Freeganism In The Suburban Bush

Freegan = Someone whose diet is made up of free things

One of those funny blogging coincidences sprang up the other day, just as myself and Horsemouth were talking about how the freegan lifestyle might be both an answer to our pecuniary problems, and to the waste problem on this small island, Chad was posting on the same subject.

'Great Minds Think Alike' or 'Idiots Seldom Differ', you decide?

Sometimes I thing that this whole 'big brains and opposable thumbs' thing is a test, one we may well not pass. Modern life has brought us so many wonderful things, but looked at in it's totality, the whole sorry enterprise has been a bit of a debacle.

As America joined the second world war, within one week, just seven days, the automobile industry had been reborn as builders of the machines of war, not another car was made in the USA until the war was won.

Massive changes in perspective and direction are possible. If the will is there.

We have enough resources to end hunger today, we have enough resources to raise expectations all over the planet so people are too busy enjoying the fruits of freedom to nurse to the grievances of extremists.

Here in blighty the second world war saw a massive increase in the nations health, while slashing the nations food bill. Peoples ingenuity was focused on getting the most from every resource and finding new ones in unexpected places. Food wasn't wasted, instead of landfill, scraps became the next meal and people were healthier for it.

There's an oft quoted statistic that a third of the food bought in in the UK is thrown away. Yep, 'scared of their dinner' doesn't only mean that meat must come in a little plastic tray, it means that all foods have to have a a 'sell by' or 'use by' date. Even eggs have a 'best before' date printed on each shell and the hilarious thing is people actually think these dates are sacrosanct. I was brought up in a 'scrape the bad bit off' household. The dried out edge of a block of cheese becomes the basis for a cheese sauce, jam is fine once the furry bit is chucked and dry bread makes the best toast. Why would you need a stamp to tell you if an egg is edible? You have a nose on your face after all.

"What are we having for dinner?"

Can always be answered,

"what needs eating, today?"

Food is one of the most carbon intensive things we consume. With most calories of food costing an average of ten calories to produce and transport to the table. Every time a piece of food hermetically sealed in a little tray is thrown away its made a long carbon consuming journey to the store and then to the house. Before it makes one last diesel powered journey to the tip, where because it's sealed it wont be composted,as it beocmes yet more land-fill.

Less wasted food would be a massive step towards making our current lifestyle more sustainable. The other benifit of gathering these foodstuffs is that once in the hands of a freegan, the packaging is removed and concieniusly added to the recycleing thereby adding to the amount of traded and reccyled plasics. Good for the environment and good for the economy. In these cost conscious times more and more , sustainable isn't just a dislocated wish, it's the distance between pay cheques. Modern Life is Rubbish, we just need to be more intelligent with the rubbish.

Horsemouth is a cheapskate to rival even The Northern Monkey, and as your representative I thought I'd do a spot of Freegan Foraging too. We know we can eat for free, but what will we eat for free? What's the legal position? What tools do freegans use? All these and many more questions will be answered in part 2.

Your pal

The Bushwacker

MyCo Diesel

No not an interview with Renzo Rosso founder of the clothing brand of the same name but some astounding news.

Professor Gary Strobel has been studying rotten tree stumps in the patagonian rainforests and has found a fungi that turns rotting wood into diesel fuel.

"We were trying to discover totally novel fungi in this tree by exposing its tissues to the volatile antibiotics of the fungus Muscodor albus. Quite unexpectedly, G. roseum grew in the presence of these gases when almost all other fungi were killed. It was also making volatile antibiotics. Then when we examined the gas composition of G. roseum, we were totally surprised to learn that it was making a plethora of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon derivatives. The results were totally unexpected and very exciting and almost every hair on my arms stood on end!"

How cool is that?!! What a Fun-guy. Sorry
SBW

I Want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt3

I saw this on The Gear Junkie. What a great idea! Available soon from Black Crater Gear

Thanks for reading
SBW

Wild Camping - The Responce

This Government appreciates the potential benefits of wild camping in England and its attractiveness to campers who already have the opportunity to camp in the wild in Scotland.

The Land Reform Act in Scotland allows for wild camping, but the land issues and the legislation in England are somewhat different. The introduction of wild camping in England would be a controversial issue, which would require both significant consultation and legislative change.

On open access land wild camping is prohibited under Schedule 2 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which lists all restricted activities. Therefore, new Regulations would be required to exclude wild camping as a restricted activity. Any change to the current rules on wild camping in National Parks and Ministry of Defence land would require new primary legislation.

