Dynamite Skills

The Chickens Have Arrived

2009-09-27T23:06:00.010-04:00

I finally got my chickens yesterday. I picked up 8 young hens from a person I contacted via craigslist. They were $12 each which is the best deal I found. Most ads I saw priced them at $15-20. Before I get ahead of myself, let's talk about the run.

I wanted at least part of the run to be tall enough for me to walk around in so I decided to build a ~6 ft tall door. I sunk two posts I found and then built a door with some 2x4s I bought.

Next I pounded in metal posts I found. They were various heights so it was interesting to figure out the best arrangement for them. Basically the height of the run got shorter the further from the door. There were even a few really short ones that I used to support a metal roof piece I found. This will provide some shade and shelter from the rain.

I added a few more 2x4s on top of the door posts and to the first set of metal posts to make the run a little more solid. I ran the chicken wire out 6-12 inches on the ground and laid rocks on top to prevent the dog from digging under and murdering the ladies. I may try to make this a little more presentable in the future. I'm thinking about putting soil on top and planting something the chickens will eat.

The extra height allowed me to add in some roosts at various heights and a rope swing. I'm hoping these things will keep them entertained. I haven't seen them use them yet though. I also noticed tonight that at least some of them weren't using the roosts in the coop so maybe they just don't want to roost.

Here are the chickens minutes after arriving. They immediately went for the feed and then a dust bath. Also notice Ace casing the joint.

The chickens scratching and bathing. I believe I have 5 Rhode Island Reds and 3 Buff Orpingtons. I made my own feeder and waterer to save money. I think they will last awhile without need of a refill. In the future I would like to hook up a rain catchment system to supply the water.

I think these are Buff Orpingtons, "Buff" being their color.

When I woke up this morning there was one egg in the nesting box. After work there were three more. You can see that they are different sizes, shapes and colors. I think these chickens are 5-6 months old and are just starting to lay. Some may not be laying yet. I ate the eggs tonight and they were tasty. The yolks were very dark yellow.

The only issue so far is that it looks like I underestimated the size of chicken poo. The poo isn't falling through the screen on my droppings boxes. I think I will buy a screen with a larger mesh size. Otherwise it defeats the purpose.

BONUS PIC - I noticed this kind creature praying for my chickens. I haven't seen one of these guys since I was a kid. Good vibes!

Chicken Coop Conversion

2009-09-15T23:58:00.006-04:00

I've been working on converting my doghouse into a chicken coop for many weeks now. Last week I finally finished. It was a challenge to customize an already existing structure and to use as many free materials as I could.

I started by elevating the structure on cinder blocks and wood I scavenged. I did this because it is my understanding that chickens like to roost off the ground and almost every coop I've seen is elevated. Raising the coop without assistance was a chore because the doghouse was pretty heavy. I used a combination of levering and my car's jack to elevate it into place. It was also a pain to get all four corners level since it is on a slight hill.

I next cut out the side to add on a nesting box. This provided a few benefits. First it made the overall size of the coop larger to comfortably accommodate more birds. Second it will allow me to gather eggs from outside the coop and soon to be added run.

The nesting box was completed with wood that I already had. The two sides were recycled from the pieces I cut from the doghouse wall. The box is very large compared to the recommended size I read and should have more than enough room for the six chickens I plan to buy.

The part that took me the most time was the removable droppings boxes. It took some time and money to figure out how to make them work. I'm satisfied with the final product. The benefits of my design are as follows. First, the screens are removable so I can clean the droppings out of the boxes. Second, the boxes are sized so I can remove them from the coop for easier cleaning. The final product is a floor that is easy to clean and prevents the chickens from walking around in their own poop.

You can see the box on the left has the removable screen on it and the one on the right doesn't.

I added a removable piece to make the doorway chicken-sized. It should help retain chicken body heat in the winter, prevent drafts and make the chickens feel more secure. I screwed in a wood block that swivels to lock the piece in place. I then added a ramp to assist the birds in entering the coop. I may need to add some more rungs.

Luckily the roof of the doghouse extended many inches to cover the nesting box add-on so I didn't have to waterproof it.

Inside I added two roosts cut to size from some dead branches I found in the forest. They are mounted using clothes-hanger-rod hardware in case I ever need to remove them or replace them. I also rounded the edges of the 2x4 rafters with a rasp to make them comfortable for roosting. Finally, I found the pretty pink paint that was left in the shed and coated the new parts.

She ain't the prettiest, but I think she'll work great. I'm currently working on the run. At first I thought of letting the chicken roam the whole fenced in yard, but I've seen too many hawks and owls around, not to mention all the predators I haven't seen and my friend's dog who likes to destroy things of mine.

Glass Buttes Trip - Fall 2009

2009-09-02T16:01:00.007-04:00

Last weekend we made another trip to Glass Buttes. This time we had a bigger crew. In total there were ten of us in three vehicles, but the five crammed into the Honda were off on their own once we got there. We saw them once a few hours before we left to go home on Sunday.

The crew I hung with is pictured below: Shawn, Andrew K, Shaun, Andrew P and me. I guess I should have been named "Sean" to keep the pattern going. :) In the background you can see Big Glass Butte.

When not cooking various non-refrigerated pork products, we spent most of our time on my favourite hilltop gathering and breaking rock.

I love this hilltop because it offers modest-sized surface rocks for easy picking or mystery-sized underground rock for some extra effort. It's odd because as you walk around it's mostly grasses, shrubs, and dirt but then every 60 yards there is a stream of rocks running down the hill.

Sometimes when you dig you get a nice reward for not too much work. Shawn found this monolith partially excavated. After some work he pulled out a big'n. Sometimes you dig and hit just the tip of an iceberg and work on it for hours with nothing to show for it.

Here Shaun teaches his friend Shawn the principles of flintknapping.

Andrew K studying his rock to decide where to make the first strike.

Saturday afternoon The Andes ("Hot Fuzz" reference) and I drove to another location where a different type of rock was available. Dacite is like obsidian but a little harder and less brittle. We collected a lot of it. We collected enough to make my car bottom out trying to get from the quarry to the main dirt road. We had to unload the rock to get my car out.

In the picture below, Andrew K and I reduce the big rocks down to usable pieces. This reduced the overall weight of the load while, in theory, still allowing enough material for a nice finished product.

In then end we each got enough rock to last for awhile. I'm excited to get to work on the dacite. There is just so much to do at the new place especially since hunting season started last Friday.

These pictures are from my new camera. Tonight I should have internet access at home. So now I have no more excuses for not posting more often.

