New Blog site

Hi I have moved to www.positiveimpactliving.blogspot.com ! Yay, there are videos and allsorts of new articles here.

I also have a Twitter account so come hear me twitter my latest Positive Ideas

And my Writing wordpress http://louisebrookes.wordpress.com/ Blog about the authoring process and publishing my books.

I will be updating this site in the future during my travels !

Thank you for gracing this site with your presence.

best, Louise

Histamine Patches and Multiple Schlerosis

Elaine De Lack a nurse who herself was diagnosed with M.S, Multiple Sclerosis researched and developed Histamine Patche, conducting trials on herself. She discovered that M.S patients share a common symptom of Histamine Deficiency, which can be mitigated by the use of Histamine Patches. her Symptoms reduced and she regained her health...More including suppliers

Our Human Rights

PREAMBLE
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people... More

Regards Christopher Hansard, Physician Bon Medicine

Christopher Hansard helped me recover from M.E or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as well as severe Eczema and Asthma with the help of his apprentices and senior physician Stephanie Wright. I was an Apprentice and patient of his for approximately four years and learnt an incredible amount. His considerable knowlege and wisdom freely given as well as his professional bearing have been...More

The Creation of Fire

I have my whole life struggled with illness, or rather the struggle was not with illness but with health. Illness was easy, dis-ease came to me freely and without hindrance, but beyond this unhealth, or beneath it, lay a host of other ghosts; depression, P.T.S.D, emotional ineptitude, increasing intolerance to stress. When I recovered from one set of symptoms, more would appear, or old ones return. As I slowly learnt the vagueries of being healthy, I also discovered the roots of health/disease, the dormant seeds of consequence that were there all along. People in the West view illhealth as offensive almost, as a sign of failure. They won't say this and will nod and simper and tut like the best of them, but at the same time inwardly they are painting a cross on your door, and likewise inwardly I would paint a cross on my door. As the emotional foibles and lifestyle misdemeanours fell by the wayside, I began to sense the invisible self, the part of me that was...More

Free Burma

Put this badge on your blog on October 4th, and show your support for the people of Burma
To stop the military junta’s cruelty in Burma take away their financial support by boycotting the companies still doing business with the Burmese government. Companies like Total SA, Chevron, Daewoo and any travel companies operating tours there. The government spends half it’s budget on the military and it gets it’s money from these companies. Stop buying from these companies, they are immoral in their conduct and have a duty to the human rights in the countries they deal with which they do not uphold. Check out:-http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/dirty_list/dirty_list_details.html for a full list of the companies involved

Fire Making

Me teaching about fire '06

When you're out in the natural environment and you need to make a fire. You're often faced with the wall of green - the raw material. You need to have an understanding of the nature of fire; what it eats, how it breathes, what it doesn't like. It usually doesn't take long when you start trying to light one to find out what these qualities are. A big heap of heavy wood and a match just won't have the right conditions. Fire needs to have a structure, it needs air, it needs fuel and it needs heat - to get heat you need heat.

If you are used to using gas to cook, or electric hobs, to using electric for light and maybe candles for ambience, you won't have the daily relationship with fire that many people in the world do, instead it probably belongs in the realm of the memories of your eldest relatives or to your ancestors. To regain this relationship and the versatility and adaptability that comes with using our ingenuity it's necessary to open up. To open your senses, to look with your eyes, and feel with your hands. Fire happens, you only have to think... Read More..

Crystal Clear

I was watching some programme about people on crystal meths and how its ruining ther lives and their mouths, but the thing I think about is how unfulfilled you have to be in the first place to feel the need for any drug that short or long term wastes you.

How few of us have ever been as fit as we possibly could be, I mean seriously top athlete fit? Why should it just be athletes that get that joy? Everyone should be that fit in ...Read More...

A soul famine

I've spent a lot of my life surviving, which can be a very selfish activity; but ever since I was five years old watching the Biafra famine in the early eighties and wanting to share what I had - ever since then I wanted to help and I wanted to help in the right way. I thought maybe I could be an Aid Worker - they deserve so much respect and support, but before I could do anything like it my own survival took precedence. So I spent a lot of my time instead learning. I learnt about the connections between... Read More...

