Cold climates

John AdamaStaff - December 21, 2020

[See the full post at: Cold climates]

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I was already familiar with some of the concepts to find water outside but never really tried to apply them in praxis as I life in an area with plenty of water (even though climate changes causes more and more long periods without rain causing a lot of damage) and even when I was somewhere else I always came across water by luck.

Nevertheless highly motivated from watching your video, I decide to close that gap by looking for new, less obvious places of water in my area. I visited a place where water should collect and looked for signs (it is currently quite dry here again, and even two man made ponds where completely empty and bone-dry – I tried digging there without success). Then, at on one spot I saw a difference in vegetation with a lot of plants I normally found near water.

On the lowest part of it I came across some mud and when I started digging the whole filled suddenly with a lot of muddy water:

Raw-water and after pre-filtering and final filtering:

Btw. I entered from a nearby path, but at the opposite side where are no human paths a deer path come down the hill, which would be better described as deer highway, given its extraordinary size. I guess they were happy the next night finding now again plenty of water instead of some wet mud ;-):

Thx again, for this create course!

 

So cool Thomas! Thanks for sharing the pictures and journey, I hope it’s helpful to others in class. There’s so much value in getting out there and actually thinking about / looking for these concepts, like the vegetation as a signal for where you should dig.

What concept do you want to try next?

 

Thanks for your feedback. The next things I want to try are some of the methods to collect water based on evaporation. I read about such methods the first time about 40 years ago (the “hole in the ground method”) but somehow never tried them on my own. 

Another thing is to really “test” purifying products. I bought my first also around 40 years ago but (if I remember properly) never tested them – I don’t like to drink chemicals, but of course should not be an issue to do it at least once

Btw. I still have those old “Micropur” tablets in my “Survival poach” from this time. 

Another thing I want to test is the method/concept to find drinking water at coastal areas. If Covid19 rules allow it, I’ll spent next summer a week at the sea and hopefully find the time for it.

Thx again for the great course

Thomas

Btw. I visited the waterhole again last weekend when I was out to collect more Allium ursinum. It is still full of water even though the surrounding area is again quite try. And it was clearly visible that the animals are grateful for this new billabong.