New House

2009-08-10T16:56:00.009-04:00

A week ago I moved from Portland out to the country. I scored a pretty sweet deal. I am living in a 3 bedroom house at the entrance to a 140 acre private forest. In exchange for below average rent, I just have to mow the lawn and keep an eye out for funny business. I always dreamed of living somewhere where I could walk out my door and into the woods and now I can.

In this aerial photo courtesy of Google maps, you can see my house and the approximate boundary of the property. It's all available for me to play in! You can learn more about the forest here. It is open to the public for hiking and learning about nature and forestry.

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what the place is like.

It's kind of wasteful to have such a big lawn, but I've already started planting crops in the raised beds and hopefully I can add more beds next spring.

This is the view from the front porch. Beyond the tree line is a parking lot and facilities buildings. The raised bed full of weeds in the bottom right corner is going get replanted with veggies.

The backyard is pretty nice. I'm going to try to convert the doghouse into a chicken coop. When I get chickens they will free range in the ample fenced in area. And yes, that's a horseshoe pitch. Not sure how much use that will get.

This is the view from the back porch. Last night I sat behind the rail and watched two blacktail deer feed. They made their way from the left side of the field and came all the way to the fence before heading to the blackberry patch out of view on the right side of the picture.

The sky is the limit for this place.

Hunting? - Hopefully I will be allowed to hunt there this fall
Room to practice skills (no more tanning bison hides in an apartment)
Ample materials - I was told more than once I can cut wood and gather pretty much whatever I want
Foraging - From the blackberry patch in my backyard to the apple tree in the front, there is so much out there, I just have to find it
Homesteading - chickens, garden, wood stove, water well, hunting, goat?

I've been there a little over a week and I've already seen a lot without exploring very much. It's pretty exciting. I hope to get back to posting about projects I'm working on, but first I need internet access and a camera.

Bison Soap

2009-06-14T18:33:00.004-04:00

Today I made my first ever batch of soap. My brother took a soapmaking class a number of months ago so he guided me through the process. First I looked for a recipe using bison fat but couldn't find one. I guess not many people get their hands on bison fat these days. Meanwhile my brother and I have 5-gallon buckets full. :)

I substituted beef fat when looking up how much lye to use. Hopefully I calculated it correctly. It's something you really don't want to mess around with. If your lye to fat ratio is wrong then you might end up with a chemical burn like Ed Norton in Fight Club. I had the balsamic vinegar standing by just in case.

The recipe I created was:

1 cup rendered bison fat
60.8 grams lye
1/3 cup water
paprika added generously for color
~ 1 teaspoon vanilla essential oil for scent

One cup of rendered bison fat from the bison we butchered.

I weighed the lye crystals on the coffee filter carefully using the electronic scale. Then I mixed them into the bowl with 1/3 cup of water on the right. The water and lye reacted chemically and heated up.

Meanwhile I melted the bison fat and started monitoring the temperature of both the fat and the lye mixture.

It took some jockeying to get both temperatures to drop to 98 degrees at the same time. I ended up chilling and reheating the fat, but eventually I zeroed in on the target temperature. Once the temperature of the fat and the lye were both around 98 degrees I poured the lye into the fat and mixed.

I stirred for about 10-15 minutes to fully mix the lye with the fat. As it cooled it started to thicken. Once a drip from the spoon lingered on the surface of the mixture I knew it was time to pour.

I quickly mixed in the paprika and vanilla oil and then poured it into a plastic mold.

I'm kind of surprised at how much the ingredients made. Now I will let these set up for 3-4 days. Then I will knock them out and let them cure for 3 weeks. Hopefully the final products will not burn me.

Bison Hide Tanning Part 2

2009-06-03T00:00:00.004-04:00

Two weeks ago my brother and I made our first attempt at tanning the bison hide. We were given access to the TrackersNW facility so we were able to move the project from our apartment to a more adequate setting. We started Friday evening by cleaning the hair with shampoo and conditioner. As recommended on the bottle, we rinsed and repeated (about 8 times). When we finished we left it to dry overnight.

Saturday afternoon we took a short kayaking trip on which I capsized and got my brother's camera a little wet. As a result I wasn't able to get pictures of the tanning process which is a shame because they would have been good. Luckily, the camera is fine. After the trip we returned to the hide to apply the dressing. We mixed up soap, neat's foot oil and the bison's brain (a traditional tanning dressing) and spread it on the hide to soak in. We used a softening stick we made to push the dressing into the hide. A softening stick has a wide flat end so you can massage the hide with more surface area. We left the dressing on the hide overnight to give it more time to saturate.

Sunday morning we started the drying and stretching process. This is usually the most tedious part of the process because you have to continually stretch the hide until it is completely dry lest it become stiff. This can take many hours. The sheer size of the bison hide made this especially difficult. Luckily the weather was warm and we had sunlight to help speed up the process. We started by leaning the frame up against a tree. At this point the hide was still dripping with the dressing. We used the softening sticks we made to stretch the hide.

We were happy with how quickly the surface seemed to dry out. The hide got really stretchy and it took a lot of force to give it a full stretch. Eventually we laid the frame on 5 gallon buckets like a trampoline and used our body weight to fully stretch the hide. This is where it would have been nice to have some pictures. :( We took turns walking around on the hide. The hide stretched so much in the middle that it touched the ground and we had to raise the frame higher with some wood risers. We also rubbed it with pumice stones to soften it.

As the day wore on we realized that while the middle was fairly soft and stretchy, the sides were rather stiff. We decided to call it a day. We took it off the frame. The next morning the middle was still pretty soft. The rest was pliable, but still pretty stiff. For example, you could wrap it around you if you had to but you couldn't make clothes out of it. So that is the current state. We may try to tan it again, but we are afraid it might start to fall apart. We already lost some hair and put a few more holes in it while stretching it.

There are a few reasons why I think the sides may have been stiff. First, we may not have had enough dressing. When we left it overnight it settled in the center of the hide. Second, it was harder to stretch the sides because they are closer to the frame. On a trampoline the middle is where you get the most bounce. Next time I think we need to make sure the sides get saturated with dressing. Maybe we can loosen the hide in the frame so we can stretch the sides more.

Bison Hide Tanning Part 1

2009-05-19T00:16:00.006-04:00

My brother and I might be the only people ever to try to tan a bison hide in a two bedroom apartment. It's quite ridiculous if you think about it. It's one of the more messy and stinky projects one can work on indoors. We started with a raw bison hide fresh from the butchering class. The fur side had a lot of dirt balls, poo and other natural materials matted into it. The flesh side had meat, fat and membrane to remove. All together it produced quite an aroma.

Our first goal was to clean the fur so we wouldn't get mud and poo everywhere. It was not an easy task because we didn't have a convenient way to clean it outdoors. The bathtub was the option we choose. It took many, many rinsings before the water was not black with filth.

