As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I recently picked up a US Army Survival Manual, and after reading it, I can only conclude the US Military wants lost Soldiers to die. The weird shelters they come up with, along with the ways of water and building an Indian bird snare, makes me wonder what a Soldier is supposed to do with all the human enemies who are trying to capture and kill them.
There was some elaborate shit like some kind of shelter built around a tree. It looked like you had to dig down about 4 feet, and I wondered how that was going to happen, then about the blisters, then about the fatigue and hunger, and finally, this thing takes a half a day, leaves a big gopher hole dirt spot to reveal your position......after the digger discovers that trees have roots and you can't dig through them.
As I said the Pentagon must want Soldiers dead.
Your best bet is a American Ranger method of a poncho type thing out of parachute, blanket or plastic bag, with brush around it for camo, and then a small smoulder pot fire in a pit which the builder sits on. It conceals the smoke, keeps the body warm and takes about a half hour to construct.
I spend a great deal of time outside at night from midnight to later, and get to watch the stars in the sky from Orion to Cassiopeia, This is about the vain one as most of you will probably someday have to know directions, beyond highways.......although highways are pretty good directional finders, even if the Americans for some reason label all their north south roads as avenues and all the east west as streets. Damn weird shit in the United States which no one bitches about.
In the northern sky you always have the big dipper denned up on one side of the sky and Cassiopea on the other. Peter is camped out by the Little Dipper. The reason I mention this is as of late I can find the W in the sky of Cassiopeia easier than the Dipper, and that little dipper with Polaris is difficult to find in being so dim. The W though is always there bright and resilient with the center point always pointing to the North Star.
I really like the stars and the night sky. One of my fondest memories were the years as a child that Venus or the Evening Star was over the west horizon, extremely bight. There is a great comfort in them and and the story of them is you are never alone in the dark.
I have a cousin who impressed my beloved Uncle on an elk hunting trip sans the elk in the boy was pointing out all the constellations and telling the stories. I am not that versed in them, but I do pay attention to the tea pot in the southern sky of Sagitarius, that Orion is part of the center sky stars that move east to west until dawn in a continuous flow.
I once watched a Polynesian on a catamaran navigate the Pacific at night. He was a remarkable man and taught me a great deal of the natural flow of navigation. The prevailing winds then always touched his bows at an angle, and he knew by steering on that angle he was always on course, no matter if it was raining or clouds.
He spoke of Mylap, the star which was the progression stars of the east. By the time one reached the zenith another star followed always pointing east. The thing is in checking him by maps, it was assessed he was never that far off from satellite navigation. That was without a sextant, compass or hour glass. It was how the Pacific Rim navigated to the Hawaiian Islands.
As for me in my night skies, I always know where the moon arises and sets on the seasons. I know the stars of the north and south, how summer stars are not winter stars. How Orion ventures early to the sky in the autumn and leaves the sky early in the spring.1 o'clock Orion of November is not the same AM hunter of March. Pay attention to the stars, and you can tell the time by them.
I may not know the names of all the constellations but I know the patterns, and they comfort me in the night sky. New stars appear since my childhood and while the sky is not as bright as when I was a child, I still stop to look at the Milky Way and marvel at God's splendor.
I still though am not at home in the night when a deer explodes and snorts next to me, or a coon goes rushing by, or a skunk is dancing pretty with that fan dance tail. I know the night sounds, but it still startles me as the animals can see me, but I can only see their shadows when they move.
If I was lost I would use the American Ranger method, if not I would find a non descriptive human structure for shelter and cover, as there are few places in this world where people are not a fixture in having already made a shelter. It is not that hard to stay away from dogs and find a hay rick. Big Foot does it, so why can not you in this dimension do the same, eh.
Any way the Night Girl is how I navigate. I used to have star chart program which would run a hundred years into the future which I either did not make a copy of or it is lost, but it was free. This one is free online, but I have not had time to play with it.
This page has loads of them, but I do not have the bandwidth for downloads.
I would that I was rich enough to have my pond and our stars in the night sky. Is basically why I still do this blog in I just want the finances to get away from the world and have some peace.
Just me and the girls as the Viking would say.
Nuff Said
agtG
