Plans for the weekend?

[ssj]

This weekend, my friend Dennis and I plan to do some turkey hunting west of Aguilar, Colorado. This is mostly an excuse to crawl around in cammo since I haven't taken a shot in four years of hunting. Turkeys have a reputation for being wily. It's fun though; we'll camp out for a couple of nights and hope it doesn't snow (in the higher altitude where we're going the chances of snow increase).
Steve

 

[spamel]

On Saturday, I took the kids to a place called Magic Land, it was OK. It's a theme park with a few exotic animals thrown in, but it's not very big.

Sunday saw me in the local woods, which are mainly coniferous, with my trangia. I didn't light an open fire due to the dryness, until yesterday it hadn't rained for a few weeks. I was whittling a stick to nothingness when I realised it was full of resin. I then decided to find a tree stump to get some fatwood. It didn't take long before I had a trangia pot full of fatwood!

Scalpel had a competition on BB with the prize being some Maya sticks, which I won. These are much more resinous than the fatwood I harvested, but the fatwood works aswell. Another of the skills investigated!!

In a few weekends time, I'm taking a friends son out whilst his folks are out for a meal. The missus will be looking after their twins, but he really wants to go out and I have agreed to take him. I think I need to start off at the beginning with him, he has no idea of the bushcraft way so I have leant him series 1 and 2 of extreme survival to watch, and I took him for a walk down the copse outside our flats yesterday evening.

I showed him how to light a fire with birch bark peelings and a firesteel, which he said would never work because it was raining slightly at the time. It was great to watch his face when the bark exploded into flame!! He is very interested, but unfortunately his dad isn't, so he hasn't had the opportunity to go out. His folks think I am mad, but if he enjoys it, he may learn a thing or two and stop the other kids around here snapping the trees to bits.

Spamel

 

[fiacha]

didn't get a chance to go away this weekend, so i spent Saturday in my local park (1700 acres of grassland and small plantations). it's a wonderful place to have in the middle of a city, but too many people about to get away with even a small fire
I settled for a seat amongst the fallow herd and had a go at carving a spoon.

I was stuck in the house on Sunday / Monday, so ignoring the looks from the neighbours I setup my tent in the back garden and cooked dinner on a hobo stove.

crawled out of the tent on Monday morning at 5:30am and headed straight to the kitchen for coffee and a fryup ! nothing like the comforts of home after a night of roughing it

have to say, I really enjoyed the weekend, but I'm looking forward to some overnight trips during the summer.

 

[spamel]

A long weekend, so Friday I went out on the canoe, and it rained! Still, I had a good day.

Today, I prepped my kit for tomorrows' bushcraft trip and did a bit of shopping. I've got to get it ready now as I am taking the missus out tonight for an anniversary dinner at the local steakhouse. Hopefully it won't rain too much tomorrow.

I take it from the lack of new posts today that most people are out in one way or another!!

 

[spamel]

I was going for a walk with the kids yesterday, when it all went a bit grey. I said to the missus to wait until it had passed, but she insisted on going. Five minutes later we were on our way back home, drenched!! Nothing short of encasing ourselves in a plastic bubble would have stopped the rain getting through, it was torrential!! Twenty minutes later it was fine. Well, I've got Monday off aswell, so we're off out in a minute, and then I get bushcraft in tomorrow when the kids are at school, which will be my last trip out until I get back from Canada Hope you all have a nice weekend!!

Spamel

 

[spamel]

Time to restart my old thread I think!!!

I took Jo'anne out for her first camping yesterday, we made a bed from bracken, which took quite a while to gather enough!! I also got bitten by the bracken resulting in a nice slash across my left index finger, when will I learn!!

After making our bed and putting my auscam hootchie (generously donated by my brother) up for the first time in anger, it was time to gather wood for the fire. A simple task, it is made much more difficult by the fact that the woods in Germany are managed to death, so the only wood around is pine and a bit of birch around here. Also, dead wood is cleared away quite quickly, but I found enough dead standing birch to get a fire going, along with a bit of fatwood I got earlier in the year from an old pine stump.

Dinner was a bean and rice affair with some sunflower seeds and pine kernels, followed by chocolate bar and drink before bedtime. Then it was time to settle down and listen to the night take over.

The bed was comfortable, but I would use even more bracken in future. It compressed quite a lot, and before you say it, no I'm not a fat git!! Jo'anne kept any wild animals at bay with her constant snoring and the bean influenced flatulence but I also suffered as a consequence!!

We had a light drizzle for most of the night, but the hootchie stood up well to it, and I think there was a nicer sound than the current issue basha as the rain pattered on to it. In the morning, we awoke to a crisp but nice day, and started our breakfast. This was a simple pre-mixed cereal with one of Jo'annes' favourite "brews" of coffee!!

After that, we cleared up camp to leave just footprints and made our way back home for a shower and tick checks!!

I think Jo'anne enjoyed her adventure, and I think she was very brave to stay outside in the "wild woods" at only five years old!!

Happy bushcrafting!