Finished pots!

Barry Keegan Pottery Workshop

We were lucky enough to squeeze in a full day of primitive pottery with Barry between camps. It was an awesome class. Here are some pictures. We still have to fire our pots which I think we are going to do tomorrow. I'll upload the final pictures after they are all done. Thanks Barry!

Pictures...

We are currently in the middle of camp Yellowknife. In this week we practice the basic skills of camping that you might take for granted like setting up a tarp, making a good cooking fire, lashings etc. Here the campers are learning to use rawhide rope to transport bundles of goldenrod to a shelter.

We also have a mystery track.... is it a raccoon or a fisher? It measured 1 3/4 inches long which is on the low end of either animal. My guess is raccoon but others are arguing for the fisher. For those that aren't familiar with the north eastern wildlife, fishers are big stout weasels that have huge ranges. They are similar to wolverines but not as nasty.

One down five to go...

Our biggest week of 40 campers is complete. It was a very busy week but also very successful. At our final council the campers surprised us all with their thanks and kind words. I underestimated how thoughtful kids can be when they are only 11 or 12 years old. This week we only have 10 campers but it will have its own set of challeges and lessons. Pictures are coming soon.

Summer camps!

Summer is here and our camps are busy... very busy. We have 40 kids at camp this week. Most (if not all) of them are on scholarship from the CROP program. There isn't alot of time for blogging but we are having fun teaching kids these skills and getting them dirty and out in nature. So far we have done alot of bird language, tracking, shelter building, bow drill fires, hunting skills, edible plants and cordage making. They are good kids and super excited to be at Hawk Circle. I'll have more updates throughout the summer and hopefully some pictures too.

Thunderstorms and egg

We've had some beautiful thunderstorms lately. I also found this broken egg on the trail with a slug in it. I don't have an egg book but maybe someone reading this will know. Is it a song sparrow egg? I'm also not sure if it was broken by a beak, bird foot, or maybe a squirrel/chipmunk.

June happenings

Well June is here faster than I expected it to be and we have been very busy. We had a group of 45 fourth graders from New York City come for a few days. It was a fun time and a good warm up for the camps this summer. We have a break for a few days now and with that time I have been doing bird sits, working on kamana, finishing up my bow and working on an adz. The angle of the adz handle isn't quite right so I will probably make a new one but it was a decent first attempt. For it to work properly there must be a 90 degree angle from the bevel of the blade to the first finger of your grip. This one that I made is a little too steep.
I also added a picture of some points I made - the gray ones are out of Pedernales chert from Texas and the black one is Obsidian from California. This last picture is a Robin nest. Most of the birds here have already fledged once and they are on their second batch. They are ambitious little creatures.
The rabbits have been hard at work too. We have tiny baby bunnies everywhere! Yesterday I saw two hopping around on the trail so I stood really still and after a while they hopped right over to me. One of them even started chewing on my sandal and sniffing my feet. I could feel its little whiskers on my skin. It was super cute. I guess it tasted me or finally figured out what I was because all of the sudden they both took off. Another exciting spring day here at Hawk Circle!

Building Strong Naturalist Communities

This weekend Flying Deer Nature Center is hosting the 4th annual Building Strong Naturalist Communities Spring Retreat. D'Arcy and I will be attending and we're looking forward to meeting other teachers of nature and primitive skills. Here is the link for anyone interested: www.flyingdeernaturecenter.org/events.html

Its located in New Lebanon, Ny.

Hope to see you there!

Pictures

Here are some pictures of my camp from the survival trek. The shelter I made is commonly called a Debris Hut. It kept me warm even when the temperature dipped below freezing at night. It rained almost the entire 3rd day but the inside of the hut was still warm and dry. I also made a small lean-to type thing near the fire pit so that I could sit by the fire and keep it going during the rain without getting soaked. The inside of the hut I stuffed with dry mosses. They were very comfortable to sleep on and kept me up off the cold ground. I wasn't able to flip the picture but if you tilt your head to the left you'll get the same effect. The last picture is of my sit spot. Looks very different from the winter!