The Government has no plans to allocate the necessary resources to consider proposals for such legislation at present, and is concentrating on following up the successful introduction of 750,000 hectares of open access land with new legislation on access to the coast in the Marine Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

So that's two petitions and twice the government has decided to do nothing!

I was going to write you a long post moaning about the state of the nation and the lackwits who are governing us, but to be fair Aktoman has raised all the necessary points without sounding like an old fart so I'll just point you in his direction.
And for those of you resident in the UK, or carrying a UK passport, urge you to get involved in stage two of the campaign for us to be able to take a nap in the big out doors that our forefathers made such sacrifice for, before some bright spark in the cabinet office invents a way to put a meter between us and the fresh air.

Hurrumpf!!

Bushwacker

Digging That Victory

Since I put up that post about suburban homesteading it seems that; either the great and the good of English journalism are reading my witterings or (more likely) I had my finger on the pulse of the weeks Zeitgeist. According to this weeks papers there are now as many people growing their own foodstuff as did during WW2!

If like me you've been thinking about getting started here's some food for thought.

If we were all to follow the advice of eating five portions of fruit and veg a day, we would probably spend at least £1 every day, or around £400 a year, at supermarket prices. But seeds for vegetables to keep a family going for a year usually cost less than you would pay for one kilo of the same product in a shop.

You can pay £1.29 for two beef tomatoes in Sainsbury's [This should be a joke surely - I checked it's true!]while a packet of 30 seeds from costs £1.25.

A Sainsbury's shopper buying a kilo each of courgettes (AKA Zucchini), beetroot and radish this autumn would have paid around £8 while packets of each of these seeds from costs a total of £3.75. And if you have neighbours with vegetable patches, you can always swap packets, as they always contain more seeds than you need.

If your aim is to save money, then you should grow more exotic produce

'Growing main crop potatoes is insane if you look at it economically,I don't think there is any more lucrative crop than hot peppers. Garlic is very expensive to buy. Rocket is quick and easy to grow but can be expensive to buy. Herbs are good. Rosemary and thyme - you can't have too much of those.'

Young apple, cherry and other fruit trees or berry plants can be bought for under £20 each, while organic raspberries, for example, cost more than £23 a kilo in Sainsbury's this year.

Richard Murphy has been growing vegetables for 18 years. This year, he has included pumpkin, salad crops, beetroot and carrots in his vegetable patch.

'For the price of one bag of salad you could grow 50,' he says. His main aims are eating well and introducing his two young sons to this part of the natural world. 'The skill level you need is pretty low. My six-year-old can quite happily plant seeds.'

All sourced from http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/dec/30/food.ethicalliving

Thanks for reading
SBW

PS for picture credit and loads more cool home front posters

Really That Long?

Yes i know its been a while since I added to the chronicle of my journey but life, as they say, keeps getting in the way. First i crashed my scooter (painful but no lasting damage), then came the stag do (joint second in the clay pigeon shooting - 14 pairs and 4 singles smashed after a two year hiatus - yeah yeah, kids stuff, you can do better, write yer own blog) the wedding itself (THE social event of the year - congratulations to Sir Hiss and the newly crowned Mrs Sir Hiss) and then a family holiday to the coast (an evil conspiracy of childcare time and tide banjaxed any fishing, there was a little bit of gathering but no hunting).

Now that i can get back into it I'm very happy to tell you that I'm due to take my first fly fishing lesson early next week.In class bound Blighty 'on-the-fly' is still seen as the way toffs fish, this is mainly due to the massive cost of fishing on the classic 'beats'.
North of the boarder, where our Caledonian cousins have perfected the art of marketing their waterways and fieldsports heritage, there is one Scottish fly fishing blogger, Alistair, who is starting to redress the balance with his tales of low-cost fly fishing on the Kelvin just outside Glasgow. Through reading his blog I found out that down south a blogger called Jeremiah Quinn has taken on the mantle and is chronicling his exploration of England's (mainly urban) low-cost Trout waters. Not for him the stocked lakes around London where bloated rainbows rise, secure in the knowledge that if they have bitten a man made fly they'll soon be back home in the water.He turns the traditionally costly country pursuit of fly fishing in to a low cost urban adventure.

