Focus and Change in Direction

Focus.

It has to do with seeing everything in the peripheral while at the same time concentrating on an objective. It has to do with taking everything into consideration in order to determine and maintain a desired … or perhaps necessary … course.

Being able to focus … and maintain focus … is one of the ingredients necessary in making it through survival situations that pose the potential to inflict harm or end physical life.

There’s more to it though.

This business of focusing has a definite application to life in general. Making the application, in whatever circumstance or arena, involves having enough personal fluidity to be able to accept presented conditions without being controlled by those presented conditions.

There are a couple of built in levels that come to mind when I consider focusing. There is a lot more to them than addressed here. Time and space allows for only a brief summary in this blog article.

The first is evaluation.

There is a lot to continually consider.

One day in a wilderness setting presents a multitude of variables … variables that will either assist in the venture or go hard on the adventurer. What, for some, appear as hardships can, for others, work as helpers provided there is a skills and knowledge frame of reference to work from that allows for personal fluidity and adaptability …  a frame of reference that also directs us away from or around potential hazards.

Without this team of skills and knowledge working for us, our evaluations are apt to lead us into dire straits that worsen our condition.

The natural world has its own inherent set of rules that govern it. Learning those rules and finding our role within the perimeters set by those rules is a challenging proposition for modern folk so far removed from them in their daily lives.

The second is discipline.

There is no success, unless it is accidental or Providential success, in anything on its own. The onus, when it comes right down to it, is on us as individuals.

Discipline is a matter of personal devotion to a course and a commitment of time to it … regardless of the course or course content … whether it is wilderness survival or piloting a space shuttle to the space station.

Acquiring a few tools and learning about a few skills are simple. Becoming proficient and efficient with those tools and skills is another matter altogether … one that involves a lot more from an individual than taking a class or watching videos.  

Getting a fire going, even for a novice in the woods, can be a relatively easy thing to do on a fair weather day. Today? With all the woodland resources soaking wet from these days of rain? With rain coming down by the buckets adding wet to wet and rivers of water running on flat ground? These conditions present a Bring Your A Game day that can be prepared for only by advanced preparations and discipline to dress rehearsals in miserable conditions.

A change in direction?

Changes?

Definitely.

I am not entirely certain of what all the changes will be now that I am officially retired from the hamster wheel. I am still slowly fleshing all that out in my mind but, at this point, it’s still a skeleton. There are definitely some serious interests to pursue that involve, in a fuller way, personally practicing skills that I know, learning more, and living more fully these woodcraft and self-reliance skills.  

Our next major steps are to get Shirli on the back side of her second knee replacement surgery that is coming up in a few weeks and then finish up this matter of relocating to Somewhere In The Woods, USA.

There are also woods waiting to be wandered, new trees waiting to be seen, creeks waiting to be fished, and camps waiting to be spiked.

Who knows?

There may even be a Go-Pro in the big picture.

Stay tuned. There's more to come!

Wild Edibles - Smilax

Let me begin with a disclaimer.

I am not an expert or authority on the subject of wild edibles.

When it comes to this business of being an expert or authority on anything … I make no personal claims.

Experienced?

Yes.

I am, in a number of areas, fairly experienced and have been garnering and building upon these experiences for a good long time. I will also, where my own repertoire of experiences is concerned, be the first to admit that there are a lot of people that have more experience and know a lot more than I do about the things of which I write in these blog articles.

I do, with a sense of being careful and exercising as much integrity and due diligence as possible, make it a practice to always continue learning something about how to get along in the particular natural environment that surrounds me. This environment is, after all, the one that will either offer its support or observe my demise on account of my knowledge or my ignorance.

We do not co-exist with the natural environment. No. The natural environment can hang on its own hook without us. It can also, in time, recover itself from all the damage we do to it if we would only leave it alone long enough to do its natural thing. The opposite is not true. We humans cannot exist without the surrounding natural world that supports us. We are, as human beings, totally dependent upon the natural world. Total dependence is a far cry from co-existence!

