Daily Survival

Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Rice Storage Containers – How to Store Rice So It Lasts for Decades

Rice is one of the cheapest calories you can stockpile, but it only stays that way if the container holding it actually does its job. A bag of rice tossed on a pantry shelf in its original packaging is an invitation to moisture, oxygen, and every pantry bug within smelling distance. The right rice storage container is the difference between a food reserve that lasts thirty years and one that turns into a weevil colony by next summer.

This guide breaks down every container option worth considering, what actually kills rice in storage, and the exact setup to use depending on how long you need that rice to last.

Why the Container Matters More Than the Rice

White rice, on its own, is nearly indestructible. It is low in moisture and low in fat, which means there is not much for bacteria or rancidity to work with. Left in a sealed, properly stored container, white rice can remain edible for decades. Brown rice is the opposite story. It still has the bran and germ layer intact, and that layer carries natural oils that go rancid, so brown rice is working against the clock no matter what you store it in.

The container is what controls the two things that actually destroy rice: oxygen and moisture. Insects need both to survive and reproduce, oxidation needs oxygen to occur, and mold needs moisture. A container that blocks all three turns rice into one of the most stable foods in your entire stockpile.

Extension research from Virginia Tech’s food storage guidelines confirms that raw white rice stored in tightly closed containers at room temperature stays good for about a year at minimum, and refrigeration or freezing extends that considerably. That is the baseline with a mediocre container. A proper long-term setup pushes that number into the decades.

The Container Options, Ranked

1. Food-Grade HDPE Buckets (Best All-Around Choice)

A 5-gallon food-grade bucket made from high-density polyethylene is the standard for a reason. It is rigid enough to resist rodents, stackable, cheap, and reusable indefinitely. Not every bucket qualifies as food-grade, though, so check before you fill one with rice.

Look for the recycling symbol with the number 2 inside it. HDPE, resin code #2, is the plastic the USDA recognizes as food safe.
Check for a cup-and-fork icon or the words “food grade” or “FDA approved” stamped on the bottom.
Avoid buckets that previously held non-food items such as paint, drywall compound, or chemicals, even if they look clean. Residue soaks into the plastic and can leach into food.
A 5-gallon bucket holds roughly 30 to 35 pounds of rice depending on grain type.

For the lid, you have two choices. A standard snap-on lid works fine for short-term rotation, but it is not truly airtight and takes a rubber mallet and a pry bar to remove, which discourages regular use. A gamma seal lid solves both problems: it uses a two-piece, double-gasketed design that screws on and off like a jar lid while still sealing tight against air and pests. If you are storing rice you plan to access regularly, the gamma lid is worth the extra cost.

2. Mylar Bags with Oxygen Absorbers (Best for Multi-Decade Storage)

If your goal is genuinely long-term storage, a bucket alone will not get you there. Buckets, even sealed ones, allow a slow trickle of air exchange over months and years. Mylar is a metallized polyester film that is essentially impermeable to oxygen, moisture, and light, and when combined with an oxygen absorber, it creates a nearly oxygen-free environment inside the bag.

Use Mylar between 5 and 7 mils thick. Anything thinner tears easily and is more vulnerable to punctures during handling or from rodents chewing at a corner.

Oxygen absorbers do the actual preservation work once the bag is sealed. They are iron-based packets that chemically bind free oxygen inside the bag, starving both spoilage organisms and any insect eggs that might already be present in the rice. Sizing them correctly matters:

A 1-gallon Mylar bag of rice needs roughly a 300 cc oxygen absorber.
A 5-gallon bucket liner needs approximately 2,000 to 2,500 cc total, split across multiple absorbers if needed.
Oxygen absorbers begin working the moment their packaging is opened and cannot be reused or recharged, so only open what you will use in one sealing session.

This combination, rice sealed in heat-sealed Mylar with the correct oxygen absorber, stored inside a food-grade bucket for rodent protection, is the setup that gets cited across prepper and food storage circles for keeping white rice edible for 25 to 30 years and brown rice usable for up to five years before the oil content starts to turn.

3. Glass Jars

Glass with a tight rubber-gasket lid is airtight and does not react with food, which makes it a solid option for rice you rotate through within a year or two. It also lets you see exactly how much rice is left and whether any moisture or pests have gotten in.

The tradeoff is fragility. Glass is a poor choice for anyone storing food as a hedge against earthquakes, tornadoes, or general disaster conditions where the container might get knocked around or the structure around it might collapse. Reserve glass for kitchen-counter rotation stock, not your long-term reserve.

4. PETE Plastic Bottles and Soda Bottles

Clean, dry 2-liter soda bottles made from PETE plastic are a popular budget option for small-scale rice storage. They seal well, stack reasonably, and cost nothing if you are already recycling them. The downside is capacity. You will need a lot of bottles to store meaningful quantities, and the thin plastic offers no protection against a determined rodent.

5. Metal Containers

Skip metal for direct rice storage unless it is a purpose-built, enamel-lined container. Over time, moisture in the rice can react with bare metal and accelerate spoilage or introduce off-flavors. If you like the look or durability of a metal tin, put the rice in a sealed bag or liner first and use the tin as an outer shell rather than direct contact.

6. Number 10 Cans

Number 10 cans are the format most commercial freeze-dried and dehydrated food companies use, and for good reason. They are hermetically sealed at the factory with an oxygen absorber already inside, giving you the same 25-to-30-year shelf life as a DIY Mylar setup without any of the sealing work. The catch is you cannot easily do this yourself without a can sealer, so this option mostly applies to rice you buy pre-packaged this way rather than rice you are repackaging at home. Commercial organic rice sold in sealed buckets with absorbers built in follows the same principle at bucket scale.

Kill the Bugs Before You Seal Anything

Here is the part most container guides skip: the bugs are usually already in the rice before you ever open the bag. Rice weevils and their eggs can be present in grain at the point of harvest and survive milling and packaging undetected. Sealing infested rice in a perfect container just seals the bugs in with it.

Freeze the rice for 3 to 4 days at 0°F or below before transferring it to permanent storage. This kills any weevils, larvae, or eggs already present. Let the rice come back to room temperature before sealing it to avoid trapping condensation inside the container, which introduces the exact moisture problem you are trying to prevent.

Dried bay leaves placed directly on top of the rice are a common secondary deterrent, since the eucalyptol compound they contain repels weevils and moths. Treat this as a backup measure alongside freezing, not a replacement for it.

