What I did on my summer Vacation

What happens when you get about 175 people from all over the country together in Wyoming for a weeklong campout and it pours rain for the first two days, nonstop? Well, if you're at the Dirt Time campout you get about 175 people who say things like "Cool! I can test out my gear!"

Dirt Time 2010 was quickly dubbed "Mud Time 2010", at least until the sun came out on the 3rd day!



We arrived at the site around 11:00 Sunday morning. We checked in at (where else?) the check-in tent and got our official Dirt Time 2010 Goodie Bag donated by Survival Resources (Oh cool, look! A write-in-the-rain notebook! And a whistle!), and picked a place to set up our tent (where we could blow our whistle periodically in the night and use the little notebook to record the comments of fellow campers!)(The didn't give us a pen, though!) The check-in lady said it had been windy and advised us to set up camp among the trees. After looking upward 30' for trees at the height we were accustomed to in Montana, we took it to mean that the 10' Junipers were the referred-to trees. (Inside joke. A little Montana/Wyoming rivalry!)



I sniped at my husband about the huge tent he had insisted on bringing. All that space, for two people? And cots!!! I'd never slept on a cot before while camping! We inherited these along with the rest of my Dad's camping and fishing stuff when he passed away last year. I was in wonder, though, after this big tent with it's huge screened windows was set up, and there were our "beds", up off the ground! Wow! Which way to the parlor?


We went ahead and put up the huge tarp, from behind the tent, up and over, across about an 8' sitting area, and onto the roof of our Jeep Cherokee, where we tied and bungeed the whole thing down. We ran a ridgepole rope from the trees on each side, under the tarp about midway, so it wouldn't sag. What a great breezeway, with our folding chairs spread out and the cooler parked there!

I apologized to Steven and decided to enjoy the luxury...especially when the deluge of rain began two hours later and continued unabated for 2 straight days! Nice, then, to NOT be against the walls of a small tent, to be off the ground, and to have the sitting area to spread out to!

We wandered up through the woods to find the Mess tent and bathrooms. There were actual pine trees up there, the 30' kind, so I ate my humble pie and stopped snickering about Wyoming trees! There were a few dozen people already there, milling around. Among the first we met were John and Denise McCann. They own "Survival Resources", which sells supplies for your BOBs ("Bug out bags"), backpacks, or even to keep in your home or car, as well as teaching survival skills workshops in New York State (http://www.bepreparedtosurvive.com/). Wonderful people. More about them later.

The Mess tents were two 10' by 20' tents, like Costco sells and some people use for carports. The 3-person cooking crew used one for cooking and the other for the serving line. Tarps were strung between trees to privide shelter, and boards were laid across spools from the power copmany to provide "tables". Soup was served for lunch, though officially there was no meal until evening!

Around 1:00 it started raining. It kept raining. Everything quickly got muddy. The gound did not absorb water. It turned the top several inches into thick gumbo mud. New arrivals were getting stuck in the mud, and volunteers went to pull cars and trucks out of the mud. Finally it got so bad that some rigs were left out in the mud, and their gear was transported the rest of the way in other people's trucks.

We had raincoats but no boots. I tied plastic grocery bags over my shoes and up around my lower legs, to try and keep my feet dry. Some who didn't have raincoats took large garbage bags and made ponchos. I would have cut a hole in the top and stuck my head through, but some of these people were smarter than me! Like John McCann. He said you make a hole along one edge, with the top edge of the hole a few inches from the bottom of the bag, and Ta-Da! You have a hooded poncho! (You'll see a picture of it later on this blog!)

Setting up a tipi

A call went up to help a man from Idaho set up his tipi. Steven was among several who headed out itno the rain and mud to help. I slogged along with my camera, since I'd never seen a tipi being set up. The tipi poles were 27' long. He tied three together about 1/4 of the way down from their tops.
With two of them parallel and the third one across from it, and a rope hanging down from where they were tied together, the men pulled them upright.

They spread the poles so it would balance.

Then the remaining poles were leaned up against the three to complete the circle, a total of 18 poles.

Slick, heavy, wet poles! It rained a steady light rain the whole time.

The tipi cover was attached to another pole and raised into place.

Then the cover was pulled around the poles.

The dinner bell rang (or in this case, the dinner "horn" blew!), so we left the tipi project and went to the Mess tent. Dinner was hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, potato salad, macaroni salad, and pop. Everyone ate standing around under the tarps, then scurried through the pouring rain to their tents. Steven went back to the tipi to help lace up the cover and peg it down.

The tipi belongs to George, who was here with his dog, Gilbert, to teach brain-tanning and snaring. He's a full-time trapper and lives part of the year in a tipi to run his trap line. Here's his tipi the next day:

We we returned to our tent for the night we hung our coats, clothes, shoes, and socks under the tarp-breezeway and in the tent, to dry. We were lulled to sleep by the sound of rain overhead, and woke to the same sound!

