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[wyrmwuud]

How to Survive in the Wilderness for Dirt Cheap

So I'm super into wilderness backpacking and survivalist skills. Have been since I was a teen and too broke to buy a tent. Nowadays, I've tried all the fancy gear there is. And holy shit the marketing that says you need all sorts of expensive gear to go backpacking or survive in the woods? Total bullshit.

So I thought I'd post a guide to the REAL essentials, in case it'd help anyone who wants / needs to sleep outdoors for as cheap as possible.

My advice is more tailored for someone on-the-go like if you're thru-hiking or moving camp often. So I'm prioritizing lightweight and compact gear.

And I'm from the Northeast US, so this post is focused on the 25-90°F temp range, in a wooded area with water, and a lower fire risk. If you're looking for advice for somewhere else - hmu! I've road tripped the whole US with just a tent, done everything from deep snow to Death Valley, and probably have some budget tips for your climate!

Sleeping Bag ($10-$30)

OK, this one is really important, it makes such a difference compared to a blanket, and can be lifesaving. If you get nothing else, get this and a tarp.

Go on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, you can find one for $10-30. You want to look for one that's kinda cocoon-shaped, with a pocket to put your head in.

NOT rectangular because those are usually shit, don't cover your head, and won't keep you warm. And if you can, find one with a temperature rating maybe 10° colder than the coldest temperature you'll be sleeping in. It's a comfort rating tho - so you can go below it and live.

You'll also need a way to keep it dry when you're not using it. A heavy duty trash bag works. You can also get waterproof stuff sacks that I think are worth it if you will be packing and unpacking often.

Also a quick way to make any sleeping bag more compact and light if you're short? Cut off the excess at the end and sew it shut. It'll also be warmer because you won't have a pocket of cold at the end where your feet don't reach. And if you're crafty, you could make a warm vest, hat, or booties with the leftover bits.

Shelter ($10 - $60) :

For shelter, you can go with a few options, I'll start with the cheapest:

Tarp and rope ($10-$20)- Get a large tarp that can cover you plus at least 4 feet in every direction. Then hang it over a rope like so, staking the corners into the ground with metal stakes or sticks. If it's windy, put the broad side of the shelter to the wind to keep warm inside. If you have two tarps, you can put the second on the ground to keep your "tent" dry and clean inside. Make sure the floor tarp doesn't extend out past the roof tarp or it will fill with water in the rain.

Tarp, hammock, and rope - Set up the tarp diagonally over your hammock. You can get a hammock for like $10-$15 on Amazon or craigslist, look for one that packs into a small bag. This is way comfier and less spidery than sleeping on the ground.

Backpacking Tent - These are the most expensive option but the best for bad weather. You can get these for $40-$60 on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist, look for one that packs down into a very small bag if you want a legit one. You want one with hollow metal poles, not fiberglass. A tent will be way more comfortable if you're somewhere windy, rainy, or cold, and will protect you better than a tarp. Smaller ones will be way warmer because your body heat will fill them quickly.

If you have a tarp and a tent, you can hang the tarp a foot over the tent for extra protection and thermal insulation in heavy rain, wind, or snow. This is a good way to make a lighter 3-season tent usable in the winter or bad storms.

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Bedding Pad ($10 to $15)

Sleeping straight on the ground is cold and uncomfy AF so I'd recommend one of these too. It's an essential if it's at all cold out because the ground will suck the heat from you. Even if you're in a hammock and not on the ground, the cold wind under your ass will make you want one of these for insulation.

A cheaper option is a foam workout mat - go for something thicker than a standard yoga mat, like this:

An inflatable backpacking mat is much comfier, but never buy the ones that are $30 to $40 new, they won't hold air more than one or two times. You'd need to spend at least $80 to $100 to get a durable one, and even then it might pop so I'd only do that if you wanna spend a lot for comfort.

Cooking

Get the cheapest aluminum cookware you can, it'll work just as well as name brand. Look for something with a lid so you can cook faster and so you don't get ash in your food. And assume any plastic on it is gonna melt in the fire - so find something with as little plastic as possible. Another cheap option is whatever cookware is the most lightweight at Goodwill.

And for fire starting? I've never found anything better and more reliable than a basic bic ligher. I'd bring two tho, in case one breaks.

You can also make a cheap firestarter by taking dryer lint or cotton balls and soaking them in any oil, wax, or accelerant. This helps a lot in the rain.

