General Update

I haven't really sat down to update in awhile, so I'll covered a few new things.
We got some nice snow accumulation about 2 weeks ago, which was also my first snow experience in Maryland for about 3 years. I've grown used to dry powdery snow in Montana, so the wet, icy snow of Maryland is quite different for me. We usually get at least one big snow storm a year in Maryland with significant accumulation (save my senior year of high school when we failed to accumulate any snow days), so I look forward to another big snowfall as Spring draws closer.

This picture doesn't really reflect how much actually fell, this was pretty early on when I was visiting my old debris hut.

This hut is in very poor condition, and I was going to tear it apart earlier and rebuild it so I could use it when snow came, but the snow beat me to the chase. I was looking through the contents of the shelter and found a bundle of milkweed stalks and some polypore fungus I had left last December. I also left an elk knuckle bone, however it appears the local animals have made off with that. It always amuses me to find things I've left from the previous year.

I spent some time exploring the woods in the hills above Ellicott City this past week and found an exceptionally large deer rub. I'm no expert on deer rubs, though I enjoy finding them, but I'd say this is from a rather large buck, judging by its distance from the ground. My friend who hunts further west of Ellicott City agreed that a very large deer made this. It does seem unusual to me that it would be on such a thick tree. I see them on smaller saplings usually.

Snow Shoes

Kind of a delayed post. Over Thanksgiving Break I was in Helena, Montana. I finished my show shoes there, except for the rawhide lacing's.

The first snow shoe is Dogwood from Missoula, but I didn't have another piece of Dogwood, so I had to use willow from where I was at the time. I cut a flexible willow branch with my chert knife, and removed any sticks or switches so I had a nice clean loop. I also cut two cross braces.

Here is the materials I used and one semi-completed snow shoe. I used mule deer buckskin and dogbane cordage to lash the framework together. This particular style can be seen in Man Vs. Wild. I haven't had the chance to test these out, since we haven't had snow deep enough to warrant them.

First, tie the ends together.

Then place the rear cross-brace. I fitted this one to sit in front of my heel. I fitted them to be used with my boots.

Then place the front cross-brace. I positioned these to be below the ball of my foot.

Here are the completed shoes as I'd wear them in use. You can see I haven't laced them with babiche (the rawhide lacing's of a snow shoe). When I encounter deep enough show, I'll demonstrate their use.

I found an interesting video about snow shoes here

Snow in Missoula (gathing wood broken by snow)

Last night we got about a foot of snow. This is the first real snow we've had in Missoula this year. This also made for great snowball fights, but when morning came it also brought many broken and downed trees. Some of these trees were Basswood (American Linden). I've been waiting for a sizable branch from one of these trees to come down so I can get some new parts for my bow drill set. There's good trees around here for bow drill, but I like using Basswood for my set, and teaching others.

Here's a juniper that fell completely over from the weight of the snow.

When I got to the center of campus, there were stacks of branches piled up next to their respective trees (some had been but up into convenient pieces).

I cut several branches with my flint knife. The key to cutting with a knife like this is sawing around the stick to form a weak point, then snapping it in half. Continue sawing if the branch doesn't snap.

I'm also working on a pair of snow shoes. I have the frame of one completed, but I'll save picture from that for another post.

UPDATE: Its about 6 months from when I constructed my flint knife (box elder handle with raw Texas chert blade), and I compared it with a picture from when I posted about it in July (here)it is still going strong, with virtually no change, with the exception of a few flakes, but even those are minimal. Its been used extensively for cutting wood, boring holes, and various other tasks, and is still holding strong. I started out hafted with commercial tanned leather, but now sports brain tanned antelope hide bindings.