Review: MTECH XTREME TACTICAL - Tactical cleaver

As first seen on BreachBangClear, makin' fun o' me accent ....

I do so love my knives, and I am always on the look out for new and excellent blades  to add to my collection. This was no exception to that. I was browsing through my email newsletter from Global Gear (who have supplied me with a number of other things in the past, from my M48 Walking Axe to the Zombie Outbreak series of nylon costume gear, to Mainstay foot rations) and up popped a rather tacti-cool looking cleaver.

One of my ladies was looking over my shoulder and exclaimed "oh, you need THAT" and as it happened, I was thinking the same thing.  I placed an order, and shortly there after, this arrived in the mail for me.

This is the MTech xTreme Tactical cleaver.


Sitting about 30cm (12") in length overall, 15cm (6") of that is the heavy chopping 440 stainless blade, which is black finished, that extends as a full tang with integrated finger ring the entire length of the piece. The textured black G10 handle is affixed with a large nut at the throat of the handle, and with several others along the length, to ensure a really firm attachment. 440 steel is a middling steel for high-end knives, but bear in mind, this is a cleaver.

The knife weighs 525g (18.5oz) but it very nicely balanced, especially important for any blade I intend to make use of extensively. This one in particular has found a lasting place in both my household kitchen knife collection, but also as a camping and adventure camp knife.

The rugged construction, with G10 being waterproof and resistant to cuts and scratches, its very hard-wearing. The black finish on the metal parts hasn't shown any significant wear either, which is nice.


The blade is very sharp out of the box, and has a gentle curve to it, so it is easy to maintain.  The edge is neither too fine, nor too shallow to be both an effective cutting and slicing tool, and allows it to be a resilient chopper. It is fluted in six places on either side to ensure an easy cutting action is achievable, by providing airflow along the surface. Like a big cheese knife. A very, very big cheese knife. For big cheese.

I've had no problems cutting vegetables,  frozen items, or even slicing steaks from a haunch of beef, Gangs of New York style.

I have had a perfectly serviceable Chinese cleaver on my knife-block almost since I left home, and they come in very handy when breaking down carcasses, or even big veggies like pumpkins and the like, but the MTech Tactical cleaver does it with modern flare.

The skeletonised handle lets juices and any other muck through to keep your grip solid and well placed. The gentle contour of the handle is well suited to carry the the index finger and gives very careful control over both cutting AND chopping action.

I trusted the edge and handling that I used it to dispatch a rooster from the most recent batch of chookens. The last thing I want is to make a mess of ending any of my creatures, especially if I'm then going to be eating them (he was delicious). The MTech didn't disappoint, made a clean cut, trimming feathers on either side.

I can't say that the finger ring really does anything for me, I suppose if I had hands like a hill-troll they might, but its just  too big, and too far for it to be of any practical use for me.

The Cleaver comes with a black nylon belt sheath, with utility pocket, and includes both a press-stud retention strap, and a three press-stud spine closure, but also a single loop to sling the knife, if needed. I was a bit disappointed by this, because it neither offers much in the way of protection from the pointy corner edges of the blade, or the edge itself, but it also lacks any really secure attachment options.

That all said, this is a very functional blade, in a rugged and modern style, and I find it very useful both in the home, and in the field.

Home Front: summer garden 2014

As with previous years, I planted a vegetable garden over the winter-spring cusp, in order to have a good summer crop of greens.

Using wood I reclaimed from pallets that had been left on the road-side by a neighbor who was having some renovations done, I built this box in an afternoon, dug post holes, dropped it in place and left it lay-fallow with weed-suppressing cardboard boxes lining the base. I then filled the box 3/4 the way up with a mulch/soil mix that I had purchased (and got a water-saving rebate for), and hit our local garden/hardware store for seedlings.

In previous years I have planted in our low-sided veggie patches, but this year, as a result of my lovely partner Omega's request for a raised bed, to give better access to our crops without the need for bending and kneeling, which is one reason I built a hip-high box.

These little guys are the other reason. We now have four Flemish Giant rabbits. They started off palm sized, and will eventually get to be 10 kg (22 lb) each. I have now made two wired-off enclosures for them to run in, but we found they could both climb, and hop into the raised bed. Hence the "over the top" chicken wire over the bed, and the over-hanging lip to make a more effective perimeter fence.