Food

Dehydrated backpacking food is a total rip-off. Instant just-add-water meals from the grocery like mac and cheese, rice or beans, or instant mash potatoes are just as good. Instant coffee is also a lifesaver. Peanut butter, honey, and bread make for great lunch sandwiches. Any dense breads like pita bread or really hearty pastries are also great. Or to really save money, loaf bread smushed flat. A little bottle of olive oil is amazing because it's calorie dense and tastes good on everything. Avoid "wet" foods like fresh fruit and veg, or canned foods - they're so heavy and bulky, you can spend more calories carrying them around then you get eating them!

You also NEED to keep all your food and cookware (and smelly toiletries) well away from where you're sleeping, because wild animals will come sniffing around. To pick a spot, look at it and ask yourself if you want a bear that close when you sleep. If not, go further (200ft min). A bag and a rope or piece of paracord can be used to hang your food up a tree. Tie the rope to a rock, throw the rock over a high branch, and haul your bag up out of bear-reach.

Water Purification

The absolute cheapest? Bleach. I'm not kidding, when I was younger this was my go to. Take a water bottle, put a scrap of fabric over the opening as a filter, and dunk it in clear moving water like a river or creek til it's full. Put the opening of the bottle downstream. (Avoid water that smells or looks greenish, sudsy, buggy, or stagnant). Then add bleach in the following amounts, shake it up and let it sit for an hour before drinking.

It'll taste like ass tho, like the worst mix of river and public pool, so I'd recommend a filter. The gravity-bag kind is the cheapest, and it's nice because you don't have to manually pump water thru the filter, and it lets you fill up bottles to take with you. The water should come out as clean as tap water (or cleaner lol. love the decaying american infrastructure)

Also for carrying your water, you can reuse "disposable" bottles - just look for whichever have the sturdiest plastic. I like to bring two 1.5 Liter smart water bottles because they're durable and fit well in a pack.

Backpack

This is an essential if you're walking long distances with your gear but if you're not, you can skip this.

You can get nice ones on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist for like $20-$60. Look for one that's at least the 50 Liter size, with a thick padded waist strap. You want most of the weight of your bag on your hips, not shoulders. To make sure it fits well,try it on with something heavy inside, and adjust the straps to fit you. It shouldn't weigh down your shoulders if it fits. The shoulder straps are just to keep the bag from falling backwards but the weight should be on your hips or it'll give you back pain.

Clothes

There's a saying - "cotton kills". It'll get wet, not dry out, and freeze you out. You'll feel way warmer if you wear polyester, fleece, or wool. Go through your clothes or go to goodwill and find athletic clothes made of those materials. It doesn't have to be fancy outdoor gear, just has to be not-cotton. Wool's the best but it's so much more expensive than polyester.

Also make sure that you have one set of clothes set aside just for sleeping - when you sweat during the day it'll freeze you at night. Keep your sleep clothes in a plastic bag when you're not wearing them and be very careful to keep them dry, only ever wear them in bed. (I'll even take off my sleep clothes if I have to pee in the rain at night - these MUST stay dry)

If you're gonna be somewhere cold? A cheap puffer hoodie from Amazon or Goodwill can be just as lightweight and packable as the fancy ones, and keep you very warm. Just get real down feathers! Also, if it doesn't fit your wrists and neck snugly, sew it to tighten those spots up.

And for somewhere wet and cold? A rain coat or poncho is a must-have. If you're hiking, your clothes under will get wet with sweat and rain anyway no matter how fancy your raincoat is, so I like to take off everything I can under the rain gear and hike faster to warm up rather than letting my clothes get wet when it rains.

Shoes

You'll also want the most comfortable and waterproof shoes you can find. I like leather boots, since they're waterproof but breathable. Hiking boots are the best but I've also worn docs and old work boots. If you don't have any waterproof shoes, bring plastic bags so you can wear them over your thickest socks, in your shoes, in case they get soaked. Hiking with wet feet can give you trench foot and permanently damage your feet after a few days.

MISC:

I'd also recommend bringing:

A knife (A basic one is fine, but I really like my swiss army knife)

Toiletries & Meds

First Aid Supplies

Bear mace if you're in grizzly / cougar territory.

Flashlight

A book, journal, or something to do.

Needle and thread to mend gear

Ziploc bags (to keep stuff dry, save leftovers, etc)

A map and compass (you can print paper maps free at many libraries, or get an app for offline topo maps. But I still bring a paper map as backup

AN EMERGENCY CONTACT WHO KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE AND WHEN YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO CHECK IN NEXT!!!!

[wyrmwuud]

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.”