We soaked it in the tub for a couple days and started to become concerned that it would start rotting. My brother actually managed to take a shower with the thing. We got the fur about 80% clean and then propped it up to dry it. It was a heavy son of a gun with the fur saturated in water.

After wringing out the hair, we laid it out in the living room inside a frame. Andrew made the frame with some 2 by 6s about 8ft by 8ft. We laid out a bunch of blankets and plastic wrap underneath to not destroy the carpet.

Notice how dirty the flesh side is at this point. The white sections are places where we cut off meat and fat.

We used a heavy duty hole punch to make holes around the perimeter of the hide. Then we used little S hooks for stringing it up. These really made it easy. Without them we would have had to run the rope through each hole which is a pain. Also with the hooks it was a lot easier to adjust the set up which we did a few times.

After framing it we set it up against the wall. You may notice that the hide is really bigger than the frame. After a couple days we ended up cutting a few square feet of the hide off and restringing the whole thing. Otherwise the saggy parts like the top would have taken a long time to dry out.

For a few days the hide was still wet enough to use a wet scraping tool. In the picture, Andrew is using a sharpened bone.

As the hide dried out, we used a sharper metal scraping tool. We had to resharpen it many times to complete the scraping.

The red bowl is filled with hide scraping that we used to make hide glue.

To completely dry out the hide it took about two weeks. We had a couple fans running 24/7. In this final picture you can see how the hide was trimmed down in size. At this point most of the scraping was finished.

So far it's been an interesting project. Its progress could best be measured by the smell. The farther along we got, the less stinky it became. It was definitely pretty awful for the first week. At this point we have completed the scraping and thinning. While this was a lot of work, the hard parts still remain. Next we will finish washing the hair. Then we'll soak it, soften it and smoke it. I'll post the results of those steps in Part 2.

More Than Meat

2009-03-30T23:41:00.014-04:00

There was plenty of work to do following the butchering class discussed in my last entry. Steaks and roasts were only one of the products harvested from the animal. My brother and I spent most of Sunday working on sinew, fat, bones and hide.

I cleaned up the sinew separating meat and fat from the tendons and ligaments as my brother scraped the remaining meat from the bones.

Cleaning the sinew

There was quite a lot of sinew. The leg tendons were very long. After cleaning it, I hung it up to dry.

After about a week it was fully dry.

Breaking up one small piece gave many strands to work with. The amount pictured below is enough for many small projects.

Our class collected a lot of fat. Besides this pile we have a five gallon bucket full. We have been rendering it for the last week. There is just so much of it. It's pretty silly. Stay tuned for a forthcoming blog entry with details on rendering fat.

Here my brother boils the meat off some of the bigger bones. Barely visible in the background is a pot of fat being rendered.

We also started to work on the hide, but I'm going to save that for another blog entry. If we do another butchering class we are thinking about having a second day where we teach what to do with the non-meat parts: bones, hide, sinew, fat, organs and more.

Bison Butchering Class

2009-03-25T22:44:00.013-04:00

Warning: This blog entry contains vivid pictures and descriptions of a real bison being butchered. If the sight or thought of blood and guts makes you squeamish, skip to the last two pictures which show what a human carnivore is comfortable with seeing these days. If you want to see the whole story of where the bison meat came from, continue on.

On Saturday March 21st, my brother and I taught our first class for TrackersNW. We had 17 students participate in our Bison Butchering class. We started the day at 9am at the L-Bar-T Bison Ranch. My brother opened by reading the following quote from Steven Rinella's "American Buffalo - In Search of a Lost Icon".

How can someone suggest that paying for the slaughter of animals is more justifiable than taking the responsibility for one's food into one's own hands? At moments like this, though, I understand their perspective much better. It takes a strong stomach and a lot of dedication to do this job properly. You need to be able to visualize the end result - high-quality food - at a time when your sensory perceptions are seeing everything but that. Civilization is a mechanism that allows us to avoid the necessary but ugly aspects of life; most of us do not euthanize our own pets, we don't unplug the life support on our own ailing grandparents, we don't repair our own cars, and we don't process our own raw sewage. Instead, the delegation of our less-pleasant responsibilities is so widespread that taking these things on is almost like trying to swim upriver. It's easier not to do them, and those who insist on doing so are bound to look a little odd.

Each student had their own reasons for taking the class but I imagine that taking responsibility for one's food was a reason for many. For this reason and other personal ones, I volunteered to kill the bison as opposed to having the ranch owner do it. Bison are wild animals so the traditional bolt gun used for domestic cattle was not an option. I used a handgun as the ranch owner typically does. It was an emotional experience for sure.

The 1050 lb. bison bull before slaughter.

Once the bison was dead, his throat was cut for bleeding. The ranch owner and his son took care of hanging him using their front loader. This made the job of bleeding and skinning a lot easier because we had gravity to help.

The blood was collected by some students for fertilizer and other projects.

After bleeding the animal, the next step was to remove the head. Up until this point there hadn't been any student participation, but several volunteers eagerly stepped in to work on the head.

The removed head was then skinned while others worked on the body.

We did almost all the skinning using stone flakes and stone knives. The stone knives were very good at removing the skin.

Several students working on different parts of the hide.

Once we had the hide peeled back from the belly, we opened it up to remove the organs. This was one of the more challenging parts do to the amount of connective tissue that had to be broken up without sharp tools for fear of piercing organs. The last thing we wanted was digestive materials on the meat. It was quite an experience being shoulder deep inside feeling around for connective tissue. The body was still hot inside after an hour.

After removing the guts. The heart and lungs are still inside at this point.

We caught the guts in a plastic bin and took them aside to sort through. Clumps of fat were gathered for various projects. The liver and other organs were kept for a meat processing and preserving class the following day.

One of our instructors Shaun (bottom left), leads students in sorting through the gut pile.

The scene at the ranch.

The students finishing up the skinning.

The animal was split into six pieces plus the head. Four legs and the torso cut in two. We did the whole thing while keeping all the bones intact. I write this tonight after dropping the bone collection off at the Portland State University science lab where we will have the opportunity to assemble it into a museum style articulation. The professor we gave the bones to said that it would be put on display somewhere so hopefully that happens down the road.

Two front legs packaged up for transportation back to Portland.

At 3pm we all met back at the Scout Pit in Portland to cut up and package the meat. Fat and sinew were collected for future projects. Once the major hunks of meat were removed they were sliced up, packaged and labeled.

Students working on the six sections.

Here is but a small sample of the meat harvested.

After all the meat was packaged up, the students divided up all the meat that they worked so hard for.

At the end of the day we enjoyed the fruits ...err, meats of our labor.

Overall it was a great experience on many levels. I learned and experienced so much. The work didn't stop that day though. My next blog will explain some of what my brother and I did the following day.

