Understanding Women

[John Fenna]

I think I must have the most understanding wife in the world.
Those who have been to my place have seen how the Great Outdoors has totally taken over the inside of our house and garage, yet I get not one complaint...
She will insist, however, (and I suppose it is because of our recipe/"fashion"/soft furnishing posts) insist on refering to BCUK as the "WI with balls"....
Do any of you other bushcrafting boys have understanding non-participating Women in your lives (or bushy women)? Bushcrafting women, do you have understanding yet non participating Men in your lives?

 

[decorum]

Mine's been traipsing over hill and hedgerow recently.
I really don't think she'd like the term 'Bushy-woman' though!

 

[sallyinwales]

Hmm, not sure where this household sits on that. We both have workshops in the house, we both traipse mud everywhere but I'm slightly better at sleeping under a hedge without a pillow than he is Mind, he does most of the cooking, but then it is his kitchen, I preside over the stillroom and we both argue about who left the knives on the stairs where we might trip over them and he borrowed my silk thread to bind arrow fletchings with yesterday.

 

[British Red]

John,

I think Bushbaby can definitely can be described as an "outdoorswoman" (as a few here can attest).

She will:

Sleep outdoors
Make a fire and cook on it
Shoot game
Dress said game
Cook up said game fantastically (her roast pheasant is popular but her Partridge Madras is famous)
Dig her own latrine
Navigate well
Carry her own pack and gear
Repair and make my outdoor gear
Use a handsaw or chainsaw or hand axe

What she likes less
Rubbish (aka rat pack) food. She recently did a chinese banquet cooked over an open fire from all fresh ingredients. Fresh lemon chicken and chilli beef with pilau rice and chicken and sweetcorn soup cooked outdoors - yum.
Sharing a disgusting chemical loo - shed rather dig a trench.
Use a two handed axe or maul (or rather she will but I prefer to do it as my technique is better)
Load her own ammo (yet)

Red

 

[bushtank]

My darling wife is very understanding and has started to come out into the local woods have a go at lighting a fire and do some cooking she has a very good eye for spotting wild mushroms.I got her to sleep in the garden with my yongest last week and it rained most of the night she did not enjoy that at all. she also never tiers of getting another carved spoon.

 

[Wayland]

...I opened this thread thinking it might be a guide to understanding women.... Let's face it all men need to read one.

Seriously though, Debs is an absolute star in my opinion.

All the years I was trying to get my business off the ground I never heard a complaint even at times when we were desperately hard up.

Our house is bursting at the seams with books, living history equipment and bushcraft gear and the only time I know it's getting too much is when some of it gets quietly moved into the conservatory to make space.

Debs does join in with the living history and a little camping / bushcraft but I know it's mainly my mess around the place and she takes it all so calmly.

She has never questioned nor criticised the money I have spent on these things.

I really can't believe how lucky I am.

 

[mace242]

Ali, my partner is great. We camp a lot in UK and France. But she really has to have some home comforts so we stick to camp sites. For any that post there she's Snowy747 on UkCampsite.

She supports all my bushcrafty pursuits and will buy me kit for Christmas and birthday pressies. She paid most of my firs bushcraft course as a birthday present. She'll eat stuff I find and prepare - within reason. She's far better at fishing than me - though leaves the killing and gutting to me. And she'll hike with me as far as she's able.

In all I'm pretty darn chuffed indeed.

 

[Mike Ameling]

Luckily, my bushcraft, backwoods lifestyle, living history interests, and blacksmithing have driven the last two "girlfriends" back to the Big City - to some metro-sexual feminized dudes. They seemed to have a minumum number of words that had to be spoken every hour that number in the thousands, changed their minds faster than they made a choice, and nagging/whining had become a full-time occupation for them. To them, the ---city--- was everything. They only met me because the novelty of camping had become a fad in their social circles. Oh, the bad choices we make when we lust after a pretty face - with dead air space inside. I was their "fixer-er-up" project, but refused to become a shallow follower drone. Luckily, they left. (but the bad memories go on and on and on ...)

