An Affinity For Being Out There

Purpose is discovered in the many small steps – in the every moment where we grasp our smallness and realize our connectedness to the greater natural environment that supports life.

I think, for me, that this is the most attractive aspect of woodcraft – bushcraft – wildcraft – survivalcraft or whatever other craft label one chooses to attach to this craft thing. It is, I think, the most neglected aspect of the craft. It is the aspect that can’t be taught. It must be caught. And, I think (again this is an I think) that it is it that catches us more than us catching it.

Those of us that have been caught by it can allude to it. We can talk about it. We can live the unfolding, ever-deepening, perception and life changing realities of it. Ultimately, however, who or when someone is caught by it is outside our area of instructional control.

Sure. 

I’ll admit that these lines are a bit heavy on the philosophical side of things. Especially when the predominant conversations in this arena tend to remain focused on who’s got the latest custom knife or bush pot. Or on whether to baton with a knife. I will admit that I baton but it is a very selective thing that I do when making a hearth board for a friction fire kit. If I’m going to split firewood I’ll use an ax. That’s my choice and I’m sticking to it.

I can’t help but to wonder though. Wondering causes me to wander into philosophical waters.

Why did those earlier others (notable folks like George W. Sears, Horace Kephart, Townsend Whelen, Bradford and Vena Angier, and Dick Proenneke of the past Century, as well as a host of others before them) wander into the woods … some into extremely remote regions with life-threatening climates … and stay? Not for a few days - as is the case for most of us modernite crafters. Some went for weeks and months at a time. Some went for years. Some went for decades. Some went for an entire long lifetime.

Was it to brave the elements, practice their “survival” skills with minimal gear, and achieve some level of temporal (or financial) fame?

Hardly.

I do not, in reading the records of these earlier others, see any of these as a remote part of their motivation to do what they did.

Those folks didn’t just walk off into the woods without a few dress rehearsals before their big events either. They went mentally and physically prepared. They went equipped with the necessary skills and tools. And, in the going, they took with them an affinity for being out there. They fared well. 

They had been caught by it and eloped with it.

We are about to toss the 2016 Calendar into the trash bin and usher in a new year.

This past year was a crazy year of change for the two of us.

Change for the better. Much better. It took a lot of doing to pull off the downsize but we negotiated it successfully and are now comfortably hunkered down in our little cabin in the woods. We have, in some sense of it, eloped with the woods. Maybe not as deep in the woods as those notable others but in the woods nonetheless.

So here’s to the past. It has brought us to where we are.

And here’s to the future and all it holds in store as it unfolds.

Go ahead. Cut a new trail.

WWS Immersion Course Q & A

We are, Shirli and I, about to begin penning the next chapter of our lives.

To say that we are excited about the blank pages awaiting ahead of us is a bit of an understatement.

Our new digs up in the woods has been a long time in the making. The woods environment at the cabin affords us the peaceful natural serenity that we both personally need in our daily lives. It also provides us with an atmosphere, away from the hustle and bustle of mainstream society, where we can more fully practice and appreciate our lifestyle of self-reliant living.

What I want to do in this blog article is to address a few questions regarding Woodsmoke Woodcraft School. The question and answer format will, hopefully, be clarifying and explanatory for those reading it.

What prompted me to start WWS?

I had been thinking about doing something like this for quite some time.

A few years ago, a good friend asked me if I would help with a project that he was working on with his College and Career age Sunday School Class. They were planning a weekend survival exercise before these young people graduated and went off on their own into the world. My part in the deal was to set up and give these youth a block of instruction … basically a crash course … that focused on the Four Essentials for Survival … Shelter, Hydration, Fire, and Food.

That was the humble beginning of something that I've always spoken of as of all the good and meaningful things I've done … this is the most personally rewarding.

Where did I learn these skills?

This has been an ongoing course of learning for me that began early on in life as a poor farm boy growing up.

When most other boys were playing extracurricular sports, going to Scout meetings, or hanging out in the town park, I was exploring and hanging out in the woods and along the creeks. I've been in, close to, or longing to be in the woods all these years. There have been seasons here and there that kept me out of the woods. Those were miserable seasons. Maybe necessary at the time but, nonetheless, miserable. I took up golf ... imagine that ... during one of those seasons and got fairly good at it. But it was no viable substitute for hunting, fishing, camping, trapping, and generally wandering the woods.