We are tentatively planning to teach this class again in May.

Forest Park Overnight

2009-02-23T22:52:00.003-05:00

It's been a busy few weeks at work. My team released our new website and it took a lot of work to get it done on schedule. I was in the mode where if I wasn't working, I was thinking about work. The launch was very successful. During the final stretch, I promised myself I would spend at least one day by myself in the woods.

Saturday I had my brother drop me off on the SW side of Forest Park around 2:30pm. I had a school sized back pack with my sleeping bag, my medium sized (camera case) survival kit, rain jacket, felt hat, a nalgene and a snapple bottle of water, my knife, a headlamp and a relatively small amount of food. The food consisted of a bagel (no cream cheese), about three dehydrated apples in chip form, about 12 ounces of beef jerky and a Hershey's bar. I also had other non-survival stuff including my phone, iPod, keys, wallet and a book. I didn't have a tent, cooking gear, change of clothes, tooth brush, etc..

The place I was dropped off was not an entrance to the park. It was just the side of a road. Luckily it was on the uphill side of the park so my journey was mostly downhill. I bushwhacked through the forest for about two hours. Along the way I came close to a few houses and tried to stay out of sight. I'm not entirely sure I was inside the park the whole time. I tried to follow deer trails as much as possible to make the hike easier. Finally as I made my way down a ridge I spotted the Wildwood Trail, a 30 mile trail spanning the length of Forest Park and into Washington Park.

At this point it was about an hour and half till dark so I prepared a shelter a ways back up the hill out of site from the trail. I found two Douglas Fir trees that were about my arm span apart. I was a little concerned about rain, so I decided to sleep between the trees so I had some canopy cover. I cleared the brush away and gathered fir balms that had fallen for insulation and cushioning. While gathering I realized that there wasn't enough insulating material around to construct any kind of debris shelter in a reasonable amount of time. Survival there without a sleeping bag would've been a challenge. I took the poncho and part of the para cord strap from my survival kit and tied it to the trees above my sleeping bag. The poncho was the thinnest plastic you could imagine. You could easily see through it. I was able to rig up a shelter with it but I won't be putting it back in my survival kit. I'd rather have a sturdy trash bag. Luckily it didn't more than drizzle and there was little wind to worry about.

I gathered several fists full of twigs no more than pinky thick to make a small fire. The fire was mainly just for fun and to test my kit. I was able to start the fire with one match from my survival kit. The fire was small enough that I could huddle with my legs on either side. The challenge was to keep the fire small while at the same time providing it enough fuel and oxygen so it didn't smoke me out. Using such small sized fuel allowed me to completely burn up the fuel leaving only white ash.

I went to bed early. The temperature probably got to the low 40s which wasn't a problem for my 20 degree bag. I did close up the hole to my sleeping bag as much as I could. I never really got cold though. The fir balms didn't end up being as much cushion as I hoped and woke up often.

The next morning I broke camp at about 7am and headed for the trail. I started off with the bagel and ate apple chips and beef jerky as I hiked. Overall I covered about 11 miles in about 4 and 1/2 hours. The best part was when I remembered I had a Hershey's bar. Everything tastes so much better when you are hungry.

When I reached Pittock Mansion less than 4 miles from the end of the Wildwood Trail, I called my brother to come pick me up. I was out of food, water and my ankle was starting to hurt. Before he arrived I took a quick look at Portland from the back of the mansion. It was cool to see the city with Mt. Hood in the distance.

It was a fun little overnight. I got to somewhat rough it and test a few things in my survival kit. I also got to explore Forest Park and enjoy the nice weather.

Obsidian Spear

2009-01-26T01:11:00.006-05:00

A couple posts ago, I showed the spear point I finished and talked about the spear shaft I harvested. Over the past weekend I finally put it all together. The shaft dried out nicely with no cracks and the bottom end straightened out like I planned. Pictured below is the finished product.

To prepare the shaft I removed the bark and smoothed the whole thing with a draw knife. I removed wood to make the diameter comfortable for my hand and shaved down knots till they were smooth. I then sanded the whole thing. After cutting out a deep notch I stained the wood with black walnut dye. To add some style I scorched in some black bands using a heat gun. This could have been done with open flame as well but a heat gun makes it easier. I used a piece of soda can to cover the places I didn't want to scorch which gave me pretty nice straight lines. Finally, I rubbed in some rendered fat to moisturize the wood.

Hafting in the point was pretty easy. I used my trusty pitch mixture of 50% pine sap and 50% ground up charcoal to seat the point in firmly. To secure it more I then wrapped it with sinew. Finally, I coated the sinew with hide glue to make it water resistant.

What will I use this for you might ask. Probably nothing. Some day maybe I'll hunt with it. It's also handy in case of a home invasion.

How'd you like that comin atcha!

Buffalo Harvesting Workshop

2009-01-19T00:39:00.003-05:00

My brother and I are teaching our first official class with Trackers Northwest on March 21st. We are going to buy a live 1000 lb. Buffalo at a ranch outside of town. For safety and out of respect for the animal we will have the owner dispatch it humanely. After we gut it, we will transport it to The Scout Pit where we will completely process the animal.

In addition to the meat (each student will take home 20 lbs.) we will attempt to make use of as many parts of the animal as possible. The hide will be racked for tanning. We will render fat for future projects. The sinew and bones will also be saved. We are planning to do much of the work using stone flakes and knives like those from my last post.

I believe this will be an amazing experience and am really looking forward to it.

To see the full class description check it out on the website.

New Knives

2009-01-04T23:45:00.007-05:00

My brother and I have been getting involved with the local Trackers Northwest organization. They offer many different classes including survival, martial arts, homesteading, medicinal plants, and all kinds of other cool stuff. Today we helped teach flintknapping and animal skinning for a free event. About ten people showed up to learn what the organization offered.

I used the opportunity to finish up an obsidian spear point. I'm pretty happy with it, but I wouldn't mind if it were a bit longer.

Brian, one of the instructors, took us down to the park across the street where many trees had been cut down. There I cut a six foot limb from a downed tree to make my spear shaft. I took the bark off it tonight and have it clamped to a shelf to try to straighten a few bends as it seasons. It'll probably be awhile before I can haft in the spear point. I want to make sure the wood dries slowly so it doesn't crack.

I also finished two obsidian knives this weekend. The first is pictured below. The handle is Vine Maple stained with black walnut dye.

This little guy is a different color of obsidian with some brown color in it. The handle is an antler tine. I drilled out the inside of the tine so the haft of the knife is hidden inside. You can see a thin band of pitch between the point and the tine.