Sizing Your Container to Your Supply

A detail most people overlook: a large container that is only half full has a significant pocket of air sitting above the rice. Every time you open it, that air pocket refreshes with new oxygen and moisture. Match container size to the amount of rice you are storing, and when a bulk container gets down to half its volume, consider consolidating the remainder into a smaller container instead of leaving dead air space above it.

For planning purposes, Utah State University Extension recommends storing roughly 25 to 60 pounds of rice per person as part of a broader one-year grain supply, which works out to two or three standard 5-gallon buckets per person if rice is your primary grain reserve.

Storage Conditions That Extend Shelf Life

Cool: aim for below 70°F. Every 10-degree drop roughly doubles shelf life for dry goods.
Dark: UV light degrades plastic containers over time and can slowly break down nutrients in the rice itself.
Dry: basements prone to dampness and garages with wide temperature swings are worse locations than an interior closet, despite being the default choice for bulky buckets.
Off the floor: pallets or shelving keep containers away from concrete moisture and make rodent access marginally harder.

White Rice vs. Brown Rice: Container Requirements Differ

White rice has had the bran and germ removed, stripping out most of the oil that causes spoilage. This is why white rice can sit in a well-sealed bucket for decades. Brown rice keeps that oil, which means it is going rancid from day one regardless of container quality.

According to USA Rice’s storage guidance, brown rice has a shelf life of around six months at room temperature due to that oil content, extendable through refrigeration. If long-term storage is the goal, white rice is the far more practical choice, and brown rice belongs in your short-rotation stock rather than your buried-for-a-decade reserve.

Signs Your Rice Has Gone Bad

A stale, musty, or paint-like odor, most common in brown rice that has gone rancid.
Visible clumping or discoloration.
Small holes in individual grains, webbing, or live insects, which point to an infestation rather than spoilage.
A sour or off smell after cooking, even if the raw rice looked fine.

If you see mold or the bag has swollen from gas buildup inside a sealed Mylar bag, discard the contents. Do not taste it to check. The risk of foodborne illness is not worth confirming a hunch.

Quick Answers

Can you store rice in a regular plastic container long term? No. Standard kitchen containers are not airtight enough for multi-year storage and will not stop moisture or oxygen exchange over time.

Is it safe to store rice in a metal container? No. Bare metal can react with moisture in the rice over time and is not recommended for long-term storage.

Do you need oxygen absorbers if you are using a gamma seal bucket? No, not for storage under two to three years. Yes, if you want the 20-plus year shelf life that only an oxygen-free environment provides.

Will Mylar bags stop rodents? No. Mice and rats can chew through Mylar. Store sealed Mylar bags inside a rigid bucket for rodent protection.

Take Your Food Storage Skills to the Next Level with the Amish Ways Book

Knowing how to store rice properly is just one piece of the self-reliance puzzle. For generations, the Amish have relied on simple, time-tested methods to preserve food, reduce waste, and stay prepared without depending on modern conveniences.

The Amish Ways Book is packed with practical knowledge you can start using today, including:

Traditional food preservation and storage methods
Canning, dehydrating, and pantry organization tips
Homemade staples and old-fashioned recipes
Self-sufficiency skills that save money and increase resilience
Natural solutions and forgotten homestead wisdom passed down through generations

Whether you’re building a long-term emergency pantry, living more sustainably, or simply wanting to waste less food, this book is filled with proven techniques that complement everything you’ve just learned about storing rice the right way.

Don’t stop at one survival skill. Discover the practical knowledge that has helped families thrive for generations and start building a more self-reliant lifestyle today.

Get your copy of the Amish Ways Book now and unlock centuries of practical homesteading wisdom!

Final Thoughts

For everyday rotation, a food-grade bucket with a gamma seal lid gets the job done with minimal fuss. For a genuine long-term reserve, that same bucket should hold rice sealed inside Mylar with correctly sized oxygen absorbers, after a freeze cycle to eliminate any hidden pests. Skip glass and metal for anything beyond kitchen-counter quantities, and always size your container to the amount of rice actually inside it. Get the container right, and rice becomes one of the few foods in your stockpile you genuinely do not have to think about again for decades.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026

16 Homeschool Tips + Organization Ideas for Beginners

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The post 16 Homeschool Tips + Organization Ideas for Beginners appeared first on The Survival Mom.

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How to Grow Your Own Yeast

Estimated reading time: 23 minutes

Yeast is Everywhere. You Just Have to Know Where to Look.

The yeast we buy in the store was invented in 1868. Before then, bakers used wild yeast to make their bread rise. The Egyptians are believed to be the first to make bread with yeast about 4,000 years ago.

We'll cover a lot of the techniques they used because we’re working with the assumption that you don’t have access to store-bought yeast and don't have any stockpiled. Given the fact that commercial yeast has a shelf-life of 2 years, stockpiling yeast may not be an answer in the first place.

Table of Contents

What is Yeast?
4 Steps to Making Your Own Yeast

What is Yeast?

Yeast is a fungus. It’s a single-celled microorganism. It thrives on natural sugars and as it grows and multiplies, it gives off carbon dioxide gas and alcohol as waste products. This is a result of the fermentation process that takes place as the yeast converts sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide is what gets trapped in bread dough, causing it to rise, and the alcohol is what turns grapes into wine and grains into beer and spirits. The alcohol burns off when the bread is baked, but the air cavities caused by the carbon dioxide remain.

Multiple Yeast Species

There are 1,500 varieties of yeast species. The most widely used is Saccharomyces Cerevisiae or the “sugar eating fungus” which is the species isolated by Fleischman’s in 1868 to make the first commercial yeast. It’s the type of yeast primarily used in bread baking.

The first form of manufactured yeast was a cake that was a small square of active yeast that needed refrigeration and spoiled quickly. As a result of World War II, Fleischman’s developed a granular, dry yeast that’s still used today.

The sugars that yeast consumes consist of sucrose found in sugar cane and sugar beets (white sugar), fructose and glucose found in honey, molasses, maple syrup and fruit, and maltose which is a natural sugar found in the whole grains that make flour.

Wild Yeast

Another variety of yeast is the wild yeast or Saccharomyces exigus. It’s commonly found on fruits, plants, and grains and was the yeast that the ancient Egyptians and other ancient cultures used to make their bread.