I'm still learning. As Horace Kephart said, “In the school of the woods, there is no graduation day.” Why? Because there is always more to learn. Especially where identifying and utilizing natural resources are concerned. Nature is a classroom with an extremely vast curriculum.

Am I self-taught?

I have difficulty accepting self-taught as a valid concept.

Most of what we learn is taught to us by someone in one way or another. Even when we figure something out … supposedly on our own ... it is because someone taught us the skills necessary to work through a problem or challenge, see a solution, and manipulate a positive result.

I have had an innumerable number of teachers along the way. And will, as long as I breathe and have mental capacity, have more teachers.

I read. I study. I observe. I practice until I am proficient.

This thing … call it woodcraft or bushcraft or survivalcraft or whatevercraft … isn't neurosurgery. Learning how to survive in a wilderness setting doesn't take a PhD from XYZ University either.

What these do require is an investment of time and a commitment to learn. It involves assembling a specific tool kit to successfully accomplish the mission.

One does not necessarily have to enroll in a course at a bushcraft or wilderness survival school to learn these skills. People can, and do, learn a lot on their own when they apply themselves. Immersion type courses with an instructor do, however, make it a lot easier to get started. Especially for people unfamiliar with woods life and the natural laws that prevail in the woods.

What is a WWS Immersion Course?

An Immersion Course is a weekend basic wilderness skills training course.

Participants arrive on Friday at a designated drive-in location with their prescribed gear (KIT). Orientation, gear review, and set-up begins at 1:00 with instruction on course specific content during the afternoon. More course content is covered Saturday morning. We pack up Saturday afternoon and hike in for an overnight at a wilderness location that removes participants from familiar amenities and requires them to utilize their kit out there in a Lower Alabama woodland environment. We hike out Sunday morning, summarize, evaluate, and wrap it up at 1:00.

Although numerous related subjects naturally arise during the course, the Immersion Course focuses primarily on the four essentials for survival ... Hydration, Shelter, Fire-Making, and Food … and how to safely satisfy these basic human needs with the items in our kit and the resources that surround us.

How rigorous is a WWS Immersion Course?

That really depends upon the physical condition and health of participants.

What we do during a Basic Skills Immersion Course is done outdoors in the elements that are natural aspects of the outdoors. What we do is done with prescribed minimal gear. Simply being outdoors, for some, may seem rigorous. A weekend without the conveniences and entertainments of modern amenities, for some, may seem rigorous. A weekend without the pseudo-security of having insulated walls and locked doors, for some, may seem rigorous.

Participants should, ideally, be in good enough physical shape to hike a couple of miles with 30-35 pounds on their backs. We do not do the miles in a fashion that resembles a forced march. We set a casual pace and take breaks along the way. Rushing through wilderness settings is a good way to miss out on opportunities afforded in natural settings. Rushing is also a good way to set yourself up for some sort of mishap.

What are my goals for WWS at this point?

There are two goals and they are the same now as they were from the very beginning.

The first is to offer course opportunities for people to learn important foundational skills that assist them in preparing for unforeseen circumstances. This is the taught part. I teach people skills that can keep them alive. People learn. There's a lot of personal reward in seeing people learn.

The second is different from the first in that it is not something that can be taught. It's something residential in the caught department. It's that thing where people begin to see the surrounding natural environment as a benevolent friend to be embraced rather than as a foe to be feared.

Some fall in love with the woods in their first encounter. Some develop a love affair with the woods over time. Some never get it.

Forty Miles And What's Ahead

Forty miles.

It's not really far. Not at sixty miles per hour on the highway.

I've lived places where it was forty miles to the next small town. Wasn't a thing at all to take off and drive to Such and So town because they had a regular Walmart, or more than one grocery store. The Super Walmart was almost twice that distance to the North and better than twice that distance to the Southeast. It was also, come to think of it, a solid six hour drive at seventy miles per hour to the nearest city with a commercial airport to rent a seat on a commercial airliner.