I do not remember where I read the statistic regarding percentages. It’s one of those seeds that settled into my memory at some point. Of all the vegetation growing in the natural world only three or four percent of it is edible. Quite a lot of the larger 96 or 97 percent will not only give you a bad gut but it can also kill you. This only, when you consider the vast diversity of vegetation in the natural world, amounts to a lot of only.

Being familiar with some of the only can make a difference in being able to stretch things out and get along better in the food department during a short-term situation. Having this familiarity can mean the difference between life and death in a long-term situation. These two reasons would be enough.

I find another reason though … learning.

The school of the woods has a vast curriculum. One that is so exhaustive that not one among us has time enough to learn everything it has to teach.

A cram course in survival skills can be taught in a weekend. I’m not knocking cram courses. They are a good thing considering they introduce folks to certain skills and tools that possess the potential to help them get along in a bad situation. I can and do host these courses when there is interest and commitment. The problem I find with cram courses is that folks can go away afterward thinking they are ready for the big exam when, in fact, all they’ve learned to do is hack a rough point on their pencil.

Smilax is one of our readily available wild edibles and one well worth our attention.

I graze on it raw during the active growing months. It can also be cooked as a vegetable or added raw to salads.

The tips, tendrils, and tender young leaves are edible. I find it difficult to describe the taste of wild edibles. It’s kind of like trying to tell someone what a frog or a raccoon tastes like when they’ve never tasted them. Things have their own particular taste and it is really unfair to compare everything wild to things domestic or cultivated. But, for lack of a better description, I’ll go along with what others say about the taste of smilax … something of a cross between a green bean and asparagus.

I’ve also dug and chewed a few of the small roots. The roots get woody and tough. It’s hard for our systems to digest woody fibers.

It’s the starch that we are after in the roots ... something that can be added to soups as a thickener.

I have never, until yesterday, did any real experimental archaeology with smilax roots. Shirli and I dug this one yesterday in the yard. This one is really still on the small side. These root masses can grow as large as a bushel basket. I processed one small tuber in about a pint of water on the stove for twenty minutes or so then poured what turned into a soft jelly-like substance through a strainer.

How does the soft jelly-like substance taste?

It is rather bland with a smilax taste.

There are a lot of other elements in the smilax root as well. Some of them are considered medicinal. Studying up on smilax makes for interesting reading.

DISCLAIMER ... There are numerous manuals, websites, and youtube videos on wild edibles. Be certain of your identification before eating anything wild. Also, go about experimenting with wild edibles SLOWLY and keep a record of what you are experimenting with. If you have an allergic reaction, you (or someone that finds you) will have a clue as to what your condition is related to. Be advised, I am not responsible or liable for errors in your plant identification or personal judgment. 

Shave Horse Project - Getting Started

This project was not occupying my mind at the time. It’s one that’s been an interest for quite a long time now. It has, in fact, been an interest for years. Time, and matters that seemed to take priority, have always been the issues that would run interference where tackling the project was concerned.

I was not looking for a hunk of wood for a project. I was on a firewood gathering errand for that retirement-birthday soiree Shirli has scheduled for me to attend next month … the one that coincides with my 62nd birthday and this thing called retirement.

I put the oak on the ground. By the time I sawed my way to the log I had all I cared to haul across some rough spots before I would be back onto good level ground with the truck. My plan was to return the next day, saw the log into firewood lengths, then haul it home and split it for the woodpile.

The plan changed when I got back to the log the next day and started looking it over. A good four feet at the small end was straight and without any serious knots. A good four feet at the larger end was also straight and without any serious knots. The six or so feet between the ends had some knots and qualified as firewood. I stood there studying on the log and hatched an alternative plan that would utilize the smaller end section to construct a rustic shave horse. The larger end section? I may split it and make a couple benches from it.

I used my chainsaw to rip the log in half. This is the last time a non-human powered tool is used on this project. 