During our email conversations it became apparent we're both fans of a writer (and later TV presenter) called Charles Rangeley-Wilson and his book (and TV series of the same name) 'The Accidental Angler'. For the most part C R-W travels the world to visit some of the most amazing destination fishing, then the story moves closer to his home as he investigates London's disappeared rivers, and takes on the challenge of catching a trout within the M25 (the orbital ring road that encircles London). He dismisses my local river, the Ravensbourne, and heads west to the Wandle a chalkstream transformed by the intervention of fishing enthusiasts calling themselves the Jet Set Club and local school children. C R-W wasn't successful on the Wandle, but did later do the business on the Chess. Also fished by Jeremiah

In the 18th century the Wandle was regarded as the premier trout stream within easy reach of london. In 1828 Humphry Davy wrote in his classic Salmonia:
"...of the blue dun, there is a succession of different tints, or species, or varieties, which appear in the middle of the day all the summer and autumn long. These are the principal flies on the Wandle - the best and clearest stream near London.
In early spring these flies have dark olive bodies; in the end of April and the beginning of May they are found yellow; and in the summer they become cinnamon coloured; and again, as winter approaches, gain a darker hue. I do not, however, mean to say that they are the same flies, but more probably successive generations of Ephemerae of the same species."

For navel and fly fishing history buffs it's also worth noting that Admiral Lord Nelson liked the Wandle so much he commissioned a house there, and with the cunning that made him such a great leader - he wisely told Lady Hamilton it was a present for her!

Those halcyon days were followed by 200 years of using the river as a convenient way to dump rubbish, but thanks to the efforts made the river is now one of the cleanest in europe, and as Jeremiah's picture testifies fish are thriving.

Thanks for reading
your pal the Bushwacker.

PS
If you want to know more about fishing the Wandle i found this blog
If you want to get involved in a clear up later this year the dates are:
May 11 Sutton
June 8 Merton
July 13 Wandsworth
August 10 Sutton
September 14 Merton
October 12 Wandsworth
November 9 Sutton
December 14 Merton

Get A Handle On - Restoration

I always think of myself as being 'not all that' at handy crafts so it was a pleasant surprise to see how easy some of them can be. On Friday The Fat Controller gave me a shed he'd found while hiking in the highlands of Scotland. Regular readers will know that BoB brought round a whole box full of knives and assorted kit from our folks place.Lying unloved at the bottom of the box was the knife pictured above. It's handle a particularly unconvincing piece of faux antler (note the 'charming' depiction of a stag!). The blade had several different grinds, in parts flat,and convex, is also pretty soft steel. It was the kind of knife given to lads as a first sheath knife. The sheath itself was pretty cruddy, the leather un-nourished and the stitching failing or failed.
A few hours later and it a whole new story!
Antler is much easier to work than it looks at first sight. I cut off the bottom left tine with a hacksaw, used the side of an angle grinder blade to sand the surface that meets the finger guard, trued it with an orbital sander. It stinks! Like burning fingernails!! Drilled the first hole with 4mm wood bit in a powered screw driver. Making the hole into a slot to take the blades tang looked difficult, but once I'd convex'd the point of a pig-sticker (you know a spike on a handle - don't know its real name) into a mini blade - it was surprisingly easy to get the recess the right size and shape.
I used two-part glue to set the blade to the tine.
The sheath wasn't in good shape so I roughed off any remaining finish and stained it blue, did some lacklustre back stitching, stained it again to cover up the crappy stitching, and using the cooker hob as a heat source melted four coats of boot wax into the leather.I left the retaining strap in the original colour, took out two rivets from the top of the sheath and replaced them with hollow rivets so the knife can be worn dangling as a 'necker'. All it needs now is a boot lace to hang it from.
Now if I could just get on with that Kuksa.

Hope your weekend was as productive for you
Thanks for reading
SBW

Hunting Kiwis

The Kiwi hunting culture has been in my thoughts lately, (better buy a bigger couch BoB), partially prompted by the aforementioned writings of Mr Crump, and by the copy of NZ Outdoor Hunting our mum brought back from a recent visit to see BoB, Mrs BoB and the Princess E (AKA the Littlest BoBster).

There’s an adage in bushcraft that ‘there’s no such thing as bad weather – just inappropriate clothing’ reports seem to suggest that these words may if fact form part of the New Zealand constitution. As they say on the south island ‘if you can’t see the top of the mountain it’s raining, if you can see the top of the mountain it’s about to rain’.

If ever there was a country generously endowed with mountains it’s NZ, they have their own Alps where Sir Edmund Hilary trained for his successful attempt on Everest. If you’ve seen The Lord of the Rings you’ll have a good idea of what the place looks like. If you’ve seen the ads currently running on UK TV you’ll know why I’m so keen. Viewed at a distance of half a world away the place seems to have a romance the suburban bush just lacks - I go fishing across town by scooter; they go fishing across mountains by helicopter. The hills they hover over are alive, not with the sound of music, but with the thunderous hooves of Red Stags and Elk. It’s so alive with them that the Rut is called ‘The Roar’ and the Kiwi’s have their own collective noun for deer – ‘a mob’.
There are other linguistic differences ‘Alright mate’ is a greeting not a proposition, and all utterances sound like questions, with rising intonation at the end of the sentence. BoB has enthusiastically taken on this linguistic tic, much to the amusement of his family and friends. Despite being a native daughter of New Zealand Mrs BoB speaks perfectly normally.