You can recognize it as the light, white film or dust that sometimes shows up on grapes, blueberries, and other fruits. It’s this wild yeast that we’ll be exploring as an alternative to store-bought yeast.

Where to Find Wild Yeast

Like any other form of fungus, yeast is everywhere floating in the air as spores and settling onto just about everything. Fortunately, there are certain destinations that keep it alive and growing naturally.

These locations are predominantly plants, but it’s the plants high in natural sugars that seem to present the wildest yeast. That’s why the fruits of wild plants are often a source of wild yeast.

Traditional Wild Sources

If you ever wondered who invented wine, the answer is simple: grapes. Grapes are a yeast magnet, and grapes can actually ferment on the vine and turn into wine. The same goes for other fruits high in fructose like plums, apples, blueberries, and even oranges.

It’s believed that the Egyptians used the wild yeast from grapes to make their bread, but that’s only a suspicion. What’s worth noting is that even raisins carry wild yeast and so do other dried fruits you might have in your pantry like apricots, prunes, and others.

What's important is that they are still soft in their dry state, not overly saturated in chemical preservatives, and the skin is intact. Dehydrated fruits in #10 cans like strawberries simply won’t work.

Herbs are another possibility and a few people have even touted wild grape leaves and stems for when the wild grapes were out of season. Regardless, the key is to find a fruit or plant that is unaffected by pesticides or fungicides and hasn’t been washed. Maybe that’s why wild fruits are your best bet for wild yeast.

Capturing the Yeast

In a nutshell, you’re going to combine warm water with something in a large glass canning jar.

32 ounces is the standard recommendation because you’re going to be adding more flour and water as you go. You’re going to let your wild yeast water combination sit in the jar in a warm area loosely covered for about a week.

After about a day, you’ll notice the color of the water is starting to change and the yeast source may be floating.

With luck, your water will turn cloudy and bubbles will form at the top of the water. This is a sign that you’ve successfully captured some wild yeast.

If you’re unsure about having success, you can always have a few jars from different sources going at the same time. This could be a jar with wild grapes, another with raisins, and a third with just water and whole wheat flour. Even an unbleached flour made from whole wheat could naturally produce yeast. If all three work, combine the waters. If one or two fail, you hopefully have success with the third.

You then drain the water through a screen and add it to a new, sterilized jar along with flour and a sweetener like sugar or honey to get it started.

You don’t have to add any kind of sugar, especially if you’re using a naturally sweet source like grapes or apples, although wild grapes are low in natural sugars.

This next part of the process is referred to as a “starter” and you’re essentially creating an environment for the wild yeast to grow and multiply.

It’s the same process used to make a sourdough starter, but the hints of flavor you get from your wild yeast may vary from a traditional sourdough.

A portion of the starter dough is then added to flour to make your dough for your bread, and the remaining starter is reserved and maintained with the addition of more warm water and flour to keep it going and growing. It’s best kept refrigerated, but you can also freeze it and it will come back to life when thawed and re-fed more flour and warm water.

We’ll get into specific recipes and process for capturing and growing wild yeast along with some bread recipes but first, here are some things to keep in mind as you attempt to grow your own yeast at home.

Yeast Growing Tips and Cautions

Here’s a collection of yeast growing tips and cautions for both the preliminary process of isolating the yeast in warm water and continuing to grow it in a starter of flour and water.

Wild Plants:

Wild herbs and fruits are a common source for wild yeast, but make sure you only use edible wild plants and fruits. Poison Ivy is the obvious thing to avoid but many plants and fruits are toxic to various degrees. The simple rule is: if you wouldn’t eat it, don’t soak it in water to harvest yeast.

Water Source:

Avoid tap water that has been chlorinated. The chlorine will kill the yeast. Bottled water, spring water, and even well water work fine for harvesting and growing yeast. Yeast prefers a water pH that is slightly acidic to neutral.

7 is a neutral pH and well water averages a pH of 6.5 to 8.5. The minerals in well water also help yeast growth, but any water will work as long as it hasn’t been chlorinated. If city water is your only source, let it sit in a pitcher for 24 hours and the chlorine will neutralize.

Potato Water:

Potato water shows up again and again as a great liquid medium for encouraging yeast growth. If you have potatoes, boil some and use warm potato water to jump-start your yeast growth. Some people add some mashed potatoes to their jars as well. That’s up to you.

Temperature:

Try to start with water that’s about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. You could use a thermometer or water that is warm to the touch, but not hot water. Water that is too hot will kill the yeast.

Pamper Your Yeast:

Over time, keep your yeast jar in a warm spot. Possibilities include on top of the refrigerator, next to the stove, the counter above the dishwasher, or a sunny windowsill. The temperature range over the days it takes to grow your yeast is ideally between 70 degrees and 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dried Fruits:

Dried or preserved fruits are an excellent source of wild yeast if you don’t have access to fresh fruits or wild plants. Just make sure they are sulfur-free. There’s a food color preservative called Sulfur Dioxide that will show up in the ingredients list on the package. It’s safe to eat, depending on your feelings about food additives. But if the dried fruit has this additive, don’t use it. The yeast will be dead on arrival.

Odors:

There will be odors emerging from any yeast growth, and while they’ll be a bit pungent at the outset, they should mellow out over time to a faint sweetness. The things to watch out for are offensive odors you would associate with a septic tank. While wild plants have their share of yeast, they also could have bacteria that will thrive in your warm water mix. If in doubt, throw it out.

It’s another reason to have more than one jar going if you’re concerned this might be a problem. That way, you have a backup or two if one goes bad. And yes, the fermentation process associated with yeast does in fact produce alcohol which kills germs, but that active fermentation doesn’t begin at the start of the process when you’re first capturing the wild yeast, so stay vigilant.

Hooch:

Don't confuse this with mold. If you see a thin layer of liquid pooling on top of your starter that's clear, grayish, or even slightly amber, that's called “hooch.” It's just alcohol the yeast produced as a byproduct, and it shows up when the yeast has eaten through the available sugars faster than you've fed it. It's not a sign of failure. You can either stir it back in for a slightly tangier loaf or pour it off before feeding. Either way, hooch means it's feeding time, not toss-it-out time.

