Building a digital library for self reliance

Here is a link to a site called Internet Archive. You can download hundreds of thousands of free books. These books are old, some from the 1700's, and the reason you can download them for free is the copyright has expired. The books were written in a time when most everything was low tech. To the modern person seeking self reliance these are a gold mine of information. The first screen print shows the title page when you first go to Internet Archive using this link: http://www.archive.org/details/texts

Now, click on the "advanced search" tab as its outlined in the screen print below. Its directly under the "Project Gutenburg" tab.


This page will come up. Fill it in as I have. The keywords are the important part. Use "gardening", "vegetable gardening", "canning food", "drying food", "edible wild plants", "hunting", "fishing", you can use anything you want to search for. If you know the name of the Author, full name or just the last name, you can use it as the keyword. Remember to control click on the items as shown in the "fields to return" tab on the left as I have done. I usually change the "Number of results" from 50 (the default number) to "850". You can use any number but, the bigger the number the longer it takes for a result to show up on the screen. Be patient. Then click on the "HTML" tab and click search.



Now this page will come up. Notice the number of results. I have decided to see the book by "Rogers, William S." under "creator" and under "title" you see "Planning your garden". By looking through the selection of descriptions, identifiers and titles, you will find some good books on the chosen subject.


I now click on the underlined blue "identifier" called "planningyourgard00ro.." as highlighted in yellow below and the next page comes up.


This next page shows the book I have selected. To preview the book and see if its one you want to keep, click on the small picture in the left panel "View the book" and it will take you to a "Flip book" version of the text. When you gat to this simply click on the right page and it will turn to the next page. If you wish to keep this book hit your "back" button on your browser and the page previously viewed will appear. Now, click on "HTTP" at the bottom of "View the book" panel. The next page will appear.


Here we have the page that lets you select the type of download you want to use to save this book to your computer. I use Free Download Manager, link here: http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
Its a reliable program and its free shareware. I've used it for years without any problems. In the window below, I click on the blue "planningyourgard00roge.djvu" under the "Parent Directory/" since I save my books in the DJVU format. More on this later. If you prefer PDF type files simply click on the link with "pdf" at the end of the string. There are a lot of options for different file types shown.


You probably noticed in the "advanced search" page that I typed "NOT Google" in the query line after "garden texts". The reason is this. I have looked at a lot of the books scanned and downloaded by Google. A lot of them are very poorly done. There are missing pages, blurred, unreadable text, missing illustrations, and other problems. I don't understand why they have no quality control. On the other hand, the Microsoft scans are very good. Go figure..........

I like the DJVU format for several reasons. Adobe Acrobat took up 300+ megs of space on my computer. The PDF files were slow to scroll through if I was looking for something in a book. This is because of the size of the PDF file, especially if it was a rich text such as the Microsoft scans. I got rid of Adobe Acrobat and downloaded Foxit pdf viewer. Its a free, smaller program than Adobe and works just as well. The difference in size between PDF and DJVU files is substantial. For instance look at the last screenshot, the "Parent Directory" page. Notice the PDF file is 10.7 Megs and the DJVU is 4.8 Megs. If you download a lot of books, itadds up. The DJVU file books are very readable and just as good in viewing qualityas PDF files. Here is a link to the DJVU reader I use.
http://windjview.sourceforge.net/

This is a very nice program,free (shareware), and it has a lot of good options for viewing documents and books. I have never had a problem with this program,and scrolling through DJVU files is very fast. I do research work for people and speed is important if you need to find data from different books for a project. It also has a very nice search feature built in. The total size on disk of this program is almost 1.64 megs.

What the Hell is happening to America?

I follow 36+ blogs and belong to a lot of different forums. I see a lot of "doom & gloom" and rightfully so. But, I think it would be more constructive now if we were to concentrate on spreading our knowledge and skills. I believe most everyone knows that the country is heading for the Big Shitter (PMF)! If they don't, then congratulations for being a resident of the planet Mars. We as bloggers need to spread the word about self sufficiency, low cost living, gardening, small livestock, stocking up & putting food by, what gear to have & how not to go broke buying/making it, and other things related to survival/bushcraft/primitive skills. We have a combined knowledge base that would probably fill several libraries. Lets put it to use.
I'm going to start posting some lists containing the names of very good books about the above mentioned topics. These books are all available free and building a digital library only costs what you pay for internet. I will have detailed links so you can go directly to the source and start downloading. Knowledge is power and freedom. Stop wasting time looking at the news/sports/doom & gloom stuff and get ready. You are responsible for yourself and your family. No one else can or more than likely,will, take care of you/them.
If there's anything anyone wants me to post about I'll be glad to oblige to the best of my ability. Time is short and preps need to be made NOW!