The environment didn't change much in an hour on the road. It didn't change much in six hours on the road. Except traveling to the West. The front range, near the Mile High City, got more snow. Ambient temperatures, summer and winter, were about the same. Hot summers, cold winters, and a hard blowing wind … summer and winter ... that was often unrelenting for days on end blowing tumbleweed down main street. The available natural resources, the flora and fauna, were pretty much the same for hundreds of miles around. It was the kind of place with a desolate beauty that outsiders either fell in love with or went crazy on account of.

It's different here in this geographical region … the Alabama coastal plain.

Forty miles makes a difference.

Certainly nothing significant where the ambient temperatures are concerned. Subtle but not significant. There is certainly no significant differences where these coastal plain mosquitoes are concerned. Those boogers thrive from the time you're tempted to wear short sleeves in the spring until the first real hard frost in late fall or early winter. The subtle difference, something generated by those few slight degrees of winter temperatures and about 200 feet in elevation, is the occurrence of hardwood trees that aren't common closer to the coast.

We have, for the past twelve years, lived fairly close to the Gulf Coast. The “as the crow flies miles” to be over water is about four to the West and to the South. Another four or so to the South over water, plus a few hundred yards to clear the thin Fort Morgan Peninsula, and a crow is flying over the Gulf of Mexico.

I grew up here. I have, off and on, lived here in this immediate vicinity when I wasn't off out there living somewhere else … in three countries and a nice assortment of states. This immediate vicinity, my home turf, is the one that I am most familiar with. Not just with the road numbers and where they lead. Any map can provide people with that information to get you there and back again. I am, more importantly, quite familiar with the geography and the hazards lurking within the climate of this geographic area. I have also made it a point, and continue the practice, to familiarize myself with many of the beneficial helpers afforded in this area.

Making this claim is not intended to come across as boastful chest beating. It's just an honest statement. There is still plenty that I am not familiar with. That plenty is vast. A lifetime isn't long enough to possibly learn it all. The challenge, for me anyway, is to learn as much of the plenty as possible … to be always learning … to be a perpetual student of the natural environment that offers its life to support my own.

Acquiring the simple tools, and developing the necessary skills to embrace the natural environment as an ally, pairs naturally with the challenge.

So what's happening with us now?

Shirli and I are closing in fast on finishing up this major move we've been working on. A lot of other doings had to be put on hold while we pulled this thing together and pulled it off. There's still some pulling to do to finish up but we are, at last, finishing up our move forty miles inland to The Cabin On Huckleberry Hill.

This is September.

September means our Annual Skills Day gathering with our Mountain Bushcrafters Alliance family in Southeast Kentucky. This is always a great experience with some fine folks and we consider it an honor to be part of the MBA family. Mountain Bushcrafters Alliance maintains a Facebook page. Check us out. “Go Farther. Stay Longer.”

On the backside of this trip to Kentucky, and after finishing up our geographic move, I will resume offering skills courses. I will be publishing information soon regarding available courses, dates, and course fees.

In resuming these skills classes, I will also be networking with Buck Terry at the Southeastern Defensive Training Center in Foley, Alabama. Buck is well-qualified as a NRA Advanced Pistol Instructor, Massad Ayoob Staff Instructor, NRA Personal Protection Inside & Outside the Home Instructor, and Defensive Firearms Coach With Combat Focus Academy and I.C.E. Training Academy. The SDTC website is located at www.selfdefensefoley.com .

Get the skills you need, folks. Whether it's self-defense with a weapon or the ability to use the natural surroundings as a means to sustain your life in the event the need arises.

Sometime … Somewhere … Somebody … will be in a situation where successfully negotiating the situation demands having the tools and skills to come out on the other side alive and healthy.

Stepping Through the Time-Hole

I remember stumbling across someone’s recommendation of the little book by Nessmuk … George W. Sears ... Woodcraft and Camping. I can’t tell you how many years ago that was. It was a good many more than several. We ordered it. I read it. And I’ve reread it several times since.

Getting out there in the woods as a minimalist was not only inviting. It was challenging. It made me rethink and assess a lot of my modern camping notions. A few other old timers and their books were added to the shelf. Angier. Whelen. Kephardt. Fairly familiar names in the modern world of bushcraft – woodcraft - wildcraft - survivalcraft or whatevercraft you choose to call it.

The bulk of what is going on in the community represented by the aforementioned labels has to do primarily with getting out there somewhere.