Felted Hat

2008-11-02T22:33:00.006-05:00

Last week my brother and I experimented with the art of felting. We started by buying bundles of wool fibers from a store in the area. Most of the wool was of different sheep varieties but we also choose llama wool because of the nice brown color and cheaper price. There were many colors to choose from but we choose earth tones for making camouflage gear. We bought a total of 28 ounces of wool for about $40.

We took some of the white wool and dyed it using black walnut husks and osage orange saw dust.

Pictured below are the wool fibers after dying. The yellows are from the osage orange dye. The orange and brown are from the black walnut dye. We were hoping that these would come out black and I'm not sure why one batch was orange and the other brown.

We decided to make hats. We referenced four different felting books from the local library. Each had a slightly different technique for felting a hat. The main concept was to pat, press, rub, agitate, massage, knead and throw the wool until it was felted. An important point was that the wool shrinks about 40% as from start to finish. Therefore we had to start with a hat 40% bigger than our head.

Below you can see one half of my hat laid out. Notice how it was 40% bigger than my head.

After laying out the wool I poured warm soapy water on it and pressed it down to tangle the wool fibers, starting the felting process. I left a 2 inch fringe of fibers dry so I could splice the matching hat piece to it.

Here you can see my hat with both pieces spliced together on the left and my brother starting his hat on the right.

After more rubbing and pressing the hat became felted enough that I could pick it up. Notice it is still very large.

After more kneading and throwing it hard against the table several times, the hat shrank quite a bit and I was reading to put it on my mold. We both constructed head molds from foam insulation prior to starting the hats. Once on the mold I pushed the fibers together more to shrink the hat to the desired size.

The final product is a totally customized, stitchless, wool hat. Because I made it myself, the camo pattern is exactly what I wanted and it fits my head perfectly. It took at most 6 ounces of wool to make putting the cost at around $8.

After successfully completing my first hat, I decided to challenge myself further. I made a reversible hat with a striped pattern. The first challenge was to get the stripes to line up at the splice line. The second challenge was to make the reverse side have different colors. Lining up the stripes at the splice line on the reverse side at the same time was very difficult. The splicing didn't work out so great on one part and I had to stitch it up.

Here is the same hat inside out (reversed).

On the list of future projects are quivers, bow socks, mittens, socks, boots, and perhaps other clothes. My dream project is to make a stitchless hooded sweatshirt, but the splicing would be very hard, not to mention making matching sleeves.

Glass Buttes 2

2008-09-30T00:38:00.006-04:00

My brother and I drove back to Glass Buttes a couple weekends ago. This time we decided to drive around and map out the area so we knew where different varieties of obsidian were. We stopped at a campground and found this gigantic pile of debitage.

When walking around one area I stumbled upon a small quarry with exposed rock. You can never tell how big a rock you have until you pull it out. We pulled a few nice size rocks out and then started excavating a huge one.

It turned out being the tip of an iceberg. We were a little bummed about not unearthing the entire thing.

Then my brother decided to spall it while it was in the ground and ended up with the biggest spalls I've ever seen.

We loaded my car up with over 400 pounds of rock and drove home. Now we have a room dedicated to storing our rocks. We plan to get some shelves to store it eventually.

Here are a few of the pieces I've been working on the past month. Only the small point at the bottom left and the knife have been pressure flaked (sharpened). I plan to work the rest into more refined products eventually. Most likely they will be spear points.

Here is a close up of the knife. The handle is made from Redheart wood.

I hafted the blade into the handle using pitch made from sap and charcoal. I then wrapped it with deer sinew dipped in deer hide glue.

Glass Buttes

2008-09-06T15:03:00.006-04:00

August 20th I drove from Portland to southeastern Oregon about an hour east of Bend. I met my brother and his two friends at Glass Buttes, a mountainous area composed partially of obsidian. They were nearing the end of their road trip from Washington, D.C.. We met there to get our hands on beautiful, free obsidian straight from the source. We were used to paying $1-$3 per pound for the stuff and there it was free and plentiful.

The first night we set up camp and then drove to the closest spot on our map to try to quarry some rock before dark. With pick and shovel we dug in existing pits and the progress was slow. Matt took a hike to reconnoiter some other sites. He discovered that it wasn't necessary to dig to get good stuff. There were places where cantaloupe size rocks were just laying about.

The next morning we drove to one of these sites. On top of a hill there was an open quarry filled with large chunks of Silver Sheen obsidian that had been left by previous diggers. We spent most of the morning and afternoon sitting around the quarry working the rock into smaller pieces. We were determined to take as much rock home with us as our cars could handle.

Matt reducing a rock into a biface at the quarry.

Here I was reducing a large piece with a view of the high desert in the background.

My brother Andrew dug into the wall of the quarry and pulled out several huge pieces, some weighing 50 pounds or more.

Here I was holding one of the large rocks.

Prior to the trip I had worked on maybe five rocks of the large size that was commonplace there. I was always nervous because I had paid money for the rocks and only had a few of them. At Glass Buttes there was absolutely no pressure. If I messed up I could just pick up another rock for free. That state of mind along with advice from Matt and Andrew and the hours of practice there improved my skills considerably.

Later in the afternoon Matt and I drove around the area looking for other types of obsidian. There are many names used to describe the different coloration in the obsidian so it was hard to tell exactly what we found. Based on the pictures on the www.neolitics.com we found Tiger Stripe, Brown, Midnight Lace, Mahogany and Black. The bulk of what we gathered was glossy black and opaque black which some call "Black Butter" because of how nicely and easily it flakes.

Before we left on the the third day, we gathered everything together to get a group shot. From left to right (Andrew, Me, Ryan, Matt)

In my next post I'll show pictures of some of the pieces I've made since that trip.

Portland, My Home

2008-09-06T14:17:00.004-04:00

A lot has happened since my last post. Most importantly I moved from Riverside, California to Portland, Oregon. I wanted to move here for many years. There are so many reasons for me to live here. I could list a hundred reasons, but here are a few.

It is commonplace for people here to enjoy and appreciate nature and being outdoors. It's not hard to see why, living in between Mt. Hood and the Atlantic. Not to mention that it seems like no matter where you are there is a park within walking distance. Forest Park in NW Portland is the largest urban park in the country.

More importantly there are people here who practice primitive skills and there is even a school to teach skills. I've wanted people to practice skills with on a regular basis for a long time and now I will have them. Plus, my brother moved here too and we now live together so we can practice skills together anytime.

Portland is a good place to be for the short and long term problems this country and the world face. The city government already started planning for the inevitability of Peak Oil despite no leadership at the national level. The city has pretty good public transportation and is bike friendly. I believe the copious amount of precipitation that sours some visitors experience will be a blessing as aquifers in the country start to dry up. Another interesting thing is that it seems like every house has a garden or a fruit tree. Blackberry bushes are so dominating here that they have to be sprayed to control them.

