Food for Survival VII/Foraging

One dictionary definition for forage is; "To wander in search of provisions". I like that definition as well as any I have seen. This covers just about the entire field of finding food in the wild. Foraging, especially for short term survival, may be one of the most important skills a survivalist can learn. When I use the word foraging I include; hunting, fishing, trapping and the search for fruits, nuts, berries and all edible plant life. There is no reason that anyone that is lost or cut off from civilization for any reason should die of starvation. While I will admit that there are areas in this country and times of the year when food is harder to find, there is always something. This country literally teems with wild edibles of both the plant and animal varieties. One of the big problems I see in this country today is that many of our younger people, especially those raised in large cities, do not see any relationship between the cow and the hamburger or even between the apple and the tree. These are just things that you go to the local supermarket or fast food joint to purchase. Several years ago, while I was working for a sporting goods store in the Chicago area, I had a young woman working for me in my department. She was a very intelligent person, about seventeen years old. While we were having lunch on day, I was talking to another department manager about hunting. This young woman spoke up and said she thought all hunting was cruel and that she could never eat anything from an animal that had been killed. It so happened that at the time she was eating a burger from a local fast food joint. When I started to explain how cows are killed and where her burger came from, she got angry and walked away. The next day I received a phone call from her mother who read me the riot act for telling her daughter something so "stupid". She said the world would be a better place and her daughter would be a much better person if things like that were not talked about. A kind of stick your head in the sand approach. There is not much you can do with people like that except to try to educate them if they will let you. The rest of us still have to live and to live in a survival situation may mean foraging: hunting, fishing, trapping and looking for wild plants. There have been many books written on wild plants, by people much smarter that me about it, so I will just give some general guidelines. Again, as I so often advise, if you want more info go to the library or go on-line, the web has many sites on this subject. One thing I would do though is to purchase one good book on plant identification. This should be in a pocket size field guide, to be carried with you now while you are learning,

Food for Survival VI

Another thing that you may be able to grow is some of your own meat. Many people consider raising meat as mini-farming or homesteading. While I know that city dwellers will not be able to raise their own meat, those in very small towns and in the country can. I will not go into the how to here just a couple of suggestions. My two favorite survival animals are rabbits and chickens. Think about it; even if you needed to evacuate, a few rabbits or chickens could be quickly butchered and field dressed and taken along. Those who live in a small enough town with few zoning laws should be able to get by raising a few rabbits. All you need is a good clean hutch, dry bedding and a good supply of food and water. Chickens need a little more space as they need nesting boxes, some floor space to move around and possibly an outside exercise yard. Chickens are actually my favorite as they not only provide meat but eggs as well. With a rooster and a couple of setting hens, you can have a continous supply of eggs and meat. Just remember, animals tie you down. They need to be fed and watered each day and unless you can get someone to do this for you, you cannot leave for the weekend or for a vacation. These are the only two animals that I consider survival animals. Anything larger should be left to the hobby farm or homesteader. Many of those are also survivalists, but there are many books written about homesteading and small farming. With the things I have covered so far and a little imagination, I think that you can see how much of your own food you could raise. One thing more about raising food; learn to raise your fruits and vegetables organically. Relying on commercial fertilizers is like relying on anything else in the food chain. It needs to be manufactured, brought to your location and purchased. In a catastrophe this would probably not happen. Doing things organically does not cost anything and is relitively simple. It means making compost, mulching your garden and possibly finding a source for some manure. It will save you money now and could be a life saver in the future. Remember, you do not need a major disaster or survival situation to appreciate the value of having good home grown food on hand.