Breakfast and mud

MONDAY:

Puddles were everywhere now, and everywhere we went was through foot-high wet grass, which soaked everything up...oh, about a foot high from the ground! Meaning most of us had wet pant legs, socks, and shoes. We could have run around in flip-flops and shorts and not worried about it, but it was 52 degrees. Steven waded up to the Mess tent and had a cup of hot chocolate, then brought a cup of it back to me. I was still warm in my snug (and dry!) sleeping bag! Nothing we hung over night had dried.

The breakfast horn sounded (whatever happened to dinner BELLS?) and I dragged myself out of the sleeping bag, got dressed, and went up to join the chow line.
People gathered under the tarps to eat. Breakfast was pancakes, sausage, oatmeal, milk, and/or juice. I might have missed a thing or two. There was always lots of food.

On display was parfleches and sandals, just two of the many interesting things we had an opportunity to make or learn how to make. These were made by the teacher of the class...um...umm...what what his name again?

One thing is for sure, he does darn good work!

Wilderness First Aid

We went to the Wilderness First Aid class, taught by Brian and Jason. First we learned the common basics: ABC and he had a DE. That's Airway, Breathing, Circulation, which are the first things you need to check for and re-establish if they aren't functioning. "D" was "disability" meaning obvious serious injury to or dismemberment of limbs, and I can't remember what "e" is. There's also "EVPU". Eyes, which means, are they alert enough to see you? Verbal, which means can they talk to you? Pain, which means if you do something like squeeze a little hard on their shoulder (think "spock grip") do they respond with a grimace or other indicator that they feel discomfort/pain? Unresponsive means, well, it's obvious.

Here's Brian torturing, er...I mean demonstrating First Aid techniques on Jason.
His general advice was to plug the holes (the ones that AREN'T supposed to be there), with anything. If it's close enough, it's good enough. You need to stop the bleeding. In their emergency responder kits they keep cool things like Celox, which is a powder you can sprinkle on the bleeding places and it'll clot the blood. Things like that can be ordered from Chinook Medical (http://www.chinookmed.com/), as well as other medical supply sites. He said you can also use instant mashed potato powder/flakes. Potato starch is naturally sterile.

You can sterilize a bandage with water purifier from your pack, such as chlorine or iodine tablets. A bandage cloth (such as a t-shirt) can be laid in the sun for 15 minutes or so to sterilize it, especially if it's a light color. Any drinkable water can be used to wash a wound. You don't need to use anything fancy. A 60 cc. syringe is great to have in your first aid kit for washing wounds. Other things that will help blood to clot are crushed dandelion root and the underside of a Mullein leaf.

Most wounds don't need field stitching. Taping is better since any dirt or bacteria inside the wound can cause infection, and if you stitch it shut, the bad stuff can't get out. If you just HAVE to stitch, there's a handy thing called a skin stapler, also available from Chinook Medical.

He demonstrated several types of tourniquets. Each of us need to research and find which one we like best and what we can afford. You don't apply them to stop bleeding. You only use them for a severed or mostly-severed limb. You place them 1" to 1 1/2" above the injury. Splints can be field-rigged with sticks, etc., but if you want something for your medical kit there's the "Sam Splint" and the cheaper "Dixie Splint".

To diagnose a sprained ankle, squeeze the two leg bones together with your hand just above the ankle. If the person has a surge of pain from that, the ankle is possibly broken. Otherwise it's probably a sprain. You can take the triangular bandage from your first aid kit (what? you don't have one???) and wrap it. Let's see if I can describe what he did...roll it into a long "rope", go under the foot with the middle of it, pull it up each side of the foot, behind the ankle and cross it, back around to the front, pull the ends under the ones that come up from under the foot, and tie it in front of the ankle.

You can go to their website for more information and some videos of the techniques he showed us: http://raems.com/. That stands for "Remote Areas Emergency Medicine and Survival". It's a great site with lots of information. (After I got home I checked it out)

Last but not least, Brian enthralled us with his demonstration of using a catheter to stop a nose bleed. You really just had to be there...

Making bows and gourd bowls

Sig did a class teaching how to make bowls out of gourds. These were huge gourds, like medium-sized pumkins! They cut them in half and pulled, scooped, scraped, and buffed the guts out of them. Then they decorated them. Here you can see the pile of gourds on the ground, and some people picking out their gourds.
A student works on their gourd:

And here's the master of the craft:

Right down the street (well, okay, pretty much next to the gourd people) was the class on bow-making. Here are staves laying on the table, each one crying out in their little stick voices "pick me, pick me!" as students selected their stave and began to work on it:

The staves are clamped down for shaving and sanding.

