The Ultimate Bedroll

    Bedroll. The word means so much more to those of us that spend long periods in the wilds. A bedroll is our bed, our sanctuary, and our place of healing. It is our shelter, within our shelter. My bedroll that I've devised is Fire Proof, Water Proof, and Cold Proof; only resistant truly, as nothing is "proof" not even granite (ask the tides who's winning that one).
    My bedroll consists of three components, a sleeping bag, a waterproof bivy, and a wool bivy. My wool blanket I've specifically designed to be rigged into a bivy while still retaining its ability to be a simple blanket. The sleeping bag and waterproof bivy keep me warm and dry while the wool bivy provides additional warmth and the all important fire resistance to the equation; allowing me to lay near my fire vastly improving my state of sleep, and increasing the temperature range my bedroll can function in.

...A bedroll with these attributes is quite potent, a warm and dry repose goes a long way in the cold and wet seasons of the year, while just the light and comfy blanket provides the means for a restful sleep in the scorching season.

-Mitch Mitchell
http://nativesurvival.com

The Whispering Promise

    You feel it creeping at night, slow and methodical; ever-present and ever-growing. You know it in the early morn. You see it in the glowing orbs on the black stained nights. The sun losing the battle day by day, her chill frost visage spreads to the fields and glens as he slumbers. Her shrill counter-shadow illuminates that which is beneath her, bathing all in a cold, sterile, whispering promise..

"I am ever-close,

You cannot be saved,

Nothing will impede my approach,

Hear my breath,

Feel my kiss,

Know my building torment,

All who are weak shall shrivel and die,

I shall strip others of their prideful colored cloaks,

All will be smothered by my icy embrace"

    Thus all recede to their precious hearths, and gather up the victims of winter's past to keep warm and protected from her deathly touch. Acorns, Blueberries, Pinenuts, Deer Jerky, Raspberries, Walnuts, Blackberries, Strawberries, Wintergreenberries, Chestnuts, Dewberries, Partridgeberries and so much more will be desperately prepared, frantically saved, for the bleak lifeless days of winter's unhinged magnitude.
    Some cannot withstand her incantations and fall into a deep slumber, praying the overrun sun will gather his courage and push her back to her frigid realm. Some leave their homes far behind in search of the edge to her might, living on the battlefield where Winter's Stark White clashes Summer's Molten Orange.

..What will be your response to her whispering promise?

-Mitch Mitchell
http://nativesurvival.com