Fresh Fruits:

Ideally, any fresh fruit you use as a yeast source like grapes, plums, apples, or others are either harvested from your own property or grown and purchased locally at a farm stand. Grocery stores wash their fruits, and many fruits that they have delivered are also washed when harvested. This removes the wild yeast which occurs on the outer peel or skin of the fruit. Contrary to conventional wisdom, you don’t want to wash the fruit before immersing it in your jar of water. You want to keep the wild yeast.

Sterilization:

Any jar or container you use to grow your yeast should be sterilized at the outset. Making yeast for fermenting wine or beer requires extensive sterilization across steps, but for bread yeast, all you have to do is start clean and sterile at the beginning of the process. Baking the bread will also kill any resident bacteria from a wild yeast harvest 99.9% of the time.

Gluten:

Gluten-free is a phrase you hear a lot these days. Some people are genuinely gluten intolerant and could even have celiac disease. But you should know that yeast loves gluten. Bread flour has the most gluten followed by all-purpose flour. 100% whole wheat flour has the least amount of gluten, although it may contain wild yeast.

If you want to increase your odds of success, use bread flour as your yeast growing medium. You could get good results with whole wheat flour, but wild yeast is fussy and some people report that yeast grown in whole wheat flour gives the bread an off-flavor. One possibility is to blend some bread flour and whole wheat flour together. The unbleached whole wheat flour may give you the added bonus of its own wild yeast.

Curiously, whole rye flour has been identified as a yeast superfood. If you have some, use it to get your yeast going or as a boost while it’s growing. Not necessary but worth knowing. Once again, up to you. And it is possible to grow yeast in a gluten-free medium if you want to make gluten-free bread, but you want to make sure to add sugar or honey to give it something to feed on. You could add a sweetener to any other flour to kick-start the yeast growth as well.

Mold:

If you notice distinctive colors that are not obviously derived from the fruit or vegetable like pink, green, blue, white, or black, or fuzzy mold—toss it immediately. Yeast isn’t the only fungus to find its way onto fruits and plants. Raisins will make the water a light brown, turning to a cloudy brown. That’s fine. Grapes could easily give you a purple or shade of blue. No surprise. But if the color is unexpected based on the source, that’s not good.

Surface Growth On Top:

If the top of the starter has a film that’s either white or a clear yellow liquid, don’t worry. That means the starter needs more flour and water. Add it the minute you notice it. There’s nothing wrong, the yeast is just telling you it’s hungry.

Maggots:

Don’t blame the yeast. Some flours have eggs from various flies waiting to emerge. If you spot maggots in your starter, toss it and start over. You might want to toss the flour as well. If there were maggots in there once, there are probably more where those came from.

Winter:

Good news. Yeast survives in winter. In fact, many people freeze some of their yeast starter for later use. If it’ll survive your freezer, the wild stuff will survive outside in winter. Better yet, winter cold kills many free-ranging bacteria floating in the air, so you may get a cleaner wild yeast harvest. Spruce tips are often touted as a source of wild yeast in winter, and pine cones as well.

4 Steps to Making Your Own Yeast

These are broad steps with some mini-steps in between. Once you get the hang of it and have some success, you’ll see that it’s actually pretty easy and you may start using use wild yeast on a regular basis.

Here are the 4 basic steps:

Harvesting and Capturing the Yeast
Growing the Yeast in a Starter
Using Your Yeast for Baking
Preserving Your Yeast

You’ll also need some basic equipment:

Large jars with lids (wide-mouth Mason jars if you have them)
Chopsticks for moving stuff around in the jars
Un-chlorinated water
Flour for the starter (bread flour is best)
Sugar (white sugar, brown sugar, honey, molasses, or maple syrup)
Cookie sheet for drying and preserving for later use
Bread baking equipment (mixing bowl, bread pans)

What If Nothing Happens?

Sometimes you'll do everything right and still end up staring at a jar that just sits there looking like plain water for a week. Before you give up on it, here's what's usually going on and what to do about it.

No bubbles after 5 to 7 days: Your water may have been too cold, your source may have been washed or treated with a preservative, or the room is too cool. Give it a few more days in a warmer spot before tossing it. Wild yeast doesn't always show up on a schedule.

Bubbles show up, then disappear: This usually means the yeast ran out of food. Add another small spoonful of sugar or a splash of the same fruit juice you started with and see if it kicks back in.

It smells like nothing at all: A completely odorless jar after a week, no sweetness, no tang, nothing, is usually a sign the yeast source was a dud. This happens most often with grocery store fruit that's been washed or waxed. Start a new jar with a different, unwashed source rather than waiting it out indefinitely.

It's still not working after two tries: Some sources are simply more reliable than others. If wild fruit isn't cooperating, fall back on the flour and water method (just whole wheat flour and warm water, no fruit at all). Flour almost always carries some resident wild yeast, and it's often the most forgiving place to start if you're new to this.

1. Harvesting and Capturing Wild Yeast

Your primary challenge is finding a reliable source for “found” or wild yeast. Here are many of the possibilities that people have used over thousands of years. Some are from the wilderness, others from orchards, and others hiding quietly in your pantry.

All of these sources should be unwashed for this first step and, in small quantities, sufficient to fit into a 32-ounce jar filling it up to a maximum of 1/4 of the jar space. If you like, you can use multiple jars to increase your chance of success until you get the hang of how this all works.

Grapes (wild grapes are best)
Plums
Blueberries
Apples (all varieties including crab apples)
Orange peels
Grape leaves and stems
Spruce tips
Pinecones
Herbs like mint, lemon balm, tarragon, and other sweet herb varieties
Raisins
Dried apricots
Prunes
Whole wheat grains
100% unbleached whole wheat flour

There are no doubt other possibilities. The general key is to make sure a natural sugar is present in the plant in some way to sustain the wild yeast that alighted while blowing in the wind.

Supplies:

Jar with lids all sterilized
Warm water (ideally 110 degrees)
Wild yeast source (we’re using raisins)

Directions:

Add a cup of raisins to the jar (or whatever else you may choose to use).
Fill the jar 2/3 full with warm water (110 degrees F).
Let the jar sit in a warm place for at least 7 days.
Check the jar daily. You’ll notice the water taking on a translucent color at first and then slowly begin to get cloudy. That’s good. That means the yeast is present and has come to life.
Keep checking the jar and look for bubbles floating on the surface. That’s really good because that usually means the yeast has activated and is starting to grow and multiply.
After about 5 or 6 days, you’re ready to strain your yeast for the next step.

