4 Skills to Perfect in Fort Backyard

So you’ve been reading our articles, went to one of our camps, or maybe just looking for something fun to do with the family. Here are four skills you can perfect in your back yard before you have to use them for real.

Fire Craft

The single greatest skill for both confidence and usefulness is mastering fire craft. But don’t play with matches; work on two paths of mastery. The first is using a sparking device like the Light My Fire from Industrial Revolution. The second is learning a primitive technique such as the bow-drill.

Once you begin to master- push yourselves to experiment with various tools and harder conditions. A great activity for gaining experience is to tie natural fiber rope to two stakes or rods in the ground about 18 inches high and time yourselves on how long it takes to bundle materials, get a flame, and then burn the rope down.

The ability to start a fire is key to staying alive in the wilderness. This means fire starting is a priority in the list of bushcraft skills.

Some residential zones may restrict fire to specified enclosures. If restricted then use a homemade or purchased fire-pit for containment. We built a pit using 8”x12”concreate pavers to create a pit to practice in.

Gimme’ Shelter

Many backyards don’t have ready-sized trees to practice with. Still, there are many things you can do to create shelter. You can use t-post stakes purchased from local farm and feed stores to create anchor points that simulate trees and common tent stakes to represent natural wood stakes you would normally make in the back country. Just know where water, electric, and sprinkler lines lay.

Experiment with tarps, ponchos, and even a few discarded pieces of lumber. You kids will love that you are building a fort with them.

Learn a few knots, get some decent 550- cord and get to it!

Wood Splitting- Knife Skills

Wood splitting with a survival knife- also known as batoning can add a valuable wilderness survival skill to your toolbox. This is useful because it helps you in creating smaller- easier to ignite pieces of wood even when the wood is wet. Learn with a full blade survival knife and work your way to using a small axe or hatchet.

Bushcraft Cooking

You’re getting the hang of fire building so might as well use it to try your cooking over an open fire. You can choose to use a grate in the beginning- but move yourself into experimenting with cooking with Dutch Ovens, #10 cans, and wooden spits.

Try making a “survival stew (anything you find in the fridge) in a coffee can or pick up a Cornish hen and cook it over open coals. Be sure to follow all safe food handling protocols- and it’s okay to use a meat thermometer to help you learn.

We still use Fort Backyard to master skills, and these four will get you on a path to perfecting skills before you have to use them.

Rampage Rear Sport Rack

Ouch! We were told a 5-day chest or ARB fridge would fit…not so

DISCLAIMER: One of the things we pride ourselves on is HONEST feedback. It is purely based on our experience alone. I’ve lost sponsors and partnerships through honesty. My position is to give our audience what we feel are fair evaluations of gear we test. If it’s on my rig- I HIGHLY recommend it for yours.

 

We don’t usually dislike a product so quickly on this level. We are careful to select products from several weeks if not months of research. We make it a habit to talk to other users, check out the blogs, and even speak to sales or customer service reps about the product before we pull the trigger and throw it on the rig, put it in a pack, or try it on the trail.

 

With that said, we were finding little about the Rampage Products Rear Interior Sport Rack. We were looking for a way to better organize our gear in the back cargo area of our 2013 JK. The plan was to keep our 5-day ice chest under the rack along with other bulky items such as tool kit, chuck box, and Scepter 5-gallon water jug. We looked for details and dimensions from sellers, distributors and even the manufacturer. When we inquired a rep about it and relayed our expectations the response was, “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

Even one of my smaller chest would not fit. I don’t know of any Jeepers that don’t throw some kind of cooler in the back for suds and grub…

It was a problem. I have four ice chests and not a single one could go under the rack. Even when we put the rack into the upright position, then the ice chest could not fit in length-wise. Space wasted…
For someone who isn’t toting an ice chest and simply need a better way to organize sports gear, groceries, etc it’s a good concept. The storage rack features a fairly sturdy steel tray that mounts in the rear cargo area. Putting it together wasn’t that difficult and I did it in about an hour with no drilling required. One of the things that made it slightly difficult with my soft-top and impossible on a hard top is the tubular brackets that go on the roll bar.The Allen bolts faced outward and I had to remove the rear window on each side to get to the bolts.

