Solo Survival Camping in a Log Cabin I Built Myself

I made this log cabin back in the spring, but it's the fall now and my dog and I are gonna camp out of it. It's dropping down to zero degrees tonight, so we have to do some insulating, give it a door, fix it up. We're gonna make a bed, eat some good food, and have a good time. Hey, bear! Wait, hold on. So let's do it. I'll show you what I brought. We're definitely in survival mode, but we have some luxury items. Sleeping mat, because we're gonna be sleeping on logs, but my back needs this. Solar panel light. Hatchet. Food in a bear bag for both my dog and I. Cook set. Oh, you smell something good? For warmth, Kiro has a jacket. We have a wool blanket and I have a sleeping bag. Fire starter, paracord, and just some camera equipment. First aid, some toilet paper. Battery-powered chainsaw, and I'm gonna try out a new tool today. And for fun, I'm gonna set up a trail cam, see if anything walks by the trail tonight. Because it's getting dark so early, I also brought my laptop so I can work on editing. We're gonna make this place feel like home. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous to cut into this log cabin right now. It's so structurally sound. But we need a better opening, so. Okay, that's gonna need to be reinforced. Let's do the other side. Oh, good. So I'm digging out a little trench here so I can put some logs. This tree is very much dead. We can use it. Some of these dead trees are at risk of falling on us, like that one that just fell over. This tree is leaning on this one. So this one's alive. This one's dead. And it's causing this to grow at an angle, so let's take that one down. Kiro is barking at those squirrels. I think I need some water. There's dirt in the mouthpiece. I need a layer of insulation to sleep on, so I'm gonna rake out all of the dirt that's in there and start piling the cedar boughs. And I can use this dirt to fill in some of the gaps at the bottom. I'm just using a piece of wood. Are you barking at those squirrels? He didn't care. Come on. Are you barking at those squirrels? You got spiderwebs all over you. Thank you for scaring off the bears. Thank you. So I patcheted the bottom so it's a little bit more pointy. Hemstring is my best friend for this build. Another one. I love working with small cedars. They're just so lightweight. They're easier to cut into, and their branches are much easier to take off compared to pine branches, in my opinion. It's coming together. I just have to lash like crazy. I'm really happy with the progress so far. For the back wall, I think I can put another log up here. Let me get a really girthy log. There's a cedar back there, so that would be lighter, and this is a big pine. I kind of want this pine out of the way, so I think I want to do this. This is my measuring stick. I need it to be this long plus a leg. Okay, so I need it. Oh, you better watch out. It's so heavy. So this brought the wall up about a foot, and luckily there's enough length in the back. Two eyelets and just tie those together. I found a feather. That was just outside the cabin. I'll have to Google what animal this might be from or what type of bird for now. I've got a bunch of cedar to help insulate the ground, a foam memory pad, and a wool blanket. So I brought my laptop along with me today. I filmed this entire video on GoPro. I am so excited to thank Asus for sponsoring this video, and this is the new ProArt P16. I absolutely love this machine. This thing was built for creators. GoPro and the ProArt P16 have partnered, and there's now a seamless integration for video editing and photo editing. When you purchase the ProArt P16, it comes with a six-month GoPro premium subscription. So that means unlimited storage, automatic highlight reels, synced editing across mobile and desktop. So on the ProArt P16 StoryCube pulls everything in. I can instantly preview 360 videos and send clips directly to my editing software. So for me, I use CapCut, but you could also use Adobe. For those interested in the specs, I'm gonna go into it for just a minute here. It is advanced by AMD Ryzen processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 GPU with up to 24 gigabytes of VRAM. All that means is pro-grade video editing, AI effects that run in real time. Every frame stays vivid and sharp. It's durable to military-grade standards, and it's also extremely lightweight. The Asus dial gives me precise creative control, making editing feel natural. You also get six months of CapCut Pro, which is huge. You can also use that on your phone to edit shorts. And three months of Adobe Creative Cloud. So if you have a bunch of footage sitting on a GoPro or a camera, and you're looking for a laptop to start editing and making videos, I highly recommend this. I'll link it in the description if you wanna check it out. Thanks as always, and back to the video. I wanna cook away from my shelter because the bears are still out this time of year. But first I need to get some firewood. It gets pretty creepy in the woods at nighttime, so I like to cook before it gets dark. It's getting dark earlier as we get closer to winter, so it's not always possible. But gosh, that smells so good. I gotta chop it. So now I've got a wok and