I know a number of wonderful women who love the outdoors, can do most anything needed, and hunt/fish/camp and do most crafts all the time. Unfortunately, they are all spoken for. So my quest for a female companion continues. Not for an air-head puppy, nor a drama queen, but for a true companion. Someone to walk the hills with, to live/love/work/fight beside. And if she's got red hair ta boot, all the better.

So goes life out here in the Hinterlands.

Mikey - yee ol' grumpy German blacksmith

 

[andyn]

My missus is very understanding, she respects that its part of my lifestyle and allows me to pretty much just get on with it as long as it doesn't start to impact things that need doing at home.

On the up shot she also shows an interest in it too and we have been going camping every year for the last 6 summers, and she has braved a couple of winter trips too now we have the tipi and stove (It was even her idea to get one!!!! ) She has also recently started coming out into the woods camping too, built her own natural shelter, learnt to use a firesteel and maintain a fire, purify water and the such. So i'm well chuffed that its rubbing off on her.

 

[Tengu]

Ah, Mike, Id date you but I fear you might find me too demanding!

I need a humble cottage made of stone at least two hundred years old, and an Iron age fort within easy reach. (other antiquarian remains negotiatable)

can you do that?

 

[Tadpole]

My wife, thinks that staying in a three star B+B is roughing it. She doesn’t mind camping so long as she doesn’t get cold, wet, dirty, smokey, and there has to be no roughness of any kind, there has, on the other hand, to be some where soft to sit and a place where she can rest her tea cup, and read, she doesn’t mind so long as her bed is a ‘real bed’ and the walls of the room are solid and animal proof, (I’ve told her time and again that bears can not rip their way into the tent as there are No bears in Seaton.) Other than that, all she needs is privacy, warmth, shade, sunshine, and shops.
She does however respect and understand that neither myself or my little girl likes or needs any of the above to have a great time. She puts up with me messing up the yard with whittling and wood chips, doesn’t mind the growing collection of carved sticks, wood, and other ‘stuff’ in the garden. She does not seem to mind that her ‘girly girl’ daughter is as happy thinking about wild camping, as she is shopping for hairgrips and the like.
Married now for 20 something years and according to my wife I only have two faults, everything I do is wrong and so is everything I say.

 

[Mike Ameling]

Ah, Mike, Id date you but I fear you might find me too demanding!

I need a humble cottage made of stone at least two hundred years old, and an Iron age fort within easy reach. (other antiquarian remains negotiatable)

can you do that?

Oh, woe is I!

Cruel Fate strikes another blow!

There are several stone houses within a few miles, but they are ONLY 150 years old. Plus, the Viking era village is a century too late! And the ABO cliff caves are waaaaaay too early! (But I have been toying with the idea of a version of Surviving the Iron Age - but doing it for real instead of playing at it like it was a unique paid summer vacation!)

Close ... so close ... but it seems that t'was not woven into the skeane of our lives. I shall have to climb the nearest ridge tonight to join the prairie wolves and howl my dissappointment to the new moon!

As the old Indian was told to do, I shall Endeavor to Persevere - somehow.

So be my stoney path through life - out here in the Hinterlands.

Mikey - that grumpy old hermit blacksmith

 

[crazyclimber]

Visit BCUKDating.com for further details...




yes before someone actually clicks on it, I was only joking!

 

[British Red]

Aaah, Mike - you need my place - solid flint and the Hill Fort is walkable via the bronze age barrows

 

[CLEM]

I fancy em but I don't understand em and if I am honest I don't like em all that much.

 

[Mike Ameling]

The hills here in NE Iowa have been woven into my soul. So I shall stay here - even though their "structural" history is so brief. Any female will just have to accept that.

Understand women? I never said anything about understanding them! Tolerate I can do, but understand? There are some things that Man is not capable of!

Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs just stand there with that "what the ..." look on their faces.

Time to go torture some poor innocent iron with fire, and ... coax it into a new shape.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' hermit blacksmith out in the Hinterlands