'The Shaolin Workout'

My brother came to stay recently with his wife and three children, (one six month baby) so I moved out into the garden and built a bender that could stand up to the torrential downpours and crazy wind we've been having. So I cut the hazel poles, made some pegs, and using any bits of cordage I could find proceeded to wrestle with tarps for the afternoon, until I had my new house! There's nothing like building your own home in a day, and then moving in. I'm just in the process of making a video of it, but here's some photos in the meantime.I've also begun to practise Sifu Sin Yang Ming's 28 day workout using 'The Shaolin Workout' an introduction to shaolin kung fu/chan buddhism and I have to say... Read More...

tags - shaolin workout, 28 days to transforming your body and soul, Sifu Sin yang Ming, New York Shaolin Temple, The Wu Tang Clan, shelter building, wikkiup, wickiup, bender, hazel rods, poles, pegs, axeuse, folding saw, simple shelters, tarps, tarpaulin, use

Hopi Elder's Message regarding the Millenium

Rocky Valley Tintagel

When I was seventeen, I was living and working in Cornwall as an adventure sports instructor. One weekend I decided on a whim to find this ancient maze carving I'd seen on a postcard, in Rocky Valley near Tintagel. I dragged my then reluctant partner, the twelve km hike along the river looking for this maze and it really was like a maze within a maze. The path was pretty overgrown and we approached the ruin of Trewethett, an 18th century mill still as yet having seen no sign of this labyrinth. Then I saw a strange overhanging rock face behind the mill, all it's cracks were stuffed with coins, ribbons and other offerings and there was the maze I'd been searching for. It's grooves were just wide enough to run your finger along them and I knew somewhere that it represented a...Read More...

Amma

She says ‘The broken ones are my darlings’Amma
When I first heard of her through besotted friends I was sceptical of course, but once I saw her and what wonderful things she's doing and creating in the world I was bowled over. She is the single most impactful active person on the planet at this time working entirely for the benefit of others. If you need help of any kind or if you know anyone who needs help, just go and see her. It doesn't cost anything except perhaps your doubt or disbelief. The story of her life is miraculous both in detail and deed. I recommend reading about it on her website.
Amma sings about her realisation Read More...

Essiac or Caisse Tea the Cancer Cure

ulmus rubra or Slippery Elm one of the four herbs in Essiac
This tea was a native american herbal medicine used to treat breast cancer and was brought to light by the Canadian Palliative Care Nurse Rene Caisse. It has had amazing results not only in breast cancer,but other forms of cancer and illnesses. Rene Caisse herbal tea became known world wide under the name Essiac, which is Rene’s surname spelt backwards. Almost 400 people were ready to testify at a cancer commission hearing in Toronto, Canada, in 1939 that Rene Caisse had helped them alleviate their symptoms or restored them to health. Rene used a specific formula of herbs given to her by an Ojibwa Indian in her...Read More...

Achieve Everything in Five Simple Steps

sunrise auvergne
Now, I'm considering everything you can possibly do to change life for the better, the question is are you? So below I've listed the 'everything' I'm going to focus on here within my articles and videos. I've reached a point now where I'm having to do a bit of evaluation, a very necessary step in progression - especially in light of the fact that I've had to stay away for awhile due to a shoulder injury. This was one of the 'positive' impacts of starting a new fitness program and spending too long on the computer. In my eagerness I forgot to include balance, and wound up with a torn muscle. To achieve an objective it's maybe better to do it in bitesize chunks. Yes, there might be a lot of bites, that amount to a large chunk, but bitesize is the key.

Be Self Sufficient in 5 Simple Steps... Read More

Videos, hooraa!

I have just installed my Videos section and there are some real gems there so be sure to have a look. I've chosen films that have the practical how-to that will help you go out and enjoy the world. They are very inspiring and I've really enjoyed searching them out. I suggest that if you read an article you follow the video links and also watch the related film(s). They say you learn best after hearing it, then seeing it, then the 'doing' of it which is what you get to do next!One of my faves is 'Across Canada by Canoe', see under the Inspirational vids which is about two adventurous brothers heading out. After five years of talking about it, a year of planning: they begin their Trans-Canadian Canoe Trip!

Rain Water Harvesting

Here are some pictures of our water butts, nice. The thing about rain water is Read More...

