Horse Drawn Blogging

I know a few of you read James' blog, but for those of you how haven't been reading it lately or are living under a stone it's well worth a visit. Due to his coverage of what are known here as 'country pursuits' he comes into contact with all kinds of colourful characters who most of the year shun political correctness and the modern world, choosing instead to base themselves beyond the reach of 'health and safety'. Only breaking cover to attend rural pow-wows such as horse fairs, game fairs and county shows. The kind of places where Ferrets are 'legged', food has taste and texture, and you can buy everything from home made jam to 8 bore wildfowling guns. They're great!

The reason I mention all this is to set the scene for a blogger James has just introduced.
Simon Mulholland writes Saddle chariot, a blog about horses, buggys that you tow from horses, his run-ins with the establishment and cooking meat.

His advice is forthright and he has a great turn of phrase.

Cooking
"When I used to cook Venison and Wild Boar round the County Show circuit, I was always being asked how to cook Game. "Count the legs!" I used to say. "Then think of something you can already cook with approximately the same number of legs, and do the same thing.""

Horses, the Saddle Chariot and the elite horse breeding establishment
Some of the more perceptive may have picked up a hint of frustation with the British Horse Establishment. My opinion hasn't changed. If they were horses, I would say they must have been cruelly mistreated as youngsters, because no horse is naturally devious, vicious or deceitful. And no horse is naturally snobbish, racist or in favour of incest, all characteristics that appear throughout the British Horse establishment.

Could he be the new Albert Rasch?

Thanks for dropping in-let me know your thoughts-leave a comment or two
Your pal
The bushwacker

A Tale Of Two Bushmen AKA Bargain Alert

I've been reading the blog written by the American Bushman for ages and marvelling at his knife collection - he doesn't just think 'that looks cool I wonder what it's like to use' he buys one and finds out just exactly how cool each design is. As you probably know after a while it's easy to end up with more stuff than one bushman can practically carry so he's decided to lighten his load by having a bit of a clear out.

Good news for us!

Inspired by the Backyard Bushman's posts about his EDC I've snaffled the Mikro Canadian II by the Bark River Knife and Tool Co. and a few other bits which I'll review as usage allows.
There are still loads of handsome blades for sale - take a look.
Happy Hunting
SBW

Trota! Rod? Line? Nah!

Our friend who is yet to get his TLA (three letter acronym) lets call him jon, has just sent me this picture from his place in Italy. Apparently he was standing by his trout stream (you think that's jammy - he has Boar and Deer too!) wondering weather or not to take up fishing (I know! Some people!) when he saw this one had invited itself to lunch by marooning itself in a shallow pool.
So he picked it up and took it home, as yer would!
Thanks for reading
SBW

I've Got A Sample For You!

The other day my office neighbour, she has the space next door to us, popped her head 'round the door saying 'I've got a sample for you' as she handed me this bottle.
You should have seen the look on the interns face!

Of course it's Elderflower cordial, and so delicious even the kids liked it!

The elder flowers in our garden have all gone now, roll on the elderberries!
Any elderberry recipe ideas gratefully received!

Thanks for reading
SBW

Road Kill Rules

A little while ago the three ring circus that is the clan de la bushwacker were driving through the leafy lanes of Kent. As we entered a village I implored Mrs SBW to pull over. Bushwacker Jnr. and yours truly ran back down the road and recovered this delicious hen pheasant that had recently meet its demise at a passing vehicle's wheel and had not been there long.

How do I know it was safe to eat?

Well I'm no Tom Brown Jnr. but there were a couple of tracks that even I could follow:
1. It was about 11am and reasonably sunny - her blood was fresh and no flies had gathered.
2.It was about 11am and she was still there, if she'd died during the previous evening a fox would have had her during the first available cover of darkness.
3.Hung game has a strong smell and is still completely safe to eat. This one had hardly any smell.