I do not diminish the need to be able to get along out there. I am, in fact, an advocate and get out there every opportunity that comes along. Things can, and do, turn bad out there and surviving a difficult situation scenario out there involves a lot more than owning all the latest tools and gadgets promoted by the popular and trending tool reviewers.

Making a go of it out there in the woods in a difficult situation is one thing.

The truth of the matter is that I do not live the bulk of my life out there. The vast majority of us do not and never will. Shirli and I will, like the vast majority, always have a home base of one sort or another. Our own home base, our own homestead, happens to be transitioning to something much simpler and a lot closer to out there than most modernites would begin to consider.

Making a go of it around the homestead in a difficult situation scenario is altogether another thing.

Short-term and long-term. Especially, though, in long-term situations.

The necessary mindset and skills, in both situations, intersect.

The necessary tools to accomplish as comfortable a positive outcome vary a bit. Mostly, though, where the size and weight of the tools are concerned.

Cast iron cookware, while impractical in a backpack, is … in my opinion … a homestead necessity. It is also … again my opinion … the ideal cookware for camping provided there is a means to easily transport it. It was, after all, designed for open fire cooking.

Open fire cooking may not be practical for urban apartment and condominium dwellers when electrical power is down. Subdivisions with Home Owner’s Associations often have clauses that prohibit open fires. Municipalities may have ordinances prohibiting open fires. Those are scenarios that I’m glad Shirli and I don’t have to worry about. I can’t, other than in those prohibitive environments, think of a reason why folks wouldn’t consider having an outdoor wood fired kitchen set up.

It doesn’t take a huge outlay of cash to set up a wood burning outdoor kitchen. It can be as simple as a refrigerator grate sitting on a couple of concrete blocks, or an elaborate collection of hand forged works, or anything you put together that fits somewhere between the two ends. It’s not the style of kitchen that does the cooking over the open fire. It’s the cook.

There is a bit of a learning curve where cooking with cast iron over an open fire is concerned. There are, after all, no heat adjusting knobs to turn. It’s not a hard curve to get onto. It just takes doing it enough to get a feel for it. That’s the way it is, though, with any skill. Practice always improves efficiency.

There is another side to this. That other side. Not the side that has to do with getting along in a difficult situation scenario.

It has to do with relaxing and enjoying the simple pleasures of building a fire, tending a fire, and cooking over an open fire. This side of it is like stepping through a time-hole and reconnecting with our forebears in those former times when fire and cast iron were the norm rather than the exception. The journey through the time-hole is one that I can talk about but folks have to experience it for themselves to understand it. Once we’ve made the journey through it, there is a part of us that will always remain on that side of it. My experience with the time-hole is that I leave more of myself on the other side every time I pass through.

When we manage to cross over to this other side we discover an affection that more than outweighs the weight of Skillet, Dutch Oven, and Kettle.

Perdido River Overnight

This is a different sort of country for getting out on outdoor excursions and expeditions.

It is best enjoyed from October through April. The time frame, on rare years, can be extended through May. The other months, between the warm up and cool down, are miserably hot and humid. Hot is not altogether bad. Hot, with high humidity, is a bad combination that can turn hard against a person. The stifling combination, at the least, has a way of depriving one of the simple pleasure of being outdoors.

What you enter into, once you leave behind the comforts and conveniences of modern amenities and wander off into the real surrounding natural environment, is a dense sub-tropical jungle environment replete with sets of challenges and resources.

Shirli and I generally curtail our outdoor excursions and expeditions during the hot weather months. About the time our snow climate friends are headed out to enjoy the outdoors, we are looking for things to do inside in the air-conditioning, or close to the air-conditioning, until the heat and humidity subside.

I do make occasional exceptions.

This past weekend was one of those exceptions.

The Perdido River is not a popular tourist attraction. In fact, before the recent development of two canoe landings on the river, there was very little human activity on the Perdido. You had to know the river, and the meandering woods roads that lead to the river, to access it. I first met the Perdido forty years ago, long before the State and Forever Wild stepped in to create the near 18,000 acre Perdido River Wildlife Management Area.

I’ve gone through some changes in forty years.

The Perdido?