The Tale of the Energy Efficient Lightbulb

Everyone's going on about the hoo ha of climate change at the moment. 'Hoo ha' they're all shouting, 'the ice caps are melting' we're all going to be wiped out by giant hurricanes and the sea flooding over our flower beds' and this is a lot of the sort of reality hoo ha you get to hear and see all the time. Then celebrities rake their minds for what they've read about 'green stuff', for solutions, and they remember 'hooray, 'light bulbs', yes and 'hybrid cars' - hooray if you can afford a hybrid car, the rest of us have to settle for light bulbs. What they're not talking about though is how boring this all is. If being green is just talking about lightbulbs and turning off appliances at their sockets etc, it's boring - even with the urgency and the message, it's not going to make all of us race out of our doors like we do when the latest Harry Potter book has appeared on the store shelves. 'Oohh, the latest energy efficient lightbulbs in stock, I must rush out and get one before anyone else' just doesn't have the same appeal does it?But here's the real myth. The real myth is Read More...

'The Benefits of Hiking and Climbing - Becoming a Human Animal

'Before' 1987 at Pilgrims aged 9
When I first went off to the wilderness I was with a small group of kids who all had asthma/eczema, diabetes, epilepsy, cystic fibrosis or some such ailment. I attended a special boarding school for kids who suffered from different illnessess to the point that they would usually be permanently hospitalised. Our first 'wilderness' camping trip took all of these ten and eleven year olds out to a field in the south east of england. It was surrounded by ancient woodland, huge lakes and nothing but countryside. We had to get our water from a natural spring and cook over a fire and sleep in tents...Read More...

An Attiude of Fierce Resolve

fierce resolve doodle!

Fierce resolve is something that cannot be beaten. Some people seem to be born with it. They know exactly what they want to do and they then spend their lives single mindedly doing it. Then there are those of us who admire them from the sidelines in wonder. While we are dithering, prevaricating and worrying about worrying - they have sailed around the world, climbed the highest mountain, dug wells in Africa, gone too space and won the Open at Wimbledon. All while we stood before two items in a shop wondering whether to get the one with the higher back or not!

Single-mindedness does not belong solely to the realms of athletes and A-students, it is an attitude that can be cultivated and you could call it magic, for it is the art of moulding reality to take the form of our dreams.

Reality can and does bend at our will. This is where... Read More...

tags - determination, resolve, faith, Martin Luther King 'I have a Dream', Princess Diana Concert, Japan weapons to Darfur, perserverence, non-violence, war, ant-war, the little people

Solar Water Heater Part 1 Motivation!

If you have plenty of disposable income available then there are a few positive things you can do immediately and on a grand scale:-
You could install your own top of the range ultra-efficient solar water heater. You could also have your roof(s) completely tiled with solar panels allowing you to maybe even sell electricity back to the grid - as well as having a wind turbine installed in an appropriate place and a hyrdoturbine (waterwheel) in the stream that runs through your property. In your backyard you could build a natural swimming pool with a living machine connected... ...The simplest solar water heater is your common garden hose left out in the sunlight, and we know how hot that can get. Then there's variations on a theme, like the green bottles one above or a man 'in the southern US who had a solar hot water ...Read More...

The Thinking Blogger Award -

Well, I have been honoured by being tagged for the Thinking Blogger Award, which is a great incentive to keep doing what I'm doing and do it better where possible. So, the participation rules state:- - I have to link to five blogs that make me think
- Link back to the The Thinking Blogger Awards page
- And proudly display my Thinking Blog Award

As I'm very fond of ceremony that's exactly what I'm going to do:
Read More... Five blogs that make me think

tags - inking bloggers award, recognition, success, inspiration, fame, motivation, purpose, fulfilment, help, kindness, adventure, dame ellen macarthur, ammachi, amma, bear grylls, sarvodaya, gandhi

Earning Money Online

Text Link Ads are an excellent way to make money from your blog, if you aren't already you could be - just by copying and pasting a simple code into your layout and because a blog is free and simple to set up, it's a win-win situation.

By monetising your website, you allow yourself to earn income passively day or night - Easy Money! Finally there's a way!Read More...

Directory submission sites:-
Submit a Site
Reference
Directory of Europe - free online catalog of relevant and useful web
sites. Free submit a site to Europe web directory and link exchange.

'Navigation Using the Sun' guest article by Mark Bradshaw

'Where am I?'


Introduction

A basic introduction to a few methods of ROUGH direction finding using the position and movement of the sun in the sky.

Read More...