At the butchers shop/game dealer you can buy a nice plucked pheasant (looking a lot like the one pictured bellow) that was shot on a shoot near by, it then sat around in a field for a few hours before being taken to the chilled game larder where it resided until at least the next day, when it continued its journey to the butcher/game dealer, where it sat in the chiller until it was plucked. Only then did it make it onto the shelf of the shop. We're talking £5.50 or eleven bucks from the butcher nearest my house, cheaper if you live out of town and up to a tenner if you live somewhere really swanky.

Mine had probably been clipped by a passing car that morning, took ten minuets to pluck (it would be less with practice) cost me nothing, and I got a really cool bag of feathers to use later.Bushwacker jnr. and I tucked in after Mrs SBW came over all squeamish and pushed hers to the side of her plate.Sucker!

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker.

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

The Elusive Obvious Pt1

There's a fortune at stake, there are countless review sites and everyone has an opinion (or two). What to wear outdoors?

As regular readers will know I'm quite a fan of The Gun Nut. My family and friends sneer when I recommend this blog, but whether you’re interested in firearms or not, David E Petzal has a voice that leaps of the page and an understanding of his audience that anyone could learn from. A bit more worldly than many of his fans, (as judged by reading the comments section) he never acknowledges his expertise, choosing instead to portray himself as weary traveller, incidentally dispensing knowledge while dismayed at the way the worlds going.

On the Gun Nut Blog this week David E Petzal talks about the clothes needed take a hike and THEN to sit still for long periods of time during a hunt.

In the comments section I saw this pearl of wisdom

"The quickest way to figure out how to deal with all that is to go to the nearest construction site nearest to the area you want to hunt and see what the guys who are out in it all day long trying to do their job wear. It's not that different from the needs for hunting. They work, they sweat. They can't quit and run home every time they step in a puddle, get sweaty or it rains a little." - Jack Ryan

If you've got any tips for clothes that protect you from the worst of it without costing the earth - post a comment and let us know
Cheers
SBW

First Catch A Pike Of 10-12 Pounds

Just beyond the suburbs a Pike, grown old and wily, has stationed himself to take advantage of the deeper water as the stream narrows. He (and I always imagine him as a he) stirs, but not for anything with my line attached to it. Would that I were at the water now; there’s an evening rise of Trout and Grayling snatching anything half hatched that’s failed its Promethean mission and fallen to the stream. The old predator waits, confident that guile honed on long experience will let him feast on the easy pickings of youthful enthusiasm. I can almost feel his slow eyes watching as he waits to flick the hunters switch, turning the stillness of the wait into the lightening of his strike. But alas I’m far away, helping Bushwacker Jnr with his homework and the bait shop is closed.

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker.

Photo credit

Crumpy’s A Good Keen Man

A few years ago I was managing a frustrating sales team, and had foolishly taken to bringing my pain home with me at the end of the day. One Saturday morning I was moaning about the lack of enthusiasm my guys were showing for selling lacklustre advertising opportunities to disinterested regional small businesses when Bushwacker Jnr. treated me to a dose of the wisdom and clarity that a five year old has, and the rest of us would be wise to relearn. ‘’Daddy if you don’t like your guys, you should get different guys’’. Ahh! from the mouths of babes and sucklings! Talking a good fight at interview and actually having what it takes to treat daily success and failure as being part of a larger process, excepting the limitations of the terrain, and to making do with the kit available is quite another. The endless search for talent continues, if only there was a foolproof way to find a good keen man…

I’ve been away travelling with work for the last few weeks so apart from (unsuccessfully) hunting road kill from the car window I’ve not had the opportunity to do anything even remotely blog worthy, apart from catching up on some reading. Mrs BoB has long been telling me how much I’d love the work of Kiwi legend Barry ‘crumpy’ Crump(1935-1996) and was kind enough to send me a compendium of his works. How right she was. Crump has a sparse writing style (big type - not many words on the page) and manages to sound as though he’s sitting next to you by the crackling camp fire. He undoubtedly would have made great company.

