Bushcraft Definitions

Recently I have been thinking about the definitions of what bushcraft means to me. And so has Tim Smith over at Jack Mtn. Bushcraft. I also have been meaning to blog about it in order to open a dialog among those that follow my musings and rants.  As I thought about what bushcraft means to me, how I could sum up my passions and beliefs, I was trying to distill my thoughts into poetic prose that would be quoted for generations.  I struggled and struggled with the wording, and the cadence and I grew frustrated with my own clumsy attempts.  Then I was sitting down with my oldest watching one of her favorite movies, The Jungle Book when it hit me.  I don't need to come up with a poetic definition of bushcraft because Phil Harris,  Bruce Reitherman already did it for me... 

Bare Necessities (aka; The Bushcrafters Anthem)

Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities

Old Mother Nature's recipes

That brings the bare necessities of life

Wherever I wander, wherever I roam

I couldn't be fonder of my big home

The bees are buzzin' in the tree

To make some honey just for me

When you look under the rocks and plants

And take a glance at the fancy ants

Then maybe try a few

The bare necessities of life will come to you

They'll come to you!

Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities 

That's why a bear can rest at ease

With just the bare necessities of life

Now when you pick a pawpaw

Or a prickly pear

And you prick a raw paw

Next time beware

Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw

When you pick a pear

Try to use the claw

But you don't need to use the claw

When you pick a pear of the big pawpaw

Have I given you a clue ?

The bare necessities of life will come to you

They'll come to you!

So just try and relax, yeah cool it

Fall apart in my backyard

'Cause let me tell you something little britches

If you act like that bee acts, uh uh

You're working too hard

And don't spend your time lookin' around

For something you want that can't be found

When you find out you can live without it

And go along not thinkin' about it

I'll tell you something true

The bare necessities of life will come to you!

We could all learn a lot from Baloo...

A free lunch?

I didn't get a chance to pack a lunch this morning so I decided to forage my noon meal form the timber surrounding my office. Lunch was a salad that consisted of Basswood (Tilia americana), Dandelion (Taraxacum), Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica), and Meadow garlic (Allium canadense) greens topped of with Trout lily (Erythronium albidum) flowers. 

I didn't have any dressing to go on the salad, but I think that's better in this case.  Each green had a different subtle flavor and any dressing would have overpowered them.  Of all the greens on my salad my two favorite are the Basswood and the Meadow garlic.   The Basswood has a light, almost sweet, "green" taste to it, and the Meadow garlic tastes like, well, garlic.

If I were to add anything to a salad like this I think it would be simply oil and vinegar.  I wonder how maple sap vinegar tastes...

I was inspired to try my salad in large part to a new post by fellow Iowa blogger Wandering Owl over at his blog.  Be sure to head over and give it a thorough reading.  He's A LOT better at posting regularly than I am. 

Have you done any foraging lately?  I'd love to hear about it.

A New Medium

Today I tried something new, painting with watercolors. I have done some sketching off and on for a few years now. Nothing major, mostly plants and birds that I could not identify in the field. I find that doing a rough sketch when I first see a new species helps me to be more observant by making me look for particular field markings that makes identification later easier. This is particularly true when dealing with birds. Another advantage to sketching is that instead of carrying multiple books to identify birds, or flowers, or insects, or amphibians, or trees, or, well you get the idea; you carry just a simple sketchbook, and a pencil.

Until today I did all my sketches with nothing more than a No. 2 pencil. You may be surprised to learn this, but No. 2 pencils are not good at making vibrant color (unless you consider shades of gray vibrant). So if a bird, or flower had any color besides gray (and a stagering number of them do) I would have to jot little notes in the margins of my sketch that noted where the colors were, and their hue.

I was inspired to try water colors recently while making beer for my work (yes my job is that awesome...). A friend of mine that we'll call "John" was assisting in the beer making process and we were discussing a potential future program on nature journaling. I asked for John's assitance with the journaling program because of some sketches he did for me in the past showed he is far and away more talented than I (hope you were sitting down for that one). While waiting for the grains to boil (there is A LOT of waiting in beer making, just FYI) John showed me some simple coloring techniques with watercolors. I decided then and there I was going to get myself a watercolor set and try my hand at coloring a sketch.