Its changes are barely noticeable. I hope it stays that way but it is already obvious, with the ease of access that has been created, that this once near pristine natural area is feeling the abuse of individuals that grossly lack in their regard for caring for natural habitats.

The meandering river is only 60 miles long and, above Highway 112, is swift enough that paddling upstream is not a reasonable proposition. The two landings were recently developed as a “put in” upstream and a “take out” downstream for canoeists and kayakers. It’s a short run that can be done in a few hours. Or, if you are more leisurely minded, find yourself a private beach along the way and do an overnight camp. 

Be mindful of the weather though. The Perdido can run high and mean in a hurry following a deluge.

There’s a log jam about halfway between Staplefork Landing and Barrineau Road that has to be portaged around.

The Perdido River Trail is being developed as part of the Alabama Trail. This is a collaborative effort being undertaken by the various chapters of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society. The Alabama Trail, upon completion, will allow hikers to hoof the 550-mile distance between Fort Morgan on the peninsula and the Walls of Jericho in NE Alabama. The Perdido River Trail Section will be 27 miles long when completed.

Just off the trail … overlooking the river … near Loggerhead Creek … are a couple of shelters that were built by Forever Wild and the AHTS. These are First Class shelters with screened fronts and small porches.

The shelters are not officially open and, from information that I received, will not be officially open “For Reservation” for a while yet. I do not understand the “For Reservation” thing. How do trail hikers … hoofing it through a remote wilderness area … with pitifully little or no cellular phone service … with no ideal way to gauge “when” they will arrive at these shelters … possibly “reserve” a shelter for an overnight?

There are also plans to develop the narrow woods road that leads to the shelters. Personally, judging by the kind of “local” activity by the “local yokels” out romping and carrying on, a drivable road to these shelters sounds like a sure recipe for disaster for this remote site that is already strewn with toilet paper by people that refuse to take the time to dig a little hole and cover their doings.

Cool weather is the best time to hike this area.

Cool weather hiking will likely keep all but the very most-hardy from wading or swimming in the Perdido. Cool/cold temperatures do, however, put an end to the annual mosquito-yellow fly-chigger season. It doesn’t get cold enough here to put a proper end to the tick season in these woods. It slows them down but regular tick-checks are still necessary. A good cool down also sends the fanged serpents … Eastern Diamondback, Copperhead, Moccasin … into winter hibernation.

If you do hike on this trail during warm weather, I recommend wearing plenty of insect repellent … a couple of us, even wearing repellent … are still generously wearing the effects of chigger bites.  And a good pair of snake boots is a really good idea. We’ve not had any encounters these two trips but this is prime habitat for the aforementioned fanged species. Though a very respectable trail has been cut, there are areas where the native flora is doing what native flora does in a sub-tropical environment.

The problem with cool weather hiking on this trail is that it meanders, albeit close to the river, through a Wildlife Management Area where hunting is one of the acceptable and normal uses of the land. It’s lawful to archery hunt on Management Land from October 25^th through February 10^th.  There are also a number of scheduled weekends during the course of Gun Deer Season when it is lawful to hunt deer with a gun on the WMA. Regardless the type of hunting going on, I’d be certain to wear some Blaze Orange for the sake of personal visibility.

Making Deer Jerky

We have a little overnight expedition coming up this weekend with a small select group.

With these summertime temperatures and high humidity steaming our region, I figure the least amount of time necessary cooking over an open fire is a wise investment of time. Do some prepping. Keep it simple. Keep it fast.

Deer jerky is one of the food items that will accompany us on this hike and overnight on the Perdido River.

I’m not a fan of the commercially processed jerky that can be picked up at practically every corner store. I’m also not a fan of the packets of stuff that can be bought and used in making jerky at home. The stuff is packed full of ingredients that I can’t pronounce.

Commercially processed jerky, to my taste, doesn’t taste like meat. It tastes like all the stuff added to the meat.

I’m also not a fan of using purchased beef to make jerky.

Think about it.

Jerky is raw meat that has been dried at a slightly warm temperature. Being raw and dried means none of the nutritional value has been destroyed by high cooking temperatures that also destroys pathogens.

If I am going to eat raw meat it is going to be meat that I’ve killed and processed. Not something that was killed and processed by who knows who, who knows where, then hauled across the country to be handled again by who knows who at who knows where. I’m a little squirrelly about stuff like that and growing more squirrelly with the reoccurring outbreaks of serious foodborne illnesses … illnesses that can do you a lot worse than give you a bad case of the trots.