To read about it the place sounds like a nation founded by hunters, the Maori people brought pigs with them during their invasion and colonisation of the islands, and so did the British. These creatures have re-wilded themselves in the bush and grow to some pretty impressive sizes. Deer, Elk, Hare, Turkey, Pheasant and Mountain Goats have all been introduced and with no other predators are putting unsustainable pressure on the environment. So once again the ‘culinary solution’ must be deployed to save the environment! Yummy!

The contrast to life in the city was brought home to me when I saw that NZ Outdoor Hunting had published some pictures from the memory stick of a camera that was found in the back country, secure in the knowledge that someone would recognise the guy in the pictures and organise its return to him. Are these the nicest people in the world?
Maybe the old joke isn’t so much a joke as an advertisement

What do you call a polite Australian?
A New Zealander!

Will these crudely drawn stereotypes prove to be true?
Stay tuned.
Your pal
SBW

Photo credit

Thoreau's Journal: 9-Feb-1852

I've added a historical blogs section to my blog roll, having taken great delight in reading Thoreau's Journal I thought it should be the first to appear.

Met Sudbury Haines on the river before the Cliffs, come a-fishing. Wearing an old coat, much patched, with many colors. He represents the Indian still. The very patches in his coat and his improvident life do so. I feel that he is as essential a part, nevertheless, of our community as the lawyer in the village. He tells me that he caught three pickerel here the other day that weighed seven pounds altogether. It is the old story. The fisherman is a natural story-teller. No man’s imagination plays more pranks than his, while he is tending his reels and trotting from one to another, or watching his cork in summer. He is ever waiting for the sky to fall. He has sent out a venture. He has a ticket in the lottery of fate, and who knows what it may draw? He ever expects to catch a bigger fish yet. He is the most patient and believing of men. Who else will stand so long in wet places? When the haymaker runs to shelter, he takes down his pole and bends his steps to the river, glad to have a leisure day. He is more like an inhabitant of nature.

His simple unobstructed way with words, never fails to conjure up the peace of a world seen without pretension. The list on Wikipedia of people who took his life and work as an inspiration is stunning. A real who's who of great thinkers and writers influenced by this most succinct of advice:
'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined'

Thanks for reading
SBW

Show The Bushwacker To The Rabbit

Sunday morning dawned cold and transport-less, so I dressed up in a base layer of nylon sportswear, hoping the static generated would act as on-board central heating, with a layer of cotton work wear on top to keep out the thorns. I chose a bag that I'd be able to hose down if I needed to and said goodbye to the kids. As I was leaving the house I could hear Mrs SBW sniggering and singing Simon and Garfunkel's well known ode to successful rabbit hunting

'Bright eyes,Burning like fire.Bright eyes,How can you close the pain. How can the light that burned so brightly Suddenly burn so pale? Bright eyes.'

After three changes of train due to engineering works I was finally on my way to meet James for a spot of old-school rabbit hunting. With Ferrets.

And what a great way to spend the day it is,James and Sara met me at the station and we drove through the Sussex countryside. For readers in the US - it looks just like the farmed parts of my adopted home of Northern Virginia, except the roads are narrower and the cars are smaller.

James's dad's place is big enough to have several warrens all in different states of occupation. The biggest coney conurbation we investigated had been flooded out by the recent rains and was unoccupied. Of the five warrens we tried, two yielded a total of three bunnies.

The Ferrets are charming, they have an animated curiosity about them and while I'm sure rabbits view them as dangerous thugs, to me they look very pet-like and from what I've been reading are easy to keep as companions and hunters. Here in the UK their role in feeding a hungry nation is quite well documented with references in court papers going back at least as far as the twelfth century when a ferreter was listed as part of the Royal Court. Today Ferrets ownership and hunting counjours up an images of working class countrymen in flat caps and long coats (to hide the booty) with bulging trousers using them for poaching for the pot or pest control for the land owner but it wasn't always the case. In the 1300's you'd have needed an annual income of some forty shillings (I'm not exactly sure of the exchange rate - but it was quite a lot of money) to own a ferret and the penalty for unlicensed ownership would have been harsh. King Richard II issued a decree in 1384 allowing one of his clerks to hunt rabbits with ferrets and they're mentioned again in 1390 with a law prohibiting the use of ferrets on Sunday when feeding your family wouldn't be allowed to interfere with marshal archery practice.