— Alice Walker, Living by the Word

[wyrmwuud]

you wouldnt care if things changed for the better. only that you get to feel like the hero versus me, who’s apparently your villain.

you dont care if the worlds not black and white. you want it to be. it makes you feel good about yourself to slay the bad guy.

you dont care if things could change. if he could change.

you would rather have a predictable, clean, hero’s story outcome.

everythings the same as it ever was. you get to feel like things are simple. that you’re superman and everyone else is the easy to distinguish bad guy.

a world thats not simple doesn’t fit the world in which you need to pretend exists.

tell me, what would even happen if you let go of the idea that you need to be the hero?

if you acknowledged that you weren’t pure? that you couldn’t and shouldn’t decide for the world what was good and what was bad?

what if the villain ended up being good to people, just not you or your family specifically?

what if it were just that simple too, can you imagine? the reality? that it’s that simple?

our families dont like eachother. we’re not opposites on a political spectrum. we’re not at war over ideas, not like you feel the need to tell yourself at least

we’re at war over feelings. over people we care about. over ourselves.

[wyrmwuud]

Bitches be like "why dont you go rely on your rich family !!" Whole time the person is being abused by that family and is actually trying to escape them and you've forced them to go back to that situation by cutting off their support and/or making them get fired and lose chances to get a new job. But sure yall are totally acab even though you act like fucking cops.

[wyrmwuud]

every mother's day there's always "remember moms are everything" posts and every father's day there's always "it's okay if you're traumatized, you don't have to celebrate it" posts and that's fine of course, I just never see the opposite. so reminder you don't have to celebrate your mother. you have your reasons. be proud of yourself and don't let the holiday get you down.

[wyrmwuud]

[wyrmwuud]

✨My mom’s super simple secret potato soup recipe (only a secret from my dad who HATES gravy)✨

•One large sweet onion, diced

•3-4 carrots, thinly sliced

•3 celery ribs, thinly sliced

•3-4 potatoes, diced (or as many as you like, this soup can make a little or a lot. Follow your heart.)

•2 Tbsp butter

•1 Tbsp dried basil

•Knorr powdered broth (vegetable or chicken)

•salt & pepper

•1 package of pepper gravy mix, whisked up with 1.5 cups of water in a separate bowl (my mom’s secret thickener 🙏🤣)

Melt butter over medium heat in a large soup pot or Dutch oven and add the onion, carrots, celery, and potatoes.

Stir and get everything nice and coated in butter and let it cook for about 5 minutes.

Use a measuring cup to add water until the vegetables are covered by a good inch, keep track of about how much water you used so you can add the proportional amount of broth powder once it is boiling (one tsp powder to one cup water).

Turn soup up to medium high heat and when it starts to boil add your broth powder and dried basil. Place the lid on and return to medium/low heat and let it simmer/lightly boil for about 15-20 minutes. Until potatoes are getting soft.

Stir in your pepper gravy mix (I don’t follow package direction, I just slowly whisk in 1-1.5 cups of cold water in a separate bowl then add to soup pot). I like to crack in a ton more pepper too and quite a bit of salt.

Cover again and simmer for another 15 minutes.

Taste for saltiness and adjust seasoning if necessary, enjoy!

✨If it gets too thick (leftovers might be the next day) just add more water.

[wyrmwuud]

The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and, most important of all, complete absence of grasping.

The diminishing of your grasping is a sign that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving and the closer you will come to the infinitely generous “wisdom of egolessness.”

When you live in that wisdom home, you’ll no longer find a barrier between “I” and “you,” “this” and “that,” “inside” and “outside”; you’ll have come, finally, to your true home, the state of non-duality.

—Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, chapter 5

[wyrmwuud]

Treat yourself as someone worthy of better, even if you don't believe it yet. You have to treat yourself like a person of worth to bring better into your life, even if you do not feel worthy yet. You cannot hate yourself into a person you will love.

[wyrmwuud]

You might not want to hear this but people with anger issues and/or violent impulses need social accommodations. And no by accommodation I don't mean walking on eggshells around them, actual accommodations for people with these issues comes down to giving them a space away from what's triggering them to process their emotions and calm themselves down same as what kind of accommodations people who get sensory overload or just any kind of overwhelmed. There is no moral value to having anger issues or violent impulses, people with them are deserving of accommodation the same as everyone else.

[wyrmwuud]

On the first day of Bihu – Assamese New Year, in April – […] [t]he objective is to gather 101 different wild, edible plants in celebration of the beginning of the new harvest year. The oldest woman in the group, in her early sixties, can distinguish the edible plants from the nonedible ones and knows most of them by name. […] A large handful of garlic cloves is peeled, ginger is sliced, and then a few potatoes are mixed in. One of the women heats up some mustard oil, fries the garlic, ginger, and potatoes, and then adds the large bowl of greens. […] Wild herbs are a central part of the cuisine of Assam, a state in northeast India. Foraged, wild herbs are eaten with garden-grown vegetables […]. Here, herbs are more than food; they are also used as herbal medicine in the local healing tradition, bon-oukhodi. Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” In Assam, this is a literal, quotidian practice. In addition, herbs are a key ingredient in local rice beer. People drink the homemade rice beer with their meals, as nutrition, as medicine, as part of rituals, and for merriment.