Portland and the surrounding cities have many companies with work in my areas of expertise. Having said that I'm still unemployed and looking. I feel like this is a good place to be looking though compared with other areas of the country.

Survival Kits

2008-07-11T01:06:00.012-04:00

What would you do if you were given 1 day/1 hour/1 minute to gather everything you needed to survive for 1 day/1 week/1 month? You would probably panic and scramble around the house looking for supplies. Chances are you would grab some non-essentials and forget to grab some necessities. Now what would you do if you were at work, the same situation happened and you couldn't get home? Would you even be able to find necessities there?

These are the questions that survival kits, a.k.a. "Grab N Go" bags or "Bug Out Bags" are meant to answer. The idea is to have everything you will need already packed up so you can literally grab it and go. It is recommended to have a kit at home, work and in your car since you never know where you'll be when you need to bug out.

Each kit should contain items to satisfy these basic needs:

shelter
water
fire
food
signaling or navigating for help

It is a good idea to have more than one item for each of these areas. For example, my kits have more than one way to start a fire. The smaller the kit the more important it is for an item to be useful for more than need. Also, it is essential to have a pocket knife in conjunction with the kit. I carry one in my pocket every day.

One of the benefits of making your own kit is that you can tailor it to your personal needs and skills. I, for example, have little experience fishing so I added more fishing gear than a more experienced person would need including a cheat sheet on tying fishing knots.

I don't ever plan to stake my life on these kits alone. In fact, I wouldn't feel confident in survival at all if I hadn't taken classes and practiced skills. In a long-term survival situation I see these kits as giving me a buffer period to make up for my lack of skill and experience. For example, I could make a fish hook from a piece of bone or wood, but I've never done that before so bringing fish hooks gives me time to learn how.

I decided to make three kits of different sizes. The first one is small enough to fit in my pocket so in theory I could take it with me always. It fits into an Altoids container. It's amazing how many useful things one can pack into such a small container.

Starting from the top left here are the contents and their possible uses:

Altoids tin: boil water/cook, plate/cup, use the metal for tools (scraper, arrowhead, etc.), signal
knot cheat sheet: tinder, leave a note
Ziploc bag: keep other items dry, hold almost a quart of water for use with purification tablets
fishing tackle (various sizes of hooks, swivels and split shot): stored in the little tube with the red top.
needles (also included in the tube): clothing repairs, medical
razor blades (also included in the tube); medical, process game
circular mirror: signal, medical (find ticks and see wounds), personal hygiene
compass: navigation
saw blade: shelter, make wooden tools (ie: trap parts, arrow notches)
1 sq ft aluminum foil: cook food, boil water, fish/hunt/trap lure, signal, etc.
8 water purification tablets (enough for 2 gallons): make water drinkable
fishing line wrapped in duct tape: fishing line to fish, clothing repairs, snare/trap parts; duct tape to repair, medical (wound closure)
LED light (12 hrs): temporary convenient light source, signal
safety pin wrapped in nylon: safety pin to repair, fish; nylon to fish, clothing repairs, shelter, snare/trap parts
candle (cut to fit): fire, light, heat
lint and petroleum jelly (in small bag): tinder (starts from a spark and when wet)
waterproof matches (in latex): fire
fire steel: fire (scrape off ignited metal filings)
alcohol swab: medical, fire
2 butterfly closures: medical
bandage: medical
10 ft of paracord (not pictured above): shelter, fishing line, trap/snare parts, keep kit closed, etc.

Everything packed in the kit

Paracord is very strong and is composed of an outer sheath with 6-7 smaller threads inside. It can be used whole or broken down into smaller pieces and is thus very versatile and useful.

The kit sealed with 10 ft. of paracord.

The second kit I made fits into a bag the size of a small camera case. The bag actually was a survival kit I bought from REI. Most of the stuff in it was junk, but the size of the bag was perfect and it had enough good stuff inside to make it worth the price. It is easy to sling over the shoulder or string through a belt. It weighs 2-2.5 pounds fully packed.

Starting from the top left here are the contents and their possible uses (where not already explained in pocket kit):

red poncho: clothing, shelter, water collection, signaling
1 gallon Ziploc: water storage
emergency blanket: shelter, water collection, signaling
carrying bag with 25 ft. paracord strap
square mirror
money (I plan to put actual cash in when I can afford to): phone call, etc.
orange whistle: signal
2 sq ft aluminum foil
LED flashlight - the only flashlight I could find that combined the long-lasting LED bulb with the cost-efficient AA battery.
2 spare AA batteries
needle tweezers: medical (tick, splinter removal)
moleskin: medical (blister care, wound closure)
length of nylon
length of fishing line
4 water purification tablets
1 oz bottle of bleach wrapped with 2 ft of duct tape: water purification (6-8 drops/gal)
candle
camera film tube of lint and petroleum jelly
fire steel (from http://www.survivaltopics.com/): bigger than the one in the pocket kit
waterproof matches in latex: more than in pocket kit
2 needles
2 butterfly closures
1 Pepto Bismal tablet: duh!
4 500 mg acetaminophen: medical
2 bandages
2 alcohol swabs
fishing tackle: more than in pocket kit
2 saw blades: the bigger one has a sharpened edge opposite the teeth for scraping wood
2 bullion cubes: food (replace salts, flavoring)
fishing knots cheat sheet
Ziploc to hold small items
2 razor blades
5 safety pins

Below you can see the case fully packed with the strap I made from the 25 feet of paracord. It is stronger than the strap that came with the bag and is more useful.

The third kit I'm still working on fits into a backpack. It basically includes everything included in the kits above but in larger quantities. It also contains the usual gear for a backpacking trip like a tent, clothing, stove, pots, knife, food, water and sleeping bag. I also plan to include a wild edible/medicinal plant book, my survival journal, passport, cash, work gloves, etc.

I was curious to see how well aluminum foil would work for boiling water. I took a 1 sq ft sheet and formed a crude bowl. I made a fire in my rocket stove and set the foil bowl on top. It successfully boiled water. The first time I tried it I wasn't careful enough with the foil. I ended up putting holes in it with the bending and shaping, so you do have to be a little delicate with it. But, I only needed one ply to be successful.

Arrowheads

2008-06-15T21:34:00.002-04:00

This weekend I spent several hours flintknapping. I focused on making arrowheads. The weather was sunny and hot, but I took dips in the pool often to cool off. Every time I work on this skill I do my best work so it's pretty fun. I worked with several different materials.

The white piece is made from chert. The rock is very hard and takes a lot more pressure to push a flake off. It's pretty easy to mess up so it was nice to finish an arrowhead. The piece is only about 3/4 of an inch wide so it's not ideal for hunting.