Ferreting is very simple, at the end of the afternoon I asked James if there was anything more I needed to know and he replied 'that's about it'.
First you need a business of ferrets, two seems to be the preferred number. I'd recently read that one male one female was considered the best ratio, with males being more aggressive and females being more through, James reckoned that whatever you had would do at a pinch. We used the modern locator collars which certainly made things a lot easier when it cam to the digging. In days gone by you'd have had to tie a tread to your Ferret and let it pay out as the Ferret went down the hole, when the Ferret stopped taking line you'd know that it had either killed a rabbit and was taking a nap (something they're notorious for), or it had backed the bunny into a hole with no exit and wasn't letting it out. Either way it would be time to start digging along the tread until you got to the action. With a locator you're spared a hell of a lot of digging as you can find the spot from above ground and dig directly down. In the wet clay laden soil it's still hard work. If your lucky and it all goes according to plan, you've put you ferrets into the right holes the rabbits bolt out of the warren into 'purse' nets that you've secured over the exits. As the rabbit barrels into the net it's own momentum pulls the drawstring tight capturing it. These bolted bunnies are the most highly prized as without teeth marks from the Ferrets their flesh is untainted by coagulating blood and the make slightly less gamey eating.

On the subject of eating special thanks and a commendation must go to Janet (james's mum) for the huge, hearty country lunch she served us that kept out the cold and the AMAZING bread and butter pudding she made.

James has posted a video of our hunt here.

As Ferrets usually come in pairs, they offer up some amusing naming opportunities.
James had a pair called Dead and Buried and a lad called Robin who lives in Scotland and has a Ferreting blog calls his business Purdey and Kalashnikov!

At the school gates I ran into young R, (well he ran into me) a lad in bushwacker jnrs class, he's absolutely fascinated with everything 'survival' and was proudly showing me his copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys when his mum showed up. She'd heard about the forthcoming trip from Mrs SBW and wanted to know if I'd been. I told her we'd gotten three rabbits
S. 'where are they? in a shed in the garden?
SBW 'No! they're in the freezer!'
S. 'NO!!!'
She scuttled off dragging young R behind her leaving me wondering is she still speaking to us or are we now a family of evil rabbit killing hillbillys?
As they say up north 'there's owt as queer as folk'
Thanks for reading
SBW

PS If your interested in getting started yourself Deben have a DVD, sell the locator collars and net making kits.

Picture Credit
Stained glass, Long Melford,Suffolk. Picture by chris chapman
Have a look at his fascinating site about the motif and it's appearance in medieval art across the world.

I Want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt2

I keep having a fantasy where there's erhm 'less of me to love' and as the weather warms up I'm thinking a bike ride to and from the office would be a step in the right direction. i could fix up my forgotten bike from the back of the shed, but it needs a lot of new parts, or i could use the inspiration of a gleaming new machine as impetus.
Or i could keep it legal by putting the money towards paying my tax bill...... Ho Hum

Whatever you decide to do with the new year, i hope it works out better than you intended. Or as the heyoka's heyoka once said
"May you live in interesting times - and get to be a part of them"
SBW
CHARGE a very cool bike co.

Christmas Card From Rex At The Deer Camp Blog

Where Rex blogs it's Christmas everyday!
The Deer Camp in question is at the Christmas Place Plantation Hunting Club, on the edge of the Mississippi Delta.
Happy Christmas Rex

SBW.

PS in case your wondering I'm four up and one in from the bottom right corner, wearing the hat.

Todd’s Desert Scandi

I’ve recently added Todd’s knife making blog, Primitive Point to my blog roll.
Here’s for why;

Over the last year Todd has made a journey as a blade smith and knife maker and his blog details what he’s learned along the way. Part tutorial, part philosophical thesis, he’s obviously gained a lot more than a draw full of cool cutlery from his efforts.

Todd’s based in Arizona and all the materials he uses are gathered from the local environment, for the desert scandi that means a handle of mesquite root: long weathered in the Arizona sun and L-6 steel cut from an old lumber mill saw for the blade.

He’s made numerous other blades from wombled* materials, files, tire irons, rail road spikes and truck springs. His Damascus from cabling is a thing of beauty even before has wrought it into a blade.
For me the attraction of his work is in its usability, these blades aren’t draw queens, kept behind glass by a collector; they are the EDC of the enthusiast. Take ‘em into the backcountry, butcher game, chop vegetables and split wood. Whack ‘em and they just look more ‘lived in’, these are tools that grow more ‘you’ in the using.