The particular cut of deer in the first picture comes from the hindquarter. There’s one of these on each hindquarter. It has a number of sections to it that are separated by layers of sinew. It’s a bit of careful work with a sharp blade to turn it into clean bite sized pieces for jerky but I have discovered this cut to be one of the most tender parts of a deer and well worth the time invested.

What do I use on the deer meat to season it?

Whatever happens to be handy in the house.

The marinade for this batch has only a few items in it … Dale’s Seasoning, Liquid Smoke, a little salt, a little black pepper, and a couple tablespoons of honey.

Enough of each to flavor the meat without disguising the taste of the meat.

I prefer to let my jerky marinate in the refrigerator for a few hours before loading it to the dehydrator. The step isn’t absolutely necessary. It’s just a personal preference after making my own jerky for a while.

I cut these bite sized pieces about 3/8ths of an inch thick. ¼ inch or thinner dehydrates faster if you are pressed for time. This batch … at this thickness … on our dehydrator … took better than 24 hours to finish.

There’s a lot of tasty woods goat nutrition in that jar that’s good “as is” or it can be added to the bush pot with a measure of dehydrated vegetables, rice, and whatever your preferential seasonings are to make a really fine stew.

Making Lighter'd From Pine Roots

Lighter’d.

That’s what we were taught that it was. 

Any Southern boy worth his salt knew … and still knows … what lighter’d is. I don’t know where the term “fat wood” came from or when it came into use to describe this valuable resource. 

What it’s called doesn’t change its nature. Knowing its nature and where to find it is what’s important.

Finding good lighter’d is not hard to do where there are stands of Longleaf Pine.

Longleaf is especially resinous and harder than most pines.

I am fortunate to have access to a good bit of lighter’d. More than a good bit. A lot of bit. At least for the time being.

The lighter’d pine top in the first picture is the remains of a Longleaf that fell victim to Hurricane Frederic a few decades ago. The other object in this first picture is the remnants of a lighter’d fence post that finally rotted off at ground level. Everything above ground is as solid as the day my grandfather set that post.

The problem with Longleaf, at least with the timber industry, is that Longleaf is terribly slow growing. The industry remedy for the slow growing Longleaf was to replace stands with faster growing pines cultivated for the needs of the industry. That’s good for the industry but it’s not so good for those of us that like to pick lighter’d for our firemaking purposes.

The faster growing pines are soft and not as resinous. Their stumps rot in the ground leaving behind leg breakers and ankle busters where trees once grew. Trees fallen on the ground simply rot away. It doesn’t take them long, at least in the larger scheme of time, to rot away and “return to the earth.”

Several of the lawns that I’ve taken care of over the years have the less resinous softer pines growing in and around them. One of the things I noticed was something that happened when I skinned their roots with my mower blades. They oozed resin.

So it got me to wondering.

I wondered how these green roots, if chopped out and allowed to dry, would perform as lighter’d.

I chopped out a small root, threw it into my truck, and honestly forgot about it. It rode around with me for several months before I noticed it on the floorboard and gave it a try.

That small piece of pine root looked like good lighter’d, smelled like good lighter’d, shaved and scraped like good lighter’d, and, hit with a good spark from my ferro rod, performed like good lighter’d. It had, indeed, dried out and become lighter’d.

So I’m wondering again.

How do Northern pine and spruce roots perform when taken green and allowed to dry?

Maybe someone can do some experimenting and post their results.

Making Use Of A Good Walking Stick

I am all about being able to manufacture items that we need in the field. Crafting. The ability to do so, in my mind anyway, is the blood that pumps through the woodcrafting – bushcrafting –wildcrafting veins and arteries. 

The ability to do so … the skills to do so … do not pop out of a hand cranked box like a Jack-In-The-Box to lend a hand on an unscheduled day when we are suddenly surprised and shocked by the proverbial sky falling on us. It takes time to learn skills. It takes devotion to task to develop skills to the point that our skills will stand by us. Rain or shine … on a simple weekend outing or in a genuine crisis situation … we have what we need in our skills tool box to engage the situation.

