Some Good Minnesota Dirt Time: On Natural Cordage, Land Nav And Cooking Kabobs

   On June 9th, I had made my way up to the Hyland Lake Park Reserve, in Edina to meet with my new friend and fellow bushcraft enthusiast, Shonuffisthemaster. You can read about that trip in a previous blog going back about 2 weeks ago. Sho and I hiked around the reserve and had a great time hunting resources and just getting to know each other. He was a great host, and I liked the area he had chosen for having future outings and meet and greets.
   On June 22nd, it was my turn to host a meetup and Sho came down from the cities to see where we have our regular meetings. We had a great day of it, and hiked about 4.5 miles, with temps in the low 80's by midday. We drank lots of water and worked on several skill sets along the way.
   I started by introducing him to processing and using nettle for natural cordage. Once he had some in hand, he processed an 18" piece in no time at all. Natural cordage is always fun to work with during the summer months, as there are so many choices.
   We worked at identifying some edible and medicinal plants and doing a little tree ID as well.
   At one point we stopped and I walked Sho thru the process of setting up a "shadow stick" so that he could see how to find direction using the sun. We also worked on some land navigation and practiced taking compass bearings and finding our position by using triangulation.
   We worked at getting a fire going with flint and steel, which was a challenge in the high humidity.
   He also gave me a lesson in knife sharpening that eventually had me shaving hair off of my arm with my BK14. He has quite the mad knife sharpening skills and I greatly respect him for that.
   We finished our day with kabobs on the grill and they were delicious.
   All in all, a very fine day and I think in the end, the stories and the photos and the video of our adventure will encourage others to join our group. It is our hope that it can become the great community of bushcrafters in Minnesota, that it can be.
   Here is the video of our adventure and I hope you enjoy it.

   It was a lot of fun to just get out and get in some dirt time. We could just be kids again and see things with wide eyes and amazement. I hope that more can join our respective groups and that they too will see that getting out and getting dirty is what brings life to their worlds of bushcraft. Until next time, Happy Exploring.