The concept is awesome and installation was super easy…just a little more thought around design and beefing up some of the movable parts and this rack would be on the top of our “buy-it” list

The concept of moving the tray out-of-the-way when not in use is unique in this model. On the bottom of the tray are two spring clips and a single gas strut allowing the rack to tilt forward providing easy access to gear located underneath. One problem though is the hooks don’t fully engage and a simple run around the block after installation and several attempts to adjust proved to be a waste of time. The thin bar at the bottom would create an annoying rattling on dirt roads.
I had even thought about the possibility of placing the ice chest on top of the rack and quickly dismissed the idea when I realized I would have five days of food and drinks rocketing towards all passengers in the case of an abrupt stop. The only bolt-down points are on the roll bars and it does not tie into the body or the frame at any other point.
If this was for a grocery-getter or soccer mom Jeep I wouldn’t hesitate to put it in. It does help to organize suburban adventures on Saturday morning and payday grocery runs. It does provide a bit of security and for photographers wanting to store gear out of sight it could be a benefit.
We paid $240 for our set up and thankfully the company we ordered from is going to allow us to send it back based upon the product not meeting the expectations we outlined.

Again, the concept is great, and other gear we have from Rampage has fared very well to excellent. The major disappointment here is based on the initial expectations not being met. Show me a Jeep guy that at some point doesn’t throw an ice chest full of grub and suds in his rig for a few days of fun on the trails.

 

His and Hers – A Love Story

This story was originally part of a series I wrote for another blog. Thought I would repost it due to a few questions I have been getting on smaller RC rigs. These little rigs are great to travel with and one of mine has almost frequent flyer mileage as I do.

I have had several Revos, Slashes, Rallys, and combinations, conversions, and off-shoots of these three. But by far the most fun I have had was building these two rigs with my wife.

A few weeks ago she showed an interest in an old buggy. Now she has always loved building and painting but driving was not so fun for her. I took an old slash and put a 23 turn motor in it and placed in training mode. In the privacy of our backyard track she learned to like it. Then last week for the Sweet 16 Rally we held here, we picked up a mini slash for non rc visitors to bash. She fell in love with the car when placed in training mode.

Her rig is stock and has the 12 turn Titan but soon to have a 23 turn HPI. That should give her longer run time and slower speeds

My rig has the Velenion brushless with Traxxas ESC, Traxxas and Integy aluminum, and run it on a Spektrum controller.

On neither rig am I overly concerned with having top shelf race parts, and use trickle down stuff from my prime rig…the Revo.

The Slash takes a lot of lip because of stability. My argument is that if you drive a car within its limits you don’t flip as much. We can go through several battery packs in an evening without ever being on our lids.

I’m enjoying our time in the yard with these rigs. I’m kind of anal about similar rigs running at the same time so its nice we are driving short course rigs at the same time.

Our Trailer Build in Pictures

Last year a buddy of mine and I built my expedition trailer. While I still need to do a full blog article, I thought I should at least share the pictures of the build…based on what I could find on my hard drive…so here you go– more details to follow.

Not in any order–random pics I found

Puppy First-Aid Kits

“Dad…can we go….can we go?” Trigger sits patiently while the Jeep is warming up for a run in the desert

I have a podcast out there – make sure you check www.AdventureIQ.com for the link, its pretty easy if you follow us on FACEBOOK, then you get all of our podcast…

So I was only going to post this as a list on the AIQ FB page, but after Dan from The 4×4 Podcast asked me to do a blog….well here it is… The more time you spend with your pup in the outdoors, the more exposure there is to them getting injured. Even a minor injury can dampen your trip and nothing is worse than seeing your pup limp along in pain. I have had to deal with burrs, impaled object, large lacerations, and both heat exposure and borderline hypothermia in my dogs.
Even though there are plenty of kits you can buy on-line, I believe in putting your own kit together, simply then you know what is in it.

We have a main kit for the house, one in the rig, and then a small field kit that goes a doggie day pack. I will only list out the items that goes in our kit that the pups pack with them. We have larger pups, so if your adventure pup is a small breed, well you get to hike with the kit…no K-9 EMT kits on your Mini-Rat Terrier

Trigger ready for a day of adventure

We highly recommend that you seek out classes that are specific to first-aid for dogs. Get a good solid field manual to keep with the kit. Finally, dogs are different from us two-leggeds- human medicine unless noted is not for puppy consumption.

