Bushcraft Magazine May Meet 2014 pics (pic Heavy)

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Mesquite

It is what it is.
Mar 5, 2008
27,806
2,893
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~Hemel Hempstead~
Finally got around to sorting out what pictures I took at the Bushcraft Magazine May meet this year.

The site is down in deepest Kent near to Egerton, and is a split level field. Unfortunately the heavy rain that there had been the previous couple of days made the lower section rather boggy so the guys had to do a bit of rearranging of where things went but personally speaking I feel that made for a better meet. :)

Luckily the upper section whilst wet, was fine for pitching on apart from the re-hydrated sheep droppings :rolleyes:

Both Shark Designs and Bison Bushcraft had stalls there selling some interesting bits and pieces but I managed to resist their temptations. Ross from Kaos Forge was also there doing demonstrations and running make your own knife or fire steel sessions.

Anyway to the pictures

My home for the weekend


My dinner the first evening, 21 day aged rump steak, cooked bleu with buttered new potatoes and fresh picked ramsons... nom nom nom :)


This lovely lady is Carol, a master forager and wonderful wild food cook


And this is some of her tasty wares, alexander tartlet and a wonderful idea with cheese I'll describe in the next pictures


Wild leaf salad with feta cheese


Take a small Brie wheel out it's box and slice into 3 sections. Put a load of sliced up ramsons on the first section and put the middle section on.


Then repeat the process with more ramsons. Use the stalks as well as they're very tasty indeed. :)


Once you've put the last layer of brie back place in the wrapper (having peeled the plastic part off) and put the whole thing back in it's box and in a dutch oven and bake for 20 minutes or so until the middle has melted down and then tuck in. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of the finished stage as I was too busy sampling it :) If you don't have ramsons to hand then a savoury pickle is a suitable alternative so it's going to be tried out at Dingly Dell this year :cool:

The Pirates had their archery range and kit out for folks to have a go at as well as axe throwing


For the Robin Hoods amongst the people who tried there was this special target :)


There's a fire face peeking out at me from behind the log on the on the right...


He's still looking


Every day started with a morning briefing of what activities were on offer that day


A piece of natural art created during one of the children's activities


Here we have Steve Kirk projecting an image of the sun onto the board and he's pointing out sunspots




One of the stools created by a green woodworker that was on site


There was a bodgers corner where you could have a go on the pole lathe and carving


I missed this being made but it's a great hurdle for sure


As well as this chair that was under construction


This rather proud looking young man had forged the knife that day, then turned the handle on the pole lathe and was just about to carve out a wooden sheath for it. Talk about hand made :)


There was a stick maker who has made sticks and wands for a variety of television programs including Merlin as well as films. Unfortunately I forgot his name :eek: but these are a few of his sticks




This was his stick making class


Ross with his forge


There was also a lady who was demonstrating spinning and you could have a go as well


The caterers for the weekend were the Wild Food Catering who had some very tasty things to try. Their pulled boar rolls were especially nice :D


That's all my pics but there were a lot of activities going on, foraging, game prep including a deer, pyrography and para cord bracelets, fire by friction, leatherwork, spoon carving etc etc.

Many thanks to Steve Kirk, Mafro, Bardster and every one else who helped to organise the event. All in all it was a very enjoyable weekend and I'll be going back next year. :)
 
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Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
Looks like an excellent event :D Loads of interesting stuff to see and do and get hands on :approve:

Thank you for the write up and the photos :D

atb,
Toddy
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Cheers Mesquite,

That looks a crackin' event. Lots to do and a good variety of things at that. My empty belly drew me especially to that baked cheese, and the steak dinner. As you said nom nom!

Cheers for posting up sir!

GB.
 

Swallow

Native
May 27, 2011
1,545
4
London
I'm not getting the time to write this up the way I would like to. So here's a chunk, which may or may not be joined later with more chunks.

Also bear in mind this a 3 day weekend which is £75.00 for 1 Adult or £125 for a family of up to 5. (no affiliation with the bushcraft magazine)

Friday

Got home from pretty much chaos at work, but decided to take a pretty chilled approach for a change to packing up. Wild Wolf and I set off about 9 pm to explore the joys of google directions. As the move from grey to green progressed the adventure unfolded. It was dark by the time we got off the M20 and hit the country lanes and somehow that actually helped with navigation, maybe it was the focus that did it. We had a nice little moment during a comfort break where we saw the plough, but Polaris was visible through a circular gap in the canopy of a tree almost like nature's highlighter.

