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.

Celt

The Spring Semester has officially begun although it doesn't quite feel like spring yet. We have been working on buckskin and discussing spring survival strategies. I've also been working on my bow and a stone ax called a "Celt". The hole in the handle is tapered so that the top and bottom of the stone wedges in. The sides of the stone don't touch the handle because if it did then it would split the wood. All that is left now is to thin and sand down the handle.

Snowy day Pump-drillin'

Pump drills are cool. They are a little bit tricky to make but once a good set is tuned and working it takes very little energy to create an ember. I've never made one before so since it has been snowing hard here lately I thought it would be a nice little indoor project.

It works by twisting the rope around the spindle which raises the handle and as you push the handle down it turns the spindle, creating friction where the spindle contacts the fire board. The weight is attached to the spindle by drilling a hole through it (the handle also has a hole drilled through it) and tapering the spindle so that it is thinner at the top then gets thicker as it goes down so that the weight gets stuck part way down. This weight causes the spindle to keep spinning after you have pushed the handle all the way down causing the rope to twist back around and bring the handle back up. It was surprisingly easy to make once I found the parts and it is very fun to mess around with. I borrowed the dimensions for the parts out of the Bulletin of Primitive Technology and it worked well. The materials I used were an old broom stick for the spindle with a cedar plug on the tip and a cedar fireboard, an ash handle, a sawed off pine log for the weight and a purple nylon cord for flair.