Pablo’s Woodlife

I had a terrible week last week. Work was too busy and family issues interfered with bushcraft arrangements. I had too many drinks on my birthday and took two days to recover! Luckily all was sorted out by the end of the week but at the expense of me forgetting to put in my field shoot registration. To top it all, the weekend brought very high winds and torrential rain. Even so, I had to escape to the woods and find a bit of solace, nearly drowning in the process. It was actually a kind of cleansing process. Through a break in the rain, I managed to fire off a couple of arrows at a makeshift target to make up for not going to the shoot. I gradually relaxed and started to enjoy life again.

My original plan was to try out a number of options for winter sleeping arrangements. The best bit of news to balance out a miserable week was BCUK’s announcement of a Christmas Bushmoot, and I wanted to try out a newly purchased fleece sleeping bag liner. I also wanted decide what method I would use for sleeping out at the two day event. It would either be tarp and hammock, bivviing or taking the tent. I was actually surprised how many people took tents at the August meet, so this wouldn’t be out of place. I want to try out the tent in winter in any case, so this is a viable option. My preferred option is tarp and hammock, but it’s not the best wet or cold weather solution. I’ll think I’ll take all the kit with me (the tent will be the only extra item really) and decide when I get to the site.

The worst part about sleeping in a hammock is getting into your sleeping bag (or at least trying to get in your sleeping bag). Not an easy manoeuvre in summer, but when there’s an additional fleece liner and possibly a bivvi bag to climb into as well, the exercise is three times as difficult. Hence the intention of trying to work this out today. I normally climb into the sleeping bag and pull it up around me while standing up with my back to the hammock, then gently falling back into the hammock. Much wriggling ensues thereafter, trying to get everything comfortable.

I really didn’t have the inclination to get everything wet and muddy for the sake of practicing this today, so I just plodded around the woods. I came back soaked to the skin with nothing really accomplished.

“I managed to shoot a mammoth though,” I said to my wife, thinking about the only accurate shot on my makeshift, dead wood target. She put a huge roast dinner on the table and said, “Yep, and I just cooked it.” You can’t beat moments like that.

Today is the first anniversary of this blog. I’ve done 57 entries and had 152 profile views. I’m amazed that the number of post views has risen from 0 to 824 per month over the year. Visitors have ‘dropped in’ from literally all over the world. West to East coast USA, nearly all the European countries, Australia, Africa, Sweden, Japan, Turkey and Norway and of course the UK. I am delighted have particular visitors like the American Bushman, Sam from Woodcraft in Poland and Mungo who are kind enough to leave regular comments (still waiting for a comment from Monty).

I didn’t expect that I would enjoy this so much. I’ve always kept a hard copy journal, but to be honest, recently I’ve come in from a day in the woods, looked at the photos and got straight down to writing the blog. I often go out to the woods with a “What can I write about today” approach. A project or kit review then forms the essence of that excursion. The entry numbers reflect that I post at least once a week and sometimes I have to hold back and not write too many posts at once. I’m also conscious of not boring you guys to death with long, rambling posts. I’ve not yet touched on some areas that I want to write about, so I guess there’s more to come.

I wouldn’t have continued without you, the visitor. So a heartfelt thanks. I hope that the posts will continue to entertain if not inform. I said in my first post, “Follow me on this journey into both the known and the unknown.” A year on, I’ll say, “Continue to follow me on my journey. There’s plenty more to discover.”

Pablo

I’ve been practicing with the bow nearly all weekend. Oh…you’re back then! You didn’t need to spend so long there! Unlike the game, this is getting quite an expensive past-time as I’ve lost 2 arrows and broken 2 others. At this rate I won’t have any arrows left for the field shoot next weekend. I’ve decided that I’ll buy an arrow jig and have a go at making them myself. I’ll probably do this after Christmas. At least I’m hitting the target most of the time and the grouping is getting a bit better. No more practice now until the big day next Sunday.

With a cloudless sky but a fresh cold wind which made me put on my fleece gloves, I ventured into the woods this morning. I travelled light with just a flask of tea, folding sit mat, the usual tool bag and the NRA survival kit. I wanted to have a general look at all the contents in the field but not put them under any great test…yet.

I wanted to have a good look at Blastmatch first of all. My first thoughts were, “Wow, this is big.” It’s nearly 4 inches long and a little heavy. I weighed this up with the fact that it is a survival tool and not really a bushcraft tool. Even though I had read the instructions, I scratched my head for a while before I actually managed to get it to work. And when I did…I was literally blinded by the number and strength of the sparks. This thing is awesome! I just had to get some tinder (without using the wet-fire tinder in the NRA kit) and try starting a fire. I needn’t have bothered with the tinder as even damp, unprepared wood just about caught with the extreme heat of the produced sparks. I actually wondered if there was any magnesium in the striker.

