How to chop down a tree (and not get hit)

  

I forgot to yell “Timber!” But at least I remembered to step away from the falling tree.

This lesson takes place in a 40-hectare forest about 90 minutes outside Toronto. There is an axe in my hands, teacher Graeme Cameron is standing close by.

Adrift in the ocean for 50 days

Finding it difficult to wrap my head around this story.

For the last month and a half, while we all drank coffee, planned Halloween costumes and went on with our daily routines, Samuel Perez and Filo Filo, both 15, and Edward Nasau, 14 were drifting in a small boat in the open ocean.

The teens had set to sea from a coral atoll in Tokelau, about 500 kilometres north of Samoa, on an aluminum boat on Oct. 5.

They were spotted on Wednesday, 50 days later, in the open ocean by the crew of the San Nikunau. At that point they were northeast of Fiji, about 1,300 kilometres away from where people lost track of their boat.

The San Nikunau’s first mate Tai Fredricsen told The Daily Telegraph (in a story picked up by The Herald Sun) the boys were in “reasonably good spirits for how long they'd been adrift.”

“They were very badly sunburnt. They were in the open during the day up in the tropics there. But really they just needed basic first aid,” he said.

They drank rain water and at one point managed to get their hands on a seagull that they split up and ate raw.

Daily Telegraph reporter Tim Vollmer said an extensive air search by the New Zealand airforce turned up nothing, leaving the boys' families believing they were dead. They held memorial services for them.

To call them lucky that the boat discovered them when it did would be the understatement of the year.

Shortly before they were discovered, they had started sipping sea water.

Why hot chocolate is good if you've fallen into cold water

Of all the things I have ever read about the importance of life jackets when it comes to water safety or survival, the “immediate gasp response” has to be the most effective.

Ian Gilson, on the board of directors for the Canadian Safe Boating Council, said there are a number of things that happen to the human body once it lands in water 15 C and below. One of the first: Your blood vessels constrict.

“Your heart has to pump harder to provide that same volume of blood throughout your body, which is why some people have a heart attack at that particular point,” he said.

The immediate gasp response (shudder) also happens almost immediately after you take the plunge. Basically the shock and submersion causes you to breathe in forcefully, said Gilson.

What if you fall in the lake in November?

An analyst checks the core temperature of an RCMP officer wearing a floater suit during a Cold Water Boot Camp in Port Credit.

How to avoid an avalanche 101

This one is probably not going to show up on the course calendar at the University of Toronto.

The College of the Rockies, located in the Kootenay Rocky Mountains of southeastern British Columbia, teaches students how to avoid getting caught in an avalanche, or how to locate and rescue someone who has.

The class — the Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA) — AST Level 1 — takes place at Panorama Mountain Village and costs $185 (plus $15 for a lift ticket if you do not have a season pass).

“Each year increasing numbers of skiers, snowboarders, and climbers venture into the mountains to enjoy snow-related outdoor recreation. Regrettably, each year some of these people die in avalanches,” says a brief summary on the school website.

“AST programs are an essential first step to safe backcountry use in the winter.”

Topics include avalanche-terrain recognition, avalanche climatology, snow-stability evaluation, alpine-touring practices, avalanche accidents and search-and-rescue techniques.

Students are required to bring a shovel, transceiver and probe, typically a thin collapsible length of tubular steel. Skis or a snowboard and appropriately water-resistant clothing are also on the list.

 

52 projects: A year from scratch

Meet Elizabeth Fraser, the author of the blog 52 Projects, A Year From Scratch

Fraser launched her blog midsummer 2010 with a plan to learn how to do everything from make a smocked dress, pickle eggplant, to build a bicycle-powered generator and make paper. She takes on one new project a week.

Lambs, saws, knives and slippery floors

 

Just a warning: The video may be too graphic for the squeamish. Also, apologies for the poor sound quality.

The floor in the back room of the Healthy Butcher is slippery with what I am told could be fat ... or breadcrumbs ... or both.

After a friendly “hello,” the 23-year-old head butcher at the Queen St. location gets straight to business.

“Do you want to use the knife or the saw?” asks Paul Bradshaw.

Creating fire without a match

On Saturday I am setting out to collect the first components of what I am told I can eventually use to make fire, or at least begin to understand the complicated process of generating flame without a lighter or match.

“We’re going to focus on a fire by friction technique called the bow drill, or fire bow,” said Andrew McMartin in an email containing the details of my homework assignment.

Weights, muscle mass and having your face pinched with calipers

To anyone who is searching for a cold, hard dose of fitness reality, I would like to recommend having your cheeks and chin pinched with metal calipers before you head to work.

The face is the first place you start to notice weight loss, according to Jennifer Shearer, the 28-year-old I have hired to help me strength-train twice a week. She explains this as she pinches a variety of spots on my stomach, legs and arms to start to figure out how my body stores and distributes fat.

The idea that enough weight has collected on my body that it can be measured on my face is at first a bit disturbing but swiftly becomes exciting when I think about the challenge of shaving it off.

On top of the weights, Shearer, who is a certified holistic nutritionist, will be giving me tips on how to tweak my life and diet so I cut back on things like coffee, and sleep a little more soundly at night. (I'm guessing that punishing sessions with weights will kick-start that part of the program.) We will be hanging out first thing in the morning, twice a week to start, at her downtown loft building.

After the pinching, she guides me through a small selection of fitness tests to see how feeble or strong my body is. A few examples: timed push-ups, sit-ups and a few minutes walking quickly up and down stairs.

I did some strength training four years ago, with swift and impressive results, and despite my extended slump, I make it through the tests without loosing consciousness. Shearer seems confident that I have a strong core to work with. Hoping things will progress quickly.

You can check out Shearer’s own story about weight loss and her approach to health at http://bodykarmafit.blogspot.com or go to http://www.bodykarmafit.com/

How to start a fire with a pop can and a chocolate bar

Things I love reading about and will be testing …once I find a safe place to repeatedly try to ignite tinder without being reported to Toronto Fire.

Apparently if you are in a pinch, a can of pop and a bar of chocolate can be used to start a fire – at least on a sunny day.

The process, detailed here, basically involves using a chunk of chocolate to polish up the underside of a can, which is then used as a mirror to reflect sunlight into a focused beam. Pop is the example, but it works on any aluminum can with a concave bottom.

The chocolate should be rubbed in with some kind of fabric, like a sock or part of your T-shirt.

Once you buff up the bottom, you hold some kind of tinder (paper, dry reeds, a tiny bit of wood) in front of the focal point of the reflective surface. Sun hits the can, bounces back and should light your bit of paper or wood on fire.

According to the website, pure chocolate works best, so perhaps you should avoid using a Snickers bar the first few times you test this one out.

Toothpaste also works, or any scouring powder.This seems obvious, but once it is used as polish, the chocolate is not safe to eat.

Also, it might be a good idea to keep your fingers as far away as possible from the material you are trying to burn.