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.

Saturday Adventure And The Ottomani Sun Compass

   About one month ago, so even before the bushcraft trip that I made to the Richard J. Dorer Memorial State Forest with my pal Sticker, I went out for a regular Saturday morning meet up. After waiting around for a bit I found myself more then ready to go on a solo adventure.
   As it is with most of my solo adventures, I try to focus on practicing skills along with the chance to get out and observe and relax and to think about the things that matter most.
   Now recently, my focus has been on boning up on my navigation skills along with those needed for direction finding and map making. And on this particular Saturday, although it was overcast and just a bit on the chilly side, I decided to make myself an Ottomani Sun Compass.
   The Ottomani Sun Compass is basically a portable "shadow stick method" of telling which way is east to west and from there "calculating" north and south, that is to say "solar" north to south as opposed to "magnetic" north to south. One advantage to this method is that you do not need to wait for the sun to move thru the sky in order to establish an east to west line, that part is built into the "compass." All that is needed is to line up the point of the shadow of the compasses vertical indicator with an already established "east to west" calibrated line on the compass base. The calibrated east west lines drawn on the compass are to adapt to the changing seasons and the rise and fall of the sun above and below the equator as it moves thru the year.
   As you can see thru the following video, I harvested the pieces I need to construct the compass from the materials I found in the bush and fashioned them in to the compass base and pointer. Then later I went out on a clear and sunny day, actually it was on Mother's Day, and calibrated the compass using the "shadow stick" method.
   So here is the video and I hope you enjoy it.

      Having the ability to find your direction with a number of different methods is a good thing to add to your bushcraft mentality. Finding the right materials and improvising with them is key to making the tools you will need to be comfortable in the wilderness.
   I hope you found this little adventure with the Ottomani Sun Compass inspirational and that you  will want to try making one the next time you are out on the trail. Thank you for watching and until next time, Happy Exploring.

Even More Adventure In The Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest

   As mentioned in the previous blog post, my friend Sticker and I had a good long day of it, exploring that portion of the state forest. We were having so much fun, that time just flew by. It would have been even more fun, had there been some other Minnesota or Wisconsin or even Iowa BushcraftUSA members there to join in. It was a near perfect day for getting out.
   We had the chance to meet a few people who were out on the trails getting in some hiking and walking their dogs. The first of the people we met were two women and their dog, whose name escapes me at the moment, but they were making the long trek up the hill to get to their vehicle and it was at that point that Sticker and I realized there would have been an easier way up to the look-out, but probably not as fun. They asked us about wild edibles and other signs of nature and we made them a quick walking staff to help in their climb and we wished them well.
   Later we met another hiker, a man our with his short hair dog and he seemed a nice fellow and we talked a long time about the forest and about bushcraft and primitive skills and how we were collecting resources for friction fire and for using improvised flint and steel. He told us that the mosquitoes get pretty bad in that area and he did not understand why that is. He was a local native and we listen intently.
  Finally we met one last hike and his dog, as we were headed back to the nature center. We talked for awhile about bushcraft and he mentioned that he had seen and heard of BushcraftUSA and that he was a knife collector. He showed us his new Bark River knife that was a little smaller then my Aurora but a little bigger then the Little Creek model. I was not sure what model it was, but I liked it and was going to have to look that one up after I got home.
   So here is part two of our adventure and it is a little longer, but shows we had a lot of fun and practiced a few good skills.

   I am so looking forward to going back one day and hopefully doing it with a larger group of bushcrafters. As I posted up this same report to the BushcraftUSA forum site, I mentioned that I hoped it would make a lot of the Minnesota guys jealous that they did not go. Some of them were jealous, so my plan worked.
   I hope my friends that you enjoyed the video and the story line and I look forward to bringing you the next adventure. It's going to be a great summer. Until next time, Happy Exploring.

A Recon Of The Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest

   Well as promised, I finally made it to the RJD Memorial Hardwood State Forest and had the chance to spend a good nine hours playing in the woods. In that time, my friend Sticker and I covered a lot of ground, including both over land and the landscape that is bushcraft and some of the required skills sets. Here is a list of nearly all the activities we touched on in our time at the woods.
    We worked on navigation with our topo maps and compass, gathered tinders, found chert for improvised strikers for improvised steels, practiced with magnifying lens and chaga, gathered false tinder fungus, and gathered pine needles for tea. Then we gathered basswood and ash for bow drill and spindle parts, looked for water sources, practiced tree identification, looked for wild edibles (found some near ready fiddle heads), worked some knifecraft with batoning and carving, practiced shadow stick method for direction, played with making natural cordage made from basswood inner bark (not in the video), used flint and steel to start fire, and finally made some pine needle tea and relaxed.
   The established campground was on a hill nearby and had plenty of trees to hang hammocks, open areas for tents and fire rings and vault toilets. There was also a hand powered pump that worked for water.
   We got there at 9AM and stayed until 6PM. The weather was perfect for an outing, with sunny skies, temperature high near 40°F and little to no wind.
   As Sticker put it when we got there, "We needed to get out of our comfort zone." and he was right, we had gotten really familiar with things back in our usual stomping grounds.
   But we discovered as always, that bushcraft and bushcraft skills travel with you, and before long we were comfortable here in this new place, and we were soon gathering resources and having fun like a couple of boys playing in the woods.
   So here is Part One of our great adventure.

   Later, I will post up Part Two showing even more of the fun and I know I will be looking forward to doing even more adventures in bushcraft this year and meeting up with some really fine people. Until next time, Happy Exploring.