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.

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.

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.

Mark of a good day

My day started fairly late yesterday, around 12 or so. My friend Jared and I were planning on getting some hides from the local butcher shop to do some hide tanning. So we got our tools together and drove out to the shop. However, when we got there, we found that our local source for hides was now keeping them all, because Pacific Hide and Fur buys all their hides at the end of the year. But I think we'll be able to negotiate some hides, since they probably pay the shop a flat rate for all of their hides at the end of the year, as opposed to a per hide basis.
We did get a head and several legs out of the visit though, so we cut open the skull and removed the brain to freeze it. We're considering re-braining out elk leg hides to make them just a bit soften. I remember a time when removing brains was a task I didn't really look forward to. But now its something I don't mind. I suppose its the appreciation for what the animals brain can lend us, the ability to turn a hide or a pelt into something usable, and even desirable.
Having taken care of the brains and legs, Jared wanted to try out his hand drill set. We tried yucca on yucca, but it just seemed to burnish. I'm not sure what was going on with that set, I've used yucca sets before with success. I get the feeling there was still moisture trapped in it. Next we tried the same hand drill, though on a cottonwood root fire board. After a short while we had an ember, which we promptly put into a cedar bark tinder bundle and rushed it outside to blow it into a flame. Theres something about making a hand drill fire with friends, everyone should experience it.

It was quite a nice day so a trip to the Bitterroot river near Blue Mountain was planned. It's an amazing place with alot of plant diversity and wildlife. To name a few there were Blue Heron, lots of Robin, Mule Deer, Whitetail, bear (their scat was everywhere), lots of fish, tule growing in the swampy areas, as well as extensive grasslands and willow stands. Another feature was that there is actual fine grained sand in areas (especially around the willow) with many insect and bird tracks, as well as what appear to be coyote tracks. The whole area is quite amazing. After crossing the river, we began making out way up river to a large stand of willow. On our way Jared spotted a fawn grazing in a dried up channel. We stalked up to it for the next 10 minutes (it was quite unaware of our proximity, and even laid down in the grass to rest). I was reminded of what Joey Murray had said about the first day of hunting season, that most of the deer brought in were very young. I could clearly see that even though we were stalking through very dry grass, this fawn (who was on his own) was not picking up on us at all. Eventually he must have heard something because he stiffened up and looked right at us, then got up and ran off.
We proceeded up the river, noteing the bear scat all the way along the path. We arrived at the willow, where there was also a marsh. There were alot of deer tracks here too, as well as patches of Tule. I had never seen tule in person before, it is not common in this area. I ended up collecting a bundle of it to work with it and see what could be made. We spent the rest of the day exploring the river. Shortly after leaving, we passed a flock of about 10 turkeys as well as a doe and fawn crossing the road. A fitting farewell to a great day at the river.
Our evening was occupied going from back alley to back alley collecting various fruits that grow in the alleyways in Missoula. We found salmonberries, raspberries, apples, grapes, and tomatoes. We often find and gather other fruits like plums, pears, apricots, and peaches. That's one thing I really like about Missoula is the abundance of these fruits that no one really picks.
Later last night I used some of the tule to make a Paiute Tule Duck Decoy. It turned out fairly well, thought I want to use more tule to fatten it up a bit. I used instructions from Primitive Ways. They can be found here. I'll put some pictures up of the decoys 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.