A Walk in the Bush

W

Wabajack

Joined
Jan 16, 2007
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I went for a nice hike through a friends woods today and I thought I would take some pics for everyone over here. I just barely remembered to charge the batteries for the camera 15 minutes before I left the door though, lol, they could've needed some extra juice as it didn't have enough for everything I wanted, but alas here's some shots I managed to snag before I ran out of batteries. :D

First up we have some shots of the good ol' Fallkniven F1;

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I thought I'd take some in hand shots for anyone who might be considering getting one; (I'd go with a satin finish BTW)

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Here's all the tools I brought with me, Victorinox Hiker, Bahco Laplander Saw and the Fallkniven F1;

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Here's a pic of some of the toys accompanying me, binoculars, Bic lighter and a compass;

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I wound up coming by an older campsite of mine, below is an all natural shelter of mine, just needs to have it's thick outer shell restored with leaves/conifer boughs and a thick bed of boughs or leaves. The whole shelter was done without any tools. I'll likely be spending another night or two out in it this fall when the mosquitoes are gone, but I'll soon be deconstructing it and spreading its pieces about, when deconstructed its presence will hopefully be unevidenced, this is simply for low[er] impact purposes;

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At the camp site I found an old bow drill set of mine I made in field, worked like a charm and got a fire with it the first time I spun it after the notch was made. The wood species is an unknown, but once you get familiar with the bow drill finding appropriate wood is easy and you can usually tell what will work well (which is nearly everything, so long as it's dry);

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Further on my trek I found what looked like a dear lay (?) and a faint narrow path through thick brush;

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Not soon after that I managed to spot a few young dear through the bush, I managed to sneak up to them quite well without them seeing my, I was a short stones through away before they acknowledged my ware bouts;

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At this point I began playing prey, I managed to get close enough for some of these;

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The shots weren't anything special, but it was a lot of fun getting them. The dear didn't stick around to long though, so I went along with my business and got some pics of an unidentified (haven't tried yet that is, lol) mushroom;

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A lot of time was spent holding off the hordes of mosquitoes though, they were terrible, so I thought I would take a picture;

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Here's some of the smaller wildlife that graced the woods, these little frogs would hop out from just under your foot every now and again as you walk;

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The park was packed with these little snails that clung to everything;

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This next little guy was pretty cool, I came across a few of these, little slugs suspended by a tiny silk (I'm guessing) thread;

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I managed to start a little F1 review before my camera batteries died;

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F1 in the tree alongside the battening log;

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I started by asking the owner of the woods (my freind) if he would mind if took down a sapling, he said it would be fine (just wanted to let ya' know I had the go ahead). Anyway, so the task was to see how long it would take to baton through a sapling at a relaxed pace with the F1. I chose a tree that was roughly 4.5" across at the point I was battening, although not that big a tree it is quite big when you consider the 3.8" F1's blade. I began by picking up a near by wrist thick log from the ground to use as the battening stick and proceeded to break it with my foot into a useable size. I then placed the F1 blade-first against the tree on the easiest to hit side (the side that I wanted to fell would've worked well too) and proceeded to cross-grain baton. I was very impressed with how little effort it was taking to achieve decent penetration. I had finished to the center of the tree and began battening F1 blade-deep (~1-1/4") just once or twice around the circumference of the rest of the tree, all that was left was to push and pull it down. After the tree was felled the rest of it that was clinging onto the stump could be severed with a few more blows. It took no more than 7 minutes total and this was a relaxed pace.

Unfortunately the camera had expired during the time I was felling the sapling, I forgot to turn it off after I took the last picture, so I couldn't take any money shots of the felled tree... just my luck, eh? :foot:

I intended to do a more thorough pictured review of the F1 while out there, with-the-grain battening, carving, etc. If I can remember to charge the batteries I'll give ‘er another go. I should also note that the F1 came home just as sharp as when she left, held an edge just fine.

On my way back I ran across yet another of many large animal holes that scattered the ground, in front of this one however lay a nice little present though; :D

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A raccoon skull, I snapped this pic when I got home, had some batteries in the charger for me, lol. ;)

All in all it was a pretty good day. Cheers.

~ Wabajack
 
Looks like a fun day. Thanks for sharing.
 
nice pics, thanks very much for sharing.

looks like a nice day...

nice narrative to go with the pics too, i enjoyed it.
 
Sounds like an excellent day! Very neat looking shelter. Totally know what you mean about mosquitos this time of year. They almost chased me out of the woods when I was up north a couple of weeks ago!
 
It's nice seeing a very well used F1! I just lost one of my favorite woodcraft knives, I might have to try the F1 as it's replacement.
 
Great pics bro, it's always nice to see a knife that has been used !!!
I love the wildlife pics as well, great stuff !

Thanks.
 
Great pictures, thanks for sharing.

Re: your shelter - I'm sure you already figured this out, and I don't know what you used for roofing material, but I've found that when I put ribs against the ridge pole, I try and make sure they do not extend far above the ridge pole because in my experience, it makes it more difficult to insulate the top part (voids in the insulation). However, you may have another answer for this problem?
Wabajack said:
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Doc
 
Nice pics and descriptions. Seemed like a nice day. Would have liked to do something like that.

Thanks.
 
great pics man...:thumbup: looks like a gorgeaous area to trek around...:eek:

i like that skull pic.. nice score on that one..:D
 
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