Ditto

Announcements and sleeping arrangements

Announcements were made from atop this spool...but it looks like the moment that I froze in time in this picture captured a moment when no one was sure what was going on (or who to blame!)
The schedule was posted in the Mess tent. I took a picture so I'd always have a copy of the schedule with me as I walked around:

Here's a creative and colorful camp set-up:

And a mixture of the old and new:

"Killing 101" and "Brain Tanning"

The next class was "Killing 101", taught by George (the tipi guy). He used his dog, Gilbert, as a demonstration tool. (Inserted edit: Sigh...no, people, he didn't actually hit or stomp on the dog, he merely pointed out WHERE to do such things! Quit sending me emails about this! lol)
The first part of his class dealt with killing an animal you've caught in a trap. It's assumed you want the critter for the fur, so you don't want bullet holes or blood on it. When you come across an animal caught in a trap, you need to look for the "damage circle" where the animal has thrashed about, trying to get free. The grass and brush will probably be tore up as far as the animal could reach. Try to stay out of that zone. Use a stick, shovel handle or whatever you can get your hands on, and smack the animal across the nose about midway. That will drop the animal, and then you can stomp on it's rib cage just behind the front shoulder to crush the heart.

Other tidbits he shared with us included that the ears on a bear never grow. If you see a bear with little ears, it's a big bear! When you're shooting an animal for the fur, he recommended aiming for an eye (um...I need more practice). Most animals can be taken with a .22 long-rifle. He said an animal doesn't actually chew it's foot off to get out of a trap. What happens is that as the leg goes numb the animal starts turning and twisting until the leg breaks off.

His recipe for attractant/lure for traps: Rendered fish oil, which is made by putting a whole fish in a jar in the sun and letting it sit until nothing is left except bones. Mix that with 4 drops skunk scent and half a beaver castor.

Next he moved on to talking about brain-tanning hides. You don't have to use the brains from the animal who's hide you're tanning. Any brains from any animal can be used. You can store the brains in the freezer until you're ready to tan with them. He's created a "brain blaster" using a piece of garden hose to flush the brains out of the cranial (skull) cavity. He jabs it in the back where the spinal cord was connected and flushes them out into a waiting container.

When it's time to tan he thaws the brains and puts them in a blender to even out the consistency. He pours them in a kettle and mixes them with water, then brings them to a boil.

When it reaches boiling he shuts off the heat. Meanwhile, he has a fleshed-out hide ready to work. If it's a fox or something skinned whole, the skin/hide is turned inside out. After the brains & water mix is cool enough to put his latex-gloved hand into, he scoops out a handful and swishes it up and down along the skin. Be generous and keep adding brains and spreading it out until you've covered the whole skin.

See, even the women were doing this too!

Rub the brains into the hide and just keep rubbing all over until the whole hide is saturated with them. This doesn't take long. Then you just keep working it with your fingers, stretching and pulling, up and down and all over, for a few hours until the hide is dry. If you need to stop along the way, just put it in a plastic bag and keep in a cool place. It doesn't have to be a refrigerator. It was in the mid-50s and we left them in bags for hours while attending other classes.

George had a trash bag full of fox skins, all fleshed-out and ready to tan. If you wanted to tan one, you picked one out and paid him. They varied in price from $30 to $70. Steven picked out a $50 red fox with darker legs. It's beautiful. I just took pictures for the first part of the procedure, then later helped him for a little while on stretching.

The next step in tanning, after you've stretched and worked the hide with your fingers until it's dry, is to smoke it. (It's hard to roll it in those little papers...oh wait, nevermind!) George uses a small wood-burning tent heater/stove with charcoal briquettes and punk wood (such as very rotted/decomposing trees). You want very little heat and a lot of smoke. He had a 3' stove pipe, and on top of the stove pipe was a leg cut from a pair of canvas (cotton) jeans. You staple the bottom of the hide around the top of the jeans and plug the leg and neck holes with paper towels:

Let the smoke run through the hide until the inside of the hide is light brown (about 45 minutes). Then you're done! If you want, you can wash the hide with Ivory Bar soap (NOT detergent) to remove the smoke smell. The hide will dry nice and soft.

This method can be used for any type of hide. Antelope skins make good shirts. They're thin, soft, and they breathe. George used 5 antelope hides to make this shirt:

Deer and Elk hides make good jackets. He uses buffalo rawhide for moccasin soles. Rabbit (wild ones such as cottontail)), muskrat, and beaver have very thin skins and are hard to tan. Domestic rabbits and jackrabbits are easier. Coyote and fox peel like a rabbit. Split the tail all the way up to make sure the tail bone is all the way out. Turn the hide inside-out and flesh (scrape all membrane and tissue off) the hide. Spread it on a stretcher to dry for a day or more. A stretcher can be made of wood or wire, in a long, oval loop. Pull the hide over like a sock. George said that a dry hide absorbs brains better.

Here's Steven's finished fox at home:

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