This bit of kit is a survival ‘ace’. The design allows the unit to be used one-handed which is a great advantage. This is because the thumb pushes against the catch which contains the striker. By pushing against this, and pushing the tip of the rod against a hard surface the rod is pushed down the spring-loaded tube. Looking closely, I realised that this very system might have one disadvantage. The part where you press your thumb to cause the necessary friction against the rod was also the tube catch which keeps the top closed. This part of the unit had already part-melted with the intense heat thus, because the top is closed under the pressure of the spring, it now occasionally springs open.

A point to note. Don’t push the flint rod too far down when striking. I wondered if this was a design fault. All it needed was a stopper to stop the rod going too far down the tube. It’s also advantageous to have something solid to rest the tip of the rod against as you push down. It doesn’t take a great deal of pressure to create the spark, but you couldn’t create a spark by pushing the rod into soft ground.

I can’t fault this unit except to say that it is a bit bulky and heavy. It’s just slightly too big to go in my possible’s pouch (without taking something else out) but I would have no hesitation in packing it in my expedition survival kit. Will any of the other items in the NRA kit join it? We’ll have to wait and see.

Even though I was getting warm working with the Blastmatch, my feet were getting cold with inactivity and I decided to walk around the wood. I noticed that the leaves were at last turning, but some were stubbornly hanging on to the trees. The bright light shining through them made a wonderful autumnal spectacle.

It seems we’ve done it again. As Sam reports on the delivery of his NRA kit, I’m planning how to put the same kit through it’s paces. Again courtesy of American Bushman and JRE Industries, I’ve received the same package. Also in the package was a shiny new Bark River PSK that American Bushman has already looked at. I admit to having a bit of a play already but can’t wait to really try it out. I’ve decided to do a bit of extreme testing. More about that later.

Following on from my awards ceremony two posts back, which was more kit orientated, I now turn my attention to what I’ve learned in the last year and what I could have done better. (You can tell I used to be a trainer). I’ve really been quite generalist about my approach to bushcraft letting many things soak in. I wanted to achieve two main objectives though. One was to make fire by friction and the other was to learn about trees in the UK, their properties and their main uses. I didn’t achieve either. A wisp of smoke on a couple of occasions has made me more determined to pursue fire by friction with a vengeance later.

Even though tree ID wasn’t fully achieved, I was pleased that my knowledge of wildflower ID hadn’t suffered too much over the years and I was able to identify many plants and mapped it across to their uses.

I hadn’t camped out since my army days, and I was pleased that I didn’t suffer flashbacks of ankle deep mud, shouts of “gas, gas, gas” and fingers frozen to bits of metal! Seriously, I took to a new way of sleeping out (hammock and tarp) like a duck to water. I even ventured into ground-dwelling during the later part of the summer. I wished I’d experimented with ‘man-made’ shelters a bit more, but I think I might be able to do more of this through the winter. It’s a case of having to really. That hammock’s pretty cold even now.

Crafts have never really been my strong point. I was pretty pleased with myself for making a couple of spoons. I actually can’t stop making them now and I really need some inspiration to carve something different. I want to do some leather work next and venture into making some primitive tools.

Putting aside bushcraft skills, my main joy this last year has been to be reacquainted with the woods and all its inhabitants. The delight of seeing and indeed living with even the smallest of animals and birds. The elation of picking up a track and providing myself with an educated guess of what made the track and what the subject was doing at the time. Even indulging in the simple pleasure of eating a tin of beans which have been heated up on an open fire that you’ve created yourself felt good.

My first year’s journey into the world of bushcraft has been literally awesome. I’ve realised that there are so many different aspects to it that it can be mind-spinning. So many things to learn and not a great deal of time to learn it all in. But the most important thing for me is to enjoy every minute, even if it does mean dropping everything and falling asleep in your hammock.

While Sam and the American Bushman talk about muzzle loading rifles, unbelievably at the same time, my attention has also switched to all things missile-firing, but in a more primitive way. Must be a winter thing when the ground is too soggy to camp. I have renewed my interest in archery and in particular field archery (as opposed to target shooting). I started up archery about this time last year and got caught up in the wave of excitement of seeing the arrow thud satisfactorily into the target.

After a while, I was pretty consistently getting close to the ‘gold’ at 25 yards. I instantly upgraded the bow and started hanging stuff off it in the form of sights and stabilisers. Not exactly what I planned when I first took it up, which was to use the bow as a means of recreating a traditional hunting method. I soon regretted the decision as it became a bit of a chore travelling to the archery club every week and once there, queuing for your turn to shoot at the target. I lost more interest as the fascination with bushcraft grew during the summer months.

I’ve now rekindled this interest and bought a Korean traditional hunter bow, a Samick SKB, which is light enough to carry around on field shoots and practice in the woods (errr…not the public woods obviously). I’ll be shooting strictly in the ‘bare-bow’ category on the next field shoot on 26th. Last autumn’s shoot was my first and I enjoyed it immensely. Unfortunately, I missed the spring and summer ones. These particular field shoots are made more interesting by the inclusion of 35 x 3D animal targets. The fact that actual hunting with a bow is illegal in Britain makes these shoots the nearest thing to it, even if the animal doesn’t move around! (I don’t believe there’s many crocodiles in Essex either).