‘I just started collecting junk I found while on my walks. I remember finding a steel table base. That eventually became the bottom of my forge. I remember finding a large nail. The head of it become the rivet in my tongs. I started looking and seeing things in new ways. Each year my experience has opened my eyes wider. I now see in ways I never did before. I see what things can become. Recently I wanted some nice wood for some knife handles. I went to an exotic wood store and drooled over their selection. I couldn’t afford any of it, of course. My brother took a trip to Brazil. I asked him to bring me back some wood. He couldn’t because the country is not allowing any wood to be taken out. Finally, something clicked in my brain and I saw the wood that surrounded me, free for the taking. I took out my saw and in no time had a couple dozen really nice mesquite blanks. I found roots and branches and pieces that had lain in the bottom of washes. I found all sorts of patterns and colors in the mesquite within easy walking distance of my house.’

If, like me, you’re now seized by a compulsion to commission a knife. Please let him know you heard about his work here.
Bushwacker

*From the wombles theme song
“Making good use of the things that we find, things that the everyday folks leave behind”
PS He also makes bread!

Bushwacker Des Res

How cool is this!

It took 1500 man hours to build and it only cost £3500 or $7000!!
The pictures of the inside are even more amazing.

I'd like to build one for myself but i'm worried it might be 'Hobbit forming'. Sorry.

Bushwacker

Rooting Around I Found This

When Going Nuts, First Take A Leek.

Been a while hasn’t it? I’ve been ‘up north’ with The Northern Monkey and on my return the lair of the Bushwackers has suffered from water ingress, so I’ve had to dedicate the last few days to plumbing.

The chestnuts are now on form at more northerly latitudes, and I promised I’d post a recipe for my pal The Northern Monkey.

If you’re fortunate enough to be picking your chestnuts off the ground (as opposed to buying them) early picking really seems to help processing, as the dew makes the skins are a little more flexible.And of course your beating the competition to the last nights crop.

When I started using the SharpMaker on everything in the house with a blade, I noticed that I habitually started the sharpening stroke a little way down the blade and this has given my F1 a very slight (1mm) curve with a steeper blade angle on the 5mm nearest the handle. And I’ve started to see this as a lucky accident. The slight curve made the ideal ‘nicker’ for opening the skins and then peeling them off.

Once you get inside the nut you get to the pith which when fresh and damp is much easier to scrape off. If your roasting your chestnuts the pith isn’t really a problem as it crisps up inside the shell and falls off. When you buy pickled or dried chestnuts from the deli they are perfectly pithless, just beautiful ‘brain like’ orbs of, well, yummy-ness.
I’ve always wanted my gathered chestnuts to look like that too. This year I’ve gotten a bit closer.

As I was peeling, I put them into salted cold water, then blanched them in boiling salted water, before plunging them into cold water. Quite a few more ended up skinless this year. It was all pretty time consuming; a carrier bag three quarters full took four hours to go from park to freezer.

Despite this success I had no joy at all remembering that, while my thumb nail is the ideal peeling tool, its my nail-bed that pays the price for the next few days. Ouch!

For the next batch:
I have a boning knife (somewhere?) that has an exaggerated curve at the start of the blade, I’m interested to know how it works out. Also I’ve just learned that the tannin rich skins were extensively used in traditional hide tanning, either dried or fresh. Which will be handy as TNM has a source of unprocessed deer hides. Sadly the skins off the first lot are already in the compost heap.
If any of you have any pointers on how to get a skinless finish they’d be much appreciated.


Marrons du Gallois or to you and me ‘Welsh Chestnuts’

Your going to need:
Leeks (easy to grow or buy)
Cream (Organic unpasteurised is best)
Splash of white wine (maybe a Chardonnay)
Hand picked-hand processed-artisan chestnuts (or failing that ones from the shop).
Shallots (onions wont really do it)
Pancetta (or ‘dry cure’ bacon pieces not the factory farmed watery stuff )
Garlic

Fry the bacon in its own fat until its got some colour leaving the bacon fat in the pan set the bacon aside.
Slice the shallots and garlic as thinly as you can and add them to the pan, reducing the heat to a flicker. Put a lid on the pan and sweat them to a syrupy mush.
While that’s happening you can thinly slice the leeks LENGTHWAYS so the slices look almost like spaghetti.
When the shallots and garlic are really slimy in go the chestnuts, bacon, and the wine.
Turn up the heat to evaporate the alcohol, and reduce by about ten percent.
Pour in the cream and as it starts to reduce add the leeks.
Its important to time the last bit so the cream reduces enough while the leeks are still a vibrant colour. Better under cooked than over cooked for the leeks.