I want to make Crump the patron saint of making do with crap kit. This was the age of canvas tents that weighed more that a suburban dad after a big lunch, waterproofs that weren’t, boots that were ‘half way to worn out before they were worn in’, and help that was more trouble than it was worth. At the time of writing his first book ‘A Good Keen Man’ he was a youthful deer culler on New Zealand’s south island during the early fifties, when deer numbers reached such epidemic proportions that the government had to send guys armed with war surplus 303’s (iron sights – no scopes) out into the back country to dramatically thin out their numbers before they ate the vegetation down to the rock.

Support and training were merge to say the least;
‘Do you know how to bake bread in a camp oven?’
‘Three rounds per skin you bring in, after that you pay for them yourself’.
As for leadership while actually doing the job it was,
‘I’ll be along to see how you’re doing in a couple of months, weather permitting’.

Before hunting could commence Crump and who ever he was working with at the time would have to cut their way through the bush to get to ground they were going to hunt that season. So it was only after a few weeks limbering up with a little ‘light’ forestry that the actual work they were paid for could begin.
Leaving camp before dawn and returning in the dark often with only his dogs for intelligent company, enduring the south islands notoriously changeable weather and rough terrain. The job would certainly be a tough and lonely endeavour, so it’s not surprising that the deer cullers of this period have an almost mythical place in Kiwi hunting lore. This was hunting on a scale, and in a style, that is almost unimaginable today. All deer were fair game and once there was enough meat for the table, only skins were brought back to camp as proof of kills. I’ve never met anyone who has got twenty deer in a year, Crump and his more effective co workers were getting twenty in a day. Each. A different kind of conservation effort to what we’d practice today, but without it New Zealand would now be bare rock.
The way he tells it, from his first season Crumpy was something of an asset to his manager, by the time he’d been in the job a couple of seasons he was shooting so many deer that he burned through a rifle barrel in a season!

As usual top performers must be kept on their toes so despite his Herculean (or should that be Sisyphean?) efforts he wasn’t allowed to rest on his laurels. When he put his reports in he was expecting some modest recognition of his efforts only to be told ‘you could have done a bit better if only you’d put a bit more effort it’. Same old same old!

His boss was the kind of shameless huckster that would have been at home in any of the sales offices I’ve worked in; always trying to get more numbers out of young Crumpy, and issuing empty, yet beguiling, promises of help on the way (if only he could ‘get the *&^@:$% numbers up’ in the meantime). The ‘help’ promised would occasionally be waiting for him when he returned to camp at night. Fresh faced and ill equipped both between the ears and in the rucksack.

Legs: “The only wood legs brought into the camp was on the butt of his rifle”

Wilmer: That evening, while I baked a couple of loaves of bread, Wilmer proved beyond all dispute, by brilliant deduction, that queen Victoria was perverted, that one of his own ancestors wrote under the name Shakespeare, that Winston Churchill was an impostor, and that the present birth-rate in Indo-China would make the world so top-heavy that in ten years it would start to wobble and eventually spin in a north-east by south-west direction. I believed all this and finally went to sleep with my head reeling from all the startling bits of information that had been poured into my unaccustomed ears ………[ I’m not going to spoil this bit for you - its hilarious] ………….If this was one of Jim’s good keen men I was going to ask him for a woman next time.

A succession of these ner-do-wells, dreamers and egotists rock up at his camp, only to find that they don’t really have what it takes to be a poor lonesome deer culler a long way from home after all. Any complaints about the time he’d wasted on their basic training would of course be met with further promises of having found just the guy to replace the last bloke, ‘totally different story - you’ll like him, he’s a good keen man’. Hilarious!!

Thanks for reading
Your pal
The Bushwacker.

Free Range Camping And Hiking In The UK

I saw this internet petition on Aktoman's blog and thought I'd sign up and ask you to consider doing the same.

If you're in Blighty or are an expat please take a moment to sign your name to this petition.It is important that we win back any and all of the liberty's that we've seen eroded over the last few years.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to legalise wild camping in England and Wales.