There is an adage floated around in this community that goes “the more you know … the less you need.”

There is a lot of truth contained in those eight words. There is, at the same time, also some dangerously thin ice laid down by the Bushcraft Bravado of more than a few folks that I’ve heard insist that the 10-C’s, or, worse yet, the 5-C’s are all you need in a physical kit in order to survive as long as you know what you are doing.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Personally, I want the ice beneath my feet to be as thick as I can possibly make it. I want a few aces tucked up my sleeve … whether I’m out for a pleasant weekend or discover myself in a genuine survival situation. Why go unprepared to begin with?

One of the things that I’ve emphasized, both in classes and conversations with individuals, is the very first tool … the very first survival tool to manufacture in a woodland crisis situation is a good stout walking stick. A good stick serves multiple purposes. A good stick is a tool that serves us well.

Helping us negotiate rough terrain, assisting us in water crossings, harassing thick vegetation to disclose vipers waiting for unsuspecting victims, whopping said poisonous snakes as the first step in making a meal of them, and assisting us in making shelter are a few useful purposes.

A good stout walking stick can be sharpened, fire hardened on one end, and used as a spear for both hunting and personal protection.

It can also be tapered on one end to receive a nice little gig for frogs, fish, and snakes.

This little gig is one of those aces.

The first thing I did with the ones we carry in our kits was to throw the little threaded screw and nut in the trash. Who carries a small drill bit and drill in their kit? Not me. Rather than using the provided fastener to attach the gig, I added a piece of tarred bank line to ours to lash the gig onto a shaft.

Once the end of the stick has been tapered for the gig to fit, cut a groove into the stick a half inch or so above the gig. Taper the side of the groove away from the gig and leave the side closest to the gig a sharp ninety-degree angle. The lashing, once securely tied, will not slip past the groove and leave you watching dinner taking off with your gig.

The points on these little gigs are sharp.

To carry it safely in our kits I made masks for them out of stiff plastic … I think I cut them out of a coffee can … then wrapped them with duct tape. The lashing holds the mask securely on the gig while it rides in our kits.

Added Note:

A good green stick delivers a lot more whop to a snake with less chance of breaking than a dry stick.

Foraging Series - Natural Bug Dope Update

Tomorrow will be a week since I simmered that pot of Beautyberry and Wax Myrtle leaves in olive oil.

The concoction had hardly cooled off before I applied it and went down into our mosquito infested bottom.

I was really hopeful about this infusion considering how well the fresh leaves work at repelling mosquitoes and all that I’ve read about the elements in Beautyberry effectively repelling ticks.

The infusion worked like a champ in that first experiment.

Saturday … four days after the initial effectiveness experiment … was again experiment day to determine how long an application is good for.

I applied the infusion mid-morning and went about my business, most of which was either inside or close to the porch. Toward late afternoon I took a stroll down into the mosquito infested bottom. In less than a minute I had mosquitoes doing their blood sucking.

I figured maybe the hours had worn away its effectiveness so I reapplied a light amount equal to what I had used in the first experiment. The light application did not faze the mosquitoes. I made a heavy application. The heavy application was no deterrent against the diving blood suckers.

The “normal” Non-DEET repellent that I use is Repel. It does a good job where mosquitoes are concerned and the label insists that an application lasts for six hours. The primary ingredient is thirty percent Lemon Eucalyptus. I find their six hour claim to be pretty accurate. My problem with it is that I think the stuff stinks. It’s so strong smelling that it offends my nose and it causes a little hot sting that lasts for quite a while after application. 

DO NOT, whatever you do, get Repel on your lips and lick your lips! You will taste Lemon Eucalyptus for days afterward. Experience. Not theory.

So let’s see what I can do with the three ounces left in that spray bottle that I carry around.

It’s kind of funny how this curiosity thing works. Even way down here at the layman level. One thing will always lead to another thing. It’s like an itch that you just have to scratch even when you know it will make the itch worse.

I poured the three ounces of Repel into the three quarters of a pint of olive oil that I infused with the Beautyberry and Wax Myrtle, shook it up good, applied it, then wore the diluted Repel down into the bottom.

Mosquitoes, in its diluted state, would not land. I’m not sure yet if it will still go the six-hour claim. What I do know is that it doesn’t offend my nose. Diluted, the way it is in the olive oil mix, I notice no hot sting.