Serve with
Pie crust: (to guarantee a perfectly cooked crust with no nasty stodgy bits, I cook the crust separately – just roll it out put it on a baking tray and stick it in the oven)
Pasta: I vote for papadeli!
Mashed potatoes: or better still mashed potatoes with forest mushrooms stirred into them!

If you’ve got any left add milk and water, wiz the whole lot up in a food processor to make a great soup.
Hope you're all well, thanks for reading
Bushwacker

Those New Chestnuts

Like the our pal the American Bushman I’m noticing the shift in the seasons; London was decidedly nippy today, and the prelude to last nights fitness training was a drum roll of chattering teeth as we gathered at the park gate.
I’m not sure where it went (I’ve even been having salad for breakfast!) but I’d certainly let things slide in the last week. The regime of running, sit ups, burpees, star jumps and press ups seemed almost as tortuous as the first time I attended. I sweated like a carthorse and my legs felt like I had tree trunks tied to them. Having struggled and slithered across the wet grass praying for the strength to continue or at least a merciful end to the torment.

Having survived I started to think of myself as a rather heroic figure. Back at home; as I lay panting and moaning on the front room floor, I was quickly disabused of even this crumb of comfort. Mrs SBW delivered a ‘motivational’ lecture about the ads she seen on TV where tubby fellas of a certain age are putting their health at risk by eating and drinking to their harts content. She succinctly pointed out that it was my harts (fat) content that means it’s not a choice. I will be going back, rain or shine, like it or not.
As Carl the PTI keeps pointing out “there’s plenty of time to think about it later, just do it”.

The park is the site of an ancient hunting ground and although we’re denied the chance to shoot (or even trap) the squirrels or stalk the deer there are still some foraging opportunities to be had. I’ve only ever had chestnuts and puffball mushrooms, but my foraging days have only just begun there must be more edible species for a re-wilded bushwacker to find. The chestnuts are getting a little riper but the first sightings of the granny migration that signals their ripeness are still a little way off.
It would seem I’m not the only person visiting the park hoping to invoke the aid of the gods, I saw this offing left at the foot of one of the bigger chestnuts trees.

The history of the site as a place of worship is at least as old as the roman invasion/settlement of Brittan. Discovered in 1902 the park has the remains of the mosaic floor of a roman shrine, supposedly dedicated to Diana the Huntress an imported deity the Romans took to their harts.

The area is steeped in history; first as a hunting ground and later as a pleasure park for the royals. Just as the invasion/settlement of Virginia was getting under way Le Notre (the gardener to Louis XIV) was commissioned by king Charles II to design the layout of the park we see today. The avenues of Sweet Chestnuts were planted from Spanish seed and some of them are now 400 years old.

I was more than a little off in my tree-size-estimate this fella is 24.5 feet around the trunk!
More trunk reduction for the bushwacker to follow – thanks for reading everbody
Bushwacker

The re-wilding of Mrs SBW

The weekend saw a return to the regular weekend schedule; kids to drama class and vegetable shopping in the market afterwards. On Sunday I really wanted to see The AJS & Matchless Owners Club’s show at the Woolwich Arsenal, theses bikes are very good looking and were real giant slayers in their day. The display circuit was very short but it was still good to see and hear these museum quality bikes on the move.
I admit, I also thought I’d pick up a few brownie points by spontaneously taking the kids out. To my surprise Mrs. SBW offered to come and pick us up afterwards, she too had an agenda “let’s pick some blackberries for a crumble”.

Oxleas Wood is that rarest of things, an ancient deciduous woodland within the confines of a city. Most of the 8,000 year old woodland is on the southeastern slope of Shooters Hill, which overlooks London. On the 72 hectares grow Oaks, Silver Birch, Hornbeam and numerous coppices of Hazel. Being inner city woodland, litter has ‘sprouted’ everywhere you look. The kids loved it and even put 1-2% of the blackberries they picked into the tub. They were covered in juice by the time we headed for home.

Lets get crumblin’

Put your medium sized ovenproof dish into the oven and turn the oven up high
Peel, core and chop your apples. Rinse your berries in cold water.

There are many different ideas as to how to make a crumble, in this recipe I’ll show you the quickest and I think easiest method. The ruination of many a crumble is letting the stewed fruit juices soak into the uncooked crumble mixture. Don’t panic! I have a way round this! Miss out the stewing.

Once the apples (3+ per person) are chopped, chuck half of them into the pan.
Sprinkle the berries over the apples and add the remaining apples on top.
The apples and berries will get hot and some of the juice they make as they cook will evaporate the rest will sink to the bottom, away from the topping.
Yes it’s that simple!

