The photos I needed today took me back to the woods...I always love that. I was out at a place near Goat Point on Walden's Ridge, I got there just at sunrise and took a walk to look for what I needed.
It's hard to walk through these woods without finding fatwood so I harvested some really rich stuff for a friend.
I almost stepped on this little guy, he was really well camouflaged and I barely noticed him.
Lots of spiders in this area.
This is some weird looking stuff on these leaves...seen it before but have no idea what it is.
This little fella had some good camo going on too.
Having found what I was looking for I headed back to "base camp" and the truck. Near by I found a fairly freshly fallen log that was still good and solid. I decided to try my hand at making a spoon since Spark has started a contest on it. I had a prototype hawk I've been messing around with so I decided to have a little fun with the tools I had on me. I chopped off a limb and roughed out the shape with the hawk and then started dressing it up with the Bushfinger. I'm not sure what kind of wood this is...but it sure is hard.
It was good to just sit and whittle and think, and the Bushfinger was really a pleasure to work with. About an hour and a half of just sitting and whittling in peace and no hot spots at all.
It started taking shape pretty quick.
This is what it looks like now as I haven't sanded on it any and I'm still trying to decide if I want to burn it out, gouge it out, or buy a curved spoon knife and scoop it out.
I was having so much fun using the Bushfinger I decided to try a few things with it. I started making a notched adjustable pot hanger out of a recently dead Dogwood limb.
But on the trip to the truck to get the canteen after already nearly finishing off the guyot in the 106F heat index I realized I didn't have to 2qt canteen in the truck so my lunch of Lipton instant chicken noodle soup was not going to happen. So...I through the pot hanger in the back of the truck to finish later and just played around with the Bushfinger a little more before heading home to eat. I decided to try the tip for boring in a piece of the same hard wood that was split to make the spoon. The tip held up great and did a great job of boring a good sized hole through about 3/4 of an inch of some really hard wood.
And after all the whittling, the bit of batoning, and the boring I tested the edge again and it would still whittle fuzz sticks good enough to use for tinder.
In the end I was sort of glad I was out of water and had an excuse to leave...after hours in the 105F heat this was about as much fire as I wanted
Thanks Andy, this knife and the energy it brings are fantastic. Today was just what the doctor ordered and i enjoyed it very much. I'm really looking forward to Autumn when I can really enjoy it.
.
It's hard to walk through these woods without finding fatwood so I harvested some really rich stuff for a friend.
I almost stepped on this little guy, he was really well camouflaged and I barely noticed him.
Lots of spiders in this area.
This is some weird looking stuff on these leaves...seen it before but have no idea what it is.
This little fella had some good camo going on too.
Having found what I was looking for I headed back to "base camp" and the truck. Near by I found a fairly freshly fallen log that was still good and solid. I decided to try my hand at making a spoon since Spark has started a contest on it. I had a prototype hawk I've been messing around with so I decided to have a little fun with the tools I had on me. I chopped off a limb and roughed out the shape with the hawk and then started dressing it up with the Bushfinger. I'm not sure what kind of wood this is...but it sure is hard.
It was good to just sit and whittle and think, and the Bushfinger was really a pleasure to work with. About an hour and a half of just sitting and whittling in peace and no hot spots at all.
It started taking shape pretty quick.
This is what it looks like now as I haven't sanded on it any and I'm still trying to decide if I want to burn it out, gouge it out, or buy a curved spoon knife and scoop it out.
I was having so much fun using the Bushfinger I decided to try a few things with it. I started making a notched adjustable pot hanger out of a recently dead Dogwood limb.
But on the trip to the truck to get the canteen after already nearly finishing off the guyot in the 106F heat index I realized I didn't have to 2qt canteen in the truck so my lunch of Lipton instant chicken noodle soup was not going to happen. So...I through the pot hanger in the back of the truck to finish later and just played around with the Bushfinger a little more before heading home to eat. I decided to try the tip for boring in a piece of the same hard wood that was split to make the spoon. The tip held up great and did a great job of boring a good sized hole through about 3/4 of an inch of some really hard wood.
And after all the whittling, the bit of batoning, and the boring I tested the edge again and it would still whittle fuzz sticks good enough to use for tinder.
In the end I was sort of glad I was out of water and had an excuse to leave...after hours in the 105F heat this was about as much fire as I wanted
Thanks Andy, this knife and the energy it brings are fantastic. Today was just what the doctor ordered and i enjoyed it very much. I'm really looking forward to Autumn when I can really enjoy it.
.