So today I did it. The family and I went to Hobby Lobby and I looked at their selection of watercolors. You can spend quite a bit of money on watercolors it turns out. I opted to spend very little money since I didn't know if I would be any good at using watercolors. I purchased 2 packages of Crayola washable watercolors at $2.99 (one for me, and one for my oldest). When I got home I grabbed our well-worn copy of Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America and picked out a bird to try sketching.

I hope you can see that I choose to sketch and color a female Belted kingfisher (Ceryle alcyon). How'd I do?

Making Mukluks

I was perusing the blogs I follow on Google Reader this morning as I sipped my tea and I came across a great post on Skills for Wild Lives.  In the post Nick talks about making a pair of mukluks.  What's so great about mukluks besides being a fun word to say because it sounds dirty but actually isn't?  Well in extreme cold, dry conditions they are warm, lightweight, and flexible footwear.

Lately I have had the strong desire to do some winter camping but it's difficult to get away for an overnight.  So I have been settleing for reading blog posts like Nick's, Backyard Bushman's, and the guy's over at Winter Campers.  Not quite the same (O.K., it's not the same at all) as getting out there and doing it, but it helps to kindle my desire, and keeps my mind from settling into some form of urban atrophy.

What do you do when you can't get out and practice your passions?

Urban Bushcrafters?

Fairly recently the demographics of the world made a sad shift.  Whereas in the past a majority of the world's populations lived and worked on farms or in rural communities, now a majority of people live in major cities.    People are also growing increasingly disconnected from the natural world both in major cities and rural areas, not having any real concept of where  their food, clothing and building materials come from, let alone what resource they are made of.  I think that bushcrafting can help to alleviate some of the disconnect from the natural world.  

Well, since a lot of people live in urban areas and those that live in rural area often live on small acreages how are they supposed to get out and practice bushcraft skills?  The beauty of bushcraft is that you don't need boundless acres of untrammeled wilderness to hone your skills or to gather materials practicing.  Above all else a bushcrafter is resourceful and the limits set by living in an non-wilderness setting should only heighten your skills because of the disadvantages you must overcome.  

So where can you safely practice bushcraft without fear of breaking the law?  It depends on what aspect of bushcraft you are planning to practice at any given time.  When my oldest was still just a baby my wife was working nights so I got to spend a lot of time with her close to home.  When she would go to bed it was often still light outside so I would grab the baby monitor, my puukko, my hoof knife, and some green Basswood (Tilia americana) and head out to the picnic table in the backyard and BINGO!  I was bushcrafting.  Later in the year as the sun set earlier I would head into the basement to my little shop area tucked away under the stairs (which I affectionately deemed "Bushcraft Corner") and work on projects like my beeswax stove.  The point I'm trying to make is you can practice bushcraft where you are.  You don't need "wilderness", after all wilderness is just as much a state of mind as it is a blank spot on a map.  


So you say you don't have a lot of resources in your yard to gather for projects like green woodworking, or making a DIY bucksaw?  Thats not a problem so long as you have occasional access to some public areas.  At this point you need to do a little home work.  The most lenient places to practice bushcraft are National and State Forests.   Both generally allow you to camp where ever you like so long as you move you camp every 14 days.  Often times you can have fire outside of designated rings too, but be smart, check the local regulations before you try it, also be sure to keep your fires small and do you damnedest to hide your fire scars.  In most public areas that allow campfires you can collect wood that is dead AND down .  I stress that the wood should be laying down because dead standing trees are really, REALLY important habitat called snags.  While you are collecting fire wood set aside a couple of pieces of wood to try your hand at carving.  


That being said, carving dried or cured wood is not nearly as easy as carving green wood and therein lies a quandary.  If you don't own a stand of timber, or if you don't have a friend or family member that does how are you supposed to get green wood to work?  The best suggestion I can give you to educate yourself.  Find out what woody plants in your area are invasive and suitable for carving.  Learn how to identify the plant and then hightail it to the nearest land management office.  Ask them if they have any of the offending plant in the areas they manage, and if so ask if you can volunteer to cut some of them out.  In the Upper Midwest  Common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica L.) is an invasive that grows in abundance and carves up b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l-l-y.  While you're asking about volunteering and massacring buckthorn, find out if they need any trails cleared, or saplings cut back from the trail edge- another great source for materials. 