a frying pan. Frying pan's for breakfast, though. I'm using this little fireplace because quite frankly, this forest is a mess, and I'd have to do some serious raking to make sure I didn't start a forest fire. I like this lightweight fire pit because it kinda takes away any worries of making sure you've put out all your ash, and if it's a high-risk forest fire summer. There's also pine needles and roots everywhere on this forest floor. There's not a good spot. There's not a ton of rocks to make a fire pit, so this is a good option. You always wanna chop your wood on another piece of wood, but sometimes it doesn't always work out that way. We've got some birch bark. Dusk is around the time where animals start to come out. We've got all sorts of animals, bears, bobcats. I have not seen a mountain lion, but I know they live here. But fire usually deters animals away. I'm gonna use the birch bark and actually scrape off the top layer, and that will be our fire starter. Little feather stick for when the fire catches. I don't know why I didn't think of this myself, but one of you guys commented to leave the birch dust on the paper. Of course, and then you just move it over here. Okay, backup plan. Fire starter, I could go through the effort of scraping through wood and getting some wood dust. This ferro rod is made of fatwood. If you can find fatwood, that will be extremely flammable, but because the sun's going down and I wanna get cooking, I'm gonna use my cotton balls that I have soaked in petroleum jelly, and this is gonna catch the flame quick. Not only does it catch the spark, but it also burns for a while. The entire bottom is black. The fire's calmed down now, so I put the wok back on, starting with some butter. Got some beef. Can you see why I didn't wanna cook next to my tent now? We're gonna throw everything in there. I've got some precooked rice and broccoli. I'm so glad I'm not cooking this beef in the dark. I love fall camping so much. It's cool enough that the mosquitoes are gone. It's a lot easier to work in cooler temperatures than steam and hot weather. The only thing you really have to be prepared for is the nights. The nights are really cold when you stop moving. There's lots of different techniques you can use to stay warm, and I'm excited to try them out throughout this winter. I really love this little portable cook set. Dinner bell, except my hope is it does the opposite. Don't come for dinner, just dinner for two. Once it cooks down a little bit, I'm gonna hit it with some Japanese barbecue sauce. Don't worry, I'll give you some. Okay, let's do a taste test. Mm, that is so amazing. Food cooked over the fire tastes 100 times better. It just has a smoky flavor that you can't get on a cooktop. Really wish I had a fork, but this works. Fried rice tastes the best if it was cooked the day before and it's been sitting in the fridge overnight. Just makes it crispy. I like to bring a little garbage bag. This reusable Ziploc is pretty good, but I don't want it to leak all over my bear bag, so I just keep it in there. The sun is setting, and I think we should go see if we have a view over there. Oh, you wanna eat your dinner now that you've eaten the beef? Okay, go ahead. Don't drop any kibble. Go ahead. To clean dishes, first you don't put onions so that your dog can help you clean it. Don't worry, I'm not reusing this pan again until I can put some soap on it. There is a creek nearby, but I don't wanna put this food in it. First of all, because the wildlife use that as a water source, and second of all, because I don't wanna attract more wildlife. So I always bring a paper towel, wipe to clean. We're gonna leave the fire pit here because I'm using it in the morning. I'd love to have a path down to the creek. Let's start with clearing some brush out. I'm gonna see where the water is cooling up the most, because that's gonna be the best water to access. Look at this beautiful birch that's fallen. Oh, and I shouldn't be walking on it with a chainsaw. It's rotten big time. So I really like that, I think it's a rock. That would be a really nice spot to hang out, especially in the summer by the creek. So if I can clear a path up to the cabin. It's getting dark, but we're gonna go see if we can catch the sunset. Look at that curvy tree. And then it started growing straight again. I've been reading the Hidden Life of Trees, well, listening to it, and it's fascinating. I'm learning so much. There's a cut block here. This is no longer my land. Fall is here, and it's gonna get real cold real soon. This is not a hiking trail, which can only mean one thing. It's an animal trail. Kiro! You can see they all cut through here. Kiro, not too far. This is blue elderberry. It's a little bit out of season, but they're great for your immune system. You have to cook them first, or else it will upset your stomach. But you simmer them for 45 minutes at least. You can make jam out of it, you can make tea, and it helps during the cold and flu season. They're a pale blue right now, but they often get darker in color. There's so many insects and animals that I can hear. The forest is coming alive right now. You just eating a stick? You okay? You wanna go? Okay, let's go. I just heard something. Sounded like