Since the lockdown, we have come to appreciate the philosophy that ‘our home is our refuge’ and we can do much more with our property to make it even better! Although getting out into the world is necessary, by adding a little DIY survival projects to our to-do list, we can set ourselves up for success and survival.
We will look at a series of survival projects that are small and easy, from quality leisure to learning survival skills. These are not huge DIY builds or items that require plans and a tool-filled shed.
You might look over your property and see a bunch of constraints. You may think you’ve exceeded what is possible. The truth is, with only a few small spots in a yard or in some woods around the house, there is much more you can do.
The First One
Fire-making and cooking over a fire are two skills that should be routinely practiced by any survivalist. It’s as easy to make your own fire pit as piling some stones in an outback circle.
You could also repurpose items like cast iron grills and use them to burn in.
With your fire pit, you can be as easy or as innovative as you want, but getting one provides you a means of regularly starting fires and cooking over fires.
Be sure that you understand the burning laws and don’t make a local river or creek rock fire pit as they sometimes contain water and can burst and shower bits of hot rock with your family. The best thing for building the interior of a fire pit is the fire brick.
A Protein Source On Your Property
The keeping of hens has improved a great deal in my overall planning. From a basic protein point of view, I have eggs produced every day. That means we have a source of protein on our property. We have, however, also controlled our land to deal with predators, added trees to provide birds with natural food and, of course, we run a chicken coop.
It’s easy to make your own chicken coop and if you don’t have building or wood working acumen, you can still make an old shed chicken coop. The shed must be safe and secure. It should be as draft free as possible and be able to lock up tight to keep predators at night.
Small, shed coops are easy to clean and, even on rainy days, offer birds plenty of room. However, in order to make it function as a coop, there are subjects you will have to apply to your shed.
- Cut some windows and screen them
- Add some roosting polls
- Create nesting boxes on the wall (I have even seen people nest old bowls into a circular cutout of an old wood chair and use it as a nesting area.
- Feeding Area
- Water Container
You can also use wood to frame a small coop and just create your own. This can be a lot of fun because you can use a range of coops and coop construction plans to help you build your own little coop.
Related: How to Naturally Keep Your Chickens Cool
An Ingenious Project
We’ve probably been smoking meat to preserve it since we discovered fire! For thousands of years. It plain works, and it is also delicious. Why not have a little smoker built in your backyard so you can start a fire inside and smoke some ribs or chickens?
This is an off-grid cooking option that will help any prepper.
With very little investment, you can create the smoker itself by using a simple cinderblock base and a framed smokehouse.
With 2x4s, the A frame can be framed and rest right on top of the base of the cinderblock. With cinderblocks, make your foundation about 2ft tall and sit the A frame on top.
To produce the smoke, you will have to mount a firebox to the cinderblock foundation. With a door or opening that can be closed, you’ll need a small metal or brick firebox. To push hot smoke from the firebox to the smokehouse, a simple flue can be used. Just make sure that whatever you use can withstand the heat!
Another quick tip is to connect hooks rather than racks to your smokehouse. These are cheap and simple and if you have any blacksmithing talent, they can even be forged at home. It’s smokin’ time!
Related: How to Build a Smokehouse In Your Backyard (with Pictures)
The Most Simple One
Gardening may look easy, but it’s not. Gardening could be an absolute nightmare with little progress, at best, depending on where you live and what kind of land you are dealing with. So perhaps it’s not something that you feel good about banking your life on.
We grow in a marsh, and we’ve got wonderful years, and we’ve got bad years. This on/off performance led us to the conclusion that, along with our greenhouse, we needed to start dreaming about an orchard.
So we began planting peach trees and thinning wild paw paw trees in our backyard instead of relying on the greenhouse for all of our fresh produce.
This year, as we continue to expand on our micro orchard, we have plans to add apples and persimmon. The micro orchard is a perfect way to grow food and on a very little bit of land you can plant a lot of dwarf trees.
At the moment, we are pulling fruit from 8 separate trees, and our whole property is .8 acres!
Compost Pile
This one isn’t a brainer, but I’m always surprised at how many bags of leaves I see the average American dragging from the backyard to the curb to be picked up.
It’s like gold is pouring from the sky when the leaves start falling in my yard.
From three pallets, a compost pile can be made! If you like, you can simply get a compost pile covered with a tarp. It’s not just an investment.
We all know the value of growing your own food. To improve your soil year after year, compost provides you with a highly nutritious growing medium.
Related: Things to Recycle in your Compost Bin
A Remarkably Simple Build
A herb garden microclimate sounds like something overly complex, but in fact, it’s just a circular spiraling stack of bricks constructed on the outer wall with fewer bricks, but growing taller towards the middle.
You create shadows and wind blocks for some plants by making this kind of spiraling brick or stone herb garden, and others always get direct sunlight.
This is a surprisingly simple design, which is about simply piling bricks and filling quality soil with empty spaces and then planting a variety of herbs.
Hygiene Bin
People have come to appreciate items such as soap, sanitizer, toilet paper and masks when living through a pandemic.
You just need to buy a large trashcan with a lid, or some other waterproof container, to create a basic hygiene bin, just start adding things to this bin on a weekly basis.
Purchase an extra soap bar and toss it in the bin. The next week, add a pack of gloves and some toilet paper. Just keep on to this until the trash can or container is filled. You will be able to sit back and realize that you have taken care of hygiene when the next tragedy happens, and you have people rushing to the store.
An Uncommon Idea
A big part of prepping is pest control. This is another factor that is not overly thrilling for the average survivalist, but you can owe it the respect it deserves when you have a pantry full of mice.
Mosquitoes are monsters that bear diseases that are often a serious nuisance. Around 6,000 to 8,000 mosquitoes a night would be eaten by bats. That is an unbelievable feat!
It’s a fun activity to take on with your children to create bat boxes, and it yields some great results.
Related: DIY Mosquito Trap That Really Works!
As complicated as our lives have become due to things like the pandemic, the reaction of the government and the protests in our streets, the basic things in life remain. The easy and rewarding stuff in our lives are still all about life.
You feel a sense of peace like nothing else when you send an arrow 30 yards downstream into that homemade hay bale goal. In the age of indignation and terror that we are living through, this is so important. These small DIY projects are perfect ways to get back to life and get your mind off the nonsense.
You can do most of all on this list with kids by your side, too! Have the family involved and round out your fortified property for survival.