We found the site only two "hang on a minute" moments where the directions were out. Wild Wolf was very proud of himself and high-fived on arrival.

We pitched up on the first available spot set up the tent had some snacks and turned in. Setup was in full on girly mode. Survival blanket on the floor (the thick non-disposable ones that are orange on one side). Two helium 3.8 mats covered by a double sleeping mat, covered by a wool rug covered by a duvet thing that folds up into a cushion (as obtained from the finest service station establishments on a previous trip). The bit where it all went pear shaped was Wild Wolf's desire to have the sleeping bags zipped together like a duvet and the two of us under it. Ms. Swift and I had learned earlier in the year this doesn't work too well when it is cold. And makes me wonder about how the sharing body warmth thing. So we used the rated to zero 3 season bags instead of the rated to -20 centre zip Bison Bushcraft bags (where the zip is fixed closed at the bottom). I corrected this mistake after 2 nights of dodgy sleep and got a good nights sleep the third night. Was toasty all night in the Bison Bag (no affiliation) and that in itself in unusual as usually I have a problem with being too warm at the start of the night and too cold in the morning.


Saturday
In the morning I rubbed the grass to confirm my suspicions and indeed the dew came off as ice.

Into the meet itself then. The May Meet was once described to me as halfway between the Moot and the Wilderness gathering. There's a validity to that, but of course, reality doesn't fit into sound bites, so it turns out this meet has a completely different dynamic from either of those.

Wild Wolf's Meet
I don't think we had even had breakfast before Wild Wolf had already hooked up with his network of mates from previous Moots, Meets and Gatherings. I had assumed that he was going to be off with them for the duration playing whatever games were in vogue for this meet. But I was to be proved wrong. This Meet had a different dynamic for him and while he still spent over half his time messing around with his mates below is an example of what he turned out with no prompt from me.

NOTE 1 spot the green paracord bracelet.

NOTE 2 someone tell us what the "dipper" on the left with rings is for Wild Wolf thinks it is for liquid depth and Ms. Swift thinks it is for planting.

MayMeet1_zpscf3957f8.jpg


MayMeet2_zps74f5e630.jpg



MayMeet3_zpsc7e57786.jpg



The rabbit prep was particularly brave given his high level of sqeamishness. The photos don't show his axe throwing or archery and likely he got up to some atl atl and some catapultery without me knowing.


Swallow's Meet


Saturday
Rewinding a bit to go more linear on on my meet....

The morning meeting was sitting on straw bales round the campfire having the activities laid out for us. For the morning I went with Steve Kirk's foraging walk. A lot of it went over my head, which I don't mind too much for a first pass. Before we'd even got started we were stopped at an Oak tree learning about tree bees. Steve's first find was St. George's mushrooms. The mushroom tip was to pull/dig up the whole mushroom so you have the volva(??) and root and can identify it better. The next plant found was an example to avoid, Lords and Ladies. It got a bit alarming at that point as he mentioned a young Lords and Ladies Leaf can be confused with, and growing among, Ramsons. It turned out Steve had had a delivery of Ramsons in his veg delivery and had found such a leaf among them. This spiked my attention as Ms. Swift had arrived home with Ramsons from the farmers market the previous weekend. Next up was something poisonous and grows in a watery ditch and is in the celery family. Confuse-able with something else but not if you dig up the roots which are quite distinct and produce a nauseating orange sap when cut. Then hop tips (good) and then something a lot like hop tips (not good) though the later have shiny leaves. We found them growing around each other which Steve took as an opportunity to remind us to stay switched on when picking and not lapse into gather mode having identified a patch. It got a bit blurry for me after that point but I switched on for plantain and learned it was used for all sorts of healing including butns and nettle stings (better than docan) and has a regenerating effect on the cells. It's used for treating snake bites. Where the anti venom stops the destruction of the bite the plantain poltice can regenerate the cells.

After the walk was feeling a bit too famished to wait for cooking and got one of the boar burgers.
 
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Paulm

Full Member
May 27, 2008
1,089
183
Hants
Looks like a great weekend :)

The wooden thing on the left in the picture above is a gardeners dibber, for planting of leeks, onion sets, bulbs or whatever. Here's some more here destined for a charity fund raising stall next month !



Cheers, Paul
 

Swallow

Native
May 27, 2011
1,545
4
London
That's a great write up Swallow, I'm looking forward to the rest :)

So I still haven't had time to come back and fill in the rest of this, I thought I would get it done this year. Rescuing gyms is more work than I thought.

17 days to the next one. Hope to see more of you there this year.
 

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