coyote. Kiro heard it too. What are you looking at? It's okay, let's go. Okay, back into the forest we go. Wow, it's dark in here. Does that ever make a difference, being under the tree canopy? It's pretty dang cozy in here. Putting my pants in my bag because I think spiders are here. They live here too. So I don't want them in my pants. Kiro, where are you, buddy? You gotta put your jacket on. Okay, I'll just put, oh, okay. I'll just put it over you. He's been running around. He refuses to go to bed. Oh, this is so comfortable. He's got a little light if he's running around, but I saw a roughed grouse on the trail cam the other day and I really want to make a homemade bow and arrow. My only protection out here is bear spray and a knife, so. Hey, bear. Wait, hold on, Kiro. Hey. Oh my God. Okay, there's something seriously making noise out there. Kiro, stay in here. We're good. Kiro doesn't hear anything. Okay. I gotta go check if anything's out there. I think I was just talking about protection, so I got in my own head. If Kiro's not out there barking, then there's nothing out there. Anything out there, buddy? No, we're good. Okay, let's go to bed. Come on, Kiro. All right, we are going to bed and I'm excited to see if there's anything on the trail cams in the morning. And in the morning, I'm making waffles. Morning. Nice jacket you got there, distinguished gentleman. Oh, you're falling. You're falling. Oh, your foot's stuck. I've definitely had better sleeps. I try to stay in my sleeping bag as long as possible because it's that time of year where the mornings are freezing cold and then the afternoons get hot. And by hot, I mean 10 degrees. A few notes. One, I wish I brought gloves. I need to excavate this side because I'm currently sleeping on a hill. I kept my filter close to my sleeping bag so that it wouldn't freeze overnight. Oh, that's bright. I'm gonna go filter some water. This is the trail I tried to clear yesterday. It's definitely a lot better. In the morning light, this creek is so cute. There's a little bridge here. Oh, that's freezing on my hand. Oh, oh, hi, Kiro. Hi, buddy. Hi, Kiro. You ready for some breakfast? I'm using the GoPro Max 2 to get some of these shots. It's their brand new 360 camera and it is so fun to play around with. Filming in true 8K quality. So if you just want half the screen, that's still 4K. I've got the water filtering and now we're gonna work on breakfast. Let's make a fire to warm up, shall we? I checked the trail cams and I can't believe a family of deer came by last night. Even with us, there's a raven squawking above us. I wonder if he's like, get out of my home. If you can, always make extra kindling the night before. Makes your morning so much more enjoyable. Nice thing about using the petroleum jelly is it works as a hand moisturizer as well. I don't even have a lighter, so I hope this works. The birch bark was definitely a little wet because it's causing a lot of smoke. Kiro, you want some food? Yes. I found my spoon. It was just buried way under there. I've never made this in the wild before, but let's hope it works. I've got another container of butter. Put some more on there. Okay, if you've ever heard of brown butter, it's happening. The fire's a little bit too hot, but I don't want it to go out, so. I think I'm gonna start with a small one. This is a really thick batter. Should I add water? I think I'm gonna add water. I kind of burnt the butter. Okay. Jeez. It was getting a little solid there, so keeping it by the fire is warming it up. Should I just do one big one? No. Yes. I don't know if anyone else's dog does this. He will whine for a solid, sometimes it's 10 seconds, sometimes it's two minutes, and I tell him, okay, go ahead. What is he trying to tell me? It's like, I really want that pancake, but I guess I'll eat this kibble. Oh, shoot. Okay. One of the reasons I'm not the best cook is because I'm very impatient. I don't let it slow cook. Did you find a sunspot? The flame's gone, and I'm just letting the smoke bake the pancake, so I'm gonna clean up while that's basically working as an oven. Got some syrup. Pancakes are a hard thing to cook over the fire, okay? Mm. I'm gonna try and get to the sunspot. I'm out of breath. I'm carrying my pan because I don't have a plate, and I realized I didn't bring water, but man, is it a beautiful day. Oh my goodness. Another plane going by. It has chocolate in it. I can't finish it. I gotta put the rest back in that Tupperware. I'm just gonna lay and enjoy the sun a little bit before I have to pack up. Before I pack up, I gotta go wash my hands. Got my bucket. I know it's already out, but it's only out if you can touch it and it's not hot anymore. See, this is still kind of warm. Hello, can you get some water? Oh, my fingers are frozen, they're frozen. Can you warm them up? They're frozen. I'm gonna have to bring my laptop on more of these trips. I really enjoyed editing in the cabin last night. This is the perfect laptop to bring because it's so lightweight and really durable. Luckily, I don't have too far to hike because this might be my biggest pack yet. Thank you guys for watching. I'm headed home to start editing this and then building some walls on my actual cabin, so stay tuned for that.