I’m not done experimenting with Beautyberry. The experiment, however, will be a little more complicated than heating a little olive oil and keeping the leaves stirred.

Foraging Series - Wildcrafting Natural Insect Repellent

The idea came to me Tuesday. I was up at Somewhere In The Woods, USA employing a few leaves to ward off a mosquito attack. So I acted on the idea yesterday and spent some time out for a woods walk.

Part of the walk was for the sheer pleasure of being out there. Seeing that Fox Squirrel was a treat. It was hanging around near a few remaining Long Leaf Pines on the family property.

Part of the walk was a resource gathering mission. I needed some appropriately sized saplings to construct a bucksaw. I also needed to procure some leaves for a little stovetop project.

The idea?

I’ve been using fresh picked Wax Myrtle and Beautyberry leaves to keep the mosquitoes at bay for years. It doesn’t take a lot of leaves. A few crumpled leaves rubbed on exposed skin does wonders where mosquitoes are concerned. So why not experiment with infusing the mosquito repellent elements in oil?

Experiment.

That’s the operative word.

How much of what and how long to simmer it on a low heat?

The gallon cast iron pot was over half full of Beautyberry leaves that I had torn to pieces. It wasn’t a loose and fluffy half. It was more of a dense and packed half. The Wax Myrtle leaves brought it to around three quarters. I simply stripped them from the branches into the pot.

I used a pint of extra virgin olive oil.

Once the oil was hotter than it needed to be I cut the heat back to just enough to keep a slight simmer going and kept it stirred with an oak stick that I cut for the stirring purpose. I didn’t want to use any of our “normal” utensils during the course of the experiment. Wax Myrtle leaves can be used as seasoning like Bay leaves. I’ve read several sources that say Beautyberry berries are edible when ripe but never anything about the leaves being edible. So a little caution was necessary with the cooking utensils.

How long?

Less than an hour. The batch simmered on a low heat for around forty-five minutes.

I poured the works through a colander into a stainless bowl. (Kitchen stuff but I think it will wash.) Once the oil that would drain on its own had drained, I wrapped the leaves in a cloth and squeezed the heck out of it. Hand squeezing netted an additional one half cup of infused oil. The end result amounted to three quarters of that pint returned to the bottle.

Using the old cast iron added some rust to the mix. I placed a piece of cotton towel in the funnel and strained it good. That got the worst of it and the rust did not appear to cause any brown discoloration in the finished product. The finished product took on a lot of the green leaf color.

There were two things I was interested in knowing.

First … would this oil infused with Beautyberry and Wax Myrtle repel the nasty biting boogers.

Second … would I experience any dermatological problems by applying this wildcrafted concoction to my skin.

The second question first.

The only places that I felt anything was on the top of my head and the tops of my feet … skin that is more often than not either covered with a hat or stuffed in socks and footgear. The backs of my hands, face, and ears felt nothing strange. I could tell that something was on my head and the tops of my feet.

Yes.

I know.

There’s a lot of cleared runway up there for mosquitoes to use as a landing strip.

What I felt was far less uncomfortable than the sensation caused me by the Eucalyptus that is the main ingredient of Repel. There is, in fact, hardly any smell to the Beautyberry – Wax Myrtle mixture. No loud fragrance like that imparted by concoctions created by mosquito repelling natural essential oils. The lack of fragrance is a really good thing when considering its application during archery season.

Three hours after application there was no obvious dermatological reaction anywhere it was applied.

Now for how effective.

I sat down in the bottom on a chair for about twenty minutes. The only place a mosquito would land was on skin that did not have the leaf-dope applied to it. I walked down into the thick and stood there. In less than a minute the boogers were swarming me. I tried to get a picture of them landing on my pants and swarming around my feet but I don’t think they show up in the picture.

Mosquitoes simply would not land where the leaf-dope was applied.

I need to do a little more experimenting with this leaf dope.

I’m curious to know the duration of its effectiveness. I’m also curious to know its effectiveness against ticks. The duration thing will be pretty easy to determine. The part about repelling ticks? I’ll be able to determine this over time. So, for the course of this summer and through hunting season, this wildcrafted natural repellent will be the only insect repellent I use.