I’ve built a lot of stuff over the years using an assortment of tools associated with several trades. Carpentry tools. Masonry tools. Tools used in shipbuilding and repair. No. My name isn’t Jack. I’m not quite as diversely skilled as him but I have developed quite a repertoire of skills over the years of scratching out a living.

I’ve bought a lot of tools over the years to utilize in these areas and still have a good assortment of them. A good many years ago I started selectively collecting “old school” tools at estate sales, yard sales, flea markets, and wherever I could find them without paying an arm and a leg for them … tools that require no power other than human power to operate them. 

The adz is an old heirloom from the farm that I laid claim to. It was sitting on a concrete floor rusting away. It's got some deep pits but the cutting edge is still solid and takes a good edge.

As electrically powered tools give up the ghost I simply reach back in time, pull out its predecessor, and press it into service. The non-electrical versions are not unfamiliar to me. I became quite familiar with them as a child growing up on the farm. It’s what we had and what we used day in and day out.

Removing the bark with an antique draw knife that I picked up somewhere along the way. I'm working off the bark and outer growth ring. Sharp. I once learned that it's smart to wear leather gloves when working with one of these.

From time to time, if you take your time, you can happen across some good old tools that need a little cleaning up and TLC to put them back into good condition. The alternative to going the slow route is to shell out a lot of cash for new human powered tools. 

Good new tools are expensive. 

Cheap ones are more often just that. 

Cheap. 

The quality is poor, they are a bane to work with, and they just don’t hold up well for the long haul.

I used an old axe head to get the split started. Wood wedges and a maul did the rest of the job of splitting off a plank.

Why this project?

One of the reasons for this project has to do with my interest in keeping history alive in a world where the past is easily forgotten and replaced with all the modern “flip the switch” conveniences associated with life in modernity. There is a broad learning curve where tools and processes are concerned. There is a lot of learning where particular natural materials and how they behave are concerned.  A large part of the learning involves space within my own personal interior life … an area that can always stand some improvement.

Crafting. Add whatever prefix you prefer to the beginning of the word. A major part of this crafting, for me anyway, is about being able to take some raw material from the surrounding environment and process it into a functioning product that will serve a purpose. Process. There’s not much self-reliant process in going to the store or ordering a readymade product off the internet.

Another reason has to do with uncertainty and the issue of personal preparedness in this modern world where uncertainty seems to be the only real certainty. Possessing the skills and tools to return to an 18^th Century lifestyle simply makes sense to me.

The wood is still too green to plane well but I worked on the two pieces a little with the old Stanley to clean them up some. 

The Art of Self-Reliance - Deer Bone Soup

I remember when I was a kid growing up on the farm.

We raised practically everything that we ate. Money was always in short supply where our small hardscrabble farming family was concerned. Spending money was scarce. Food wasn’t. Though we were some of the poorest of the poor in our community, I never once missed a meal. Meat was always on the table. When it started running low in the freezer we loaded something up and took it to the slaughterhouse.

One of the things that stands out in my memory is that even the bones came home with us when the processing had been done. Those packages were labeled “Soup Bones” and soup, with biscuits, corn bread, or, if my mom had time, yeast bread on the side made for many a winter meal for us.

One of my objectives, where subsistence hunting as a part of self-reliance is concerned, is to utilize as much as possible from the animals that I kill. I feel like I owe it to the animals. In fact, I was telling Shirli the other day that if we didn’t need the meat I wouldn’t kill another deer. I would still sit in the woods and watch them. But, for the two of us, these deer feed us in the same way those domestic animals fed our family when I was a kid growing up. Similar self-reliant way of life. Different animals. Different feedlots.

This is the first year to cook deer bones.

I’m pretty good with a sharp blade. There’s honestly not a lot left on those bones when I’m finished with the blade work. Regardless of my efficiency with a blade, there is always some meat left on those bones. Until this year I would simply haul them to the farm and contribute them to the diet of the possums, coons, buzzards, and coyotes. I have, for years, felt bad about that. Not feeding the critters. Deep inside of me I knew I wasn’t getting all I could from those bones in the nutrition department.