Food for Survival V

I now live in the country on five acres of land. Most of the land is woods, but there is enough for a large garden and anything else I need to grow such as berries, dwarf fruit trees, etc. As we live in a mobile home which is on a foundation, we do not have a lot of storage room. I grow many root crops, as these store easily. Many can be left in the ground well into the winter, especially if covered with a foot or so of hay. We can some of our produce and keep quite a bit in freezers. Having food in a freezer is a great idea unless you have a power failure. Food will keep for several days in a freezer with no power if the door is not opened. The best idea for people such as myself with freezers is to can what is in the freezer should power go off for a lengthy period of time. We have a large enough stock of canning jars and canning equipment on hand that we could can everything in the freezer. One thing to remember is to have a heat source. When we lived at our last home we had an electric stove so I had two large camp stoves as backup for emergency usage. I also now have a kerosene stove like our grandmothers used to can on when the heat of the summer made using the wood stove to hot. Actually, where I live now I do not really need it as we have a gas stove in the kitchen run on propane with a 500 gallon propane tank. The first thing to remember is to raise what the family likes to eat. Some people may be allergic to tomatoes, so why would you want to raise a lot of tomatoes? If you hate eggplant, do not raise eggplant. If no one in your house will eat beets, do not raise beets. Raise what you enjoy eating and what you know you can store. Those of you without yards and other places to grow a garden may opt to raise salad fixings in the house or on a porch or anywhere they can. If you have the space and like squash, this is an excellent keeping vegetable. I have kept squash from one season right up until the next crop was ready. Cabbage is another excellent keeper. They take a little more room than squash, but can be worth it. My advice is that you study a couple of good books or web sites on gardening and food storage and see just howe much effort you want to put into growing your own survival garden. If you have the room, fruit is great to grow for survival. Most fruits are perennial, that is you plant them and they just keep coming back year after year and they keep on producing. If no one in your family is allergic to them, strawberries are my first choice of fruit. They do not take up much room, they can be eaten fresh, frozen, made into jams and jellies or dried. My next choice, if you have the room is apples. If you have a small yard a dwarf tree is all you really need. Here again they store well, can be used in various ways and most people like them. Other fruits to think about are grapes, raspberries, blackberries, currants, and rhubarb. Most of these thing will start to produce in about a year and will keep producing for many years if taken care of. Nut trees are the one thing that I wish could be grown but take so long to get started that I am not sure if they are worth it. I have located both black walnut and hickory nut trees in the wild and will make do with them.

Food for Survival IV

Anyone who is a true survivalist should be thinking about raising some of their food themselves. I realize that there are some of you who will not be able to raise much, depending on where you live. Even when I lived in the one room efficiency apartment, I raised a little bit of my own food. I had two window boxes in which I grew leaf lettuce and spinach. I also had a half whiskey barrel sitting just outside my door. Several other apartments had large planters outside their doors also, but I was the only one that raised vegetables in one. In the center of the barrel I planted one tomato plant and I surrounded this with onions, radishes and carrots. While I did not get a lot of food from this method, I managed to save a few bucks on salad fixings. Between my window boxes and the barrel, you might be surprised just how much can be grown. For instance, the window boxes were kept producing all year long and the barrel all summer. Each time I picked something, I added more seeds to the soil and had a continous supply. There are ways to grow food no matter where you are. It is better if you have ground to dig up and plant, but vegetables can be grown in an apartment, on a porch, a balcony, a roof, just about any place that you would like to. You need to choose your vegetables very carefully. For instance, both tomatoes and peppers grow well in containers. With a little experimentation, you may find many other things that will grow indoors. One of my sons lives in a mobile home in a trailer court. The lots are small and there is a rule against digging up the yard. However, there is no rule against building flower boxes and growing things. On the end of the trailer, on top of the hitch is a box extending the full twelve feet of the trailer and about three feet wide. Along the south side of the trailer is another box about twice that size. Dirt was dug in the country and hauled in and the boxes filled. He keeps some flowers along the front of each box, but the main items in the two boxes are vegetables. The flowers are just there for show and to keep the owners of the park happy. When I lived in the suburbs of Chicago, I planted tomato plants among my wife's flowers in the front of the house. No one even noticed the fact that I was growing vegetables in front of the house. This freed up space in my small garden to raise more other things. People who own their own property should definately grow as large a garden as they have the time and the knowledge to take care of. There are a whole lot of books and web sites on vegetable gardening so I will not go into it to deep here. I will however give some gerneral tips as they pertain to survival gardening. First decide whether you are going to raise just what you can eat as it is picked or are you going to raise some for storage. Raising what can be eaten as it is picked keeps you hand in gardening and allows you to expand easily should the need arise. Many people who work full time and have other things in their life that take a lot of time will find this the best method for now. Do not go so big at the beginning that you cannot take proper care of the garden. All that will do is cause a lot of frustration when the weeds take over and you get little or no vegetables.