Also be sure to let the land manager know that you plan on taking small amounts of wood home to do projects like carve spoons, etc. and reassure them they will not be sold.  It also wouldn't hurt to whip up a spoon or two for the land manager and their staff, as a show of good faith.


I hope that this post encourages someone to get out and try some of my suggestions especially if you live in a town or city.  If you don't neither will your children or grandchildren and THAT is a chilling prospect.

Your Wild Child: Guest Post

A while back I read a posting on one of my favorite blogs called "Your Wild Child" about cutting your own Christmas trees in Montana.  I spent a formative part of my early childhood in Montana and the post brought back fond memories.  I posted a comment thanking Melynda for the post.  She visited my blog and read my post about taking my nieces and nephew on a night hike and making torches and asked me if I would do a guest blog posting.  Well I have done that now and if you'd like to go and read in you can do so by clicking here.  I am confident that any of my readers that have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, Godchildren, or neighbor kids that they like to spend time with you will find great ideas an inspiration on Melynda's blog.  Thanks for the opportunity Melynda!

My Christmas Haul

Since we are nigh on a month after Christmas I thought I should blog on the bushcrafty items I received this year. Pictured above are (from top center moving clockwise) 100' of parachute cord, a noseeum mesh bag for my new Grand Trunk Skeeter Beater Pro hammock, Mora 510 sheath and knife, Etowah 10'x10' tarp and it's stuff sack. All the items are from Ben's Backwoods (of course) via my Mom and Dad (love you both!). When we were opening presents at my folks house I had received a small shirt-sized box. I was expecting a shirt, or wool socks but when I opened the package there were four pieces of paper. On each piece of paper was a picture of the items above with a note that said that they hadn't gotten here in time. I was really excited because this was pretty much everything I asked for this year (except world peace and a Pontiac Crossfire in silver, maybe next year...). After everyone had opened their presents I went to the kitchen for some water. As I was standing there drinking I noticed through the bottom of my glass there was a fuzzy box on the table. I lowered my glass and realized the box wasn't fuzzy at all, but rather it was the optical allusion created by the refraction of light from the combination of the thick cut glass and the water. I decided to investigate the box even if it wasn't actually fuzzy. Low and behold it was from Ben's Backwoods! Then I remembered while we were eating "the noon meal" (half the family calls it lunch, the other half dinner) there had been a knock at the door and my Dad had said it was the mail carrier. Here my present had been there the whole time.

I haven't had a chance to test out the tarp or the hammock just yet, but as soon as I do I'll write up a review. I can attest to the high quality of the 510 though. It was razor sharp out of the box and I am just tickled with it. Like my old Mora #2, it is easy to sharpen and holds an edge. The handle is safer in my opinion because when I grab it without looking I can tell by feel which side of the blade is sharp, with the oval #2 handle I always had to look. The sheath for the 510 is made to wear on a belt, or to be snapped over a button on a pair of bibs (which is how I am wearing it this very moment). Another difference between my 510 and my #2 is that the 510 has a carbon steel blade.

It is more ridgged that the #2 and threw GREAT sparks when the back of the blade is struck on a piece of chert. I have started a couple of fires that way and it really boosted my fire lighting abilites in the field. The first fire I lit I with it was at my mother-in-laws up in Allamakee County. I went to a dry run that sits just to the east of her house and broke a pice of chert out of a overhanging bank. I took it inside and lit a fire in her fireplace using a small piece of charcloth I had in my pocket, some shreded Northern white cedar bark (Thuja occidentalis) cambium and a small chunk of charred wood from a previous fire. All items that I could find (except the char cloth) on a walk through an average public area here in Iowa.

Just as an aside, I have been asked to do some guest post on another blog recently and the first one should be up on Monday. When it is up I will link post a link here for anyone that interested.