Down through the ages folks used those bones in their diets. Why am I not doing the same today?

So, rather than tossing them into a bucket to go to the farm, once the major meat was off them and in the sink, the bones went into the big pot. Once all the bones were in the pot I set it on the stove to simmer while I finished all the steak slicing, burger grinding, vacuum bagging, and moving finished products to the freezer. Then I let them simmer some more. I suppose they spent around three hours on the stove doing the simmering thing.

Those bones? I picked a pound or better of nice lean meat from them and added the meat to the 3 quarts of nutrition rich stock that resulted from those hours of simmering.

Diced an onion, 3 large carrots, and about 2 cups of celery for the pot.

Seasonings of salt, coarse black pepper, a little garlic powder, and about a dozen drops of liquid smoke. Once the vegetables were cooked I stirred in a cup of rice and set the timer for 14 minutes.

Deer bones? As the primary animal matter in a soup or stew?

I’ll tell you this.

I can’t think of a good reason why I should ever haul a bucket of deer bones to the farm to feed the critters again.

Oh. I figured some bread would go good with the deer bone soup so I made a pan of molasses muffins to go along with it.

Molasses muffins?

My own recipe.

But that’s a recipe for another day.

Self-Reliance ... A Weird Lifestyle

One of the fastest ways to start an argument in the woodcraft-bushcraft-survival community is to get into a discussion about tools. Particularly a discussion about knives and axes … which ones to carry and what or what not to do with them. There are a few more carry item discussions that can invoke quick arguments.

I’ve been engaged in a few of those discussions and have learned to avoid them.

Let me be so bold as to say something here about kits and the items that make a kit.

You can build an entire, good, usable carry kit for the cost of 1 fancy knife or 1 Swedish axe or 1 oil cloth tarp or 1 fancy pack to carry all that you will normally carry on your person … despite all the well-intentioned amateur reviews on youtube and despite all the slick marketing techniques of manufacturers and marketers that enjoy our hard earned dollars rolling in.

Now don’t get me wrong.

I’m not intentionally poking anyone in the eye with a stick. I’m not downing any of the toys that folks are playing with. Folks can purchase and use anything they want.

I’m just saying. I’m just trying to keep it real. Especially for the common person clawing and scratching their way with a limited amount of cash in their budget … for folks that don’t have $300.00 to throw at the latest knife that has pretty two-tone scales.

Pardon me for saying so, but I think that … and mind you this is just my personal perspective … when it comes right down to it, a lot of people are missing the boat when it comes to this issue of self-reliance.

The last thing I want to do is to delude anyone into thinking that having a 10-plus piece kit, along with the knowledge and skills to use the items in their kit, is going to make them self-reliant or turn self-reliance into an easy project. A good kit makes for some great outdoor weekend adventures. A good kit can turn an otherwise bad short-term situation into an adventure. Self-reliance, however, as a lifestyle … particularly a lifestyle in a long-term situation whether it is chosen or SHTF … involves a lot more than a kit that can easily be assembled and pressed into service over the course of a weekend.

In this lot is a total mindset change and the psychological adjustments that accompany it. This change and these adjustments are not purchased from any tool vendor. This change and these adjustments are in our psyche. They are reasoned, sought out, fought for, and earned every step of the way. Folks that surround us, folks that we have to do with on a normal daily basis, are ok with what we are doing as long as we are hobbying around with this woodcraft-bushcraft thing. They are good with it as long as we are dabbling in areas of self-reliance.

Their impressions of us begin to change drastically when our hobbying around begins to take on the appearance of a genuine lifestyle. We become weird to normal folks. Our circle of true friends and associates goes through a shrinking process. Partly because our priorities change. Partly because a lot of friends and associates cannot accept or handle the change in our personal priorities. We simply do not fit into their social scheme of things and discover ourselves, for lack of a better word, ostracized.

They move on.

We move on.

I’m not sure who coined the phrase. 