A lucky finding was that the rabbits didn't like the artichoke plant that we had regrow this year from last years failed attempt. We've managed several meals worth of artichokes and Tactical Baby enjoys selecting which "dinosaur flowers" we are going to have. There are also several onion plants in there, also segregated from the bunnies, and it looks like we might have some invincible potato plants coming up as well.

I lined the side of the raised bed with a strip of copper tape, which has proven to be an effective slug and snail deterrent. We did have a cabbage moth caterpillar problem, which was attacking the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage plants we planted, but the invading bunnies ate all the buds from them anyway, so we lost those crops.

What we do have going however is two kinds of kale, spinach,  Vietnamese mint and coriander, tomato and spring onions. We also have several eggplants on the go in there.

Its a very high density plot, and it takes some rummaging to get from one plant to another, but being hip-high has been a great improvement.

My other partner Lorin has been admonishing me for planting the tomatoes in there, and not separately, because of how big they've gotten, but I'm a sucker for high density, bountiful and bodacious harvests, and that covers my gardening too!

We might even give the vertical garden another go, although we've left it a bit late in the season. Between the two extra rain barrels we put in, and the unfortunate reduction in our number of chookens (lost 7 overnight, some kind of illness, down to one, the unkillable Princess Layer, veteran of four previous calamities) we might even make more use of the back yard this summer. 

Review: United Cutlery M48 Spear

Here's a fun item that I've had sitting by my front door in the umbrella stand for a while, and thought I should give it screen time. I've had a soft spot for spears for a long time, perhaps not as long as with swords, but still, a good long while. My first spear was a Kenyan Maasai spear, and I've previously shown off my Cold Steel Boar Spear which is as impressive a spear as you're likely to ever wave around and at 208cm (82 1/8"), it's not something you carry around lightly.

This is the M48 Kommando Survival Spear, by United Cutlery. This is another of the M48 family, which I have covered before with the Walking Axe and the very handy Ranger Hawk.
Sharing the same 30% fiberglass haft as the Walking Axe, which measures 92cm (36 1/8”) this is actually quite short for a spear, and reminds me of the Zulu Assegai and Ikiwa spears.

As with the Walking Axe, the haft is about 10-15cm too short for me to use as an effective cane, unless I wanted to grasp the head, never a good idea, really.

With the molded finger grips at the head end, and flared throat to prevent over penetration, the spear itself balances nicely when held here, one handed. Two other grip points, in the form of a series of inset groves about midway and at the butt-end allow for a number of different holds.

 Certainly in the places I'd want to be grasping a spear for close fighting, or in a shield wall, if that were my thing.

With a 20cm (8") head, featuring a rather impressive flat grind bevel on both sides. It manages this by being extremely thick, at almost half an inch at the middle, which features some fluting and holes through the spine, which drops the wight a little.

All up this piece weighs 1kg (2.2lbs), mostly at the head. Given the solid design of the head, I expect that it would take a lot more abuse than the head of the Walking Axe, which as you may have read, experienced some structural failure (but not catastrophically) on my last camping trip, chopping firewood.

I expect the M48 spear to pack a lot more wallop, but a spear is not an axe. I'll have to give some thought to how to demonstrate this effectively. Once again, the length of the spear gave me pause. Longer than a knife, longer than a sword, but not really long enough to keep a foe at more than "arms length". The other option was hunting medium sized game.

I haven't had a chance to go out far enough away from prying eyes to fling it around, but at 1 kg, it makes for a pretty dense package for a thrown weapon. It would make a very substantial club though.

Still, it's size allows it to go a lot of places a full length spear like the Cold Steel Boar Spear just can't. Like across your back whilst scrambling up a ravine, or climbing through a building.

It will fit in a car boot, or even lashed to a bike. That big broad head isn't suited to spear-fishing, but I can imagine that in survival situations it would work nicely for both sea-side wildlife and deterring land predators.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of this spear is its cross section.

I used a pizza box to demonstrate the cross section, and you can see just how solid the M48 blade is. This thing pokes big holes.Perhaps not as wide or deep as the Cold Steel, but certainly broadly.

