Moments of Bushcrafting...

Fire at the shelter


















Tracks in the pond. Guess who?

Decado

Mungo comes to the farm!

Had a great visit from Mungo last Sunday. Was great to see him again. Gave him the 25 cent tour of the property. The kids loved having him here to sing songs and be... uh.... entertaining? Check out his post here!


I have another friend that came yesterday for a visit. I will be getting some of the pictures of our nite out in the shelters. Should be good. Will post about it soon.

Thanks, Decado.

Hunters and a cool way to cook lunch...

So my brother and his kids came to stay with us for the weekend and we gave them a grand tour of the property. They said they loved it! Had a great time driving the kids around on the ATVs and exploring. We even found a tree-stand that a hunter had set up on our property. Not impressed but it turned out to be a neighbor that was confused about the property lines. Spoke to him today and he seems real nice. Came to an agreement and things were worked out.

Anyway... onto the main topic of this post which is a neat trick to heat up a pot of water. I found it really neat. So here is how it works:

Get yourself a pot of water (Juice Can), a cotton ball with petroleum jelly, and some lighter fluid.
The lighter fluid is optional but it makes getting the fire going much faster. Then you get yourself a good sized log that is dry. Like this:

This was a piece of Poplar from our stock of wood for the furnace.
My advice is that you try to make the wood as big around as you can and as dry. Now you need to cut an 'X' in the top of it. (make sure the wood will stand up on its own)

Here is my brother starting to cut with one of my old bowsaws:

That did not work out well as children under the age of 8 standing out in the rain do not have the greatest of patience. So we had to find a way to cut the notches faster....

This works...

Notches about 4 inches deep, complete:

Now you will need to place the cotton ball in the center of the 'X' and then pour a large amount of lighter fluid (if you have it) and then strike it!

Now just let it burn! Leave it for about five minutes (or whatever you think it needs) to let it burn enough to put a pot on it.

I found that once it really started going, the wind blowing in from the side helped to keep the fire going. All told, it took a little more than 20 minutes to get a pot of water to a full rolling boil. That was not including cutting time. But it did get the water boiling and I did not have to add anything or help the fire in any way!

(opps sorry. forgot to fix this)

(and this...)

(there we go... much better. Neck was getting sore)

Sorry did not measure the amount of water. But if you are thinking you have dozens of way you could heat water faster, remember this! I lit it! And left it!

I am sure there are a few pro and cons to this but I thought it was neat! I always have a swede saw blade in my belt (between 2 layers) with my possibles pouch... but that is a post that shall have to wait.

Thanks for reading me,

Decado.

Leaves are changing... time to build the winter shelter.

Ever since my family and I bought the farm (figuratively speaking) I have been looking forward to putting together a winter shelter that I can use anytime I want and not have to worry about it suddenly "disappearing" as others have done in the past.

So I have begun building one of Mors' "Super Shelters". One difference: I am not using any green materials. Now that I am using my property, I am not sure I like that idea. I have joined the Ontario Woodlot Association and will be cleaning stuff up in the woods soon, but for now I will be using stuff that is either dead or already cut by the previous owner.

Overall View:

So far there are 2 parts.

The Firepit:

I decided that I was going to go with rocks instead of the usual wood wall-backed fireplace since I planned to have it as a more permanent place to camp. I brought in a couple loads of sand from beside the barn and gathered the stones from all over the place. Mostly from the other side of the field where they were dropped a long time ago when they were clearing the land for agriculture. I needed to make it high and wide so that I could create a big enough fire in the winter time to heat the shelter. I will be adding the cooking apparatus and more stones for stability as time goes on.

Next is:

The Shelter

At this point I have the base and the bed mostly finished. I found last winter that getting the bed all setup before the roof when on makes things much easier. There will be more trimming and probably a few more places that will need binding. We had to trim some evergreens near the house so everything my wife threw on the brushpile that was green got hauled of to the shelter.

Some on the bed and the rest on the floor. I think that the size of the shelter is a bit big but I intend to supplement the outside fire with candles inside just like a friend of mine and I did last winter. I thought that something under your feet might be a good idea when it gets really cold. Hopefully there are still some needles on it in a month. :)

The fire is a big step away from the front of the shelter. Once pace is usually the requirement but I went a bit big since it will be harder to move the fire back if it is too close to the shelter. Will have to see how that works out.

Might want to add a foam pad to that bed!

Will be putting the posts up and then the rest of the roof as soon as I can. I want to get the waterproof roof on as soon as possible so I can keep the inside dry. Besides... I know there will be a friend or three coming in from the city over the next month or so and I wouldn't want them city boys to have no place t' sleep...... Right Jeff?


Will post more pictures and an update on the shelter soon.


Thanks for reading,



Decado.

New Arrivals... books that is....

Just wanted to put up a quick post the share my excitement! I ordered the Mors Kochanski's Pocket Size Booklets from Karamat.com. They got here today, lickety-split! (thats fast in canadian...)

This will definetly give me a few things to read over before this weekend's "Practice Session".

Will let you know how it goes!

Oh... and got another fire going with my knife and piece of quartz. Man is this stuff fun or what?!?

I have conquered....

Just a quick post to yell out to the world.... I have made FIRE! OK not really that big of a deal since there was probably a few humans in the world that beat me to that one.

Actually, I managed to get an ember going with just my Mora knife, and a piece of quartz. (Char cloth this time) I must confess that the feeling of elation was.... well.... elating!

Funny how you can feel on top of the world just by making something from nothing like that. No match, no lighter, not even gas! I even made the char cloth - crappy char cloth at that.

Perhaps there is a new definition for Bushcrafter.... how about:

"Weirdo dude that goes out into his backyard in below zero temperatures, at 2am, just to see if he can hit a rock with a knife and make something burn before he freezes his fingers off!"

Boy, I bet the wife wishes she never told me to go out and get a hobby!