This weekend I helped out at Wildcrafts Bushcraft School. The weather was wonderful. We had the choice of the cool of the woods, or the full sun around one of the two lakes.

It was even worth dangling a line from a survival fishing kit (more about this in a later post) but nothing was biting.

Brett went one step further, but forgot his harpoon!

This area is good for black-tailed skimmer dragonflies and Azure damselflies. The lake also had a visiting tern who occasionally splashed into the water, surfacing on more than one occasion with a small fish.

The pathways were dry, but I managed to brush out some tracks to reveal badger, fox and fallow deer all making their way to the side of the lake for a well needed drink.

On Saturday, we decided to get out the bow drills. It was like the annual “fire-by-friction qualification day” as we all lined up to have a go.

Steve and I went one further and jointly got an ember from a hand drill set I brought back from Africa.

Even the flint a steel came out, and a couple of others, including Rebecca, managed to blow an ember into a flame for the first time. The ember had been transferred from the char-cloth to a crampball fungus and then onto some straw and dried grass.

A tarp was definitely not needed this weekend. I suppose it’s just force of habit that we all put one up… or is it complete mistrust of the British weather?!

Steve’s swag-bag was possibly the best way to go if you were ground-dwelling …

Life was definitely good this weekend, meeting up with old mates and enjoying the mid-summer’s day weather.

Thanks or the visit.

“Pablo,” shouted Mrs Pablo from upstairs.

“Yes, my little Piranha?” I replied.

“Are you in touch with your feminine side?”

“I really don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, why do you have so many bags?”

“Ah. Yes. Right. Now I can explain that,” I said, gathering pace as I climbed the stairs in fear of one of Mrs P’s infamous equipment culls.

“You see this Maxpedition Falcon 2? This is my day bag. There’s enough room for a tarp, food and a cookset, but not enough to carry comfortable overnight kit.

“I use this Karrimor Predator Patrol 45 litre for that.

“I also take a small shoulder bag like this canvas shoulder bag for putting in bits and pieces, especially when I use the larger bags. I sometimes use this Flektarn shoulder bag for the same purpose.

“Now if I’m just going out for half a day or a wander, I’ll either take this larger canvas shoulder bag or, if I’m just tracking, I’ll take this MaxP Sitka, which is already loaded with tracking kit. All the MaxP bags can take a water bladder which is really handy.

“I can also use this Camelbak Cloud Walker which is the lightest day bag I’ve got and doesn’t look as tactical looking. It’s not as hard wearing though.

“Of course, I might be going out to do a specific project, so I’ll just take a cheap, tough old Miltec top loading bag. You can just dump stuff in it.

“Now, this is where it gets complicated. Are you listening my little long-eared bat? Right. These bags are the bigger bags. They are all 75 litres which means they can take kit for longer than 3 days, although I might take one of them for a weekend, which is of course could be less than 3 days, meaning I’ll have more room.

“This one is a Karrimor 75 litre which is top loading bag and the other is a Fjallraven front loading bag. The Fjallraven is designed more for hiking.

“This other 75 litre bag is an old Army All Arms rucksack. It’s huge as you can see but not really designed for long range walking. Both this and the Karrimor can have extra side pouches attached to make it up to over 100 litres. This bag contains a parachute. No, I’m not jumping out of ‘planes. The parachute is used as a shelter.”

Mrs P nodded and then said with a quizzical look; “Why don’t you use one of the big bags for everything?”

I paused for a few seconds, uncomfortable with the thought of an impending cull.

“That’s an easy question to answer. My feminine side has yet to develop it’s feminine logic!”

That did the trick. We’re safe for another year or so.

You can see one of these bags in action in this video of my 24 hour trip to the woods a couple of weekends ago.

Here’s some random events that’s happened in the last week either in my garden or very close to it …

Ever seen a white-winged crow? Well, here it is. My mate Dave phoned me up after he caught and ringed it. It’s not injured, just too young to fly. He was last seen attempting a take-off on the local disused runway!

What do you mean – who’s got the bigger beak? This baby rook crash-landed in the garden. He seemed ok until, after this pic was taken, the local pheasant decided to try and stamp on him. Billy chased off the pheasant and despite what looked like a broken leg, the rook managed to become airborne again.

This guy must have escaped from a local farm. Good job I’ve had my Sunday dinner.

Oxeye daisies in my garden.

Field Mouse ear in a nearby meadow

Vetch

Oxeye daisies

Blue tit nesting in the garden.

This rabbit met an untimely end. The puncture marks at the back of the neck are typical of a killing bite of a stoat or weasel. It shows that either or both are in the vicinity. A crow has started on the back end before I disturbed it.

The crops are at an ideal height to remain hidden from fallow deer in the local field.

Talking of fallow deer, don’t forget to buy the latest Bushcraft and Survival Mag. We’re on the cover…

…and inside of course!!

More flowers – cinqfoil [edit: Silverweed - thanks Laplander]

Birds-foot trefoil

Herb bennet or wood avens

Even if you don’t like football, the World Cup is certainly sparking  national fervour. Billy joins in of course, although his ancestors are from the Mediterranean and he comes from Wales.

We probably haven’t got a cat (don’t say it too loud) in hell’s chance of winning – but it’s fun watching the games.

I hope you have a great week.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.

Taking advantage of the good weather, I decided to stay over night in the local woods.

I like going to meets and seeing other folk but I also love staying in the woods on my own.

I took my Snugpak bivi bag, Exped synmat and a thin sleeping bag. I wanted to be low-profile in case the deer came close. As it turned out, I only saw them on the other side of the path about 50 yards away.

I took my mini trangia, the saucepan of which was good enough to heat up some rice and chicken while the little frying pan was sufficient to do a couple of rashers of bacon on edible plates (tortillas) for the morning’s breakfast. Of course the crusader is never too far away and serves to boil up water as well as a secondary cooking pot if necessary.

The heaviest item in the bag was 3 litres of water in an MSR Dromedary.

After looking around for night-activity (only more fallow and barking muntjac were seen) I came back and lit a token fire using my fire steel and some pine tree dust mixed in with maya stick scrapings.

There was no sign of the expected early morning deer activity at 4.30, so I had no option but to go back to sleep.

After the aforementioned bacon and egg and a cup of tea, I meandered around the woods and photographed anything of interest like these snails…

…this cardinal beetle…

…this speckled wood butterfly…

…and I think this is yellow pimpernel.

In the main, the wildlife stayed at a distance, but that didn’t stop me having a great time on my own in the woods.

Since I launched TickWatch this year, it’s been kind of gathering pace. So I’d just like to say thanks to everybody for their support.

TickWatch is an awareness campaign promoted and supported by Woodlife to try and raise awareness into ticks and the effect of ticks on the human body.

I’ve now made a specific page Tickwatch that gives all the details and hopefully soon, I’ll be able to provide some merchandise. Please see the new Tickwatch page for these details and information on ticks.

Forums and websites signing up to TickWatch (so far):

Bushcraftliving

Natural Bushcraft

Woodlife

Woodlife Network

Skills for Wild lives

Sam at Woodcrafters Log