The two boys and i have a day up the woods today, we had planned on doing an overnighter yesterday into today, but for various reasons, it didn't happen, so a day trip it was.
We decided on this trip to have a small fire, A) because it's some time since we had one up here and B) it had been raining and it was good practice in wet/damp weather fire lighting.
So we started to prep our materials, i had split a load of hazel rounds with a small axe, whilst eldest then battoned some thinner kindling sticks down from the split wood and youngest stripped a load of birch bark down into a good pile
Youngest's birch bark pile
our split stick kindling, all held off the very damp ground by our grill (made from rebar and an old office chair)
Youngest had the duty to build the initial fire lay
and then to light it, no messing around with sparks and char cloth today, he used a match for a change.
we soon had the makings of a sound fire
Once the fire had been set, we set up a couple of hammocks, this is my DD Travel with a poncho liner under blanket that i wanted to test for fit & function, the blanket fits well, the hammock, i hate.
eldest setting one of his hammocks, this is a lightweight single layer one we use as seat when out and about as it takes very little room and it weighs nothing
youngest doing some whittling
before we knew it, it was lunch time, eldest cooking his pasta in sauce thing on his Swedish Army mess set
what was surprising is how green the woods are still, down by home a lot of the leaves are all yellow and/or have already dropped
i went off and collected some hand drill materials, i found a lovely crowded Elder tree up here and i use it as my drill source as the stems tend to be fairly straight.
youngest did a good job of keeping the fire going
Eldest meantime, was just chilling out in his hammock
a little time later we called it a day as the time was getting on and it was beginning to rain (again), if it had been earlier in the day we would have put a poncho shelter up, but as it was only 30 minutes or so before we had planned to leave, we called it day and headed back to a decent cup of tea.
We decided on this trip to have a small fire, A) because it's some time since we had one up here and B) it had been raining and it was good practice in wet/damp weather fire lighting.
So we started to prep our materials, i had split a load of hazel rounds with a small axe, whilst eldest then battoned some thinner kindling sticks down from the split wood and youngest stripped a load of birch bark down into a good pile
Youngest's birch bark pile
our split stick kindling, all held off the very damp ground by our grill (made from rebar and an old office chair)
Youngest had the duty to build the initial fire lay
and then to light it, no messing around with sparks and char cloth today, he used a match for a change.
we soon had the makings of a sound fire
Once the fire had been set, we set up a couple of hammocks, this is my DD Travel with a poncho liner under blanket that i wanted to test for fit & function, the blanket fits well, the hammock, i hate.
eldest setting one of his hammocks, this is a lightweight single layer one we use as seat when out and about as it takes very little room and it weighs nothing
youngest doing some whittling
before we knew it, it was lunch time, eldest cooking his pasta in sauce thing on his Swedish Army mess set
what was surprising is how green the woods are still, down by home a lot of the leaves are all yellow and/or have already dropped
i went off and collected some hand drill materials, i found a lovely crowded Elder tree up here and i use it as my drill source as the stems tend to be fairly straight.
youngest did a good job of keeping the fire going
Eldest meantime, was just chilling out in his hammock
a little time later we called it a day as the time was getting on and it was beginning to rain (again), if it had been earlier in the day we would have put a poncho shelter up, but as it was only 30 minutes or so before we had planned to leave, we called it day and headed back to a decent cup of tea.
.......Fallen trees make both good work benches & windshields 