It’s one that sounds good. It’s one that holds some truth. It’s also one that has become something of a standard cliché in the woodcraft-bushcraft community, one that is thrown around a lot in the tool and skills department. You know how it works. Somebody says something. Somebody repeats it. Then all the parrots start their parroting.

“The more you know the less you need.”

The playing out of the cliché might get you through a short-term thing. I would not want to depend upon it in a personally chosen long-term or SHTF situation. The latter requires more than a 10-piece kit.

There is a self-reliance side to this that applies to more than the tool and skills department. This is the side that is in our psyche. It is a side that applies to the people department … especially to that part of the people department that moves on because we have become too weird for them to handle.

We move on because we have changed.

They move on because they haven’t.

And we are comfortable with the moves.

A Different Sort of Experience in the Woods

Archery season opens in our zone on October 25^th … two weeks later than it used to but the biological and planning folks that make the big decisions made some changes to the opening and closing dates of deer season last year. I don’t mind it opening later. It offers a better chance for some cooler weather in this hot part of the country. Maybe even a good frost to decelerate the activity of the mosquitoes that make sitting still for long periods of time practically impossible in these woods.

I always have hopes of being in the woods on opening day.

It rarely works out.

Life has a way of running interference.

I got my ladder stand set up late and it was well into the season before I finally got to the woods with what I call my gunbow. I used to draw a bow before the shoulder injury and was reluctant to switch to a crossbow. An inherent need to be in the woods during archery season, and the fact that the two of us under this roof prefer deer over store bought cuts of who-knows-what-from-who-knows-where, put reluctance in its place a few years ago.

I looked at a lot of different offerings in the crossbow department. Part of the looking involved what I considered a reasonable price range. I had a ballpark figure in mind and over time saved up the figure plus a little over the top. The big stores (names withheld) that most people are familiar with, and online outlets, that do a lot of business sell things at an inviting price that is offset by the volume of their sales. I pretty well settled on a brand and model. Partly because that was the brand and model a friend had. I don’t think he ever killed a deer with it. The last time I saw it the thing was hanging up in a barn.

One of the things about ordering online or going to a big store is that if or when (more likely when) something goes wrong with one of these high powered mechanical contraptions your best option is to find a good bow shop to work on the thing. I know one, and the archer that operates it. He did a major overhaul on my last compound. So I figured before doing anything it would be in my best interest to talk with him before going off halfcocked on a whim. I’m glad I did because the make and model that I was initially interested in is one that he spends a lot of time working on. He told me what he had in his shop.

I dug out my stash, headed over to see him, and drove home with the Parker Bushwacker. It is not, at its 150 pound draw weight and 285 fps, the strongest and fastest bowgun on the market but it definitely gets the job done. Its 7-pound weight makes it easy to carry to and from and not once have I felt the need to grumble about its weight after holding it in a stand for hours on end.

We were several weeks into archery season when I was finally able to break away. I drove up to a place that I refer to only as Somewhere In The Woods, USA that morning, spent some time getting camp set up and rounding up firewood for the night, then, around 2:00 climbed into my stand where I sat until it was almost dark. I wasn’t able to sit my ladder. The wind was out of the wrong direction so I hung an old climbing stand on a tree and shimmied up.

A nice doe came within 10 or 12 yards of me but there was some scrub between us that could have easily deflected the arrow. (1) I refuse to let go with a shot that has the potential of hitting badly resulting in a long slow death of an animal. (2) I am not fond of the idea of losing an arrow. Lost arrows cost money to replace and this thing does not shoot off-the-shelf Walmart variety arrows that cost $3.00 apiece.

 Even though I was up in the air a good ways the doe was catching little whiffs of me. She never looked up but she kept looking around obviously smelling the air. She hung around a few minutes, well long enough to make a shot if it was a clear one, then slowly turned and casually walked off into the thick bottom.

It was going on dark-thirty when I walked up the hill to my camp for the night. The plan was to overnight, be in my stand early, then sit until midday. I sat by the fire until around 9:00 then crawled into my bedroll on back of my truck.