I've not really had much opportunity to put it thought its paces, the fox that took my last bunch of pet rabbits hasn't been back since I threw the Walking Axe at it (close is NOT a hit, in this case) but I think that local livestock protection and vermin control might well be the best option for this piece, until it comes time to go house-to-house and ventilate a horde.

Guest Post: Grat's Amazing Pickled Eggs

I recently saw a post that I felt I just needed to share as widely as possible. My friend Gareth and I share many self-sufficiency and Kickstarter-gadget loves, so when I saw this recipe, and marveled at not only the way it was written but the way it must taste, I knew I needed to get it out there. 

Pickling is an age-old form of food preservation that I have covered before and is an excellent means to make good use of a bumper crop, for trade or tribulation.

Without much further ado, I will bring you (with only minor annotations, added by me) Grat's Amazing Pickled Eggs:
*****************************************************************

[Or: Breaking Wind, the story of a high-school chemistry teacher who decided to get rich by making obscure home produce.]

This makes 3 dozen eggs, so alter proportions according to your needs. You need 3 dozen of these AT LEAST, right? 3 doz. is the basic unit of pickled eggs, also known as an Eggmouthsplosion. I have, in my gloriously wild past, made 4 Egmsplns at a time. EPIC

You will need:
- A very large sealable jar, or several smaller ones. Enough to hold all this stuff, obviously.
- A trip to the shops because you overestimated the size of the jars you already had.
- 1 small onion, chopped roughly
- Several large sprigs of fresh rosemary [dried is ok, fresh is better]
- 3 dozen eggs, or one Pre-Eggmouthsplosion [Smaller eggs are better if you don't want to wait ages, larger ones are good if you like lots of pickled egg in your mouth all at once which you do.]
- 1 head garlic, loosely chopped
- 2 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp cloves
- 6 bay leaves
- 2 tsp cardamom pods
- 2 tsp whole peppercorns
- 1 tsp whole allspice
- 2 tbsp Tarragon
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 tsp salt [I prefer sea salt or rock salt to the refined stuff]
- 6-7 cups White vinegar [You can use apple cider vinegar or some other deluxe kind, but it gets pretty expensive, and all the flavour comes from the other stuff so you only need this for preserving the eggs and for the characteristic bite.]
- 2-3 cups spring or filtered water [Or at least, not Adelaide Tap water]
- Tweezers to get the eggshell out from under your fingernails. It will happen.

First, put the raw chopped onion and 2 of the rosemary sprigs in the jar. You can be fancy and arrange the sprigs up the sides so that it looks all food-artsy on the shelf if you want. I won't judge you.

Next, hard-boil your eggs. However you like to do them. I won't tell you how, if you don't know how to hard boil an egg, google it. Set them aside to cool.
This will take way longer than you expect, but they need to be cool so they're easy to peel, and trust me, after the first dozen eggs you're going to want them to be easy to peel. You *can* leave them in their shells and let the vinegar dissolve them, but that uses up the amazing power of the vinegar on dissolving shells rather than making your eggs taste like explosions, and leaves a gritty silt layer at the bottom of the jar that is just weird.

If you decide to take this easy path, just use vinegar and no water, to make up for the acetic acid lost to eggshell dissolving and your apathy.
So, assuming you peeled all your eggs, plonk them in the jar. Don't pack them tight, just put them in. Unless you want pickled egg-hexagons, which I did once. Because the whites go stiff and hold their shape. You could probably experiment with this bit and make d20-shaped pickled eggs. If so, I want credit for the idea and pics.

Now comes the fun, smelly eye-watering bit. Take everything except the eggs (and the tweezers) and put it in a big pot. Bring it to the boil, then let simmer for 15 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it cool to the point where, when you inevitably splash it everywhere, it's just annoying rather than a medical crisis.

Now pour this astringent nectar over the eggs. You can strain off the bits, if you're the kind of person who doesn't like to see what torment their food has been through.
Otherwise, just slop it on in there, seal it up, stick it in your fridge. You can keep it on a shelf out of the sun instead; I've done both, and it doesn't seem to make much difference except to how cold your eggs are when you eat them.