I'm not sure it will do any good, but as a point of principle I feel we should make an effort to be heard as its us who will lose out if we don't make the effort now.

Thanks for reading (and signing up)
SBW

Centenial Bushwacker

Really 100 posts already! 50 seemed like a lot.
I thought I'd mark the occasion by giving some long overdue thanks to the people who have encouraged me along the way.
Starting a blog is very easy, actually 'blogging' is a little more challenging. To start with it was just me mumbling into cyberspace. Then all of a sudden people started to comment, best of all it was people whose work I've enjoyed reading.To say I was delighted is such an understatement. Your comments and emails have made the blog so much fun for me to write, and I hope fun for you to read too.
Starting at the beginning in the order in which they added comments:

The American Bushman:
I really like reading your blog and was SO delighted when you commented on my first post.

Kelly:
I still stand by what I said at the time 'cute is just another way of saying delicious!'

Mungo:
I'd been reading your stuff for a while, your comment was all the encouragement I needed.

Mrs L AKA Lucy: I was a really great surprise to see that you were actually reading the blog.

Cuz L AKA Lorin:
You're a voracious reader and can actually write yourself. meant a lot when you commented.lets get that camping trip together soon.

The Editor AKA Rex of the Deer Camp:
Wow I exist, Rex from the deer camp knows I'm blogging! I was really blown away that you'd read my outpourings.

boudica of suburbia:
SBW Compared to Ray Mears, you're too kind, I was a fan of your blog and then you commented!

Philip from the hog blog:
You gave me another of those 'I've arrived - someone's listening' moments.

Pablo:
I'd followed your posts on BCUK for ages I was made up that you liked the blog. Thanks.

Dana AKA The Wild Woods Woman:
You've posted some great posts and your comment was so apt.

The Hobo Stripper:
I love telling people about your blog, their assumptions are written all over their faces, hilarious! I still think you have the most unique voice of any of the blogs.

Sam AKA woodcraft in poland
I'd been reading your stuff for ages before you commented. Thanks

Darrell AKA the alpha trilogy:
Hope things are getting better, thanks again for your support

Don AKA buck hunters blog:
Another milestone, i had no idea my blog was reaching so far. thanks for commenting.

Kristine AKA gunslingergirl AKA the first lady of outdoor blogging
What can i say? Without your efforts so many people wouldn't have connected. By founding the Outdoor Bloggers Summit you've done more to promote writing about outdoor adventures than anyone. Massive thanks.

Othmar Vohringer:
Another 'I exist' moment, I'd been reading your blogs for ages and there you were reading mine!

viridari AKA the Utility Belt:
Really glad to see you posting again. Thanks for your kind words.

Barkfoot:
Great pix, great blog thanks for getting in touch

Decado:
You will forever be my favourite blogger. When you said I was an inspiration in starting your blog, well let's just say I had to buy a new hat! Thanks.

Todd AKA privative point:
I've enjoyed you blog immensely, cant say I'm not a little disappointed that you moved to the backyard smithy. PS you intro to the rasch chronicles was inspired!

Jamie The fishing blog:
I've really found your blog useful, and was very flattered that you liked mine, thanks.

The Urban Fly Fisher AKA Alistair
Inspirational tales from fly fishing the Kelvin in Scotland

The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles AKA Albert A Rasch:
You sir are a living legend.

NorCal Cazadora:
I've really enjoyed our conversations,no one can hold a candle to you for enthusiasm.

Hank AKA Hunter Gardener Angler Cook:
What can I say hank you're my wild food hero!

drew dunn
Keep posting and commenting - I'd miss you if you didn't

Kevin Kossowan
I really like your blog as I live in the 'burbs it's not likely I'll be a full time hunter who cooks, so reading the blog of a cook who hunts has been an inspiration to me. And it was nice to know you looked in

The Deptford Dame AKA Knit Nurse:
Thanks for dropping by

comfortablynumb AKA son of Hackney
See you soon

Mrs BoB
Thanks for letting me know your thoughts!

