Bushcrafting an Old Man's Beard Survival Blanket | Solo Overnight

i want a survival blanket that looks cool that's why i'm doing this video i'm getting all my uh braided parts together for it perfect this blanket is warm it's that good hi i'm greg evans and this is ovens rocky mountain bushcraft [Music] there we go [Music] so i just wanted to talk a little bit about a plant that i haven't really discussed in previous videos and that is usnia also known as old man's beard it comes in this kind of greenish brown or a brighter yellowish white kind of and see the difference in color what i want to do in this video is make a survival blanket with it you're pressed for time you can take piles of it like this and put over yourself all the way up and down and then to prevent the wind from blowing it off you would take pine boughs and lie over yourself as well great survival blanket usnia it makes a great tincture as well you would take a mason jar stuff it full of the eusenia and then pour vodka they suggest as one of the better tinchers for infections internal and cuts and that type of thing as well but what i want to do is make a nice survival blanket so i'm going to weave it or braid it with three strands into something that looks like this and uh i did one already i'm gonna use my dog bane cordage to tie it all together at the end i want a survival blanket that looks cool that's why i'm doing this video and again it's not waterproof so you'd have to find a dry spot here in the rockies it's been hot in the day but almost freezing at night every night just about all summer just about freezes here in the rockies but it's going to be a project and i like projects i already have one strand that i did as an example but it will cover from my toes right up to my neck and i need a lot of strands like this i like making survival things i like things to be simple but in this case i want to make a nice blanket to not just cover myself with it like i said you could do and you see how it's um kind of separated what you can do you can fold certain spots you want to try to keep the strands relatively uh even and then we'll get strands of it like this which is a good one sometimes you get shorter pieces but you can just put them together and roll them and they'll stay and then once we braid this it's going to hold itself together too it has a tendency to stick to itself as well which is kind of a nice property so then we'll get a strand like this that we can use for a braid if i want to add more to it i can just take pieces you see how scraggly it looks and i can just fold it kind of get it in the shape i want and then i can add it to this one roll it again and then you get longer strands and once it's braided it'll want to hold itself together you can roll it between your hands or on your knee sometimes it's hard to get it to start so you can twist it a bit and then it'll start to roll usually i just roll it in one direction it doesn't have each strand doesn't have to be perfectly the same diameter obviously either so now we have something that we can start braiding we're going to want to twist it fairly tight like this when we braid it and it'll hold itself together even better so here we have an example of a few scraggly pieces different lengths what we're going to do is even though it's all separated we want to get a thicker piece so we can just lie it all together like this and then again twist it and roll it now we have a braidable piece i've got three ready to braid you take my dog bane and tie these three together now i'm not going to make cordage like i did with the fishing line i'm just going to use strands because that's very time consuming uh it would take so long i don't have to it's still plenty good enough we've got those tied together we're just going to braid it like a ponytail and that will take all the air spaces out as well you have to be fairly gentle with it because you can tear it and see how we're going to twist each one before we wrap it you got to keep separating the ends because they tend to stick to each other and then hold it with your thumb here too and it's okay once they're to push it together and that helps hold it as well i always get confused when i'm braiding nice and tight no air gaps so i just wanted to show you something like here in the kootenays where i live within about 300 miles i know of about probably 50 cabins and they're as far as i know they're supposed to leave them open in case people get stranded in the winter or have an emergency some of you folks like seeing all these old cabins that i know of in the bush and that's why i came to this area partly it's not locked like i see a couple of bunks over there another bed spot here would stove even left a broom for people to clean up behind themselves another room in here looks like the mice have been in this side though the wood rats probably the wood rats mattresses up there got the couch well you can see this would certainly do in a survival situation two wood stoves firewood some of these cabins the they even leave food like canned food what for people that are get stuck in an emergency and you'll just see a sign use respect or replace the food when you get a chance so just be honest about it i'm fortunate to know about so many of these cabins way out in the middle of nowhere because we are a long way from town and that's why i wanted to come out here do this survival blanket and then overnight and show you a couple of cabins these are the strands we want nice long easy to breed that's kind of what i'm after sometimes you get a lot of sticks in it and you spend so much time just cleaning the needles and sticks so it's not worth it i like these long ones that hang off the branches and very little cleaning [Music] now [Music] i like to try to get strands that really don't have too many sticks but you inevitably end up cleaning some of it or else you're gonna not sleep well you'll be getting poked by branches and pine needles [Music] do [Music] well the blanket's coming along pretty good i'm getting all my braided parts together for it maybe after i get this video done i should