Now wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

No, don't check them after three days, that RUINS EVERYTHING! Why would you do that?!
If you went with small eggs, give it a week, and in the interim fill a spare jar with tears of weakness and desperation as you are obviously ruled by your cravings for delicious vinegary eggs.

If you went with large eggs you are a hero and my champion, so wait two weeks for double the XP and a Pickled Egg Medal.

Once opened, scoff half of them in a few days and then hide the jar and don't look at those hideous yellowish-brown ovoids for a few months. Then get cravings and eat the rest.
Enjoy!

******************************************************************************

If you'd like to get in touch with Gareth, perhaps to spur him to write up more recipes,  you can find him on his Facebook, as Gareth Hodges, or via email.

Review: Chicken nipples

No, there's no great punchline here ... just .... chicken nipples .... or perhaps better to say, "gravity-locking beak-activated water dispenser". Either way, these are some very cool additions to my urban homestead that has dramatically improved the hydration levels, and water quality that my chookens are getting.

These valves are sold by  the chicken keepers supply company CC Only as a part of their extensive poultry supply catalog. They have a wide variety of poultry farming supplies, but these little watering devices caught my eye after a post on the American Preppers Network.

The magic of the valve are the twin pins and ball bearing between them.

When screwed into place with the threaded end, the ball bearing and top-pin presses down on the top of the bottom pin, forming a seal. When the bottom pin is jiggled, it moves the ball bearing, breaks the seal, and allows a dribble of water to flow. Once the jiggling ceases, so does the flow of water.

The bottom pin has considerable freedom of movement which means that the chookens can poke and peck at it from whatever angle their little chooken heads come at it.

 In fact, within minutes of placing these out for ours to drink from, they had worked it out and have not gone thirsty since installing them.

This layout was my first iteration, which featured a simple clear bucket, without even a lid, but it did allow me to judge how much water was in it, to guage any leakage, as well as how much the chookens were drinking.

One of the things CC Only were quite clear on is ensuring that the connection was secure.

Drilling a hole in the bottom of the bucket was simple enough, and with a dab of pipe-sealant to close any gaps, the system was pretty easy to set up. The real trick is to ensure the hole is the right diameter, there is adequate material for the thread to bite into, and sufficient sealant to prevent dripping.

I have just recently replaced the plastic bucket with a repurposed baby-food tin with a lid, to stem evaporation and also to reduce the weight , as this big bucket got quite heavy to haul when full. Working with a metal base added a little more difficulty in the fitting, as it wasn't as forgiving as the plastic, but is a longer lasting solution.

These were a great addition to my urban homesteading venture, my chookens have had un-fowled water (hyuk-hyuk) and I think they are a little more entertained with having something to peck at for their water.

Home Front: Vegie Garden update

Perhaps I am overly proud of my little veggie patches, but it's something I've always enjoyed doing, and for as long as I've lived in places with enough plot to plant in, I've done so. Let me be the first to admit, I'm not very good with germinating seeds and keeping them alive to "seedling" size, although I planted sunflowers for Triceratops Girl last season which grew happily.
Here's an update on our main vegetable patch (as opposed to the  more herb-filled bed).

This first shot is of the "first quadrant" and hosts three variates of tomato, two of chilli and three garlic plants.The stringy grass is pervasive and a real pest to remove, it roots deeply.


This is the second quadrant, recently weeded, and plays host to green-red kale (the big leafy thing), reclaimed leeks (the bright green on the left, which sprouted from the discarded cut rooty-ends of supermarket leeks. The two big green shoots on the center left edge are more garlic, sprouted from gloves that germinated on our shelf. The long spindly looking thing is the remains of the broccoli that went to seed. I wanted to let it go full term so we could maximize our chance of getting a second season out of it. Some potatoes can be seen poking through the top right of the shot. Need to replant those to save them from going green.

Quadrant three hosts celery (top right), which is shooting up, spring onions shoots through the middle and matured, "gone-to-seed" plants along the top of the frame, and spinach all along the right of the shot. Retired kendo shinai slats make great garden stakes. Recycled futon planks make my walkways. More potatoes throughout. They are invasive but a welcome find when they aren't stifling other crops. The pumpkin is the same way.