Ken Harris
Glad you like it - tell your friends!

B.O.B
Bruv - how many posts did it take before you commented?

Falls-Down-Laughing
Great blog man! thanks for stopping by.

Nordic Bushcraft AKA Johan:
Thanks for dropping by - I'm pleased you've started your blog its good.

James Marchington of Sporting Shooter:
James you deserve special thanks for services to Suburban Bushwacking. As I'm sure you noticed I really liked the rabbit hunt. See you soon.

Thanks for reading everyone - if you like it or if you think i should be investigating some aspect of bushcraft, hunting, fishing, gathering wild food, or have thought of a new way of me making a fool out of myself in the open air
POST A COMMENT!
If you've given me a mention on your site or blog and I've not reciprocated is most likely that its because technorati hasn't listed you yet - so drop me a line.
Your Pal
the suburban bushwacker

Bushwacker Edu. - A Knotty Problem

As James pointed out the other day, unless you come from a family who hunt or live in a small community where everyone knows everyone else, your chances of getting involved in hunting in the UK are relatively slim. The net result is that there are a few holes in my education.

John: Hey, Jeremy, what do you know about holes?
Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD.: There are simply no holes in my education.
Paul: You mean you haven't composed a "hole" book?
The Beatles - The Yellow Submarine

James has invited me to go Ferreting in a couple of weekends time. As you can imagine I’m fairly excitable at the best of times, so he’d no sooner invited me than I was starting my preparations.
“Apart from my hat & coat what will I need to bring?”
“We’ll need some Purse Nets”
“Where do I buy them?
“Your making them – a kit’s in the post”
“ How difficult is it?”
“ Just one Knot, tied lots of times!”

So I’m about to start making some purse nets that we’ll stretch over the exits to the rabbits warren, before sending in his business of ferrets to flush the bunnies out.

Wish me luck - thanks for reading
SBW

Ferreting Out Some Advice

I recently met with my new friend James Marchington editor of Sporting Shooter magazine.

If I had tried to imagine a quintessential English journalist afield, it would be James. Tweed jacket, spectacles and an encyclopedic knowledge of everything to do with guns and field sports. Sitting in his office surrounded by shotgun cartridges, rare books about deer stalking, ferreting and wildfowling he beguiled me with tales of life afield, cleared up numerous questions I had about firearms, their legislation, and the UK shooting fraternity. I had ‘popped in’ to see him for ‘half an hour’ and two and a half hours later I had to excuse myself so as to put in a token appearance at my own office. Wish I were still there.

James has kindly offered to induct me into the wiles and ways of the shooting gent, starting with an invitation to go ferreting for rabbits. With the proviso that I wouldn’t have to put any ferrets down my trousers, I enthusiastically accepted.

Ferrets? Rabbits? Trousers? What?
One very effective way of hunting rabbits is to flush them out of their holes by sending a ‘business’ of ferrets down there (great collective noun isn’t it).
You simply net off all the exits you can find and send a hob (male) and a jill (female) down the hole. When the rabbits come charging out into the net you kill them and eat them.

I’m from the south and you hear a lot of tall tales about the northerners and their strange rituals and antics. There has long been a folk legend about gentlemen of the northern persuasion using that that was intended for legs, as a storage place for these most able of helpers. Now it turns out that it’s true!! There really is a ‘sport’ called ‘ferret legging’ where you trouser ferrets and the last one to tear their own pants off in sheer terror is the winner. Probably more fun to watch than take part.

“Basically, the contest involves the tying of a competitor's trousers at the ankles and the subsequent insertion into those trousers of a couple of peculiarly vicious fur-coated, foot long carnivores called ferrets. The brave contestant's belt is then pulled tight, and he proceeds to stand there in front of the judges as long as he can, while animals with claws like hypodermic needles and teeth like number 16 carpet tacks try their damnedest to get out.”

