Opossum

This fellow lives in my yard. Possums are benificial animals to have around. They have a very low body temperature, making them extremely rabies resistant and deadly to ticks and fleas. Included in their diet are various undesirables such as small rodents and snakes. This one eats leftover cat food.

Cooking chicken with a road flare

Mark it off my bucket list. This was a challenging fire lay to complement an unusual cooking method. A small bird was eaten this day and no one succumbed to salmonella.

Trap and Tell - Raccoon

The raccoon is as intelligent and adaptable as it is nutritious. These things are the monkeys of north Georgia and get into enough shenanigans to prove it.

Sunchoke char for firestarting

Charcloth is made from cotton material and carried into the field to help produce embers for firestarting. A common criticism of this practice is that charcloth can not be reliably produced in the field without destroying clothing or gear. In this video, char is created from the pithy inner cores of  Jerusalem artichoke stems (a fairly common wild food source).

Cooking acorn patties

When the wife is away, it's time to cook weird stuff in the kitchen. I collect buckets full of acorns for my goats. Some I shell, grind into flour and soak overnight in the stream beside my house (to remove poisonous tannins) for human consumption. In this video, patties of ground acorn meat are fried for lunch. Not only are acorns a vital resource for wildlife, they are plentiful enough to feed a nation in times of crop shortages or collapse.

Homemade rat trap

You might not always have access to store bought traps, or you might prefer less lethal means of eradication. In any case, its good to know one or two ways to catch household varmints with stuff lying around the house.

Hand drill fire

It took about a week to get my hands conditioned for this and I have the healing blisters to prove it. So, anybody that saw me walking around spinning a stick between my hands - now you know. This is my new favorite firecraft method, since the prep is minimal and materials abundant.