Update

Well things have been very busy here (hence my lack of blog posting). Two weeks ago we had an amazing class on bird language with Dan Gardoqui. As a result I have been living the life of a nerdy birder running around with binoculars trying to identify birds, their songs and most importantly trying to figure out why they are doing what they are doing. I knew about 10 or 15 birds before this class and now I know over 50 by sight and song and I'm learning more every day. This land has so much variety in vegetation that it is perfect habitat for tons of birds. A few of the cool birds that I didn't know exist but now I see/hear everywhere include: the blue winged warbler, black and white warbler, wood thrush, magnolia warbler, black throated green warbler, catbird, northern oriole, common yellowthroat, american goldfinch, yellow warbler, song sparrow, chipping sparrow and the list goes on. I was even lucky enough to sneak up and touch a chipping sparrow while it was on a feeder by the house. I guess that is cheating since it was on the feeder but it was still pretty fun.

So that class happened a week before last and this past week I spent on a survival trek. I decided that I wanted to do the trek by myself and face those struggles that come with being alone in the woods. It was a great experience and I was blessed with some very valuable life lessons. There is a quote about tracking that I like. It goes: "An animal is an instrument being played by the landscape." This is true for people too except our landscape is usually very comfortable, easy and safe. We don't have to worry about being cold at night or a coming rainstorm or finding food. By leaving that comfortable place and living in a dynamic setting I had to constantly be present and problem solving. It also demanded an intense level of physical endurance and strength. Anyway living in a more difficult interactive setting made me feel really good and like nature was pushing me towards my potential as a human being. I think I want to take a short survival trek every couple of months to be reminded of that potential and to be brought back to reality. I have pictures that I will add later but for now here is our bird language group. We had alot of really great and knowledgeable people here.

Tracking Week

We had a fun and succesful week of tracking in the woods around camp, the Albany Pine Bush, and the Adirondacks. One of my favorite excercises was making a foot print in a tire track and then using our fingers to restore the tire pattern, causing our tracks to dissappear. Another highlight was seeing this baby Great Horned Owl on the side of a cliff.

Snapping Turtles look like rocks

Can you see the snapping turtle in this picture? If you need a hint, Joe is working hard to stare it into submission. We took a trip to the Mohawk river to look for pieces of Basalt to use as ax or adz heads and we nearly walked right by this snapping turtle. It was sluggish from the cold so we were able to pick it up and have a look-see. Despite the snow flurries we have had lately spring is really almost here this time. The little coltsfoot flowers are popping out along with willow buds and wild leeks. Soon the honey suckle leaves are going to open and we won't be able to see anything but green. I added an updated picture of my sit spot before all the leaves come out so that we can compare in a couple weeks and see if it is even recognizable.

Gone fishin'

It is 40 degrees and rainy today but we did get one beautiful warm day last week so we took that opportunity to go fishing. I didn't have any luck but Ric caught a very nice brown trout. I think it measured at 16 inches or so. He was kind enough to let us students eat it and it was delicous. Below are pictures of D'Arcy with our fish, the remains of the fish, and a sunset after a nice day.

Finished Celt!

The Celt is finally finished. The handle was a little greener than I thought and as it dried it started to split so I wrapped it with wet rawhide. The rawhide shrinks as it dries and holds pretty tight. I'm happy with how it came out and it chops really well. I expect it to be a formidable foe for a couple saplings this spring.

Arrow making and hide tanning

Here are some pictures of an arrow I made and the hide I'm working on. The shaft of the arrow is Nannyberry. I found it standing dead- all seasoned and ready to go. The point for the arrow I knapped out of local silt stone. The fletching is from turkey feathers and I wrapped it all with artificial sinew. It is a bit clunky but I think it will work as a quick survival arrow. The hide is almost finished but it is stiff in a few spots so I'll need to keep working on it. We "tanned" it with a bark solution using oak, walnut and hickory bark. These trees have an especially high amount of tannic acid in the bark which we use to balance the pH and it also turns the hide a pretty brown color. Once my hide is soft we will smoke it which will turn it even darker.