Mark Bradshaw writes of himself:-Born in Manchester, I joined the army at 16 after rebelling against an education that was better than I deserved. I served as a tank gunner before moving into reconnaissance where I became a section commander. I completed soviet studies at the intelligence school at Ashford in Kent then did a stint at the International Long Range Reconnaissance School in Weingarten. I also qualified as a Schools Instructor at the Royal Armoured Corps radio school in Bovington. In my spare time I climbed throughout Germany and Sardinia, and canoed from Guatemala to the Mexican Gulf through Belize. I also managed to spend several winters cross country skiing in Norway. I currently work for a UK Police force in the training department.

Some rights reserved mboutdoors@mac.com Mark Bradshaw/Mountainboy 2007

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tags - navigation sun, orientation, orienteering, direction, finding, compass, bearing, sun navigation, learning navigation, teach yourself navigation, homestudy, online

Music Therapy

The Ebers papyrus

Imagine a medium of sound and environment which actually heals you. For thousands of years people have used sound as part of the healing process. The Ebers Papyrus from 1550BC one of the world's oldest known medical documents, it prescribes a variety of incantations that Egyptian Physicians chanted to heal the sick. Chants continue to be use today in all parts of the world and in various religious traditions - but how much do we actually know about what the effect of sound has upon our bodies? ... Read More...

Depression, an Unneccessary Ailment?

The Sistine Ceiling, Michelangelo the pieta, michelangelo

Here are a few things I consider to be uneccessary ailments: Headaches, Flu, Arthritis, Hepatitis (any letter of the alphabet), Eczema, Asthma, Insomnia, Depression, Stomach Disorders, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (I.B.S), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - M.E or C.F.S, M.S, Diabetes, Cancer of the (anything). Some people might be a bit upset because I've called a terrible illness an ailment and then said it's unnecessary, as so many professional Doctors say 'it's incurable, you're going to die, it's very painful but sorry we can't give you anymore painkillers'. Well what I have to say to them is 'Get Stuffed' and rather loudly too because...

...there ARE solutions, there ARE answers, there ARE cures, there ARE simple treatments that WORK! ... Read More...

Tags - depression. depression treatment, cures, heaches, M.E, C.F.S, M.S, Cancer, headaches, migraine, arthritis, self-help, medicine, motivation, depression support, depression help, solutions, answers, mental disorders, hope, happiness,

Your highest potential

If you've just arrived at this page, you may be wondering exactly what this site is about. On the home page you'll find introductions to my most recent articles, but I would suggest searching my Categories for a clearer picture. I am dedicated to something I've called 'Positive Impact Living'. It doesn't matter who or where you are or what circumstances you might be in, I'm posting 'practical' information here that will help you and I make a positive impact from within those circumstances...Read More...

tags - potential, maximum capacity, ultimate energy, energy, motivation, achieving, achievement, encouragement, support, headches, depression, skin conditions, astma, eczema, treatment, cures

How to grow a Forest Garden

Free apples at the Ecovillage HQ of canada

Taking Cuttings
Use a very sharp knife/secateurs
Put the cutting into a plastic bag and keep there until ready to pot
Take cuttings from strong, healthy, non-flowering shoots, including a tear of stem (heel) at base
Take cuttings in the morning when the plant has more moisture
Use a free draining compost with 50% sharp sand/perlite... Read More...

tags - sustainable agriculture, forest gardening, growing trees, bioculture, taking cuttings, soft wood, hard wood, free food, fruit, nuts, future, CSA agriculture, polyculture

Donate to positive impact living projects

I first got the idea for the 'Refuge' when I read about the Native American Medicine Tree. This was a tree that acted a bit like Mountain Huts do in the Mountains. It had a dry tinder bundle and fire-lighting kit, some food, some spare clothes, some drinking water and medicinal herbs. It was a resource for emergencies and would be carefully replaced. Often Medicine Trees would be found at the edge of danger areas carefully sign posted by trail marks like tied grass, blazes etc. This is where I got the idea for the Ekodo Projects outlined in the rest of this article...

Read More...Participate and/or Donate to the P.I.L.L.S Projects

Free Medicine and First Aid, useful plant remedies

Mature nettles and Mag Pie for dinner!

It's easy to overlook the importance of physical conditioning, but it really is the foundation for everything else. If you're fit you have the capacity for more happiness - really, and don't forget the glowing complexion. 'We are what we repeatedly do' Aristotle, and that's exercise in a nutshell. You build muscle, it's like memory made flesh. problem is many of us these days don't have jobs that require us to form peak physical fitness, so long as we can drag ourselves into the office and sit at a desk and manage to answer the telephone coherently, that's acceptable. It's sad beacuse as kids many of us had visions of being superheroes when we grew up, or Fire Fighters or something similarly heroic or admirable. Then we end up desk bound eight-ten hours a day, and don't get to even know what it might be like to be our most powerful selves. We settle uncomfortably for less.

