Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Great, Salty Mollusks! A Sea Snail!

Today my wife and I went to a park/beach, which is one of the nicer things about living in Florida. And today we happened upon some Sea Snails. Being a guy, and an outdoorsman, it was my natural reaction to become completely overjoyed and to hoist the little guy out of the water for a photo shoot. So here are my pictures below, I'm also including some that are just of the beach we were at as well. Have a great day!


Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Florida Stone Crabbing

Related Articles:
Florida Stone Crabbing Laws
How To Crab Fish With A Ring Net

Florida Stone Crab

Both survival and backpacking require knowledge of the world around us and the animals that inhabit it. I'm always learning about new plants and animals and it's truly amazing to see how much is really all around us. The newest creature I've become fascinated with is the Florida Stone Crab. Here is a video of it in its habitat:








The Florida Stone Crab is neat because of how it's used. People like to harvest the claws, and that sounds like an awful waste doesn't it? Well the neat thing about them is that people can harvest the claws, then toss the crab back into the water where it can re-grow its claws! That's right, the Stone Crab's meat can be harvested without killing the animal. I just think that is cool. I know the season is over but I can still watch the videos. I figured I'd share some with you:





Survive! By Les Stroud



I've had the fortunate opportunity to read Les Stroud's survival book titled "Survive!" And I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Les covers a lot of important aspects to survival such as the mental challenges that you'll face. He continues throughout the entire book to remind you that it doesn't matter how skilled and strong you are, if you're defeated mentally, you will not survive. He goes over many important skills such as:

  • Shelter Building
  • Water Procurement
  • Food Hunting and Gathering
  • Fire Building
  • Navigation
  • Signaling for help

And many other skills that are necessary. Most importantly he provides the information based on your location, because skills in the tropics may not necessarily work in the arctic. The book is very well laid out and I think a must for any survivalist library. Les also preaches one of the most important messages in survival, a message that people like Bear Grylls leaves out in his show because his show is meant for entertainment. Don't do things that you don't have to do. Don't run if you can walk, don't walk if you can stand, don't stand if you can sit, and don't sit if you can lay down. Les reminds you of how grave an injury can be in a survival situation, and to not do running leaps across gorges, like you might see other television survivalists do (ahem).

This is a very well put together book and I'm happy to have read it. Yes, the book covers many things you've seen or heard before, but that's because those are tried and true tactics. This book is fantastic and I highly suggest it!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Who reads my articles?

Mostly survivalists! But I'm broadening my writing to other topics such as marriage because I learn new things everyday and I may get into some economics or government topics as I'm an avid reader and often study those topics as well. I've found some neat websites that I'd like to share with those the read my articles. If you love survival topics and haven't yet found the ever famous http://survivalblog.com/ then allow me to be the first to tell you about this little treasure. It's full of some of the most ingenious and downright intelligent survival information. The Blog also includes many great letters from readers like myself and others. I don't own that blog and I'm in no way affiliated with it, I just like to give everyone great information!

Another good blog, and this is one that I've just started, is for husbands and men that just want to be better husbands, boyfriends, or just plain gentleman. The blog is not meant for me to stand on a soapbox and tell you what to do, but rather to have all of us exchange ideas. You can find that blog at http://specialher.blogspot.com/. I look forward to seeing you there!