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  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
  1. rich59

    Skipton and Keighley elderberries

    Can anyone recommend best places in the Skipton and Keighley area to forage elderberries? I'm in that area in about 10 days time with the sole purpose of taking cuttings and collecting berries from some of the more prolific bushes. A bit of background. There are no UK sourced high yielding...
  2. rich59

    That unusual plant!

    In your exercise I hope you are using the wild places out there. When you are out there look for the unusual individual plant - due to genetics and not environment, not the garden/ commercial varieties. Take a photo and share. Common things to see are - variegation in the leaf colour -...
  3. rich59

    Challenge - never bring anything to start a fire

    One of my regular haunts is my allotment. In order to keep up fire lighting skills I run a rule - that I should only use things found there to light a fire. Way back when I started out I would try to do bow drill and make a cord from the stems of ragwort and make up the other bits from found...
  4. rich59

    Elderberry crop planting on your land?

    Hi, I would be interested to talk to anyone who would be in a position to grow a few acres of elderberries. This is for an elderflower champagne!
  5. rich59

    New on site venue? The Tea Brewer?

    Get out there and say it. I'd like a place on site a bit like the Naughty Corner that's dry. Somewhere where adults and teenagers can gather round a fire, there's always a kettle on, where wood carving and other sharps and practical skills and tools use and sharing can happen, alongside...
  6. rich59

    Elderberry wine making and general country wine tasting workshop

    I aim to run this one evening again at the bushmoot this year. A couple of years ago we had this workshop and it was a great event. Bring yourself if you want to learn about elderberry wine making and taste some. Bring your own country wine making results and share your wine making skills if...
  7. rich59

    Micro embers from rubbing wood together - which woods will form them?

    I was practicing the bamboo fire saw when I noticed something interesting. (It isn't very physically hard by the way.) When rubbing a (nearly) flat piece of big bamboo along a sharpish bamboo edge one can fairly quickly get to a point when there is smoke coming from the wood. Then it gets...
  8. rich59

    bamboo fire saw

    I have had a couple of goes at the bamboo fire saw and, amazingly, I seem to be getting coals. Here is my first one, yesterday. You can just see the ember on the black area of bamboo. And here is how I did it again today, Here are the main parts Close ups of my 3 previous attempts...
  9. rich59

    Elderberry wine challenge

    I'd like to get to taste and compare lots of elderberry wines from a wide range of makers and locations. I will be bringing samples of mine to the summer Bushmoot. Would others like to join in, bringing their own for others to taste? Maybe we could make up a proper workshop on it, share...
  10. rich59

    Make fire with just a newspaper

    The challenge is .... To start with only a newspaper and make fire. No, I haven't succeeded, or tried very hard yet on this. Plenty of scope for trying to modify existing techniques or new ideas. I've got heat. Anyone able to get smoke? No tools except your own hands, teeth etc. no, no...
  11. rich59

    Friction fire with no metal tools or pre made cordage

    Just back from a group/ families holiday in northern France. I filled in the odd hour here and there with the aim of making fire without tools. Resources The main thing available was a garden with Leylandii hedges, grass, some chopped down pampas grass, a couple of ornamental cherries...
  12. rich59

    Plum tree resin

    A few weeks ago I came across some soft plum tree resin on a local tree. Having collected it, it sat on a shelf in the warm for a few weeks. It became hard and clear. Suggestions for uses welcome. Too unstable for jewellery (e.g. like amber)? Will it soften with heat or water or other...
  13. rich59

    Charcoal powder - ultimate tinder? Join in and see what we can do.

    For the last few weeks I have been finding the odd moment to explore how I could create a tinder that has a chance of catching the weakest of sparks such as with "bamboo and china" or "flint on flint". I have come to the thought that very fine charcoal powder/ dust - appropriately aerated...
  14. rich59

    Conkers - getting down to the job of using them

    I am aiming to make a flour out of these guys. Can you suggest the most efficient way of doing this? Drying? Crushing? Once I have the flour then I aim to use it for some inedible purposes - cooking up a tinder cake is what I have in mind. Any other things I could make? However...
  15. rich59

    Hand drill hearth boards

    Inspired by Kepis I looked again at choice of hearthboard for hand drill. I tried a small diameter elder drill (8-9mm) and a piece of sycamore for hearth. Got a coal first time. This suggests to me that pretty well any wood might do for the hearthboard as long as you have an appropropriate...
  16. rich59

    Using the metal match

    I was recently holidaying in Southern Italy and had not been thinking much about bushcraft for a while. I had a day to myself and filled it with a walk up into the local sweet chestnut covered low mountains. Apart from lunch I took some water, a Swiss army knife and a ferro rod and it's...
  17. rich59

    Making alcohol as a survival technique?

    Having spent a considerable amount of my time over the autumn making wines I have been thinking about brewing quite a lot. I came upon the often stated issue of "Small Beer" - how people in the past made a safe-to-drink low alcohol beverage they could drink all day. So I did a bit of searching...
  18. rich59

    Itchy rash after summer bushmoot

    Has anyone else developed an itchy rash on their foot or whole body at, or perhaps up to several weeks after the summer bushmoot? Well I did anyway! It was not straight forward to diagnose, and then it was difficult to treat. So if anyone else had similar and is still suffering then maybe my...
  19. rich59

    There's an app. for that

    2 questions:- What iphone apps have you found of use in the bush? What iphone apps might be useful to be developed for the bush? This might be both serious and lighthearted in approach.
  20. rich59

    What's on offer at the summer bushmoot 2009?

    Curiosity go the better of me. Can anyone report on what workshops are on offer so far at the bushmoot and who's leading them?