2. Growing the Yeast in a Starter

Strain the yeast water into another sterilized jar until it’s about 1/2 full.
Add flour and stir with a chopstick until it’s the consistency of pancake batter.
Add a teaspoon of a sweetener like sugar or honey or whatever you have on hand and blend it into the mix. (Optional, but not a bad idea.)
Loosely cover the jar with a lid and let sit in a warm place.
Check the jar from time to time. You’re looking for bubbles to start showing up.

Continue to add a little flour and warm water for a few days to strengthen the starter. If it looks like it will overflow, discard half. On average, it can take a week to establish a good yeast starter.

3. Using Your Yeast for Baking

You can use your homemade yeast for anything that calls for yeast as an ingredient. We’re going to play it safe and use a tried-and-true recipe that has historically used a yeast starter: Sourdough bread.

It’s quite possible the result won’t have the same flavor profile as a San Francisco sourdough because the flavor of any wild yeast can vary, but regardless, we should get a good result.

The Float Test

Before you commit a batch of flour to a loaf, it helps to know whether your starter is actually strong enough to do the job. Drop a small spoonful of your starter into a glass of room-temperature water. If it floats, even partially, it's full of enough trapped gas to leaven your bread, and you're good to go. If it sinks straight to the bottom, it needs another feeding or two before it's ready. This little test can save you from baking a dense, flat loaf and wondering what went wrong.

Wild Sourdough Bread Recipe

(Makes a 1-pound loaf)

Ingredients:

1 cup of yeast starter
1 cup of flour (add a little more a tablespoon at a time if the dough is too loose or sticky)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of warm water (add a little more a tablespoon at a time if the dough is too dry)

If you want to make a larger loaf, you don’t have to add more starter. The one cup of starter is enough, although you will have to add more warm water if you add more flour.

Here’s some easy math for proportions and loaf sizes:

1 cup of starter + ¾ cup water +1 cup of flour = 1-pound loaf
1 cup of starter + 1¼ cup of water + 2 cups of flour = 1.5-pound loaf
1 cup of starter + 1½ cups of water + 3 cups of flour = 2 pound loaf

You’ll also have to find a larger bread pan for the larger loaves, and remember you can always add a bit more flour or water to get the dough consistency right.

Directions:

Combine the ingredients in a bowl and mix with a spoon or your hands.
Toss some flour on a surface and knead the dough for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Oil a bread pan.
Drop the dough into the pan and cover with a damp washcloth and let it rise in a warm spot in the kitchen for about an hour. If you want, you could let the dough rise on the counter for an hour and punch it down and let it rise in the bread pan for another hour or more. It all depends on how well your yeast behaves and what kind of rise you get in the dough.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and bake on the middle rack for 25 to 30 minutes or until the crust is browned.
Let rest for 10 minutes and slice and serve.

4. Preserving Your Yeast

Most people don’t want to wander the woods harvesting wild yeast every time they bake a loaf of bread. If you’re one of those people, you should take some steps to preserve your newly tamed wild yeast. Another thing to consider is that this is a hit or miss proposition. It may not work the first or second time. When you finally get a good result from a nice loaf of bread, you want to hold onto that successfully captured wild yeast.

There are 3 ways to do this: refrigerating the starter, freezing some starter, or drying the starter as a powder. All 3 methods work, and some people do all 3 just to make sure they never run out of yeast again.

Then again, if you bake frequently, you can just keep your starter on the counter. You’ll have to check it daily to see if it needs more water or flour, and this assumes that you will be using the starter quite frequently.

You’ll also want to keep the lid loosely attached and maybe crack it open once a day to “burp” the starter and release any carbon dioxide gas that has built up. If you choose not to keep your yeast going on the counter, you need to get a little more ambitious, although it’s all pretty easy.

Here’s how to do it:

Refrigerating Your Yeast

Just tuck your jar in the back of the fridge. You’ll still need to keep an eye on it because it will still be active and may need to be fed with water and flour once a week and occasionally burped. Here again, keep the lid loose.

Freezing Your Yeast

The easiest way to do this is to pour your starter batter into ice cube trays and, after they’re frozen, store them in a re-sealable plastic bag. 1/4 cup of starter yields 3 average size ice cubes, so if you need a cup of batter, you’ll need 12 frozen cubes of yeast starter.

The yeast should keep for years (assuming you have nothing better to keep in the freezer) and should reactivate when thawed and added to warm water and flour in any recipe.

Drying Your Yeast

Pioneers would spread the yeast batter on a cookie sheet, cover it with cheesecloth and let it dry in the sun. Crumbling the dry batter on the cheesecloth over a bowl collected the flour. Save in the fridge in a jar.

You could also spread the batter on some small plates and dehydrate in a food dehydrator. When dry, crumble the batter and store in the fridge the same way.

An oven is an option but requires some attention. Spread the yeast starter batter on a cookie sheet and let it dry in the oven on the middle rack at the lowest oven setting. Check it frequently and the moment it is brittle enough to turn into a powder, take it out. If this isn’t done perfectly, the heat will kill the yeast, so stay vigilant.

Beyond Bread

Once you've got a healthy starter going, don't feel like loaves of sourdough are the only thing it's good for. Any discard or extra starter you'd otherwise throw out can go straight into pancake or waffle batter for a little extra rise and a pleasant tang. It works just as well in pizza dough, biscuits, and even crackers.

This is a good habit to get into anyway, since a well-maintained starter produces more discard than most households can use in bread alone, and there's no reason to let a living, working batch of wild yeast go to waste.

If you’ve ever made your own yeast, feel free to share your ideas, sources, and successes in the comments section. This is a very valuable skill for a very valuable food source that is often hailed as the foundation and fuel of civilization: bread.

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How To Be As Scary As Hell In Less Than 5 Seconds

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Basswood Tree – The Most Useful Tree You Are Probably Walking Past

Most people learn to recognise oak for firewood, maple for sap, and hickory for tool handles. Basswood gets ignored. It burns poorly, the wood is too soft to build with, and nothing about it looks impressive.

That is a mistake, and it is worth correcting. Basswood is the tree that gives you rope. Not cordage-you-could-maybe-improvise, actual rope, strong enough to lash a shelter frame or a travois. It is also one of the best friction fire woods in North America, one of the finest wild salad greens on the continent, a tappable sap tree, the source of a widely recognised medicinal tea, and the preferred carving wood of anyone who makes bowls and spoons by hand.