So being fit is the first thing I put in my First Aid kit. You know for many years I've practised massage and other therapeutic techniques, there's nothing worse than massaging the strain out of someones back for an hour or two and then have them come back because they've put the strain right back again - week after week. It's not just strain, it might be smoke - believe me you know if someone smokes or not when you give them a massage - it just leaches out of their pores. All of us walk a tight rope in our lives, it goes something like this:-

I really look after my body_____________________ I'm really self destructive
I love and accept myself I hate myself

At some time in our lives, we all of us will have tested both extremes...Read More including list of useful medicinal plants and Personal Project for the Bushcraft Course

tags - depression, headches, flu coughs colds, treatment, eczema, asthma, cures, cancer, anti-cancer, M.E, M.S, treatment, C.F.S, chronic fatigue, diabetes, alternative remedies, wild food, raw food, free food, free medicine, illness, health, migraines, tension headaches, fatigue, moods, original diet, man's natural diet, hunter gatherer diet, bushcraft, survival food, tucker, postive food, chronic illness, healing diet, Crohn's Disease, natural anti-depressant, anti-histamine, liver, bronchitis, hypertension, anxiety, rheumatism, antifungal treatment, remedy, solution, help,

How to Help!

People want to help people.To really see positive results when making your life decisions it is necessary to align yourself with positive people who are doing positive things in the world. Cosy!

What can you do to make a difference?
-In your own life?
-In your family's life?
-In your friend's lives?

To know what people need, think about what you need. What are you searching for? What do you want to find? Happiness, security, comfort, success, health?When you align yourself with people who are really changing the world for the better and you begin to close the open ends of your life, following all the threads that connect you to everything else and making sure that they are all closed loops; make sure that they all have positive results which feedback into your own life Read More...

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tags - making a difference, helping, donating, helping people, how to help, closed loop systems, making people's lives better, solving famine, healing from trauma/illness, creating multiple sources of income, positive impact living

Making money from poo

No such thing as waste.

Yes, you read right - making money from poo. I am now going to introduce you to some Positive Poo Recycling methods you may or may not have already heard of. In Bushcraft when you head out into the wild blue yonder, civilised bushwhackers will dig a hole for their deposits - less civilised people don't. Mountaineers might even bag up their 'belongings' and carry them out. Not having a flush toilet available makes you infinitely more aware about what happens to your personal waste. In the big city which you could translate as the Big S----Y because our homes sit on top of tunnels of our poo - literally, which then disappear into the nearest river. Our poo was never meant to go into the water system. The spread of the diseases Giardia and Cryptosporidium preventing us from drinking directly from streams and other groundwater are the result of human and animal waste getting into streams.

Above are two revolutionary pictures - one is the dunny or traditional latrine dug by groups of travellers in wild or not so wild country - the other is the front page of 'Eco-cities to Living Machines' by Nancy and John Todd. There should be another of the compost toilet, but that'll have to wait. We currently pay a lot of money for our waste water, for drainage and we don't have to. A dunny is a pit dug to down a few feet to where the soil changes colour. This topsoil is the place where waste can break down the most quickly. When you use a dunny you cover your little offering with soil when you've finished. It's the same concept as a compost toilet. To let the waste break down naturally below/above ground - covering it with soil/saw dust/ grass whatever to keep the place nose friendly.

Now how, you are thinking, can you make money with this? Well you can't right away but it doesn't cost you a penny to dispose of your waste in this healthy and safe way and if you plant trees over these pits when they're full, your trees will have lots of lovely nutrients to feed on. Mature trees and fruit trees make thousands In six months to a years time you can reuse the same area if you have to because it will be just like earth anywhere else.

This isn't a subject to shy away from in distaste. I mean we all poo (unless you've got a little problem) and collectively this is a BIG POO problem.Read More...

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tags grey water system, compost toilet, bioculture, living machines, alternative waste disposal, solutions for waste, dunnys, how to poo in the woods, latrines,

building high traffic

I think traffic is like the brain the more you use certain connections the more they grow. That's why mantras and visualisations work; they expand your neural network in the highest positive direction possible. Building traffic on this site means making positive connections that are of the most value to all of us, myself included.