Food for Survival III

You will note that I buy larger pkges. and split them up. When you are storing things for long term, you can either put the smaller amounts in zip-locks or vacuum seal them. For those that do not have a vacuum sealer, push as much air as possible out of your zip-lock and after it is zipped, dip that end in melted wax. This will help somewhat in length of storage. Write on the packges what is inside and any cooking instructions needed. I sometimes put a sheet of paper into the bag with this information on and make it so it can be read through the bag. If there is an expiration date, you may want to list that too, as well as the date that you packed it. You usually have from six months to a year after the expiration date to use things up. I have gone to buying as much in bulk as possible and repackaging all of it. I do not leave anything in the commercial packages as they take up too much room, and are usually made more for eye appeal than for long term storage. There are many things in the grocery store that all you need to add is water or milk and heat and eat. Stores are just full of this type of food nowadays. Many of the newer ones even have meat products in them. I never got into storing them as I like to make my own combinations, but they would be a help. When it comes to dried fruit and things like trail mix, either buy in bulk and mix and package your own or do as I have done and dry your own fruits, pick your own wild nuts and make your own trail mix. I do not even purchase as much dried meat since I started making the amounts of jerky that I do. Jerky can be made from beef, venison, turkey, some fish and who knows what other meats. Those are just the ones I have tried so far. Vacuum sealed it lasts almost forever. The hardest thing to add to a survival food supply is bread. In my mobile pack I usually put in Zwieback toast and crackers, not ideal but better than nothing. For your long term storage, there are biscuit mixes and other bread product mixes on the market that only needed water added. These are what I use for long term storage. My long term storage items also contain a goodly amount of canned goods. These are not highly portable, so they are in anticipation of me riding out any survival situation where I am. My wife and I grow a large garden, so we can a lot of the excess. We also buy canned foods at the store. When I had an active, so called, survival retreat, I kept canned goods there also. I had them buried deep enough that they would not freeze. When I lived where I could not raise my own I purchased a couple of extra cans of food per week and it did not do much to the grocery bill. About once a month I would purchase bulk dry foods for repackaging. This too did not break the budget. Back at this point in time I purchased many stews, chili, etc. as I was living in a city and did not have the ability to hunt and fish to add to my stocks. You can also buy canned meat which I did. I feel that anyone that needs to purchase their survival food can get by with this method. I used it for about ten years and found it to be adequate. The point is to start now. Even if you only can afford one can of food or one small bulk purchase, you will be that much closer to your survival supply. A little bit at a time and before you know it you will have a goodly supply.