Here are the new additions. two punnets of sweet corn (NOT popcorn variety like the last rather unsatisfying crop we grew, accidentally). I also planted basil, in between the rows of corn.In the process I dug in a bucket of chicken poop and old nest-hay, harvested from under the chookens. Digging it all in gave me the ability to clear out a bunch of grass-toots, and other detritus, as well as find and re-home some more potatoes.

I'm really hopeful that these two will be good "companion-plants"  and I may even rish another set of beans, once the corn-stalks mature. So far we've had zero success with beans.

Home Front: Training and Skills

As I mentioned in my opening post, I believe there is a lot we can do in order to be ready to face a disaster or catastrophe. Not just stockpiling needfuls, or getting the best kit and setup. More than choosing a prime bug-out location or arming yourself to the teeth, knowing how to survive in the face of hardship, and having the skills to get you out of a tight spot, and make it work in the long term to my mind is the difference between the gormless masses and the prepared. Molding the body and mind, as my kendo instructors have taught me, takes time, effort and dedication. Good teachers will guide, but it is up to the individual to learn, work and expand on that. I was inspired at an early age reading my fathers extensive library of Golden Age sci-fi. I came across this quote and it's stuck with me.

"A man should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Lazarus Long Time Enough For Love - Robert A. Heinlein 

I like to think that in my life, I've managed to accumulate a number of skills, and more importantly an attitude much like those referenced by Clint Eastwood's character GySgt Highway in his 1986 film, Heartbreak Ridge "Adapt, innovate, overcome!". Somethings, like raising and keeping chookens, and growing a vegetable patch are pretty pedestrian, and apart from the space and effort of maintaining them, they are pretty low-skill skills to acquire. A while back I decided that the feral doves that were raiding our chooken food were worth potting, so modified a part of the bunny hutch to make a "lobster pot" type trap. 

After catching a bunch of them over the space of a few days, and plucking, gutting and cleaning them, I was able to make a variety of reasonably-tasty meals with what was essentially foraged meat. Later after deciding that it was a LOT of work for what it was, we returned the wire extension to the bunnies, much to the delight of Triceratops Girl (or in this case, Bunny Girl)

Cross training, is a skill that can be applied to -life-, not just the adventurous. I happen to be adventurous, so my cross-skilling takes that path. I can sail-board, snorkel and SCUBA dive, I learned to drive a 4WD in the desert of Dubai, in preparation for possible evacuation in the lead up to the First Gulf War as a teen, though it was a lot longer till I was road-licensed. Spending a lot of time climbing indoor walls (and buildings, before parkour became a "thing") whilst in uni gave me a good feel for rope use, rigging and ascension. Not to mention how to get into places that you generally shouldn't or expect to be able to.
I took woodwork in Junior High in Canada, from which some skills with hammers, nails, chisels and saws came, good for building, breaking and repairing when simply buying a new one isn't an option.Having "handy" skills is a real draw-card, I've found, and opens many doors, especially when in a community that might otherwise lack that particular set. Knowledge is currency in the information age, but so are social skills. Being able to network with those around you is just as much a learn-able and valuable skill as being able to knock together a coop, turn a couple of hand fulls of seeds into hearty dove stew or rigging a rope bridge across a chasm. Not everyone can be good at everything, and one person, whilst able to accomplish a lot, will be taxed and stressed enough by a disaster situation, without having the pressure of "doing it all themselves". Gather your crew, work out who can do what, who is willing to learn and do new things, and how you can improve and develop everyone's skills, and attitudes.

Most people wont find the prospect of my training for the Tough Mudder to be very appealing, then again, who relishes the idea of digging in the fields to get next seasons crops in, or doing a full inventory audit of your supplies? Some things need preparation, in order to be ready for the challenges ahead!


We have a saying in our house, which is pretty well understood by us and ours "you get a place in our bunker..." (and the converse, equally holds "they DON'T get a place in the bunker..."). So perhaps you need to ask yourself, have you got the skills it will take to adapt, innovate and overcome? If not, or if you think there are things you could learn, train and develop in yourself, when is too soon to start? gambatte!  

