Cans with pebbles for security

       A thrifty and legal way to local security

Back when I was on active duty in the Marines, we had plenty of magnesium trip flares to use for local security. This goes back decades. They even messed up some best laid plans of high school types wanting to make out in the woods. But that is another story.

And for sure they messed with the bad people.

And I don't think I can get them these days, and it is probably illegal for me to have them anyway, like if I stole some.

Now there is a commercial alternative that uses chem lights, but they are too expensive for my budget.

So I looked at Plan B, which is to improvise. Earlier I had trespasser problems, and jury rigged boat fog horns to go off, but the many yard dogs also tripped them, and I gave up after a while. It was funny to see a dog go vertical when it set off a fog horn in the middle of the woods. Apparently, they can get scared, too. I left the trip wire remnants along obvious trespasser routes, and they did some good. Plus I also looked at other improvisation means, like using flash bulbs and rat traps, but decided against those, mostly because of yard dogs. And I did use my computer to make some "personalized" signs that I also hung in the obvious places.

I figured the old phrase from my recruiting time still was valid. Basically, if I screw with one bad person, they will tell other bad persons, and amplify the effect. The recruiting phrase was "one aw shit" was worth "thirty atta boys", by the way.

Now yard dogs do make good biological alarms, but they are not too sneaky, which was one of my objectives.

And once I caught some trespassers (one is now a local deputy sheriff), but all I did was chew them out, and send them on their way. Now being in shape counted; and I was running two marathons a year at the time, so all I did was cull out the chubby one (later the deputy sheriff), and he dropped in the woods after a short chase. The other just reeled in real easy.

Even thieves had self respect back then, and treating them with dignity after catching them solved my problem for a while. Now if times get hard these days, and these people are hungry, then that solution probably won't work very well.

So back to thrifty local security.

Having seen a lot of WWII movies, I do remember GI's using trip wires with cans on them and with pebbles in them. They would shake and make noise if someone or something tripped them. The noise was limited to the area they were in, so no bother to the more distant compound area where others might be sleeping.  And if no one was attending to the local security at the location, well at least the bad people did not know for sure what was going to happen if they also heard the noise, and that would confound their dilemma.

So I am saving my cans of various sizes, and I have plenty of sandstone and limestone pebbles, and that is my thrifty improvisation plan for now.

Now, of course, there is usually more to a local security plan than just trip flares of any kind. But right now my trip flares will be made from cans and pebbles and trip line of some kind. After all, I also want to use metal trip lines for snares for food catching, if times get hard. And in this regards, I do have plenty of nylon line that will sag over time, so that means extra maintenance time, too.

Alas, there is no free lunch. Especially when it comes to being secure, and fed.