Food for Survival II

The two week supply of food that I recommend should be light, highly portable and kept in a container such as a backpack, plastic garbage can or other container. This is so when disaster strikes, you can grab your pack, throw it on your back or into your vehicle and head for someplace safe. How many people in New Orleans wish they had had something like that when the evacuation was called for before Katrina. Being light does not necessarily mean only MRE's or all freeze dried food, but this is one place where they do have a use. At least part of the two week supply can be freeze drieds. Back when I was living in my one room apartment I put together a two week supply of food for two people. This was split into two containers, one a boyscout backpack and the other a small, plastic waste basket to which I had added straps so that it could also be carried as as pack. The waste basket I kept in the apartment, the backpack in my camping van. Here is a complete inventory of what I put in for 2 people for 14 days. First breakfast: 10 pkts. instant oatmeal, 5 days; 10 indiv. pks. cold cereal, 5 days; 6 pkgs. toaster pops, 3 days; 1 pkg. pancake mix (add water only) 1 day. Lunch: 6 pkgs. oriental noodles, 6 days; 12 indv. pkts. cup-o-soup, 6 days. On other two days, eat lunch from snack foods. Dinners: 3 pkgs. mac and cheese, 3 days; 4 pkgs, rice-a-roni, 4 days; 2 cans luncheon meat (spam), 1 lb. velveeta cheese, 2 pkgs dried toast, 2 pkgs. dried beef, 1 small box instant potatoes. These items to be used on other 7 days. Snacks: 30 sticks jerky, 4 lb. dried fruit, 8 granola bars, 8 1 oz. pkgs. rasins. Drinks and misc. 48 tea bags, 10 1 qt. pkgs. instant milk, 1 jar bullion cubes, small jar instant coffee, small jar Tang, 1 lb. margering, 1 lb. sugar, container of salt. This was my entire supply for two weeks. I purchased everything at the store and the total cost was around $60. At the present I can do it cheaper as I dry my own fruit, make my own jerky, etc. I split the food evenly making each pack a self supporting pack for one person. The pound of cheese I split in half, wrapping each half in aluminum foil. The foil can be used to cook in once the cheese is used. Things like the potatoes, tang, coffee, sugar and salt were split up and put into zip-lock bags. Into each pack I added a one person mess kit, a metal cup, a nesting silverware set a small bottle of water purification tablets, two large cans of sterno and a small waterproof container of strike anywhere kitchen matches. This allows each person to be independent if you should get split up. The packs weighed about 16 lb. each, so were light enough to toss in some emergency supplies such as fishing line, a space blanket or whatever you think necessary. I no longer use zip-lock bags for my storage as I have since purchased a vacuum sealer. This is an item which has paid for itself many times over in the six years I have had it. This allows you to buy the larger packges which make the food cheaper by the serving and also allows you to keep it longer. Vacuum sealing also allows you to keep your food much longer without using it. Did I ever try to use my two week supply and live on nothing but that? You bet. I used a one week supply and lived on nothing but that for a week. The other week's supply I added to with fishing and wild plants and that supply lasted me just over two weeks. If you are in a location where you can hunt, fish or gather other wild food and you have your two week supply, you can make it last a long time.