Reaching a wider audience/building traffic
If you want to reach a wider audience the cyber gurus say:- have useful content, use keywords that would reflect the words people use in search engines and what the bots read, join search engines and blog carnivals. I'm not a cyber guru but I didn't want to disapoint by this article not having the goods it says it does. If you want even more 'goods'
Read More...

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Tags:- building a solar water heater, building traffic, high traffic blog, motivation, solutions, positive impact living, sustainable technology, touch, connection, community, brain neural network

How to get thing's done and be your healthiest you

Getting things Done - Doing this course is proof that applying these positive methods is working. I am being productive and from the comments I've already received I'm having a positive impact. There is energy available to carry out the projects and things I have only dreamed about. The main difference has been my willingness to not listen to my own doubts and fears. Now when I get a negative/destructive belief/thought/judgement I just put it aside, I literally ignore it and have a mental image of putting that energy behind me. I switch my thoughts to the positive action I can do; actually, even before that, I turn my mind first to the positive results I wish to see because they inspire me more.Read More...

Tags - Being more positive, productivity, motivation, healing, getting fit, M.E., C.F.S, liver medicine, Tibetan Medicine, Glandular Fever, Determination, Depression, Your healthiest you

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Progress Report 1 - SAS Fit!

Out for a quick run in the Alps 2002

After, eighty press ups and lord knows how many sit ups and crunches and leg raises my heart is definitely warm. The Home Heart warmer (see below) definitely does what it says. Now there's only 9months 3weeks and a couple of days to go and I'll be SAS fit and hopefully some of you might have been inspired to join me. Let me know if you share this crazy feeling of wanting to feel really alive. It seems that my body is letting me know just that, at least I don't need to look at an anatomy book to know where my muscles are - I can tell you with great accuracy Read More...


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Identifying Plants, Learning Plants

white willow leaf and catkin the bark tea is used as a pain reliever
Learning to penetrate the wall of green - Plants, Learning Plants, identifying plants

Identifying plants gets easier the more you do it. Honest - it's like we recognise our peas and carrots because we have eaten them (some of us ) a lot. Therefore we know what a pea or a carrot looks like, but do we know what a Pea plant or a Carrot plant looks like if we walked past them growing in a verge or someones garden? Do you know that plants from the Pea Family are characteristic by their flowers sharing the features of a banner, wings and keel? That poisonous plants like Water Hemlock may be mistaken for Wild Carrot with dire consequences.

This is why to learn plants we have to get familiar with them - to put in our dirt time, there's a brilliant book called 'Botany in A Day' by Thomas Elpel that helps you really get to grips with plants and plant recognition.

But even before we get to that point, it's a good idea to simply get outdoors into your street or gardenRead more...

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tags - identifying plants, how to identify plants, plant course, learning plants, learning to ID plants, flora, naturalist, self-training, plant locating, wild plants, wild food, foraging, native learning, hunter gathering, harvesting, plant lore, pain relief, white willow, leaf and catkin, flower, seed, pod, stem

What to do about sore muscles!

Muscles get sore after doing this - especially if you haven't done it before. Climbing one handed in Swiss Alps while taking photo.

Arghh, the aching has begun already, I thought I was fitter than that, but no, any new exercise means new muscles making themslves apparent when you didn't know they existed. So I find Witch Hazel (as advised by a Rugby player) and Arnica (as advised by a Pink haired witch who lived in a purple van) very good for quick recovery from all sports related injuries including broken bones (seeing a doctor might help them heal even quicker if they're broken). You rub them on unless they're Arnica as a homeopathic pill in which case I doubt rubbing them on would do much good, but I suppose it would be better than nothing. comfrey also known as Boneset is also brilliant for bones & sprains as well as runner beans in your garden (It's a natural fertiliser like nettles and pee).

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tags - arnica, comfrey, boneset, natural remedy, sports injuries, pain reliever, fast recovery, sore muscles,

How to put up a Tarp and Hammock

Personal Project - How to put up a Tarp and Hammock

Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to put up a tarp and a hammock. Find a Tarp that's got many points for attaching rope around the edges and corners - or put your own in. You want one that's light enough to carry easily with all your other gear and very durable, don't get mixed up with a heavy groundsheet.