BIG DISCLAIMER— THIS IS MY LIST YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CONSULTING YOUR OWN VET. WE DO NOT ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBLITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS OR ACTIONS TAKEN ON BEHALF OF THIS LIST 

• K9 EMT Gel- This stuff interacts with the wound and maintains much-needed moisture that helps a wound in healing. In addition, it acts as a tissue adhesive to help prevent bacterial infection. It also reduces bleeding and pain. Keep it current though, it will expire.
• Tweezers- When your pup is hurt and you are trying to remove a sliver, they don’t always hold still. One poke with sharp or pointed objects and your pal will not likely lay still for you again. I use flat slant tipped tweezers.
• Scissors- I carry both small dull-ended snips and EMT shears. The small snips are excellent for trimming out goat heads in the fur areas in the paws or burrs on the belly. EMT shears are good for cutting medical tape.
• Tick Removal Tool. These are designed to remove nasty ticks, which, if left in, can lead to infection or worse, diseases like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Lyme’s.
• Cotton balls
• 4×4 Gauze Pads and 4” Rolled Gauze.
• Hibitane Disinfectant- Learn to use BEFORE you use it
• Saline solution. We live in a sandy area and this is great to get dust and sand out of the eyes. Can also be used to clean wounds.  DO NOT USE Contact solution.
• Flush Syringe
• Benadryl- Trigger bit a wasp one day- and I was pretty worried that he was going to swell up and not breathe. A fellow vet-tech of Melissa’s gave him a Benadryl. It reduced the swelling, keeping his airway open…and put him to sleep.  Antihistamines can be used to calm itchiness, swelling, and hives caused by insects,  but, as with any medication, please with your vet for dosage.
• Antibacterial Wipes or skin soap.
• Bag Balm/Skin & Paw Cream – When feet get torn up. Keep it in a labeled zip-tight bag.
• Rectal Thermometer. A dog’s average is around 101°F.
• Petroleum Jelly. For use with the thermometer…and be sure to scratch your pup’s ears after the intrusion….
• Emergency numbers- I keep three sets of numbers in my kit. My regular vet, the 24-hour vet, ad then when traveling, numbers of vets at each destination.
• Latex gloves
• Emergency contact numbers. The digits for your vet, the closest animal emergency hospital, and the poison control hotline.
• Triangle Bandage to use as a muzzle
• Corn- starch- To stop bleeding of nails (not wounds) that have been broken or cut to the quick.
• Vet Wrap
• Small Space-Blanket (Compact Size)
• First Aid Manual for Dogs (small pocket-sized)
  

  Harper was a rescue, that when we got her, required lots of medical love…

Ready-Made vs. DIY

I get asked allot about “ready made” or “turn-key” adventures vs. doing it on your own. Most often it is someone exploring a new adventure interest. While I am a fan of doing things on my own, I think it is really a question that has to be weighed out by each individual depending on the type of activity you are undertaking. Keep in mind there are activities where you are required to have a guide or instructor to undertake them.

The advantages of ready-made tours is that most of the time you are dealing with an expert that (hopefully) has a long track record. As a rule, understand the local environment, political climate, the destination, equipment required, and permits needed- and many other tidbits of information. Most often they are more expensive than a DIY trip and you will probably have to work around their schedule as well. In addition you may have to deal with the personalities of both your guide and possibly other clients if it is a group affair. For someone venturing into a new adventure and if they are in it alone- this is often a good way to get introduced into the activity. I have done this on specific mountain bike epics, scuba trips, and obviously entering into the world of aviation. Finally guided adventures are great if you are looking for specific connections (i.e.- singles trips, faith-based, etc.)

However I do many adventures on my own without a guide. I enjoy doing the research, preparation work, and often the lower cost of doing it on my own as well as the schedule flexibility. With that said, I have “over-invested” needlessly in trying to do a few things on my own without guidance. I admit that while the DIY has a bit of “bravado” or ego attached to it—I often do this because I cannot afford to use a guide or go the “turn-key” route. Trust me- if I could go buy a full on overlanding rig rather than deal with the headaches of my current fleet I would. As it is, I stay up late wondering where I am going to get the resources to build-up and customize my current rigs- knowing in the next 12-18 months we need to replace our long-range vehicle with a new one. Now is the time I really wish I was a great fabricator…

 

DIY adventure require detailed planning. Here we are planning to watch fireworks from the air. We could have simply chartered a flight but instead did it on our own for a fraction of the cost.

One of the things we have tried to show is making adventure ACCESSIBLE. I figure I work with an average resource budget like many of you and whether it is a ready-made adventure or one that we plan out- it is another demonstration of getting out and trying something new.