One tree, six functions. And it regrows from the stump faster than almost anything around it, which means you can harvest from the same plant for decades.

Here is how to find it, and how to get everything out of it.

Identifying a Basswood Tree

American basswood is Tilia americana, also sold and planted as American linden. In Britain the same genus is called lime, which has nothing to do with citrus. The Forest Service describes it as the northernmost Tilia species and a large, rapid-growing tree of eastern and central hardwood woodlands, known as a honey tree, with soft light wood.

Work through these in order and you will not be wrong.

Leaves

This is the fastest tell. Basswood leaves are big, four to eight inches, alternate on the twig, heart shaped, coarsely and sharply toothed, and the base is lopsided. One side of the leaf meets the stem lower than the other. That asymmetry is consistent and it is what separates basswood from every other heart-shaped leaf in the woods.

Bark

Young trees are smooth and grey green. Mature trunks turn grey brown with long shallow furrows and flat topped ridges. Virginia Tech’s dendrology sheet notes the important part for our purposes: the bark is very fibrous. Cut into it and you will see the stringy inner layer that makes this tree worth knowing.

Twigs and buds

Twigs are moderately stout and grow in a zigzag, green in summer and often red in winter. The buds are the giveaway in winter. They are plump, lopsided, with one side bulging out disproportionately, and they sit at an angle. There is no true terminal bud. Chew one and it is edible but slimy, which is a preview of the whole tree.

Flowers and fruit

In early to mid summer basswood puts out drooping clusters of small pale yellow flowers with a heavy honey scent. You will smell a flowering tree before you see it. Those become small hard round nutlets hanging from a distinctive pale strap shaped bract, which persists into winter and is the single most recognisable feature on a bare tree.

Form and habitat

Look for multiple trunks growing in a tight clump from one base. Older basswoods sprout prolifically from the stump when cut, and those sprouts reach canopy size faster than the seedlings of competing species. A clump of three or four straight trunks rising from a common stool is almost always basswood. It favours rich, moist, deep soil, often on lower slopes and near water, and it commonly grows mixed in with sugar maple.

Range is broad. The Forest Service range description runs from New Brunswick and New England west through Quebec and Ontario to southeastern Manitoba, south through eastern North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas to northeastern Oklahoma, east to northern Arkansas, Tennessee and western North Carolina, and back northeast to New Jersey. It is also planted heavily as a street tree throughout the eastern states, so urban and suburban preppers have access too.

Ruling out the lookalikes

Heart shaped leaf, but the base is symmetrical and the margin is smooth with no teeth at all. Not basswood.
Heart shaped and much larger, but untoothed and arranged opposite or in whorls of three rather than alternate.
Leaves can be heart shaped and slightly uneven, but many are lobed, the sap is milky, and the inner bark runs orange. Worth knowing because mulberry bark also makes usable cordage.
Littleleaf linden and silver linden. These are the Tilia species planted along most city streets. Smaller leaves, and silver linden has a distinctly white woolly leaf underside. Both give you fibre and carving wood. Treat the flowers with more caution, since silver linden is not the species covered by the European medicinal monographs.

Cordage: This Is Why It Is Called Basswood

The name has nothing to do with fish. Bass is a corruption of bast, the botanical term for the fibrous inner bark layer between the outer bark and the wood. Basswood is literally the fibre tree.

This was not a marginal use. Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources notes that the inner bark of basswood is very tough and that Native peoples cut it into thin strips for rope, mats and bandages. Across the Atlantic, coppiced linden was managed specifically for bast production for centuries.

When to harvest

Late spring into early summer, while the sap is up. The bark slips off the wood in long sheets during that window and fights you for the rest of the year. Pick a straight stem with few branches and clean bark. Small diameter is fine, two to four inches works well and is easier to handle than a full trunk.

Getting the bark off

Fell a stem or use one that is already down. Do not cut a ring around a standing tree. A complete ring severs the transport tissue and kills the tree.
Score the bark lengthwise down the log, spacing your cuts about three to four inches apart, cutting through the inner bark and just into the wood.
Peel each strip off in one long piece. Aim for ten to twelve feet, which is about as much as you can pull in one go.
Keep the wood. That debarked pole is prime carving stock and prime bow drill material, and it will season fast.

Retting: the step people skip

Raw peeled bark gives you a stiff strap. Rope comes from separating the bast into individual fibres, and that requires retting, which is controlled rotting. Bacteria eat the pectin holding the fibres together and release them.

Submerge your bark strips completely in water, weighted down with stones, in a stock tank, a barrel, or a slow pond. Depending on water temperature, expect anywhere from two to eight weeks. Check weekly. It is done when the outer bark slides off easily and the inner layers pull apart in strings under gentle pressure. Under-retted bark stays stiff and will not separate. Over-retted bark comes apart in your hands and has lost its strength.

Then rinse the fibres in clean water, peel the layers apart, and dry them completely. The innermost layers, the ones that were closest to the wood, are the finest and strongest. The outer layers are coarse and full of holes. Sort them and use the good stuff for anything that matters. Dry bast stores for years and rehydrates in a bucket of water when you need to work it.

The shortcut worth knowing

Find a dead basswood that is still standing or hung up off the ground, and nature has done the retting for you. The bark is already loose and the inner bark is already broken down. Peel it, pull it apart, and twist it up the same day. This is the single most useful piece of field knowledge in this article. Learn to spot dead standing basswood and you have a rope supply with no processing time at all.

Twisting it up

Reverse wrap is the standard. Take a bundle of fibres, find the midpoint, and twist until it kinks. Then twist each half away from you and cross them over each other, repeatedly, keeping the tension even. Splice new fibre in staggered so the joins never line up. For a thicker rope, make three thin cords and ply those together.

Set your expectations correctly. Basswood cordage is genuinely strong and pleasant to work, and it was used for real loads for thousands of years. It is not as strong as dogbane, nettle or good flax, its abrasion resistance is mediocre, and green fibre shrinks noticeably as it dries. Test every batch before you trust it, and never use natural cordage where a failure would drop a person.

Fire: One of the Best Friction Woods in North America

Basswood is close to the softest hardwood you will find outside of balsa, and softness is exactly what a bow drill needs. Soft, low density wood abrades quickly, produces fine dust fast, and resists glazing. Experienced friction fire practitioners routinely rank it in the top handful of species on the continent.