Now you can make your own hammock as I once did out of string; learning to use a wooden needle and relying on the sheet bend and a few other knots, or you can buy one and learn to use the Evenk Slippery Hitch and the Tautline hitch, or whichever are your preferred knots...
Read more...

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tags - tarp, hammock, how to put up, knots, shelter, suvival, primitive, simple, easy, online bushcraft, course, camping, voluntary simplicity

Progress is a process

sourced form the excellent book ;Fighting Fit' - the complet SAS Training Course by AdrianWeale
As of yesterday I began Adrian Weale's 'Fitness Training Program'. I'm starting right from the beginning even if I think I might be able to get a little ahead of myself I want to do the whole thing from start to finish and share the experience. So above is a print out of the Desk Driver Programme, I hope the Mr Weale won't mind me sharing it but it saves me typing the lot out. There's also his 'Home Heartwarmer' Exercises, which I'm going to do today. Yesterday it was a twenty minute run which I had to leave our old dogs behind for because they have to stop every five minutes to sniff and mark their territory which I wasn't that interested in.

Disclaimer - I guess I should put a disclaimer here - Don't do anything stupid! If you do because you were inspired here, it's your fault and nothing to do with me. Use your common sense - if you have heart problems, take a holiday instead. No seriously, there is proper preparation for doing exercise; being passed by your Doctor, taking it easy, stretching. Find out what's healthy. Ask someone who's an exercise fiend that isn't boasting about their latest injury. Find someone who has boundless energy and glows with a perfect complexion and ask them what they do.

I find thinking about what I want to feel like helpful. About how running up this hill is going to feel like a gentle stroll one day if I keep it up. I'm lucky here to have little traffic and lots of fresh air, if you don't have that luxury try and find a place you can get to easily that has fresher air. Oxygen is by itself one of the most healing things for our bodies; not the noxious mix we learn to put up with in the Big City. You are what you eat and you're also what you breathe.

I will post the programme up as I begin each part but would suggest that you acquire a copy of the book as there is a lot of useful and interesting information in there.

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tags - self-training, fitness, motivation, reality fitness training, regime, program, SAS fit, Navy Seals fit, Marines, exercise,

Ultimate Fitness

Why should it just be the Armed Forces and Athletes who get to be Ultimately Fit? In the past an outdoor lifestyle was rigorous enough to make people extremely fit - think of Mountain Men. Unless you're an explorer or adventure sports enthusiast there is little motivation to have a fitness goal let alone maintain fitness over and above the requirements for using the remote control, computer and the microwave.
I'm not very fit - we'll start with that shall we. I'm not nearly as fit as I'd like to be and my goal isn't just to get fit enough but to get as fit as I possibly can. Read More...

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How do I reduce my Ecological Footprint?

What is my Ecological Footprint - Answer these questions:-

How much rubbish do you throw away?
Where does your rubbish go?
Do you recycle?
What can you recycle?
Where does your water come from?
How does it get cleaned?
Where does your waste water go?
Where does your electricity come from?... What is the nearest edible plant to your front door?(This question does NOT suggest that you go and try all of the plants growing near your door - it does suggest that you use field guides to find out)?... Read more...


Knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand the connections between your lifestyle habits and your impact upon the earth, that is collectively multiplied with everyone elses. It will also give you an insight about the bridge between living directly from nature using Bushcraft skills and living in a modern manner using all of our conveniences.
Also if you know these answers you can learn how your lifestyle can cost you less; how you could have no more bills to pay and how you can save money and even earn money from changing some of these habits to ones that have a POSITIVE IMPACT!

My future articles will show you how to reduce your outgoings to a minimum - How to build some simple sustainable technologies to produce energy - How to conserve and reuse water - How to switch to locally produced food and grow some of your own. I will also cover making Veg diesel or Bio fuel (Build your own vegetable oil converter) and an indepth article into the use of Living Machines and what these are. I will discuss using Cob, Strawbale and other materials. On this site though I really want to help people who are stuck in renting property particularly; who may have difficulty reducing their ecological footprint without the permission and/or help of their landlords. This is why I'm also going to talk about different ways of owning property. I'm going to try and root all of this in the practical tools of bushcraft so that we can learn to gain a handle on what being totally independent could really mean AND why interdependence may be closer to the truth.

