed yourself enough to keep from starving?

3) Materials for the above and more. Can you make rope from natural fibers you would have access too? Can you identify and work flint or other stone? Bone? Antler? Can you make a bow that's functional? A sling? A trap? A temporary AND permanent shelter?

Although I feel comfortable enough to answer "yes I can" to everything above, I'm beginning to think that I've always been focused to narrowly on bare survival. The odds are against me ever having to actually use any of those skills and there are many many skills that I'd be more likely to need that I may have a passing knowledge of but no experience doing.

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2) Food. Can you walk into the woods naked and feed yourself enough to keep from starving?

Hi Asi: We can't practice this in Florida. They will arrest you...

Twox: There's plenty of swampland there that's FULL of food and well away from law enforcement. Gators, snakes, lizards, fish... tons of edible veggies too.

DeLorme state gazetteers are very detailed and include back roads, GPS grids. Most major book stores carry them in the travel section for about $20.

A sudden spike in food prices here *should* kill retailers.

I am going to stock up big time on food. Food inflation is going to be surging very soon 1-6 months time frame, if I had to take a guess. Crop failures combined with monetization its going to be a big shock to most people.

Crop failures and low yields are happening all over the world... Here is a quick list of recent ones;

"U.S. Crop Surplus Shrinking as World Output Drops, Demand Rises"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con....

"Severe Mexican vegetable shortages expected into March"
http://thepacker.com/Severe-Mexican-vege....

"Half of Queensland's sugarcane crop suffers cyclone damage"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/marke....

"Banana prices set to skyrocket as cyclone destroys Australian crops"
http://www.examiner.com/finance-examiner....

"U.N. Food Agency Issues Warning on China Drought"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/busine....

"Statewide orange crop forecast reduced due to recent freezes"
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/state....

The writing is on the wall...

Publix has honey hams on sale for $1.99/lb. Good deal.

Was in WM today and more and more brands are disappearing. Prices ain't gettin no better

Did anyone post this?

Food inflation isn't in every grocery aisle

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/0....

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1) Starting fires. That is, with NOTHING. Can you walk into the woods without even the clothes on your back and get a fire going fast enough to stay warm?

Actually, no. How do you do that?

Just went to the store this evening:

Loaf of Wonder whole wheat bread, 1/2 gallon of milk and a 12 oz jar of Newman's Tomato and Basil sauce plus tax:

$11.

Ouch. Anyone unemployed or living on fixed income of any kind is really getting squeezed hard right now.

Costco, dude.

I do expect to pay a lot for milk though. When I buy it, it's organic from Whole Foods and it's $5/gal.

Costco does have great prices Jota but I refuse to pay a membership fee for the opportunity to give someone my money. **** that **** - even if it is cheaper. I'm not going that way out of principle.

Wish there was a Whole Foods near me. That's one of the few places out there I might still spend a few bucks at.

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Wish there was a Whole Foods near me.

You guys have a lot of great stuff in NY nearby but this is one way I'm blessed here. The original Whole Foods in Austin is about 5 minutes drive away from me in the Arboretum. I like the purity of the food but I can't stand the ****ing holier-than-thou artificial customers when I get there, hehe.

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Actually, no. How do you do that?

Pyrite & flint.

I tried that in Cub Scouts in 4th grade. It doesn't work (or work as well as they say). We wound up using a egg carton for 6 eggs, packed with wood shavings or paper for fire starter.

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1) Starting fires. That is, with NOTHING. Can you walk into the woods without even the clothes on your back and get a fire going fast enough to stay warm?

Actually, no. How do you do that?

Lots of ways to. Pyrite & flint like Chellie said, if you can find them. Friction methods are more likely and what I would start with though, because it's not always easy to find pyrite or flint. (Definitely no pyrite around here.)

Fire drill, Fire plow (just a alternative to the fire drill) or if fibers are availible to make the bow, a fire bow.

Fire drill is a straight stick and platform with a notch cut in it that you spin by hand. Fire plow is a stick and platform with a groove in it where you slide the stick back and forth under pressure. Fire bow is like the fire drill but with a bow to spin the stick instead of by hand.

All require very dry wood, very dry tinder and lots of perseverance if you haven't practiced.

If you have access to bamboo, there are some other methods that are easier for somebody who isn't practiced with the other methods, but that's conditional on your surroundings.

The friction methods with wood can be done pretty much anywhere because wood or woody material is going to be availible anywhere you can gather enough substance for a fire (well... Maybe you'd have access to dried dung on a prairie and no wood... pretty special case though.)

Thanks guys. I think one of my life goals will be to start a fire with some fibers/wood around me. When I have, I can die happy. :-)

Jota: It works just fine. You just have to practice. I believe the world record for fire from a hand drill is something like 6.5 seconds. It's not uncommon at all for people to be able to produce fire in under a minute.

The last time I demonstrated it for my son's boy scout group (none of them can, not even the troop leader), it took me about 8-10 minutes. Would have been about 5-6 but the first coal fell apart.

I'll have to get me a good piece of real pyrite then. We have flint (chert) coming up out of my yard here; it's everywhere.

Guys, check out this pyrite though. It has pretty pronounced cleavage (not boobs, the angles at which the crystalline geometry naturally fractures). This is just going go keep breaking into smaller pieces of pyrite along those lines.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brilliant-Golden-Pyr....

Pyrite's dirt cheap - you can probably find it at a New Age/hippie/occult shop if you have any local.

I prefer pyrite & flint if just for the reason that friction methods require, as Asi said, VERY dry materials. VERY dry. If you're out in the woods being all pioneer-y and it rains, well, starting a fire isn't going to be very easy.

Buy a couple hunks of pyrite and stick 'em on a bookshelf or something. They look pretty. On the very off-chance they're ever needed, you can grab & go.

I actually have a crap-load of minerals on my shelves here and out in the yard, having a Geology degree. It sounds stupid, carrying rocks home to you house from everywhere, but I've got a literal ton of them here from all over.

My favorite is Labradorite which, because of its grate-like crystalline structure, fractures light into a million different colors as you rotate it.

Here is what Labradorite can look like as you rotate it across a light source and different colors are refracted to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Labrad....

Jota, humanity has used pyrite & flint to start fires since the Stone Age. That particular piece you're looking at may have too much cleavage for your tastes but it really does work. Promise!

Failing that, grab a piece of iron and start whacking your backyard flint with it. Same principle.