The rules for using it:

Both the spindle and the hearth board should be basswood. Matching the species avoids one part chewing up the other.
Dead and bone dry, both pieces. Green wood will not produce an ember, full stop. Take standing dead wood off the trunk, well off the ground, where the bark has already fallen away.
The bearing block is the exception. Green hardwood, a knot, a bone, or a stone works better there because you want low friction at the top.
Your bow string can be basswood cordage, which means the entire kit comes off one tree.

The inner bark also gives you tinder. Take dry bast, work it between your palms and against a rough surface until it breaks down into a fine fibrous buff, and you have a nest that catches an ember reliably. Basswood as spindle, hearth board, cordage and tinder is a complete fire kit from a single species, which is the kind of redundancy that actually matters when you are cold.

Food: Five Edible Parts

Young leaves

The best of the lot. Basswood leaves in spring, while they are still soft and pale, are among the finest wild greens in North America. Mild, faintly sweet, slightly mucilaginous, and produced in enormous volume. This is not a nibble-and-move-on plant. You can fill a bag in ten minutes and eat it as a salad base.

Look for the sprouts and suckers coming off the base of a mature tree. Those stay tender far longer than the canopy leaves and they are at chest height instead of forty feet up.

As leaves mature they toughen. Mid season leaves still work rolled around a filling like a flatbread, and dried mature leaves can be crushed and used to extend flour. Both of those are calorie-stretching moves rather than treats.

Buds

Edible raw, available all winter, and very mucilaginous. Nobody is going to enjoy a meal of them, but they are a real cold-season nibble on a tree you can identify with snow on the ground, and that has value.

Flowers

Pick them in early summer while they are fresh and fragrant. Edible raw, and this is the part dried for tea, covered below.

Sap

Basswood can be tapped in early spring, before the buds break, the same way you would tap maple. The sap is drinkable straight and can be reduced to a syrup, though the sugar content is lower than sugar maple so the boil-down ratio is worse. As a source of clean, mildly sweet fluid in early spring, it is worth knowing about.

Sterilise your bit or knife before you drill or cut into a living tree. An open wound in a basswood is an invitation to fungal infection, and you want that tree producing for years.

Inner bark

The cambium and inner bark are edible raw or cooked and carry some carbohydrate. Treat this as genuine emergency food rather than a routine harvest, because taking meaningful quantities damages the tree. If you have already felled a stem for fibre, take the food from that.

The chocolate substitute claim

You will see this repeated everywhere. Grind basswood nutlets together with the bracts and you get a paste that genuinely resembles chocolate. It is true, and it is also useless, because the paste is unstable and spoils quickly. Historical attempts to commercialise it failed for exactly that reason. File it as a fun demonstration, not a food plan.

Medicine: Linden Flower Tea

Dried Tilia flowers are a mainstream medicinal product in Europe, not folklore. They appear in the European Pharmacopoeia and the European Medicines Agency holds a herbal monograph on lime flower covering two therapeutic areas: cough and cold, and mild mental stress. The ESCOP monograph lists the indications as feverish colds, cold-related cough, upper respiratory catarrh and restlessness.

The composition explains the traditional use reasonably well. Lime flower carries flavonoids, proanthocyanidins, phenolic acids, an essential oil, and roughly ten percent mucilage. Analytical work across Tilia species confirms the polyphenol profile. Mucilage soothes an irritated throat on contact, and the tea is traditionally taken hot as a diaphoretic, meaning it is used to promote sweating during a feverish cold.

Preparation is simple. Roughly one to two teaspoons of dried flowers in a cup of just-boiled water, covered, for ten to fifteen minutes. Cover it, because the volatile oil is part of the point and it leaves with the steam.

Two honest caveats. First, the European monographs cover the European species, Tilia cordata, Tilia platyphyllos and their hybrid. American basswood flowers have been used the same way for a long time and are closely related, but they are not the material those monographs assessed. Second, this is registered as traditional use, which means the recognition rests on long-standing use rather than on efficacy trials. Allergic reactions to lime flower are documented. It is a mild remedy, and worth having, but it is not a treatment for anything serious.

Carving, Containers and Green Woodwork

Basswood is the standard carving wood in North America for good reason. It is soft, close grained, almost odourless and takes detail cleanly. The USDA silvics record notes that the soft, light wood has many uses in wood products. Ohio DNR notes that being lightweight and odourless made it the wood of choice for crates and boxes used to pack food, which tells you it will not taint anything you eat out of it.

What that gets you in practice:

Spoons, ladles, scoops, bowls and cups. It hollows out with a gouge or a hook knife faster than any comparable hardwood.
Containers from the bark itself. Fresh basswood bark folds and sews into serviceable boxes and baskets.
Tool handles for light tools, mallet heads, wedges and shingles. It is too weak for an axe handle, so do not try.
Withies and lashings from thin flexible sprouts, straight from the coppice stool.
Practice stock. If you are teaching anyone to carve, this is the wood to teach on.

The trade-off is durability. Basswood has low strength, low rot resistance and no business being in ground contact or holding structural load. Use it for things you use in the kitchen and things you can replace.

Firewood: The Honest Assessment

Basswood is bad firewood, and there is no way to spin that. But the reason matters, because it tells you exactly where it does fit.

Almost all wood species contain roughly the same energy per pound at the same moisture content, around 7,000 BTU per pound at twenty percent. Species differences come almost entirely from density. Iowa State University Extension puts it plainly: basswood runs about 25 pounds per cubic foot against shagbark hickory at about 51, so a cord of air dried basswood weighs roughly a ton while a cord of hickory weighs two. The hickory carries twice the heat.

So one cord of basswood is worth about half a cord of good hardwood, and you handle, stack and store twice the volume for the same warmth. If you are heating a house through a northern winter, basswood is not your primary fuel.

Where it earns its place:

Low density wood lights fast and easily. Split basswood down small and it is excellent for starting a load of oak.
Shoulder season burning. Spring and autumn, when you want a short warm fire and not an all-night bed of coals, low BTU wood is the right tool.
Fast seasoning. It dries in well under a year, so a basswood you drop this spring is burnable this winter. Oak needs two to three years.
Easy processing. It splits with almost no effort, which matters if you are cutting by hand or working with a bad back.
Cooking fires. A quick hot flame with little coaling is fine for boiling water.