Food for Survival

Food for survival means many things to many people. Some people seem to think that the only thing that qualifies a survival food are MRE's or other freeze dried foods. Other people think that all you need to do is to keep a lot of wheat stored up and that will do you for survival food. When I advise people on how much and what foods to keep on hand I always suggest at least a two year and up to a five year supply. I do not know about the rest of you, but I am not going to live on MRE's or wheat alone for five or even two years. I also advise that people try eating what they are storing for survival. Eat nothing but your survival stores for a month. After that you will know whether you want to change what you are storing. Try grinding and eating nothing but wheat for the next month, or try eating nothing but freeze dried meals for the next month. I do not think that you will be so willing to say that you are going to survive for five years on that type of a diet. Can a person survive on that type of a diet? Certainly, but, do you want to? To me being a survivalist is about living as good as possible after the event that causes you to need to survive. If you will look back to my starting over posts you will notice that I lived virtually all of one summer without income. I was sure glad that I had survival foods on hand to supplement what I got from the food pantry and what I caught or picked in the wild. Should you have any wheat in your survival food supply? How about MRE's or other freeze dried food? That would be a definate YES! They have a place in my food supply, albeit a very small place. Before I get into my recomendations I want to say a word or two about gathering wild plants and growing your own vegetables and fruits or hunting and fishing. For those who are knowledgeable about wild plants and animals and those who have the space and knowledge for gardening, these are excellent ways to supplement you supply. Having followed this lifestyle for more than thirty years now, I no longer keep the two or five year supply of food on hand. I still try to keep a year's supply on hand and feel that by supplementing it with my garden and wild foods, it should last at least five years. Many non-survivalists consider what I am doing and what I recommend as hoarding food. I only need to look back as far as hurricanes Katrina and Rita to give a good reason to have a supply of food on hand. Most of the people in the affected areas would not even put aside the three days supply that the government recommended. By day two they were crying that they were hungry and had no food or water. We will never know how many survivalists there were in the area because they were not complaining on TV, they were busy trying to put their life back on track. I look at my survival food storage as a savings account, an investment. You can take food out at any time without loss of interest and replace it at your convenience. If you plan and handle it right it will never go bad or lose its value. It may even increase in value due to inflation and may be worth a lot in a true survival situation. Should you not need all of it you can barter it to people who do need it and who have things that you might need. And last but not least, it is an investment that you never have to pay taxes on. How much is enough? Can you store too much? These are questions that I hope to answer in the next few posts. For people that have no food storage at all at the present time, I suggest a minimum starting point of a two week supply. While the government recommends only a three day supply, that is not enough for even an event like a major hurricane. A two week supply, per person in your household is a bare minimum as far as I am concerned.

Attitude II

Another part of a survivalists attitude is their ability to improvise, innovate and make do. You need to look at something and see not only the use it was meant for, but many other possible uses for it. You need to be able to repair, mend and fix. In a survival situation you may have to do all of that with a lot less equipment than you now have. A lot of what I am trying to say comes under the heading of being super inquisitive. The more inqusisitive you are, the more you will learn before a real survival situation hits. Studying all of the latest, most expensive and so called best methods might not always be the best way to go. There are many so-called old fahsioned things that fit right in with the latest. When it comes to survivalism, newer is not always better. There are many old fashioned items and ways that may fit your survival situation better. Newer is not always better, you need to check both ways out and make an informed decision. Having an attitude of independence is also very important to survival. Those who depend on others for everything they do, would not make good survivalists. Even the person with enough money to pay other people to do what they want done might not make it. You see, in a survival situation, money may not be any good. To me a good survivalist may never know everything about anything, but they will know something about everything. Probably the most important part of a survivalist's attitude is that it be a good "positive attitude". I am many times accused of being very negative. This is due to the fact that I draw worst case scenarios as my reason for being a survivalist. I tend to see that as both pragmatic and positive. To believe that mankind has conquered all and that there will be no more wars, depressions or other major disasters, is a little like burying your head in the sand. To believe that government can solve any or all of these problems is even more foolish. The government may even be responsible for causing many survival situations such as war or depression. The positive aspect of these situations is that a good survivalist will be ready for any of these situations and know that they will be able to cope with them. We also believe that we can improve mankind's lot after a disaster, proviving they are willing to pull their own weight. To sum up my feeling in one sentance I would have to say: "A survival attitude is positive, pragmatic, innovative, inquisitive, independent and most of all forward looking." If this seems like a lot, sit down and take stock of yourself. I will bet that you will find a great degree of these attributes in your makeup. Why else would you even want to become a survivalist? Starting next post "Food for survival".