Home Front: Perservering Preserving

 Food, and the correct storage of food is a major component of medium and long term disaster preparedness, in my opinion, not only from a pure survival point of view, but also from a morale and social well being point of view. Any starving student can tell you that you can live on beans, porridge, rice or ramen, but that it isn't a lot of fun. Same goes with MRE's and other stockpileable staples. I've read through the LDS preparedness manual, and it didn't strike me as setting an exciting table. There are ways and means to not only make long lasting supplies, but make them interesting, and also make good use of the ample times in ways that many modern folks may simply overlook. I've done a fair bit of reading on preservation, and my background in Microbiology has served me well too. There are some basic aspects that are easy to grasp, and apply to almost all food preservation; Sterilize, aseptic technique, reduce water, inhibit growth and inhibit oxygen. By no means an exhaustive list, but a good guide.

Here's how I use these aspects to preserve food, and keep it tasty, for far longer than the base products would last fresh. The tomatoes we grow in our vegi-patches all ripened at once, and faster than we could eat, so in the grand Southern European tradition, I dried them. I used an electric dehydrator with herbs also from the garden after scalding them with boiling water, and packed them in a steam sterilised jar, covering them with oil. Dehydrated, [naturally acidic], inhibited oxygen (the oil), delicious. I also make my own beef (and other meat, although I haven't been allowed to use our rabbits) jerky, which alas, I have none remaining to photograph, but, really, dehydrated meats are an awesome means of preserving them, if not making delicious snacks.

A girlfriend of mine had a lemon tree overburdened with fruit a couple of years ago, and we collected a cooler full. As well as lemon tart, lemon juice and the like, we quartered many of them, packed them with salt and covered this in juice. This salt-lemon juice slurry eventually jellified, and the lemon quarters took up the salt. Again, dehydrated, oxygen inhibited and delicious. A combination of super high salt and acidity inhibits bacterial growth. These will last for years, and make an amazing addition to my cooking.

Similarly, a glut of fruit from my partners family's house gave us the opportunity to try our hand at making quince jam. This was harder, quinces requiring a bit more preparation to being good, but as an experiment we had nothing to lose. Jam is again, a dehydrated, acidic, highly concentrated, (and if made properly, with good aseptic technique) long lasting method at turning a crop of fresh food into a long lasting  food stuff that can improve man simple recipes, add valuable calories and be utilized in a variety of ways.  We've added it to sauces, marinades, on toast and into baking. Jam-making can be laborious, but is well worth the effort, month if not years down the track. Its a skill anyone with thoughts of preparedness should ad to their repertoire.

Salting and sugaring are not always the best ways to preserve all foods though, and pickling is just as ancient, and downright tasty a means to make fresh produce last a long time. A combination of acidic and oxygen depleted environments, as well as good sterilization lets you preserve a variety of foods (eggs from our chookens here, with herbs from the garden, mustard and garlic). Looks horrific, tastes amazing. A layer of olive oil on top acts and a further oxygen barrier. Eggs, cucumbers, cabbage, fish, the range of foods than can be pickled is vast, and it's really easy to do. Just be sure to read up and follow instructions to ensure its all done safely, because as will all preservation, getting food poisoning from it would be terrible!

Which leads me to the last means by which I preserve foods, fermentation. I have a home brewing kit, and a rather large collection of Grolsch swing-top bottles thanks to my beer-drinking friends, and have turned apples, ginger, honey and the like into a variety of bacteria-free, yeast enhanced, safe to drink beverages containing anywhere from a slight tingle to fountainously foaming carbonation. The fact that these may have also been mildly to highly inebriating is merely a side effect, but after a day of converting car tyres to body armour, or fighting off waves of triffids, a relaxing home made foamy drink is a great refresher! 
 

Home front: micro-farm

I thought I'd take a slightly different tack today, being a sunny (but with storms looming) Saturday here,  and give you a look at some of what we do here to not only ease the family budget (which lets me buy toys) but also to supplement our dinner table with fresh-as-can-be produce and teach us all some preparedness skills.  I live in a quite well-to-do suburb, in a run-down but happy shared, rental property. We are an anomaly in our street, not only for the company we keep, the age of our house, but also the way we utilize it. Water tanks and grey-water diversion were an early step as was planning usage of the land we have to work with. 

What have we got?