Bushcraft Bloopers

[Kath]

Just been practicing a little pyromania as usual in the back yard and reached into my tinder pouch for the last of my dry tinder ... only to find a huge slug :yikes: that had decided it was a nice dry place to hide...

Last night my pothanger collapsed dropping a billy full of water onto the fire...

So what are your funny stories of when things didn't go quite to plan??

C'mon tell all - we won't laugh, promise!

 

[Seagull]

mmmn

its got to be , getting a tremendous ear- bashing from the wife, for stinking-up the whole of a weeks laundry.

kids up in arms cos they couldnt go on their dates.

dog smelt like november the 5th

guess who ,had been practising his bowdrill in the utility room

seagull

 

[ESpy]

Making charcloth indoors.
Pervasive...

 

[MartiniDave]

Last year, just after I got back from my Introduction to Bushcraft with Woodlore (and Ray himself - nice bloke I thought) I went out in the garden to practice firelighting with some bits of cramp ball. I struck a nice shower of sparks with the firesteel, picked up the cramp ball and blew vigorously on it. A big bit of glowing cinder-like material left off the cramp ball and landed smack bag on the chest of my fleece - which my wife had bought me for my birthday. The result was a big hole in the fleece and a rollicking from the missus!! :yikes: The fleece now has a land rover badge sown over the hole as a constant reminder!

Oh well, you live and learn!

Dave

 

[Kath]

:rolmao:

I burned a hole in my skirt the other night the exact same way! :biggthump

 

[jakunen]

Got to be the Dartmoor trip.
I decided to have an early morning cuppa only to discover the brew kit was not in my pack. The remembered I'd put the bag of sugar, tea bags and milk pots by the door to put into my food bag... :roll:
Thankfully Leon came to the rescue!

 

[eraaij]

1) Practising friction fire in the basement. The house did have that nice campfire smell for 2 days.

2) Forgetting that fresh wet muskrat skin in the other basement and wondering where that smell came from.

:rolmao:

 

[TheViking]

Hi...

This year, hiking in Sweden. My father and I agreed that I took the big tarp and HE took nearly all our clothes. And off course, when we stood there, in the middle of nowhere, we discovered that I only had underpants and socks. Nothing more! He forgot my clothes..... :yikes: :roll: :biggthump (Off course I was wearing something! )

Cheers :uu:

 

[MagiKelly]

I was in a local river valley trying out one of those cheap hammocks you get. All went fine at first. I set up the tarp and the hammock underneath it. Then down at the river side got a fire going and settled down to cook some food and enjoy the evening.

The tarp and hammock were about 4 or 5 meters away up the slope. On one side of the hammock the ground was about 2 foot down and on the other about 4 foot so it was a fair slope.

Bed time approached and I decide to get into the hammock. Now this being my first time and not wanting to take any chance of getting wet my plan was to put my thermarest on the hammock, my sleeping bag in my bivi bag and that on top of the mat. Well you can imagine what it was like trying to get in with the mat slipping along the hammock and the bivi bag slipping against the mat and me trying to get in without falling down the hill. Did I also mention this was in the early spring and so pitch dark.

Eventually I decide the bivi bag is more bother than it is worth and settle for the sleeping bag direct on the mat. This is much more manageable but still a little awquard. I am a little disappointed as the sides of the hammock come up and I cannot see around. I like to be able to open my eyes and see what is going on in the outdoors, one of the great advantages of not using a tent. I find if I pull myself up to the string part of the hammock I can see but gravity tends to make me slide back down again. So I get out and adjust the Hammock to make site it is level and taught so I do not slide as much. This makes it slightly easier to see.

Just as I settle down I hear rain on the tarp. So on goes the torch and I lie there watching to see if rain works its way down the hammock ties etc. Satisfied I am in for a dry night off goes the torch and I settle back down. I pull my head up to the string part one last time just as I hear a really loud zipping noise.