The rules:"no jockstraps allowed. No underpants-nothin' whatever. And it's no good with tight trousers, mind ye. Little bah-stards have to be able to move around inside there from ankle to ankle."

For those of you without the inclination to read the full text here’s the punch line

The current record stands at an awesome 5 hours and 26 minutes!

Thanks for reading
SBW

PS One ferret, Freddie, is registered as an electrician's assistant with the New Zealand Electrical Workers Union.

Photo Credit

Tis The Season To Be Silly

There's more!

Hunting Birds or should that be Birds Hunting?

I’ve started following a really neat blog where a grade ‘A’ foodie from northern California, who didn’t grow up around hunting, has taken up wildfowling and bird hunting. At the start of her adventure she suspects that being a woman taking up a male dominated activity will be the hard part….
Between the lunkheads and the professionally patronising, she finds the same challenges we all face when going into the great outdoors; finding clothes to protect us from the worst the weather can throw at us, weapons and tools that consistently do the business when asked, and someone to show us how to get a result.
Nor Cal Cazadora sites some recent research showing that while hunter numbers are down, the number of women afield is rising, and rising significantly.
Except at my house.
I’m forever trying to sell Mrs SBW the benefits of eating wild meat and hunting for it ourselves, she remains unconvinced. Meanwhile on the other side of the world BoB (brother of bushwacker) is married to a woman made of sterner (and more weatherproof) stuff. When Mrs SBW was pregnant she wanted to: reorganise storage and redecorate the house. When Mrs BoB was in the family way it was a different story. Just before they left for New Zealand, we all got together for a family dinner. At the table I saw her staring dreamily at a Sunday roast saying wistfully, “when I get home I really want to shoot a pig” Mrs SBW further endeared herself (although not to me) when she pointed at me and chipped in “you can shoot this one if you like”.

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker.


Translation ‘Birds’ is english for ‘Chix’
Photo Credit

Deer Scrap!!

'Always hunt with someone else', is usually good advice.
However there's an exeption that proves every rule.

With a 'friend' like the cameraman, you're probably safer hunting on your own!

Thanks to MB for the link.
Bushwacker

Prometheus In My Pocket

“ ‘I'm a firestarter, a twisted firestarter’, (sigh) well that’s nothing to be proud of is it” DJ Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) reviews The Prodigy.

Due to our damp northern climate I tend to favor the firesteel as a means of ignition. As well as being waterproof: they are cheap and making handles for them is easy, satisfying, and gives you the kind of ‘bushcrafty’ vibe that makes you seem like you have a life outside of work.
The sparks they produce are way hot, and so bright you could signal with if you didn’t have a torch or signal fire lit yet. In the damp weather, and as good practice, I’ve been carrying kindling to give myself a head start when lighting a brew fire. So I thought I’d do a post about some of the gatherable options. But you know how it is; your pal the bushwacker has always had an inquiring mind (also known as a short attention span). So while I was thinking a about a fire, I started to think about something to cook on it (blogging often gives me an appetite) and something to keep fiddling fingers occupied while sitting by it.The Sammi people of Finland have carried the dried hollow stalks of Angelica, and I’ve used Hemlock stems gathered from the roadside. Being hollow the stems draw air as they burn giving a very hot flame, handy when you need to dry out the rest of your firewood. There are plenty of alternatives you can easily gather and then carry with you. Here’s one I made earlier.

Birch bark is the classic all year round kindling, it’s cigarette paper thin and lights even more easily. It’s totally sustainable, and convenient as the tree is shedding it all year round!

Cattail fluff makes an ideal ‘spark catcher’ it burns very quickly, a little too quickly for use on it’s own but as a natural catalyst its fantastic.

Mixed with some of the Birch bark and wrapped in some bigger bits of birch bark it’s portable,

and ignitable!