The gray piece is dacite also about 3/4 of an inch wide. The black one is made from obsidian. It's a little over an inch thick so I could hunt with it. The last two are made from glass. I was trying to make the big piece into a spear point until I dropped it. I didn't expect it to break so easily.

Material from left to right (penny for size reference, chert, dacite, obsidian, glass bottle bottom, glass slab)

This obsidian is translucent.

I'm still working on my notches. Ideally the notches near the bottom of this piece would be two or three times deeper in.

Rocket Stove

2008-06-07T00:30:00.008-04:00

I stumbled across the rocket stove on one of the many outdoor/survival skill websites I frequent. The stove has several advantages over an open fire when it comes to cooking. The two major benefits are less fuel is needed and less smoke is produced.

After dreaming about it two nights in a row, I figured I better make one!

I gathered all the materials and tools I needed. I didn't end up using the small soup can or the wood chips (more on that later). Also I used another pair of snips and work gloves after I cut myself on the metal.

I cut out a soup can sized hole in the side of one large and one small coffee can. After removing the remaing end of the soup can I inserted it through the holes in the cans. I filled the space between the coffee cans with insulation. The idea is to keep all the heat in the cylinder and ultimately directed up to the cooking vessel. This is something you can't do well with a normal fire pit.

Ideally I would have used wood ash from a fire. Unfortunately I don't have a fire pit anymore so I had no wood ash. I opted for flammable wood chips! I reasoned that they wouldn't be touching flame and there wouldn't be enough oxygen to ignite. As it turned out I was wrong. During my first test they did burn. I doused the whole thing with water before it got out of hand. I had to settle for sand as my insulator which isn't very good since there aren't many pockets of are between particles. When I find wood ash, I'll swap.

I used the bottom of the other large coffee can to make a cover to hold the insulation in. I also decided to leave four tabs sticking up to give the cooking vessel something to sit on.

The soup can has a platform in it. The fuel goes on the platform leaving the bottom half open for oxygen to enter. By only burning the tips of the wood, less smoke is produced. As the wood burns down, it is pushed further into the stove.

Here you can see the pot resting on the tabs.

I tested the stove by bringing one quart of water to boil using only the tinder and wood pictured below.

It took 10 minutes although I let the fire die a little so in theory it could have boiled faster. As you can see in the picture below I didn't need all the wood.

To increase the efficiency of the stove I could add a skirt around the pot that would direct hot air up the sides of the pot. The sides of the stove were hot to the touch so thicker insulation would also be an improvement. That would require a larger can though.

While not a primitive tool, this stove is pretty cool and very practical in an urban survival situation. With proper ventilation this could be used indoors due to the low level of harmful emissions.

There are some good how-to videos with various size stoves if you search Google Video.

Update

2008-06-06T23:41:00.005-04:00

It's been awhile since my last post. Let me catch you up on what I've been doing. My internship with the Student Conservation Association ended May 17th. It was an amazing journey for me. I learned so much about how to live in the wilderness. I also learned a lot about how to live with less money than I've been used to. It was a timely lesson as prices for everything are soaring these days.

After saying goodbye (for now) to my crew I moved to Riverside, CA for the summer. I'm living at the home of Chris and Karen Roholt. Chris is the Wilderness Planner at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that gave our crew its assignments throughout the year. I am going to work for him at the BLM for 60 days working on the water source data my crew collected during the 8 month internship.

While there I will learn more about GIS (Geographic Information System) and specifically the ArcGIS software that is used in the industry. My goal is to get enough experience to get a job where I can both collect data in the field and analyze it in the office.

I got to spend two weeks back in the Midwest. I managed to spend time in Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana. After three weddings with friends and family, lunch with old work buddies and hanging out in my home town, I spent time with almost everyone I know!

I'm hoping to still work on skills while living in Riverside, though I don't plan on having a fire pit or digging out a shelter in the Roholts' backyard!

Tomorrow I get to spend my birthday at the beach. My friend Melissa and I are going to watch the AVP (volleyball) tour at Hermosa Beach. I'm hoping to get in a pick up game or maybe fill in for an injured player (*Announcer*: "Can anyone in the crowd play volleyball?") during the featured match.

Obisidan Knife

2008-04-17T15:23:00.008-04:00

I've wanted to make a knife or spear point for a long time. Until a couple days ago I never made a point longer than a few inches. The first problem was to get a long enough piece of rock to work with. I started by knocking a long thin spall off a roundish nodule. From there I knocked piece after piece off making very few mistakes for once. I took a few pictures on the way to the finished product because I was afraid I would mess it up.

I switched to pressure flaking a little sooner than I should have. I could control the accuracy of the flakes I pushed off so much easier than when striking the rock. The problem is that the flakes I took off weren't as long and thick as when striking. I was too afraid to ruin the piece with a misplaced strike though so I picked up the ishi stick. The consequence was a thicker, duller blade than I hoped for. Near the tip it's probably a 2/1 or 3/1 width to thickness ratio. That makes it good for stabbing things but not so good for slicing. By the way, I don't plan to do either with this guy so don't worry. The finished point ended up being about 4 1/2 inches long.

After finishing the point, I selected an antler from my stash. I sawed of the tines at a nice wide spot. I put the antler in boiling water to soften up the inside of the antler. After taking it out it was pretty easy to scrape out the inside with some metal tools. I also filed down a groove in the sides since the rock was wider than the antler. When fitted together the blade fit about 1 1/4 inches into the antler handle. Ideally it would've been a little deeper into the handle, but I was satisfied with it.

After whipping up a batch of pitch as I discussed in my last post, I poured it into the antler handle. At the same time I heated up the blade over the Jesus candle so that the knife would have holy powers. I then jammed the blade into the handle.

As the pitch overflowed I molded it around all sides of the blade and handle. As the pitch cooled it became very easy to mold. Below is a close up of the finished product showing the black pitch.

The picture below shows you the overall size of the knife. The blade is now approximately 3 inches long. The blade feels very secure inside the handle.

Pitch - "Survival Epoxy"

2008-04-17T14:16:00.007-04:00

Last November when doing trail work in the lower Sierra Nevada's I happened upon a tree that was gushing out sap. The picture below shows just a portion of the sap that was running. I took the opportunity to collect as much as I could. After finishing with this tree I found a few more trees that had pretty good quantities. I suspect the dry air in the region leads to more limbs cracking then most places.

I collected the sap to make pitch which can be used for many projects. Anytime you need to adhere one object to another, pitch can be used. I hadn't had a need for it until today when I hafted an obsidian blade into a deer antler handle. That will be the topic of my next post. To make pitch you mix equal parts sap and a hardening agent. Charcoal, white ash and powdered egg or mollusk shells are examples of hardening agents. I chose to use charcoal from the remains of my pottery fire.