I laid there thinking about the day … the drive up … the doe in the woods … the nice fire that I had sat by for a few hours and how its light still illuminated the space inside my camper shell. Sleep wasn’t far away. It didn’t take long before it found me.

Sleep didn’t last long.

I don’t know if it was from the extra work my legs weren’t used to shimmying up and down that tree, or if I had some potassium deficiency, or a combination of the two but I wasn’t asleep long before the calves of both legs started cramping like crazy. They would knot up and set me to moaning and groaning. I would moan and groan and stretch and work them out. Several rounds of that business with naps in between.

Then, middle of the night, that nature thing snuck up on me. I had already been shorted on sleep and decided I could get through the night without getting up. I was wrong. I got up at 3:00, took care of what needed taking care of, and decided to stir up the fire, make some coffee, and sit there tending the fire, looking at the star lit night, and enjoy listening to the sounds of nature serenading me.

It was beautiful.

The wind direction changed overnight and allowed me to sit my ladder stand. Must have been about an hour after getting situated that I heard the steps in the leaves. Slight. Barely detectable at first. Coming from behind me and from the worst possible direction considering the wind was carrying my scent with it. It got in really close, let out a grunt, then turned and ran. I never saw what it was but had it taken a few more steps it would have walked right beside my ladder stand. That's the kind of stuff that sets the heart pounding!

So I’m about a quarter of the way home that afternoon. Just driving along thinking about the previous 24 plus hours when something that I had heard at 4:00 that morning came to my attention beckoning consideration. I didn’t pay it much mind at the time, other than to look at my watch to make a mental note of it. It was, during the playback on the road home, that it stood out.

Bear in mind, in telling the rest of this factual account, that the closest house to the East of my overnight camp is over a mile away. The closest house to the West is over 2 miles away. Over 3 miles of distance. Between these houses it is mostly dense woods and a wide swampy Lower Alabama creek bottom that is practically impenetrable. It’s serious business down in there. It’s not the kind of place the faint of heart wander. It’s not the kind of place that most modern hunters want to labor to get into then labor to get out of with a deer sized animal. It’s not the kind of place for novice woods-goers to cut their eye teeth.

Me? I love it.

So it’s 4:00 in the morning. There’s not much to do at that time of the morning except what I’ve already mentioned that I was doing. It’s quiet. The closest paved road is over a mile away and there can be heard the occasional sound of traffic on that road. Other than that occasional sound there are no other motorized sounds to be heard … far away or close in.

Down on the creek. A quarter of a mile South from me. A half mile at the most. I distinctly and clearly heard it.

Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap.

4 times. Equally as loud. Evenly spaced. It sounded like a fencepost sized piece of wood being struck hard against a large sized tree.

I spent most of the rest of the drive home, and ever since, trying to rationalize and reason it into something other than what it appears. For the life of me, though, I cannot come up with a reasonable other no matter how many times I hit the playback button. Not there. Not down in there where people just simply do not go. Not on a good day. Let alone on a bad day. And what seasoned and brave bow hunter would go down in there that long before the crack of dawn and make that kind of noise at that hour of the morning?

Any bow hunter, even a green novice, knows that archery is an up close game and you exercise as much stealth as humanly possible.

I am, no matter how many times I replay it, convinced that what I heard was the signaling sound made by … (Dare I move from skeptic to believer and take the chance of being called a crazy fella with an overactive imagination?) … the Bigfoot or, as it is more commonly called in this region, the Skunk Ape?

I’ll take that chance. And I will always consider myself to be one of the few that are privileged to hear it. Who knows? Maybe it saw the early morning fire of my camp, came close to investigate, intuitively knew that I would never hunt it or attempt it harm, then slipped off into the creek bottom where it let me know that it had been there.

Oh. By the way. Other than the pitiful few trusted souls that I've personally told this story and are familiar with my personal goings and doings, the whereabouts of this encounter will forever remain undisclosed to protect the innocent and elusive creature.

