Wander

Yesterday I went on a wander around the surrounding woods. It was a relatively warm day and I found many interesting things as well as seeing a deer with spots, Red Ear Slider, hawk (unsure what species), Red fox, squirrels, Great Blue Heron, rabbit, and several interesting plants including nightshade and Wild Comfrey. Here are some pictures I'd like to share from my wander.

This caught my eye the moment I saw it. It was on a slight hill on the edge of a large area of dirt in a construction site. I took the picture then decided to find out what whatever animal that made it was trying to bury. I found a strip of raw animal hide about 4 inchs wide and 6 inchs long. Almost looked to be untanned deer hide, no chew marks visible. My guess is its the work of a fox hiding its meal to allow it to break down a bit before eating it.

Squirrel tracks in mud.

I found this Red Ear Slider in a creek. He dove in from the bank where he was hiding under some grass. He wasn't too bitey which is how most of these water turtles can be.

Letting the turtle go

I'm not sure what kind of mushrooms these are but they were all over this small part of the creek. I was struck by how many there were and how much they contrasted with the leaf-litter and roofs.

Nightshade (Silverleaf?). It was all over a field behind the library. It has very distinct fruits (seen here in yellow) which look like little watermelons when they're younger.

Ancestral Knowledge and Living Earth School

Lately I have begun my work with Ancestral Knowledge Inc., based out of Mt Rainier, Maryland. We work mostly with providing summer camps and workshops for home schooled kids, at risk youth, as well as schools and boy scout troops to teach ancient life ways, wilderness awareness, and sustainable living skills. Above all, we like to get the kids out in the woods and streams, learning by doing, and experiencing nature the way their ancestors have for eons. We operate mostly in the Mid-Atlantic area.

I also work for Living Earth School based out of Charlottesville, Virginia. Living Earth runs weeklong overnight and day camps.

Ancestral Knowledge Inc.:
http://www.ancestralknowledge.org

Living Earth School:
http://www.circleofseeds.com/LES.html

Here are some pictures from past events and Camps:

Demonstrating the bow drill with an over-sized set.

Making cordage

Oneof my favorite parts of spending time in the woods is discovering new and interesting places. This is an old Limestone Quarry, potentially over 100 deep.

Eastern Box Turtle

This is a print I am trying to identify. I could only find one. 5 toes, no claws visible. Don't tell me what it is if you know, simply give me a hint in the comment section or email it to me.

Sit-spot and getting to know your enviroment

Something that I'm beginning to learn is that it is a good thing to know these skills, but they can seem arbitrary and disconnected when not applied. Especially so because the materials use to make many of the things I talk about on my blog rely heavily on what your particular environment provides, and so an understanding and knowledge of your environment is desirable if you want these skills to be more than just a passing hobby or interest. When it comes to making bow drill sets, for example, you will want to know what trees in your area work best. You'll also want to know where they grow, how they grow, what animals rely on them, etc. The point I'm trying to make is all these skills and technologies stem from a deep understanding of the natural world that surrounds you.

The best way I have found to increase your awareness and knowledge of an area is Sit-Spot. This technique is done by simply finding somewhere within 5 minutes (preferably) of where you live. The reason for 5 minutes is that you should be able to go there easily so you can visit it daily.
Now if you want to implement this technique and benefit from it, it should be a daily, or at the very least a routine task, and you will want to do this at varying times of day and weather.

Now onto what sit-spot is. You find a place that is close by, and you sit. Thats right, sounds simple, but you'd be surprised how difficult it can be to just sit and take in your surroundings sometimes. You should strive for atleast a 20 minutes minimum at your sit spot, because it generally takes about 20 minutes from bird alarm calls to stop. You will also want to use wide angle vision at this time, if you are familiar with wide angle vision.
To supplement your sit-spot experience it might also be advantageous to keep a journal and write down things you see or notice. When I do sit spot one of the first things I do is take note of the surrounding trees and plants, and try to get to know them and what they are over time. Sit-spot isn't something you rush, and it is an ongoing thing. The longer you do it, the more you begin to know and understand your area.