A Survival Attitude

This is probably the most important thing a survivalist can have, a proper survival attitude. When I ask people what is the most important thing to their survival I gat many answers. I get answers like; food, water, firearms, knife, etc. The only physical thing you need is air to breathe. After that everything depends on attitude. You can have the best equipment in the world and not be able to survive. How many times do we hear and read of people being stranded, with virtually nothing and surviving? On the other hand some who are stranded in better condition with more equipment give up and die. Why? Attitude. Now you may ask, "What is the proper attitude?" First of all you need a deep desire, almost a NEED to survive. You have to want to live to see what the other side of the disaster brings. You are probably one who would want to try to help put the pieces back together, if the disaster is large enough that type of action. Surprisingly, there are a lot of people who do not feel that way. While publishing my newsletter I dealt with several other businesses. One day my accountant asked me why I was a survivalist. I gave him the reasons that I just stated and he looked at me like I was nuts. He then asked me; "You mean if there was a nuclear war and most of the country was blown away, you would still want to be here?" When I said that I would, he seemed truly shocked. I asked him what he would do, should such an event take place and he find himself alive afterward, he said he would wait and see what the government told him to do. When I told him that the government as we know it probably would not exist, he really did not know what to say. Finally he said that in that case he hoped to run into someone like me to "take care" of him. When I told hem that "people like me" would probably not take care of him, that we were willing to help those who were willing to help themselves, his attitude toward me changed. He probably felt that I was heartless and cruel. I really do not care, that is the attitude a good survivalist needs to take. I will help anyone who is trying to help themself, but refuse to "take care" of anyone unless they are physically unable to do for themselves. By the way, my accountant soon was not my accountant; no big loss. More on this subject next post.

Starting Over III

After moving back to Wisconsin and moving into a one room apartment, I continued my survival lifestyle. I built an under the bed storage unit for my guns and rented a storage unit for the rest of my belongings, such a my canoe, that would not fit in my apartment. I continued to write my survival newsletter, changing only the name. I had only the names of my subscribers on my mailing list, so I could not attempt to obtain more customers. I continued this, sending free copies to all of my subscribers until the last subscription ran out. I than sent out a notice that subscriptions were due. Not enough people renewed their subscription so I sent back the checks to the others and ended my newsletter. I never took full time employment, opting instead to work for a temp agency. This gave me time to write and to practice my survival skills. I had a half whiskey barrel just outside my door in which I planted several vegetables and I also made q window box garden for myself. After a couple years of this, I met a wonderful woman, a widow who actually believed in what I was doing. She owned a 35 acre hobby farm and enjoyed the survival type lifestyle. I moved there 13 years ago and we were soon married and we are still together and still living a survival lifestyle. While due to some illness which took place with her we do not live in the same place. She has had four major abdominal surgeries since 1997 and we could no longer keep the farm and all of the animals, gardens, orchards, etc. which we had. The farm also had a large two story farmhouse which she could no longer take care of. In fact one reason we left it was that she could not get up and down the stairs and could not do the housework. I took early retirement and we moved to a smaller house on five acres of woods. We still burn wood, raise a large garden and do most things for ourselves. I do a lot of hunting, fishing and food gathering to supplement our budget. My wife is now much better and works a few hours a day four days a week. I have gone back into writing and write for a weekly newspaper in the county as well as two outdoor magazines. In the years that I spent at the survival farm, I wrote approximately 12 books and booklets relating to survival. The ranged from 8 to 80 pages. It is from these books that I am drawing the info for this blog. Not only from them, but from what I have learned since. I wrote my last booklet before my wife got sick and there has been much changed in my life since. I also volunteer at a national wildlife refuge and am learning more about plants and animals that will help in a survival situation. Starting with my next post I will be using my booklets as the bacground for this blog. I will use them in the order of their importance. I will be doing one or two posts on attitude and then going to my books. While my two main books were "Sensible Affordable Survival Living" and "Stash It" I will be starting the posts from my booklet "Food for Survival" and follow with "The No Chemical Survival Garden". I am doing this in my belief that food and water are two of the most important items in surviving. The attitude post will be taken partly from my SASL book and I will return to the two main books from time to time as they contain info on all aspects of survival including food. So if you are new to survival living or need a quick refresher course, stay tuned.