The Captivating Lure

I grew up wandering the woods.

Getting out there wasn’t an occasional thing.  It wasn’t a weekend, seasonal, or occasional thing. It wasn’t a thing to pass time away. It was a lifestyle thing. A walk through the woods was a daily thing.

Daily walks through the woods were mostly on account of some kind of work that needed doing … checking on fences … moving cows from day pasture to overnight corrals … closing gates … bringing the Jersey milk cow home for the night. Those normal daily chores always took a lot longer than necessary on account of all the woods exploring that somehow arose as part of the normal course of life for a boy that wasn’t more than 8 or 9 years old when he started wandering the woods solo.

It was, too, around that age that I graduated from a BB gun and began toting along that old .22 single shot or a .410 shotgun when out doing my woods chores. The scope and range of my woods wandering found itself largely expanded with that graduation.

I have the impression, looking back, that a lot of my peers and teachers in school believed I was maladjusted and deprived of the better things in life.

I wasn’t good at organized sports and was always one of the last ones picked for teams by peers in the schoolyard picks. That was embarrassing at first but I learned to accept and expect it as a matter of course. It was also an early on education in how the system works to reward and to punish based on some imagined preferential performance prescription. I’ve never been a fan of systems … regardless of their name or intention.

Systems create system-dependency and do nothing to promote self-reliance. Systems, in fact, depend upon this dependency to maintain their existence. The more self-reliant we become the more we jeopardize the health and welfare of systems.

School work didn’t interest me. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the intelligence to do it. It was boring. I was also surrounded by kids and teachers that I shared little in common with on a personal level. I spent a lot of time staring out the window thinking about things that were more interesting than reading, writing, arithmetic, and measuring up to and fitting into all the extracurricular amusements and games that quantified the lives of the townies I found myself forced to mingle with.

Intelligence?

I was smart enough to figure out in a hurry just how much I needed to do to make good enough grades to keep my woods exploring, hunting, and fishing privileges from being restricted when the report cards were sent home to be signed and returned!

If, looking back, those childhood peers and teachers were right in believing I was maladjusted and socially deprived, I’m glad of it. Those maladjusted and socially deprived years laid down something deep in the fabric of my being that I’ve never been able to shake loose from.

I tried to put those roots behind me as a young adult and well into my adult years … tried to fit into the social scheme of things … and marry myself to the ideals and standards for success set forth by society. That may work for a lot of people but it just never worked out for me. I was, for way too many years, miserable in a suit and tie and wing tip shoes. I was also gone from my woodsy outdoor roots for so long … so long on pavement and concrete sidewalks … that getting back out there away from campgrounds and campground amenities and deep into the deep woods with its natural inhabitants for a camp with minimal gear was more than kind of scary at first.

The truth is, though, that the deeper you get the deeper you want to get. The lure of the wild, and the deep peace and solitude it affords, is captivating if we will allow it to capture us. There is something in every clearing, valley, creek, and grove that stimulates the senses, offers different natural views, and opens wilderness windows of perspective that heightens the strength and enhances the aroma of the captivating lure.

I am of the opinion that it is this lure, and all that is inherently related to it, that is the real heart, frame, and meaty muscle that gives meaning to woodcraft or bushcraft or whatever else folks choose to call this thing that comes with a certain set of skills and tools surrounding it. However, every item in the toolbox … without the carrier being a captive of this lure … is merely infatuation that fast grows cold and is regularly replaced with the newest item brought to us by slick marketing.

Skills?

I can teach skills.

Tools?

I can recommend appropriate tools that will stand up to the task without breaking the bank.

The lure?

We are surrounded by its curriculum. Its scent hangs heavy all around us. It reveals itself in every morning dew, in every sunrise and sunset, its aroma permeates every breeze, and crackles in every kindled campfire. Its effects are intoxicating and addicting.

I can talk about it.

I can lead people into its arena.

But that’s about all I can do.