While all that’s happening lets make the crumble.
In a big bowl put
Two parts flour – the 00 stuff from Italy is best – but whatever you have will be fine.
One part sugar – I use half and half, white and brown sugar
One part butter

For a medium sized pan each ‘part’ would be two ounces (50g). Squidge the flour, fat and sugar together until they make an ‘almost pastry’. A crumbly mix of, crumble.
Now sprinkle the crumble over the top of the hot fruit.
Slam the oven door shut with a confident swagger.
Cook until you’ve finished the main course or it looks done, which ever comes sooner

If you like a very think crumble topping treble the amounts.
Ground hazelnuts included with the flour are really good.
The better the ingredients the better the results.

Serve with crème anglais or my favourite, regular custard out of a packet.

Last word to Mrs SBW
“I keep finding purple spoons in the dishwasher, I hope you don’t think your eating anymore of my crumble”
Bushwacker.

Battue: French For Bushwacking.

Battue: Whacking (or battering) bushes to flush out game animals.


I’m back, the sojourn to southern France is over and I’ve a few tails to tell you about, some of them fishy and some of them boorish.

But first the bad news; bad news for the boars, the french boar-hunting season gets under way next week and there are more double express rifles heading into the woods than ever stalked the African plains. And it’s bad news for me. I’m a long way from the Languedoc. Bah!

Like most things french, hunting ‘french style’ is very different to the aristocratic traditions of their english neighbours. Airs and graces are unnecessary, as are bespoke red coats and pedigree horses. No one is wearing a necktie. Where (and whether) you went to school is of no consequence. This is hunting ‘come as you are’. In France la chasse (the chase) is a great leveller. It’s for the rich and the poor, its enthusiasts are from the town and the country. The doctor with his exquisite double rifle stands alongside the barman with his great granddaddies under and over. While people with American hunting experience will recognise the camo and the slug guns, the french attitude to health and safety during le Battue will leave you, if not shaken, certainly very glad you brought along that blaze orange vest.

For la chasse there is no need to hang a tree stand and get to it before dawn, in france the hogs and bucks come to you. Every Sunday during the season at 8am, you down a couple of stiff drinks in the village square, then a drive out to the forest. The hunting association for the area will have elected a captain, and he will nominate who takes up position in the line, where the guns stand and wait, usually about fifty yards apart on the edge of the forest, and who runs with the dogs in le Battue or the team of beaters.

The beaters follow the dogs, which like their masters vary in temperament from the highly trained pedigree terrier, to the farmyard mutt. Brambles and bushes must be whacked, spiralling french horns are used for calling and despatching the hounds, with more blasts to signal to the line. This is hunting for the cooking pot. All game is fair game so as boars, rabbits and stags break cover they are turned towards the guns. Some of the beaters are also armed to insure nothing gets away. Chaos reigns. As the beaters near the line, and hopefully no one on the line has been shot this week, the horn blasts to tell the beaters to stop shooting and the line to turn to follow the fleeing prey.
Then its back to the village restaurant for a massive lunch with anything upwards of four courses and lots of wines and spirits before the whole thing begins again.

The season lasts until February – There’s still time to get out there. Wish me luck.

Asterix models

Foxes Love Shoes?!!

R&E of stoke newington emailed to report being the victims of continued harassment by local foxes. They’ve also seen the family's shoes baring the brunt of the attacks. Several pairs of their lad’s shoes, left by the backdoor after garden play, have been torn up. In the most recent outrage a pair of E’s poshest shoes were snaffled. With their smelly footprints and our chewed shoes, urban foxes are annoying. But in fairness their screeching is probably the worst of it. At least they don’t have rabies! Oh and they eat rats.

Meanwhile On The Other Side Of The Pond...

Things ain’t so cushy in Salisbury, reports Earl Holland for The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md.
At Chef Fred's Chesapeake Steakhouse, Bar & Grill, the manager Sara Hall was called with claims of a wild fox in the parking lot. As she went to investigate customers were beating a retreat into the building pursued by the fox.
In what must have looked like a moment of high comedy, punters anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifd staff were jumping up on the tables to escape the invader.
She was bitten on the hand, and even with one of the bouncers holding the fox in a neck-lock it still managed to bite a punter who was trying to prize open its jaws.
Ms Hall had to attend a local medical centre where she received seven shots in case the animal was rabid, and must re-attend twice a week for three to four weeks for supplementary shots.

Rumors that E would gladly endure the shots if she could keep the shoes are unconfirmed

For the full story

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