Starting Over II

After three years my second wife decided that she did not want to be married to a part-time worker, part-time writer. For almost two of those years I wrote and mailed an eight page monthly survival newsletter. I had also written my first two booklets during this time, as well as writing articles for several outdoor magazines. I set up a business and had a seperate business checking account. I did not yet have a lot of customers but was building up a list. We had purchased a lake lot in Northern Wisconsin which was to be survival headquarters. The end came when in May of 1990 I took a five week fishing, camping, survival trip. I had to quit my job to do it and this did not set to well with her. I covered three states (WI, MN, MI) on the trip and did quite a bit of survival experimenting including backpacking and the testing of equipment. I wrote two issues of my newsletter while on the road and mailed it to her. The agreement was that she would retype the newsletter, get the copies and mail them out to the subscribers. When I got home from the trip she hit me with the info that she wanted a divorce. She said I was lazy and did not want to work, just run around hunting and fishing. When I told her it was all part of my writing business she informed me as to what I was full of. She tried to take everything I had bought since the marriage, including my van. I came into the marriage with a van and a station wagon. When I purchased the new van I gave my old one to my son and the station wagon to her son, yet she felt that she should have the van. She also tried to get my canoe which I had ten years before I married her. I got out of the marriage with my van, my canoe and any of my tools that her son had not stolen. I then found out that she had never sent out the two issues of the newsletter as promised, that she had stripped the business account of all money plus she claimed that her computer had crashed and she had lost all of the names on my mailing list. The only names I had left were the labels I had pre-printed for the newsletter. Even though I lost amlost everything I worked for for six years, that divorce was the best thing that ever happened. I moved back to Wisconsin and into a one room apartment and went back to practicing my survival skills. I will finish this tale next post.

Starting Over

After spending three years in Chicago I was completely out of debt. The way I did that was to let all of my credit cards, on which I had run the business, go into collection. At that point the interest stopped. I do not believe that they stop the interest any more, but it is worth checking on if you are thinking of doing something like this. I next wrote each of them a letter telling them how much my minimum payment would be. I had no checking account or savings account so when I wrote this letter, I included a money order of the amount I stated I would pay each month. By cashing the money order they agreed to the terms of my letter. I set these payments low so that I would be sure of being able to make them. I then took the smallest of the bills and paid as much as I could on it. A couple of the companies tried to raise my payment when I paid them more than the minimum I had stated. I merely sent them a letter stating that they had agreed to the lower amount and if I sent more it was because I could. After paying off the lowest bill I started on the next one up the ladder. My child support was a little different, the court had set the amount. My ex had agreed to wait when I was totally unemployed, (what choice did she really have) so when I started paying again, I paid one and one-half times the court set amount. As my youngest child had bee 15 when the divorce took place, I only had a couple of years to pay. Just shortly after that one turned 18 I had caught up and finished my obligation. As I stated, in three years of working steady in Chicago, I was totally debt free. That is when I went and did something stupid, I got married again. Not that getting married is stupid, I am presently married to my third wife and very happy. My problem was that I married a Chicago woman that was about as untruthful as it is possible to be. She said whatever she thought I wanted to hear and lied when the truth would have sounded better. My marriage to that woman was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I told her I was a survivalist, that I was going to live a survivalist life, that I hoped to return to Wisconsin, that I would be spending a lot of time in the wood and on the water and that I wanted to go into business by starting a survival newsletter. I also told her that I wanted to become a writer. I had just had a couple of articles published by an area outdoor magazine and I wanted to pursue my writing. Before we were married she told me that she thought all of that was great, that she thought that type of a lifestyle would be wonderful. That was before, her tune changed after. Even though I was writing a couple of articles a month, had started a novel and was doing an 8 page newsletter each month, she also expected me to work full time. I would do so until the stress of the 100 hour weeks would catch up with me and then I would quit my job. I would catch up on the business end of my life and by that time I would have to get another job to get her off my back. During all this time I made all of the house payments and kept up with my share of the bills, most of which she had made and she could make them in a hurry. More starting over next post.