go to my command so what i'm going to do now is hang this up across a couple of my tp poles so that i can keep each strand separate and about every four inches down i ended up using the center of paracord i was starting to use fishing line i'm all out of dog bean i tied the ends together with dog bain but now string it up so i can get my strands where they're supposed to go and every four inches tie them together uh not all of them are exactly the same thickness i've got some thinner ones some wider ones depending on the material and uh they all have thicker and thinner spots as well now that's not going to matter really because we are pulling them all tight together once we're done and it's all tied together there may end up being little gaps like that you see so i mean i can put it on a flat surface step on it and it'll kind of flatten it out and get rid of some of that but the spots like this that i can't get rid of i can stuff the uh old man's beard in here just in wads just like you would uh stuff a window with insulation so once this is all tied it's all nice and tight i'll just stuff it any uh major holes but it won't even be extreme this is going to be thick warm long as i don't get it wet and we're getting there with the blanket so be nice if i could go and catch a fish somewhere but i i can't even have a fire yet so there's no point even going fishing we'll just go and spend the night because then i got to pack briquettes or the coleman stove i want a pack light nice spot that's what we want all tied together nice now i don't i don't see any gaps that i'm worried about but like i say if there is gaps you can take the chunks break them off and stuff it in in spots wherever you see the holes and it'll stay there if you poke it in weighs about oh four pounds probably now i can keep adding and make it wider it is a bit on the narrow side i'm going to give you that but like i said before in a survival situation you're going to cover yourself with piles of it and put boughs over to hold it down in case it gets windy this does take a lot of time but at the same time if you have uc in your area old man's beard it's a lot of fun to make a blanket like this i'm going to probably make it wider but i want to get out spend the night with it i know it's going to be warm and i'm not worried about the odd gap that i have either i may fix that eventually too you're going to see this blanket in other videos coming up as well and i will continue to work on it but it's pretty cool no it's going to be pretty warm i'm perfectly happy with it and it's going to do just fine me and finn are going to hike off find a spot that we can hopefully get some moss and make a little moss bed for the night i fed him so he's okay i'm not that hungry and we can't have fires this really sucks you know because you can't even sit by a fire so let's find a spot get some water in a little creek here okay i see we got some moss over here this looks like a pretty good spot got some trees for cover in case it rains but i don't think it's gonna rain so this should do us oh nice and soft and thick this moss here i've spent a lot of time sleeping on moss beds i actually enjoy it [Music] i sleep very well and it's nice to have finley along he hears stuff he's such a good you know guard dog as far as letting you know something shows up so i feel way better having him alone but we'll get our bed set up i'm kind of tired anyway if you look over by the trees here there's a lot of needles on the ground you would at least want to cover those with grass or moss because the needles will get all stuck in that blanket and it'll poke you it's been forever trying to get the needles out don't sleep on needles with the use in your blank but this is perfect look at how soft it is nice and dry too finn this is perfect just wish we could have a fire though oh yeah it's long enough well i made sure that i'll use my coat for a pillow because i think it's going to be plenty warm moss is dry this is going to be great oh yeah oh i'm gonna sleep like a baby finn okay don't wreck my blanket no okay look look don't trample everything you can sleep on the moss you'll be fine and the good thing is the mosquitoes seem to have died off too so that's good but i'll see you guys in the morning it's gonna be just great well i'm having a little trouble sleeping but that's just because i'm thinking about stuff but this blanket is warm i'm not even kidding so oh i'm pretty happy with it we're going to use it on other videos so it's that good well i'm certainly glad that i took the time to make this blanket it was a lot of effort but it's pretty cool and i always sleep like a baby on mouse beds i don't know there's something about moss beds that are just the best you like it out here the blanket was quite warm fortunately it didn't rain had a little trouble getting to sleep uh in the beginning and not because it wasn't warm but i think because i didn't bring my shotgun and we're in grizzly country here um the dogs nice to have but i probably should have brought the shotgun i probably would have fell asleep a little easier that's the only reason if you get time try to make a blanket like this but right on and get up and get our day going [Music] so uh thanks for watching that's the end of the survival blanket video i'm gonna head out in the morning i'm gonna go to vancouver island on an adventure keep the bell on for notifications thank you subscribers and especially members and we'll see on the next one

Channel: Ovens Rocky Mountain Bushcraft

Views: 113,216

Rating: 4.9645061 out of 5

Keywords: survival, rocky mountain, greg alone, ovens alone, greg ovens alone, greg ovens alone season 3, alone season 3, hunting, bush, catch n cook, wild game, funny, funny videos, greg ovens rocky mountain bushcraft, greg ovens, bushcraft, canadian, rockies, rocky mountain bushcraft, lichen, old mans beard, old man's beard, solo overnight, overnight survival, survival blanket, handmade blanket, bushcraft blanket, bushcrafting in the woods

Id: 2GWxzlZ3AvQ

Length: 19min 35sec (1175 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021