In Assam, wild herbs are more than just nutritious dietary supplements or even Indigenous medicine. They are central to local traditions, identities, and Indigenous mythology.

——-

Plants in Places

Northeast India […] is known for having some of the most diverse flora in the world. The state of Assam shares a border with Bangladesh to west and is separated from Bhutan, Tibet, and Myanmar by narrow strips of land […]. Assam’s borders with Bangladesh and with Nagaland are both fraught. […] The state is home to many different ethnic and Indigenous communities who mainly live in communal peace, but recent political unrest has targeted Bangladeshi communities – often refugees – as outsiders, with the purpose of othering […]. In recent years, “mainland” Indian politics has made inroads into Assam […].

Foraging for plants took place in small forests between fields and rivers, and near peoples homes in the villages. It was done on foot, and the plants were collected by hand with the help of a small sickle. Contrary to most agriculture and gardening, in these villages ingredients are collected from wild, uncultivated lands that are not tended in any way to support their flourishing.

The most popular foraged plants to eat are dhekia (fern), manimuni (pennywort), and kosua (taro). They are eaten lightly wilted, boiled and/or fried with mustard oil, garlic, and ginger, or added to dahl and meat dishes.

——-

Rice-beer brewing is common among Hindu and Indigenous communities in the region. Within these groups, rice beer is consumed by everyone, men and women alike. It is valued for its medicinal properties, as a beverage, and sometimes as part of rituals. Rice beer is not something that is ever purchased; it is only ever homemade. Making the beer requires a starter culture called pitha, which is either made at home or purchased.

The pitha is said to be made of 99 wild herbs, and those who make their own forage the herb fresh before preparing the starter.

The most highly regarded pitha makers are elderly men and women who can recognize hundreds of wild plants and know their medicinal properties. They’re able to select certain plants to give the rice beer particular flavors and medicinal properties. Different plants are also known to influence the preservative qualities of the pitha; for example, adding chili to the pitha is known to protect the beer against rice bugs. 

The forests and fields where people like to forage in Assam are shrinking due to the privatization of land for development and urbanization. This is leading to a loss of tradition and identity.

——-

Deforesting Identity

Wild herbs have a spiritual dimension that is connected to identity. Communities from the Boro ethnic group in Assam say that at “the beginning” (of life, of the universe), there was algae. Then a sijou (Indian spurge) tree arose. Over time, people arrived, but “they didn’t know how to live.” Gods then materialized eighteen times to teach people things, like sewing, playing the flute and the drum, and making rice beer. Rice beer, then, is also a sacrament. At celebrations, offerings of rice, fermented areca nut, herbs, and rice beer are made to the sijou, as well as to other deities and ancestors by other communities. […]

The loss of foraging space has implications for identity. One of my interviewees explained: “If you lose your cultural connectedness to your forest, your ecology, then you lose your identity. Now the ruling party has spoken about it very openly for everyone to hear.” Plants are seen as central to identity, to “who we are.” But plant knowledge is being lost, partly because the knowledge-holders are aging; younger and urban people don’t have the time or interest to forage. Moreover, in India it is not only food culture that is being homogenized, with foraged plants no longer having a role; identity is also being homogenized. The elimination of Indigenous and minority group via intimidation, conversion, and the deportation of those without citizenship papers has led to the systematic eradication of Indigenous groups and Muslim communities.

Food is not just food. It also involves stories, intimate connections with the environment, and the politics of how we find sustenance. Questions of destructive modernization and structural violence are inseparable from the smells and textures of herbs and fermented produce.

——-

Image and text published by: Salla Sariola. “Wild Herbs and Rice Beer in Assam.” e-flux Notes. 26 August 2022.

[wyrmwuud]

reblog and tag your favourite halloween cozy cabin sweater 🎃🦇👻🐈‍⬛🍁

[wyrmwuud]

i want to be inconvenienced by you. i want to wait for you, i want to hold your things while you do something else, i want to make adjustments to my plans to make space for you. someone at your side who takes up no space and has no needs of their own is not a person, but a shadow. i don't want a shadow, i want you. i want my life to be altered by your presence in it. please, inconvenience me.

[wyrmwuud]

Promise me not to hide yourself when you’re in pain, it’s unfair that we laughed together but you cried alone

Unknown (via heavyrain-dc)

[wyrmwuud]

Your trauma is valid even if only you know about it.

[wyrmwuud]

木漏れ日の中にいられる傘（Umbrella that can be sunlight through the trees）