I want to share my experience as a beginner in the world of bushcraft in case there are any 'just curious' browsers reading this forum wondering what all the fuss is about.
I have been lucky enough to live near what I, with a glorious lack of precision, like to call 'the countryside', for my whole life. As a child it was just a big, green mucky playground. There were things called trees (which I knew were trees because the swings I hung from them were called 'tree swings'). There were plants, which were roughly the same colour as the trees, but smaller, and flowers: like plants, but more colourful.
Then, about 8 weeks ago I decided I wanted to know a bit more. Partly because I'm tighter than a Beyoncé stage outfit and there's a ton of free stuff out there, but also because I like fire and axes and knives and things. This led to me poking around the tinterweb for bushcrafty sites, which then led me here. Some thread reading led to a couple of book purchases, which then led to me experimenting in the outdoors.
My first foray was also my first success when I caught the last day of the birch sap (that was about the second week of April, which shows how new I am to this). So simple... stab a tree and watch it dribble slightly sweet water.
Amazing.
I was so thrilled that something so cool had actually worked for me. Never mind that it wasn't quite the elixir of the gods that Ray Mears described it as, I now knew something. Those trees now had a value to me, they didnt just look good, (look at a Birch tree, how wierd and beautiful is that bark? Shining like a beacon, advertising itself to the world, saying 'here I am, ready for you to use'. Stunning) They had a use. The time I spent walking my dog doubled overnight. I remain stunned by how there is within a stones throw of my front door.
Soon, many trees had names (who knew so much of that scenery actually had names). I've always thought the natural world was a pretty, and pretty amazing place, but familiarity had bred contempt in me.
All has now changed. I wander through the centre of Manchester seeing, not weeds, but Garlic Mustard (edible and smells brilliant when crushed), Hairy Bittercress (also edible, with stunning little tiny white flowers) and Primroses (just outside Victoria Station, edible, beautiful but probably planted as apparently rare in the wild). My dog walk has become a wonderful potential larder (found my first St Georges mushrooms on Monday) though I've not yet had the bottle to eat anything yet, excepting a pignut that I was 100% confident about identifying. The wealth of resources in my immediate environment astounds me, and my immediate environment is hardly pristine wilderness. I regularly find the 'golf ball fungus', a sadly inedible but common fungus, with the drag-reducing dimpled skin, and some even have markings that look very much like they read 'Dunlop' and 'Slazenger'. The ground is littered with, well, litter, and peering through the locally widespread 'Satan's Baubles' I often spot many 'Tin can air-rifle target' fruits, again inedible.
The point is, if you are visiting this site, wondering if this bushcraft stuff is worth the bother, trust me. It is. You will be astounded at the breadth and depth of the new world that meets your eyes, even on your first day out after learning one new thing about it. It doesn't have to be about living like a viking 24/7, whittling a Breville with an axe or travelling to far flung parts of the world with strange looking letters in the placenames, it will utterly transform the very world you already know. Take my advice, fling open the door to wonder and amazement and enrich your life with a little more knowledge about the world in which you will spend most of it.
And sometimes you get to burn stuff too.
I have been lucky enough to live near what I, with a glorious lack of precision, like to call 'the countryside', for my whole life. As a child it was just a big, green mucky playground. There were things called trees (which I knew were trees because the swings I hung from them were called 'tree swings'). There were plants, which were roughly the same colour as the trees, but smaller, and flowers: like plants, but more colourful.
Then, about 8 weeks ago I decided I wanted to know a bit more. Partly because I'm tighter than a Beyoncé stage outfit and there's a ton of free stuff out there, but also because I like fire and axes and knives and things. This led to me poking around the tinterweb for bushcrafty sites, which then led me here. Some thread reading led to a couple of book purchases, which then led to me experimenting in the outdoors.
My first foray was also my first success when I caught the last day of the birch sap (that was about the second week of April, which shows how new I am to this). So simple... stab a tree and watch it dribble slightly sweet water.
Amazing.
I was so thrilled that something so cool had actually worked for me. Never mind that it wasn't quite the elixir of the gods that Ray Mears described it as, I now knew something. Those trees now had a value to me, they didnt just look good, (look at a Birch tree, how wierd and beautiful is that bark? Shining like a beacon, advertising itself to the world, saying 'here I am, ready for you to use'. Stunning) They had a use. The time I spent walking my dog doubled overnight. I remain stunned by how there is within a stones throw of my front door.
Soon, many trees had names (who knew so much of that scenery actually had names). I've always thought the natural world was a pretty, and pretty amazing place, but familiarity had bred contempt in me.
All has now changed. I wander through the centre of Manchester seeing, not weeds, but Garlic Mustard (edible and smells brilliant when crushed), Hairy Bittercress (also edible, with stunning little tiny white flowers) and Primroses (just outside Victoria Station, edible, beautiful but probably planted as apparently rare in the wild). My dog walk has become a wonderful potential larder (found my first St Georges mushrooms on Monday) though I've not yet had the bottle to eat anything yet, excepting a pignut that I was 100% confident about identifying. The wealth of resources in my immediate environment astounds me, and my immediate environment is hardly pristine wilderness. I regularly find the 'golf ball fungus', a sadly inedible but common fungus, with the drag-reducing dimpled skin, and some even have markings that look very much like they read 'Dunlop' and 'Slazenger'. The ground is littered with, well, litter, and peering through the locally widespread 'Satan's Baubles' I often spot many 'Tin can air-rifle target' fruits, again inedible.
The point is, if you are visiting this site, wondering if this bushcraft stuff is worth the bother, trust me. It is. You will be astounded at the breadth and depth of the new world that meets your eyes, even on your first day out after learning one new thing about it. It doesn't have to be about living like a viking 24/7, whittling a Breville with an axe or travelling to far flung parts of the world with strange looking letters in the placenames, it will utterly transform the very world you already know. Take my advice, fling open the door to wonder and amazement and enrich your life with a little more knowledge about the world in which you will spend most of it.
And sometimes you get to burn stuff too.