Hunting the Antelope

This post it long overdue, but thats ok. A few weeks ago I was invited by my friend Jared to go hunting with his father and friends. We set out on Friday, left a little later then we would have liked but it was a good drive anyway. Montana looks amazing this time of year with the few deciduous trees standing out against the pines on the mountains.

We arrived after dark at the camp. We exchanged greetings with Jared's father and friends and then turned in (I think it about about 10:00 by that point, or slightly later). I made a willow deer effigy before going to bed, hoping it might help with the hunt the following morning.
We woke around 5, before dawn. When we had arrived the evening before it was hard to see the surrounding area, but now with the sun coming up, we could see that we were surrounded by dense willow and open plains with mountains in the distance. It's quite an amazing place. I haven't spent much time out on the plains before, or in this section of the Rockies. It's quite a place.

The ranch we would first hunt on was several miles down the road, so we drove to the ranch just as the sun was beginning to warm the earth. Its easy for your eyes to deceive you in this terrain, to call it expansive would be an understatement. Antelope are a light tan with white, and blend in very well with the surrounding grass. They also have excellent eyesight and stand in the open, which means they see you long before you see them. In almost every instance of seeing one, it was either a mile or more off running in the opposite direction, or looking directly at us. They are truly amazing animals.
I didn't get any pictures while hunting, because I left my camera at camp, and I don't photograph animals that have been recently killed (personal thing). I really wish I had brought the camera to try to capture the terrain.
Back to your eyes deceiving you in this land, while on a hill we tried to estimate how far the next hill over was. I guessed 200 yards. Other guesses were 375 yards. When we used the range-finder, we found it to be 600 yards from us at the base of the hill. Its so difficult to accurately judge terrain and distance, your eyes and brain arn't used to seeing that kind of distance.
We were able to get one young female and a buck. Jared and I helped skin and process them and in exchange got some meat, hides, and head of one.

Jared and I cook wild meat over coals often, so we put some antelope meat and ribs on. The ribs were a bit scarce in terms of meat, but the meat chunks we put on were good. We also put some onions and potato's on too.
We were able to brain the female antelope hide that night after fleshing and graining. Antelope hair pulls right out after it dies, so no soaking or bucking was needed. The hide softened nicely, but we're going to re-brain it to make it as soft as we can.
Here is our fleshing/graining set up.

The following morning we tried using atlatl darts without fletching. We had seen aboriginal people in Australia, as well as numerous anthropology textbooks demonstrating the atlatl being used without fletching. Our conclusion is that if you don't use fletching, there must be some kind of traditional techniques used to make it work, because our darts didn't fly straight.

The dart is lashed with sinew, dogbane cordage, and buckskin. It's tipped with an obsidian point, the shaft and atlatl is of willow.

There is a lot of game in the area. I heard beaver slapping their tails on the water in the nearby stream, an owl flew over me while collecting wood, you can hunt and trap various waterfowl, rabbits, beaver, elk, whitetail deer, mule deer, antelope, and many other species. Its quite an amazing place.

Before we left Jared took some pictures of me. I brought all my primitive tools, and used stone for cutting and helping with the butchering. I also worn my buckskin shirt, wore my Hudson Bay capote, and slept with my Hudson Bay blanket and elk hide. I enjoyed having these things with me and using them for what they are meant to be used for.


The blue coloured pouch hanging from my satchel is a beadworked pouch. It's a design of my own creation, done in lazy-stitch.

I have many more pictures of brain tanning, so I'll put them up in another post. I have an elk hide which I'll be working to completion which will hopefully be soon.

Stalking Rabbits

I was out in my front yard and saw a rabbit hopping across the driveway. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to practice fox walking and wide angle vision. So I slowed down, and fox walked around the garden until I was about 7 feet from her. At that point she noticed me, perhaps I was moving too fast. She hopped to the other side of my neighbors yard so I ran inside and grabbed my camera to get a few pictures of her for the blog.

And she's off under the fence. I've seen her around alot recently. Ashley said she saw her with a baby rabbit too.