Putting a handle on the Lauri blade update

This is an answer to a question from Matthew on "how did I seat the tail end of the handle?". First I took a cut off disk in my Dremel and made two small notches in the side of the tang near the end. I then drilled an undersized hole in the dime I used for the tail piece. I forced the dime on with a very small ball peen hammer and then used a small chisel to push the silver into the notches. The blade was set point first in the cross grain on a piece of scrap oak while I did the hammering/chiseling. This prevented it from being driven into the board too deep. The blade was protected by masking tape. ALWAYS tape the cutting edge on any knife you work on. It will save you a trip to the ER.I hope this answered your question.

Wild food class

Earlier this month I took a group from my survival class to Kaweah Oaks Preserve east of Visalia. We were looking for edible plants. The trip went very good. We found more than a dozen edible and useful plants. Note: some of the photos are older stock pictures I use. Only a few are from the trip.

First is Sheperds Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris, a member of the mustard family. The whole plant is edible cooked or raw. It has a peppery taste. Usually grows in the open, but also in shaded areas.



Here is Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica. The young tops of the plant can be cooked. It can't be eaten raw due to the many needles on the undersides of the leaves and on the stems. Under the microscope these needles look like tiny glass injectors. They contain formic acid, the same chemical in ant stings. The fibers from nettle is one of the best cordage for nets, bowstrings, etc.


The next four photos are Miners Lettuce, Caltonia perfoliata (also Montia perfoliata depending on the textbook you have). This is my all time favorite wild edible. The whole plant is edible raw or cooked. The first three photos were taken today in my back yard.





This photo shows Goose Grass, Galium aparine, also called bed straw, cleavers, and other names.
The young tops are edible raw but the older stems and leaves are best cooked. Its a very god edible. There is an enzyme in Galium that is used to make milk curdle in the cheese making process.


Here's a photo of Elder Berry, Sambucus nigra. The berries are edible when they are ripe. You must use caution with this plant. The berries must be completely ripe (black and somewhat sweet) or they will give you a very upset stomach. The leaves, flowers, and bark contain poison. The stems have a substantial pith core that is easily hollowed out. The Indians used them for various tools and musical instruments (flutes). The old dry stems are safe to use as long as the bark is removed.


RedCurrant, Ribes calofornicum. These grow in the lowlands and mountains. The ripe berry is red when ripe and they are very tasty. They can be eaten raw or cooked into jam.


This is Chickweed, Stellaria media. There are several species of Chickweed in our area. All are edible raw or cooked. They have a taste similar to spinach.


This is a shot of Himalayan Blackberry, Rubus armeniacus. The ripe berries are black and very sweet. They ripen from mid July to mid August depending on altitude. The leaves can be made into tea and contain vitamin C as well as certain chemicals useful for female problems.

A good reason to practice water purification

Here's a short video I took to show what lives in a drop of water. Magnification is 100x. This is typical of most water you find in the wild. Its also available on You Tube and here's the link; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pphn08NjTDE




Here are a few still photos of different water creatures. The first three show a species of Vorticella connected by fine threads to the root of a Lemna (duckweed). The first photo shows a few Lemna "infants" floating to the left and at the bottom. Vorticella feeds on tiny creatures such as Paramecium, Volvox, and others which you can see in the above video. These are 100x magnification.These creatures can all be removed with a good water filter. Moving water does not contain the same abundance of life forms as still water. If I were drinking water from this pond I would use a good pre filter to keep my filter elements clean.









This photo shows the larva stag of Cyclops or similar species, a tiny crustacean. Again its 100x magnification.




This photo shows a Diatom or Desmid. I'm not certain which or its species name. More Vorticella at the bottom left.