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Return of the Tribe - 'Mum, Dad - I think I'm Human'

I'm seriously looking forward to seeing Macintyre's Edge of Existence after watching the Return of the Tribe. It highlighted so many perceptions about our society that I have always held and share with the Papua New Guineans who came to visit. No wonder living in the West fits me like an ill-fitting suit. So the Chief says after his return from the UK 'There will be no development here', his village Sagap will remain as it is, (except for a new doctor and some medicine supplies); that was the bit that made me smile - hearing him talk about how everything costs money and in his village they have everything they need without it. Read more...

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My Motivation to do Bushcraft and anything else

These are some nice friends of mine that I met in 1997, some time ago I know. They are Barb and Milt (on left) and two volunteers who ran the then Ecovillage Headquarters of Canada. It was the first place I had been to that was teaching self-sufficiency. They had solar and wind power and a generator. The house was renovated so that it made use of convection currents to take heat from wood stoves around the house. They grew their own food, canned it themselves and also had cows and chickens.Read More


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Bushcraft - Ticked Off - joys of little creatures (how to remove a tick)

Picture Switzerland, Route de Mont Blanc

Well, it wasn't yet nine o clock on this sunday morning and ready the little creatures have invaded. First it was the ants who seem to be using our bathroom as a freeway, we think their nest might have been disrupted when the outside wall was resurfaced. Then I found a cricket on its back, waving its legs around, so he got relocated. Then my mother said, "Lou can you have a look at this bite", which unfortunately was on her backside "Is it a tick?" she asks a bit worried. up until now she's thought ticks only went for animals. At first I thought no but then I got a little closer. It's little orange bottom was sticking out and its legs were wriggling. 'Oh dear' I thought. Read more...

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tags - how to remove a tick, ticks, removing ticks, getting a tick off, tick remedy, tick tratment, treating animals for ticks, tick remover

Personal Project 1 The Backyard Bushcraft Experience

Picture - lighting the tinder bundle.

To boldly go where you may not have gone before. For this project we are going to recreate a wilderness survival experience in the safe confines of your back yard. If you haven't already got one, borrow one, or turn your front yard into one, or actually go some other place; or as a last resort use your home!

- The Weekend Self Taught Backyard Bushcraft Survival experience:- making a ditch bag, no electricity, where's water, where's food? Just a knife.Read more...

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Bushcraft Course Introduction

Picture - Free Wild Edible Salad
(I have borrowed this photo from students of the Wilderness Guide Programme who run the Kamana homestudy Naturalist course which I highly recommend)

Follow the Read More link for a brief outline of the whole course, or look at my Categories section. Please ask me questions and tell me about areas you'd like more detail, Thank you. Read more...

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Bushcraft Habitat - shelter from the skin up

Swiss Independence Day on the Route de Mont Blanc

Habitat, shelter. The first shelter is our skin. People who spend there lives outdoors are more conditioned to deal with the elements. They're thicker skinned. If you're used to staying indoors with central heating etc, camping may be an uncomfortable experience and so might going out for the night forgetting your coat because you didn't know it was a bit colder than it had been and freezing!

So here's a picture of one of my doorsteps. In this one I'm in the Swiss Alps on top of a mountain on Swiss Independence Day, having a small celebration watching the fireworks going off from all the other mountain huts. Here my shelter is a blanket purloined from our mountain hut and a fire. We'd spent all day climbing and the physical exercise kept us warm, but exertion also made us more susceptible later on when our bodies were refuelling. It's a good idea to look at how other mammals have shelter, where do deer go when it rains? Our minds contain the best shelter, in it we have the imagination to bend the natural world to protect us and that knowlege is the most reliable bricks and mortar. That and practice because our comfort level relies on our expertise.
Read more...

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tags - strawbale, cob, commons, habitat, new technologies, sustainable living, hunter gatherers, tribes, survival, course, solar power

Bushcraft and Survival - an introduction to shelter

Let's begin in the wild. I'm wandering on a trail, the sun's out its hot, I find a patch of shade and sit down.

The first thing I've done is look for shelter and that's the first thing we'll cover in our course in solutions to living with a positive impact.

There are few of us today who can say I like that grassy spot there I think that's where I'll build my home without having to consider a large transaction of money, but it was possible once.

I'd like to encourage us to consider this freedom that all of mankind once enjoyed, to roam where we wished, to owe nothing to no man. In fact I will be urging you to explore this freedom in every area of your life. I believe it is one of our most prescious possesions - that freedom to choose.Read more...

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tags - freedom, sustainable living, shelter, homelessness, property, debt, mortgages, alternatives, accomadation