Cool weather is finally here. It is crazy wet out this weekend but that
wasn't going to stop me from getting into the woods. I pulled on my rubber slop boots and headed
for the woods. While I was out there I
shot some pics and a couple videos (The first of them is down at the bottom of
this post) .
Normally I find myself in creek or river bottoms. I am just drawn to areas with water I
guess. When I parked at the trail-head I
had in mind for the day I noticed barricades saying the trail was closed for
maintenance. “Please stay on established
trails for your safety.” What the
heck? Normally I would have just said
fine, the trail is closed and walked straight into the woods being careful to
stay away from the maintenance sites but I recently had an encounter with a
ranger at this location that made me think that doing so would invite unwanted
trouble.
Instead of getting frustrated which was my initial gut response
I chose to look at the silver lining of the situation and accept that this is
my chance to explore new territory. I
drove off to another trail-head that I have never hiked from before.
This area was different indeed. Not more than a few miles from my normal
stomping grounds yet way up on hills and nowhere near a running stream. The trees were a good deal different. Gone were the big Sycamore trees the dot the
river bottoms, replaced by conifers.
It turns out that having the rubber boots payed off even
though I was high up on the hills. With
all the rain this past week there was standing water everywhere. In short it was downright sloppy.
All of the water this year has made it an excellent year for
fungi. Here is a large horse hoof
fungus.
A couple years ago at the Missouri Hardwoods meet I won an
Opinel #12 folding saw from Bushcraft Outfitters. I have used it a lot, it was my primary saw
until I acquired a Silky Pocket boy a few months ago. I really liked the saw, it is a handy pocketable size and it cut
well. While it worked great it lacked
the feel I really wanted. This week I
put a little work to it in the shop. I smoothed
out the edges, stained and applied a couple coats of boiled linseed oil. This is more like it.
I took a little time in the video below to talk a bit about
this saw and show it alongside the Silky Pocket Boy with medium which in my
experience is the saw that is the closest to it in quality cutting ability.
Of course no outing would be complete without practicing a
splitwood fire. My Turley Green River
was the tool for the job.
I have had a habit of using either my hat or a bandanna to
catch my shavings when doing fire prep.
Of course the direct result of course is that many of my hats and most
of my bandannas have been cut up. I have
decided that it was time to try something new.
I took a scrap of leather I used a Sharpie marker to draw a 4x4 grid on
it thinking it might come in handy at some point. I then proceeded to treat the leather heavily
with mink oil. This worked great on the
day’s splitwood fire prep.
Here is the video I shot. Thanks for viewing!
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