Season it properly regardless. Utah State University Extension notes that green firewood can hold fifty percent or more water by weight, produces less heat because energy is spent boiling that water off, and generates more smoke and creosote. Get any wood under twenty percent before it goes in a stove.

Bees, Honey and the Long Game

Basswood is called the bee tree, and that is not sentimental. The flowers are extraordinarily rich in nectar, dozens of insect species work them, and during the two to three week bloom a strong hive can put up a serious quantity of honey. Basswood honey is one of the few reliably monofloral honeys in North America, light in colour and strongly flavoured.

The Forest Service classifies it as a honey tree for this reason, and if you keep bees or intend to, mature basswood on or near your property is a real production asset. Ohio DNR describes the resulting honey as very high quality. The bloom timing is useful too, filling an early summer gap in many regions.

The wildlife value runs past the hive as well. Forest Service records note that the seeds and twigs are eaten by wildlife, and hollowing basswood trunks make prime nest cavities. If you are running a property with game on it, that matters.

If you are planting for the long term, basswood is one of the better choices available: fast growing, hardy well into the north, useful in six different ways, and it feeds your pollinators.

Coppicing: Turn One Tree Into a Renewable Supply

This is the part that makes basswood a system rather than a one-time harvest.

Cut a basswood off near the ground and it does not die. It throws up a ring of vigorous shoots from the stump. Forest Service research documents that this stump sprouting is how basswood holds its ground against more shade tolerant competitors, because the sprouts reach canopy height faster than seedlings can. That aggressive regrowth is a nuisance to a timber manager and a gift to you.

Forestry factsheets record the same behaviour in blunter terms, noting that stumps sprout prolifically, often resulting in clumps of several trees. That is a coppice stool forming without you doing anything.

Run it as a coppice:

Cut the stem low and clean, on a slight angle so rainwater sheds off the stool rather than pooling and rotting it.
Cut in the dormant season for the strongest regrowth. Cut in late spring if the fibre harvest is the priority, since that is when the bark peels.
Let the shoots run. Thin them to the strongest few if you want larger poles.
Harvest small diameter poles on a short rotation of five to eight years for cordage, withies and carving blanks. Run a longer rotation for firewood and larger stock.
Stagger several stools on different years and you get an annual harvest in perpetuity from a small patch of ground.

A managed basswood coppice produces rope, tinder, fire kit stock, carving blanks, salad greens and bee forage every single year, from the same square of land, forever. There is not much else in a temperate woodland that does that.

Mistakes That Will Cost You

Never girdle a standing tree for bark. Removing a complete ring severs the tissue that moves food between roots and leaves and kills the tree. Take bark from a felled or coppiced stem, or from a limb that is already down. This is the most common way people destroy the resource they just learned about.

Do not ret fibre in water you or your animals drink. Retting is rotting. It stinks badly and it strips oxygen out of the water. Use a dedicated barrel or tank well away from the house, and never a stream, spring or stock tank in use.

Natural cordage is not life safety rope. Use it for lashings, bundling, snares, trellises, tumplines and repairs. Never for climbing, rappelling, hauling anything over a person, or anything where failure causes injury. Test every batch you make.

Sterilise tools before cutting into a living tree. Tapping for sap or cutting into bark opens a wound. A dirty blade or bit invites fungal infection and can kill a tree you wanted for decades.

Positive identification before anything goes in your mouth. Heart-shaped leaf is not an identification. Confirm the asymmetric leaf base, the alternate arrangement, the coarse teeth, and the strap-shaped bract on the fruit.

Check who owns the tree. Cutting timber on public land or on ground that is not yours is theft in most jurisdictions and a criminal offence in many. Sort permission before the saw comes out.

Seasonal Harvest Calendar

What to take, and when.

Late winter to early spring

Tap for sap before the buds break.
Nibble buds. Identify trees by bud shape and persistent bracts while the woods are still open.
Cut poles for carving stock and dormant season coppicing.

Spring

Young leaves for greens, heaviest off basal sprouts and suckers.
Watch for the bark to start slipping.

Late spring to early summer

Peel bark for fibre. This is the window and it is short.
Start your retting barrel.
Cut withies from flexible new growth.

Early to mid summer

Harvest flowers for tea while they are fragrant and fully open. Dry them in the shade with good airflow.
Mid season leaves for wraps and for drying into flour extender.

Late summer to autumn

Pull, rinse and dry retted fibre.
Cut and split firewood. It will be dry by winter.
Collect nutlets if you want to try the chocolate paste.

Any time

Scout dead standing basswood. That is pre-retted fibre and dry bow drill stock waiting for you.

Master the Skills That Keep You Alive When Everything Else Fails

Knowing that basswood can provide rope, fire, food, medicine, carving wood, and even clean drinking sap is the kind of knowledge that separates surviving from simply hoping for the best. But it’s only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

The Wilderness Long-Term Survival Guide teaches the practical skills that rarely make it into ordinary survival books. Inside, you’ll discover how to identify edible and medicinal plants, locate safe water, build reliable shelters, make essential tools from natural materials, preserve food without electricity, start fires in any weather, trap and fish for protein, and navigate confidently when modern conveniences disappear.

Whether you’re preparing for emergencies, building a more self-sufficient lifestyle, or simply want the confidence to thrive in the wild, this guide provides step-by-step instruction backed by real-world survival knowledge. Instead of relying on expensive gear, you’ll learn how to work with the resources nature provides—just as you’ve seen with basswood in this article.

Imagine walking into the woods and recognising dozens of plants and trees that can feed you, heal you, provide cordage, fuel your fire, or help you build shelter. That’s the kind of confidence that comes from mastering wilderness skills before you actually need them.

If you found the many uses of basswood surprising, you’ll be amazed at how many other common plants and trees can become life-saving resources once you know what to look for.

Click here to discover the Wilderness Long-Term Survival Guide and start building the practical skills that can serve you for a lifetime!

The Bottom Line

Basswood fails the test most preppers apply to trees, which is how much heat does it give per cord. Judged on anything else it outperforms almost everything in the eastern woodland.

It is the fibre tree. It is the friction fire tree. It is the best wild salad on the continent for a few weeks every spring, a tappable sap tree, a recognised medicinal, the carving wood everyone else buys at a lumber yard, and it regrows from the stump faster than the competition can seed.

Learn the asymmetric leaf base and the strap shaped bract. Then go find the dead standing one, because that is where your rope is.

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