While your gathering the dried out Cattails for kindling you can get a lot of other uses from the rest of the plant. The stems could be an ideal thatching material for a longer-term shelter. But lets head to the kitchen!
At their base Cattails have rhizomes (the root-like stem that grows horizontally sending roots down and leaves and stems up) that are ripe for eating at the moment. All you have to do is peel ‘em and cook them like spuds. In some culinary traditions the rhizomes are pounded into flour. I’ll let you know. The first time I ate them was in the spring, we plucked out the soft white core of the young stems, (known as Cossack’s asparagus) and they were pretty good raw as a salad vegetable eaten in situ and for our tea cooked in a stir-fry.

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker

Sundays Are For Archery

It’s Sunday so its round two of archery lessons or The Bushwacker versus The Paper Targets.

In England Sunday archery practice is a tradition that nearly 800 years old. In the 12th century the longbow was the black rifle of its day, a military technology that’s use was strictly prescribed by law.

As standing armies are notoriously expensive to maintain, in 1252 the 'Assize of Arms' became the first Medieval Archery Law requiring all able-bodied men, from 15 to 60, equip themselves with a bow and sufficient arrows. The law also "forbade, on pain of death, all sport that took up time better spent on war training especially archery practise".
With King Henry the first, later proclaiming that an archer would be not be tried for murder, if he killed a man during his weekly archery practice. The Plantagenet (literally the planting of cover to create hunting grounds) King Edward III took this further and decreed the Archery Law in 1363 which commanded the obligatory practice of archery on Sundays and holidays!

The longbow really was the super gun of its day, launching arrows faster than any previous bow. It’s said that a skilled bowman could shoot between 10 - 12 arrows a minute. The bodkin (a sort of longer sharper fieldpoint) tipped arrows could pierce a knight’s armour at ranges of more than 250 yards. Such was the value placed on this cutting-edge military technology that in 1365 archers were forbidden to leave the shores of England without a royal licence.

There are still quite a few place names in England that include the word Butts (Newington Butts in South London) meaning that they were traditional archery grounds with targets to aim at and embankments to keep the death toll to a respectable minimum.

Sadly practice in our local parks is no longer permitted, and on the other side of the pond, things aren’t any better. News has reached me that in the city of Eau Claire, in Wisconsin a public practice ground called Archery Park has just banned archery practice after a local resident complained of finding an arrow in his back yard.

Things, as they say, are tough all over.
Wish me luck
Bushwacker.

Wivart Yer Opinel You Aven't Got An 'Ope In 'Ell'!

Showed a vegan friend my blog: Loved the bad puns (even donated one of his own - above). winced at the guns, remained tolerant at the meat eating, hunting 'n' fishing, then brightened considerably on sight of the Opinel.
Takes all sorts
Bushwacker
PS Check out Marc Armand's illustrations

Running, Eggs, And Posts I Re-Read

Last night I had a glimpse of the future, a bit like Scrooge seeing the Ghost of Running Club yet To Be….. And re-read some of my favorite blog posts

This morning I’ve just had the perfect poached egg for my breakfast, it smiled at me from the plate, sitting next to some toast and a pile of smoked salmon – a boy needs his Omega 3’s!

The holy grail of poached eggs: add just two drops of vinegar to a shallow pan of gently boiling water, put some spin on the water creating a vortex. As soon as you crack the egg and slowly add it to the centre of the spinning water, you can see the egg white coalesce into the perfect form.

Towards the end of our run I moved briefly from pound, pound, pant, pant wheeze to that fluid movement where the amount of effort drops considerably, but the amount of forward motion rises. Steps that had crashed against the ground now have a lighter touch, the jarring of my spine gave way to a glimpse of the serenity of motion I’d forgotten I could have.

Two of my favorite ‘good eggs’ of the bloggersphere

Pablo has a very handy list of REASONS, (proper valid reasons honey), for buying ESSENTIAL kit from Ebay.

The Hobo Stripper separates the person from their behaviour, and spends her post remembering angels with dirty faces.

Bushwacker.
PS
Sorry I didn’t explain that very well at all
How to spin water:
Carefully stir the boiling water with a spoon, until it is ‘spinning’
SBW