First I rigged up a contraption to melt down the sap. The bottom of a beverage can rests on two wood blocks sitting over a candle. I put tape on the wood so the can wouldn't slip around. The small candle provided plenty of heat to soften up the sap.

Next I added a small amount of hard sap to the can.

After a few minutes it melted into a viscous liquid. I pulled out as much debris as I could to make it more pure. The more junk in there the more crumbly the final product will be.

Meanwhile I used a nice ergonomic grinding stone I found on another trip to powder up charcoal.

Then I mixed an equal amount of charcoal powder into the liquid sap.

Finally, after using it on my obsidian knife which I'll discuss in my next post, I took the remaining pitch and molded it on a stick for later use. All that needs to be done next time is to hold the pitch stick over a flame for a second to turn it to liquid.

Primitive Pottery and Cooking

2008-04-04T23:30:00.011-04:00

Back in late November my crew mate Rosy and I gathered clay from a canyon on one of our day hikes. The clay had washed down through the middle of the canyon. Clay particles, being lighter than sand and dirt, settled on top then dried and cracked. When we gathered it we simply brushed off sand from the bottom of the piece. No purification was necessary.

After gathering the dry clay we put it in a bucket and broke it up into small pieces. We then added water to liquefy it. The clay sat in the bucket (with lid on) until about 2 1/2 weeks ago when we finally decided to use it.

Pure clay pieces gathered from the canyon.

The first thing we needed to do was figure out how much temper material to put into the clay. We used sand from the yard as temper material. Temper is added to the clay to prevent shrinkage when drying and thermal shock when exposed to fire. To figure this out I experimented with different percentages of temper using instructions from practicalprimitive.com. In the picture below, the five disks in the upper left corner each have a different percentage of temper from 0%-40%. After air drying them for several days it turned out that they all seemed good. None cracked (too little temper) or crumbled (too much temper).

It wasn't as easy making pots as I hoped. The toughest part for me was adding new coils of clay to a pot and getting it to adhere without squeezing so much that I made the pot too thin. All the creations pictured have 0% temper (which is best for holding water) except the one at bottom center. It was about 20% tempered. My hope was to make it into a cooking vessel. Inside it are beads and a three-legged (one leg fell off) turtle pendant I made. At bottom left is a combination plate/pot lid that I cracked by accident during the drying phase. At top center is a pipe that Kevin made. At top right is Rosy's teapot. The bottom right pot Rosy made using another bowl as a mold.

I meant to add some designs to my creations by pressing leaves on them but I missed that part of the drying phase overnight. I used a spoon to burnish them the best I could which aligned the clay particles making it shiny and better for holding water. After a day of drying some of the pots had small cracks in them. I used leftover clay to patch up mine. It is recommended to dry pots at least a couple days and preferably two weeks. Knowing that the climate is so dry here we probably could have gotten away with 2 days if we wanted. Instead we waited till we got back from our next hitch giving them about two weeks to dry.

From everything I heard and read about firing pots I had the impression that the chances of pots cracking or blowing off chunks during firing was really good so I fully expected to walk away with nothing but the experience. On the firing day there was pretty gusty wind which was bad since sudden changes of temperature (thermal shock) cause cracking and shattering. To counteract this, we set up a wind block as seen in the pictures.

To start we set the pots by the fire to warm them up. Over the course of an hour we gradually moved them closer and rotated them. The goal was to drive out the remaining atmospheric moisture. Heating too fast can cause moisture in the pot to boil which causes shattering.

After the pots were warmed up and dried, we raked the fire out into a ring and put the pots in the middle where the fire had been. For the next three hours we gradually moved the ring of fire in closer until it was totally on top of the pots.

Here you can see how the pots changed color during firing.

I dropped a piece of glass in the fire to test the temperature. Supposedly if you can melt glass then it is hot enough for clay. Unfortunately it melted on a few of the pots. Near the end of the four hours we added a lot of small wood to spike the heat up. Then we let the fire die naturally.

The following day we checked the pots. To our satisfaction none had shattered. All of them had some amount of cracking which isn't surprising given they cracked during the air drying phase. Despite a few hairline cracks, my little cup held water. My cooking vessel dripped water from the bottom, but I was able to cook up a couple eggs in it. It appears the eggs plugged up the cracks too because it now holds water. Overall it was a great success.

While we waited for the fire to die we took the opportunity to cook some meat on the coals. No need for a grill, oven or pan. The coals flake right off.

I also experimented with cooking ash cakes. I mixed flour, cornmeal, raisins and sunflower seeds together with water to make patties. I threw them onto the white ash and a few minutes later they were ready to eat. For more information about how to make them check out the ash cakes article at practicalprimitive.com.

The Body Hollow

2008-04-04T22:34:00.004-04:00

Every since reading Practical Primitive's article about the body hollow shelter, I've wanted to build one. Sitting in the backyard one day not long ago I gazed upon the large pile of tree branches given to us by our neighbor. Then I glanced at the yard composed of sand. The words "build a shelter" popped into my head.

In the desert of the southwest there are few trees. Those that are around don't have leaves suitable to build a shelter like the debris hut. So one way to make a shelter is to dig and make it underground. The body hollow is basically half underground and half above ground.

For excellent instructions on how to build one, go to the link in the first paragraph. It has a great series of pictures. I won't try to recreate that here, but I'll tell you my experience.

I used a shovel to dig out the trench. My neighbor thought I was digging a grave until I explained what I was doing. Since the soil was pretty soft and I didn't have to dig very deep, this didn't take too long. The trench is the length of my body.

I filled the trench about half full with debris (leaves, needles and other detritus), then laid sticks across the trench. After that I started adding more debris on top. I made a little A-frame at the entrance to make it easier to crawl into.

I scrounged around every corner of the property to find debris. I even crossed the street to a vacant property and stole a binful of leaves. I laid sticks on top to keep them from blowing away. In front of the entrance is a ball of pine needles to plug up the doorway after crawling in.

The shelter should really have another foot of debris on top of it but I just didn't have the resources for that without opening a leaf raking business. If I could have I would also have filled the inside up so that I'd have to burrow in. I tried to sleep in it two nights. Both nights I made it through about 3 hours before bailing. The first night it was 47 degrees when I crawled out. Inside the shelter I was a little cold, but I could have toughed it out if I had to. It was definitely warmer than 47. At least the bedding was comfortable to sleep on.

Since I don't plan to gather more debris, I'm going to wait till the weather gets warmer before I try again. I think I could do mid-50s. If I were to do it again I'd probably try to lower the roof over my legs to make less air space for my body to have to heat up.