Instantly I am on the ground tobogganing down the slope in a sleeping bag on top of a thermarest mat. The stitching holding the strings had burst at one point and almost instantly just ripped out right along. So in the dark shooting down a slope towards the river in the rain. Luckily my arms had been out of the sleeping bag to pull myself up otherwise I would only have stopped when I hit something. I did manage to stop and luckily there was no damage to me or my kit (excluding the hammock). I moved camp to a level area nearby and got the fire going again to dry out so no real harm done other than not getting back into my sleeping bag till after midnight. Still it was all good practice.

 

[jakunen]

:rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao:
Sorry mate, but that is classically funny. Or is it just my warped sense of humour?

 

[Womble]

It's your warped sanse of Humour, Jak.

Shame on you.

 

[jakunen]

And I love you too John!

 

[MagiKelly]

Looking back now it is certainly funny and to be honest even at the time it was quite amusing as nothing serious was at stake.


The really funny bit was how I managed to change from Outdoor Man setting up camp etc to Mr Bean getting into hammock etc than back to Outdoor Man for camp relocation etc.

 

[falling rain]

I once collected cat tail down seed heads after it had been raining and placed it in the airing cupboard in a mixing bowl to dry out before using it for tinder. The next day when I got home from work the Mrs greeted me with a face like thunder. She went to take a towel out of the airing cupboard and there were little maggots all over the show. They must have buried themselves deep into the cat tial down to protect themselves from the rain or something. They were all over the clothes etc. My Mrs absolutely hates maggots and she informed me she'd screamed the place down, and slung the whole bowl and it's maggot ridden contents into the bin. :?: Not the most popular guy in town after that one !! :shock:

 

[jakunen]

Ouch!

 

[Mikey P]

Collecting dry tinder/kindling in a light rain. Stuffed aforementioned tinder/kindling down into inside pocket of new jacket. Or so I thought.

Got back to start fire, reached inside jacket to get tinder/kindling out with a flourish, hand went right down ... and out bottom of what was actually a flap, not a pocket.

Did this in front of mates. Had to go out and get more tinder/kindling while they kept warm laughing.

 

[Justin Time]

Making an anti-gravity pot-hanger on my course with Woodsmoke a couple of years ago....I cut the hook notches on the hanger so they faced upwards which of course meant they couldn't sit on the long pole...... :?: :roll:

 

[alick]

Trekking in the snow long time ago, holding map and ice axe in the same hand, planting compass on top then wondering why I was turning round but still couldn't get the needle to line up with North. Doh ! ):

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

I was on an archaeological project up in Northern California. We 6 spent the first night in a remote park service cabin. We had a fire going in the woodstove with coffee simmering, the resident mice bribed not to muck about and were falling asleep in our bags . Then we heard it, Thump!---Thump!---Thump! and on down the rearwall. A short pause and Thump!---Thump!---Thump! across the front. We had visions of Bigfoot, a grizz, axe murderers as we watched intentedly at the single front door. THUMP!---THUMP!---THUMP! it was around back again. By this time we looked like the Dueling Daltins extracting various manly-man firearms; one.44 mag revolver,a 12 guage shotguns, three Winchester lever action carbines and yours truly with a 1914 SMLE loaded with ancient Canadian Dominion brand 215 grain bear loads- AND a 1907 long pattern bayonet if the10 rounds failed :?: Now another short silence and THUMP!-THUMP!-THUMP! around front. We decided to make a fast egress when it was around the back again, regroup and confront whatever our nemesis was. We did, screaming like banshees as we stumbled overeach other to a slight knoll in the treeline. Several hours of whispered "do you see anything? No, do You? Want to go back inside? Hell no, you first." We were miserable, cold and convinced every slasher film undying killer was sneaking up on us at that very moment. Night finally gave way to the faint light of dawn. Then I saw our beastie. Somebody had brightened the sparce frame cabin with native shrubs @ 3 feet tall spaced evenly around. A night wind would curl down the small meadow, hit the trees and flow back on itself.

 

[Kath]

):

What a good laugh all round! Sorry Magikelly but I could help it! :rolmao:

And Chris the thought of all you guys jumping out with your guns ready ...

Wet muskrats, maggoty cattails, spinning compasses and the rest - you guys are a great crowd! The meetup should be hilarious ... :super:

And Andrew, do tell what an anti-grav potholder is - I gotta get me one of those!?!

:wave: