Unboxing: Kifaru Zulu G2 Review

 It's finally here and out of the box, a Zulu in Foliage Green [what other colour am I going to get?] 52.4 litres capacity and tough as old boots. I haven't been this exited to unbox a pack since the last one arrived.

Kifaru divides the internet into two piles: The 'you can buy a perfectly good pack from Walmart' guys - these are the same chaps who'll tell you a dullard GF is as much fun as a smart one, all Scotch tastes the same, and that a Hand Made Suit is the same as one from the discout store, and in the other pile: those of us who know you've just got to suck it up, buy the best once, safe in the knowledge that you'll be remembering quality long after you've forgotten the price you paid while numb-nuts has had to buy and re-buy with what little money he has left after buying the chiropractor a Mercedes.

Size of a LateSeason, but from the Military/Tacticool range, I do like the weight saving of the hunting range, but for this size of pack I needed super robust, and no one does super-tuff like Patrick Smith and Kifaru Tactical. If you want to be able to fill your pack with tools and hoist it into a filthy crawl space in a loft, fill it with scrap copper tubing and chuck it into the back of a rubble filled truck, hose it down and take it on the plane to go gold prospecting - you'll see why I wanted something a little tougher than your average bear. 2kg is a fair old weight for a pack in the 50l class, but I'm not sure you could make one as tough weigh much less.

 The lid that comes with the Zulu does a fine job of compressing the load, but is a rare example of Kifaru not really delivering on the design front. Seeing as the lid has two layers of material I found it a bit disappointing that its not got a zipper giving you a pocket between them. I bought my Zulu almost new and the chap I bought it off was happy to sell it with the standard lid or the XTL.

I saved some cash by not going for the Xtreme Top Lid as a couple of guys on the Kifaru forum told me they use and prefer the LongHunter lid, which I already have.

 Another difference between the hunting and tactical pack is Kifaru equip the tactical packs with quick release buckle on the shoulder straps, they are surprisingly useful.

With the Kifaru Cargo Chair, small off-spring, dead deer, firewood, and big fuel drums carried with ease. I'd call them the most 'must have' of all the add-ons you can order.

Kifaru sell most of their packs with 'optional' hip belts, this is a bit like buying a car with 'optional' wheels; as the hip belt is so integral to Patrick Smith's vision for load carrying where 100% of the load is supported on your hips and the straps are just to stop the weight toppling backwards. An extra $50, I'll order mine this week.

More gear freakery/kit-tart-ism, books, food, and attempts to escape suburban life as they happen
Your pal
SBW

I Am Sad, As In Pityful

A few weeks ago on a forum I frequent a fella sold off some Kifaru boot bags, yes a bag to keep your muddy boots in. He had three, I missed the colour I wanted but I bought one anyway. I kept my stalking boots in it. Just a bag to keep my muddy boots in.

Usually I only confess things like this to Chad and The Northern Monkey, but such is my shame I'm going to tell you all.

The guy who bought my first choice of colour put his up for sale, and sold it while I was off line, so I wrote to the buyer

He wrote back straight away "We are cut from the same cloth!" and we swapped bags to keep our muddy boots in. I feel so ashamed, but somehow comfortingly colour co-ordinated.

Until the next time

Your sado pal (in Foliage Green)

SBW

Blogger Comments, Always Read The Comments.

Blogging = Sitting at home laughing at your own jokes. What's not to love?

Your pal

SBW

Survival In The Bush: When Bears Eat Your Dinner

Shot in 1954, Bob Anderson a producer with NFB and Angus Baptiste, his guide and minder, are given a thorough drenching and then left dripping wet in the bush with just an axe and Baptiste's knowledge and ingenuity to keep them going while Baptiste rustles up a birchbark canoe for them to travel home in.

Shamelessly hammed up for the camera [in a far more honest way than todays 'reality' TV] but still informative, and interesting to see how Bushcraft was portrayed on TV nearly 60 years ago. We've come a long way, but are we traveling in the right direction?

More soon

SBW 

And Thoreau's Mum Did His Laundry Every Week

Paleo-Survival TV has been on my mind this week and while I would happily sell what few scraps of dignity I have left, and appear on pretty much any one of them for a sandwich and a glass of tap water I've got to say I just don't get it. Sure they are entertaining, I love watching the hippy and the butch military guy bicker like a pair of fishwives and I could watch the posh boy eating rotting meat for hours. The whole genre poses one question, why the pretend adversity? There are lots of things I've learned from the idiots lantern, TV can educate and entertain at the same time, so why is the bar set so low?

The legendary Tim Smith of Jack Mountain must have been musing on the same thing as he posted a link to this article in Mother Jones.

Like any TV genre-of-the-moment, the roster of primitive-skills programming represents a series of variations on a theme. The ur-example is arguably Man vs. Wild, which premiered in the US on Discovery Channel in March 2006. In each episode, the buff and charismatic Grylls is dropped into an isolated and menacing location, then forced to find shelter, improvise tools, and eat carcass scraps, all the while offering lessons on how intrepid pioneers might have handled the situation. The show is phenomenally entertaining, owing largely to the schoolboy enthusiasm of the former British Special Forces host, who manages to sound exuberant even when delivering schlocky, back-from-commercial bumper lines like, "I've just dragged a dead sheep out of an Irish bog."

The TV executives that I've met are very very good at talking up 'cross platform' broadcasting, but when's it going to arrive? There's a HOOJ audience of people like me, and probably you, who want to learn more and are deeply cynical of the pretend urgency of these guys and the fake way in which they offer the irresponsible illusion of preparedness. By faking their way out of another supposedly life threatening situation they are telling a generation of viewers, for example, that its pretty easy to climb back out of the freezing waters and onto the ice. Bullshit.

How would you like to see it done differently?

Your pal
SBW

PS To who ever left the title of this post on the comments on the Mother Jones site, Genius!

Picture credit

The Biggest Known Elephant Tusks

For scale the cardboard plaque is 2 meters or 6.56 feet tall 
and together the tusks weigh 183g or 403.45lbs

In WMD 'karamojo' Bell's 1923 book 'The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' he mentions a tusk in the 'South Kensington Museum'. About ten years later it was later reunited with its twin, and there hangs a tale.

The tale as Bell tells it:

On our arrival at Mani-Mani we were met by one Shundi--a remarkable man. Karirono by birth he had been captured early in life, taken to the coast and sold as a slave. Being a man of great force of character he had soon freed himself by turning Mohammedan. Thence onward fortune had smiled upon him until at last he was, the recognised Tajir (rich man) of all the traders. Having naturally the intelligence to recognise the value of bluff and from his primitive ancestors the nerve to carry it off, he was at this time the greatest of all traders. Just as he had been a leader while slave-raiding was the order of the day, so now he led when ivory had given place to slaves as a commodity. One other thing that makes him conspicuous, at any rate, in my mind, and that he had owned the slave who who had laid low the elephant which bore the enormous tusks, one of which now reposes in the south Kensington museum. these tusks are still, as far as I know, the record. The one we have in London scales 234lb. or thereabouts. According to Shuundi his slave killed it with a muzzle-loader on the slopes of Kilimandjaro.

Kilimanjaro Tusks (1898)

More soon
SBW

Book Review: The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter

A while back when I spent what was to be the first of many hilarious weekends with blogger, deerstalker and rifle aficionado, The Bambi Basher.  Amongst other things he considered it essential that I receive a lesson in vintage rifles 101 he showed me around his .275 Rigby-Mauser rifle and mentioned one of it's most famous proponents, the Scottish adventurer and hunter Walter Dalrymple Maitland 'Karamojo' Bell and his numerous african hunts with the 7mm rifle. I'm not an experienced reader of the safari memoir genre, but as usual I was drawn along by The Bambi Basher's enthusiasm, and soon wanted to know more about the story of  'Karamojo Bell' and his adventures on the slopes of Kilimanjaro a hundred or so years ago. I put his long out of print book 'The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' on the list and the back burner as other things took precedence. When I was lucky enough to receive a copy of as a birthday present I was intrigued to see how I'd find him and the times he lived in.

Bell is from a different time, when ivory was a common(ish) luxury material and he made a fortune out of the 1,100+ elephants he shot. In one (exceptional) day he tracked and shot nine elephants. He estimated that he had just earned £877 from the ivory the days work brought him. Not a bad wage today - this was in the 1920's!

The style of the day was to try to take as much of the Edwardian world with you as possible.  Eating tinned food brought from home, off tableware from the English midlands, accompanied by fine French wines from Irish crystal glasses. Even having a 'gun-bearer' to carry your rifle, while there's another servant who draws your fold-up bath as you get plastered on 'sun-downers'. More glamping than bushwhacking. As the twentieth century was getting going, this reaches new levels of absurdity with 'motor safari's' becoming fashionable amongst the western elite. Newly rich industrialists positioning themselves as 'sportsman' by shooting wildlife from the safety of the motor car, and their debutante daughters re-branding themselves as fearless 'safari chicks'. Wounded game died unrecovered, and the locals were treated as semi-cognate. 

Then there was Bell. As is usually the case with the people who get truly remarkable results Bell approaches the whole enterprise in a totally different way to his contemporaries. Carrying his own rifle, living entirely on local foods, and importing a pair of Canadian canoes to explore uncharted river courses. While his fellow Europeans stride across the continent with the arrogance of pseudo-gods, Bell and his companions tread a lot lighter, with a mixture of humility and cunning, he's courting the local support he needs as a matter of great urgency. Calling himself by the name the locals have for him Longelly-nyung (Red Man). Seeking to present himself as someone benign, who just happens to be passing through, and if anyone would be good enough to point him in the right direction, as an almost endless source of free food for those that help.  Bell is part adventurer and part psychologist. With balls of steel and an eye to the main chance.

And so we became friends I was not going through the blood-brotherhood business, with it's eating of bits of toasted meat smeared with each others blood, sawing in two living dogs or nonsense of that kind. I took his hand and wrung it hard, and had it explained to him that amongst us that was an extraordinarily potent way of doing it. That seemed to satisfy the old boy, for the act of shaking hands was as strange to him as the act of eating each others blood is to us. 

When an opportunity to defend the underdog (and serve his own interests) presents itself he delights in disrupting the activities of slavers.

A chance to assert ourselves occurred on the first day of our arrival among the Lakkas, for no sooner had the camp been fixed up than our merry band had a Lakka youth caught and bound and heavily guarded . On enquiring into this affair it transpired that this youth had been taken in a previous raid, but had escaped and returned to his country. We had this lad straight away before us, asked him if he   wished to go back to Buba Gida, and, on his saying this was the last thing he desired, at once liberated him. He did not wait to see what else might happen; he bolted. Of course the kings people were furious with us. We, on our part were thoroughly disgusted with Buba Gida for having designed to carry on his dirty work under the cloak of respectability afforded by two Englishmen on a shooting trip...


In short Bell was not as I expected to find him: he wasn't as racist, or apart from the odd incident as keen to enforce his morality on others, most of the time he was the only white dude for miles (not that would have meant anything to the Belgians), he understood that his reputation would be travelling a lot faster than he was, and was even quicker with his wits than he was with his Mauser.


He had of course heard all about our refusing to allow any 'recruiting' of slaves to be carried out and I daresay was furious with us. He remained polite but cold, and we noticed a great falling off in the presents of food, ect., which were demanded by custom. Among other things we were distinctly annoyed to find that we were classed by the king as third-class white men. To Buba Gida there were three classes of european. In the first class were French governors, French administrators and French military officers. For these people sweet Champaign was forthcoming in quantities to suit the individual importance of the visitor. Class two comprised minor French officials, important American or English travellers  scientific expeditions, surveys, ect. ; these got whiskey, while ginger beer was reseved for elephant hunters, clerks, or small commercial people. We were Ginger Beerites.

I've read that 'Wanderings' were originally published as a series of articles in a long defunct Scottish outdoor magazine [Update: it was Country Life which is still published, although with less interesting content] and the book reads as though that's true, its tantalisingly vague in parts, and eludes to a far more amazing set of tales, but is well worth a read if you can face flashing up for the out-of-print price.

The house Bell retired to Upper Corriemoillie, Garve, Rosshire, Scotland

Stay tuned for more about WMD Bell and more of the usual nonsense from yours truly
Your pal
SBW
PS if you know any more about Bell, or who W. was drop me a line

Ethics, Karma And Dead Deer

Dear You know who you are.

We live in a world where it is socially acceptable to have others mistreat animals before we eat them. Fact.

Unless you have hunted: felt your nervous system change gear and go into predator mode, killed and felt the vortex of emotions, then feasted on the flesh of another being, your opinion is abstract, a fantasy based on accumulated preferences, prejudices, and reactions to social norms. It's your right to engage in that, I'd defend that right to the death if need be. Just, please, please dont eat a burger from a factory farm and tell me killing is wrong.

So you used to be vegetarian, but now you eat some meats, but nothing with a face. A lot of animals died for your vegetables to grow, so it's OK to kill mice and bugs but not deer? I keep searching google images for that 'fish that doesn't look like fish', and the 'faceless animal' (we both know you've never tried worms) and they don't seem to exist. Those soya beans grew in a field where a lot of plants and animals had to die for a mono-culture to exist. Your morality, the same morality your parade in front of me, can only exist if someone else kills and processes animals for you out of your sight.

Oh you like eggs? Me too, lets us put the suffering of the factory chicken to one side for a moment, and think of the Fox who had to die so you could have eggs. Non lethal means? So you'd prefer Mr Fox starved to death rather than the bullet he never saw coming?

Karma: I'm going to spell this out for you. Nowhere in the original concept is there a one-to-one relationship between actions. End Of. Karma is not a concept of fairness, never has been never will be. "Karma's a bitch, she'll get you every time" is an entirely western concept. A comfort blanket for the person who wants revenge, but wants to take no responsibility for seeking revenge and cannot bear to think of themselves as a vengeful person. I'm sorry but life just isn't one plus one equals two.

Now for the emotive bit:

The other day a wannabe Buddhist and I sat down for a chat, I'll admit I was stirring the pot - when I need to spend time with someone who agrees with me I stay at home and talk to myself - I told him about WDM Bell and the 1,100 elephants he shot. Bear with me I said it was the emotive bit.

Wannabe Buddhist pulled his 'oh the pain of the world' face and told me that it was to be Bell's karma to be the last elephant, and to be shot by a fat american. Putting to one side his prejudice against fat people (frankly he could lose a few himself) and his prejudice based on the accident of a persons birthplace.
Bell did it for the money, yes he revelled in a sense of adventure, but fundamentally he shot the elephants because he wanted the money their ivory was worth. As a by product of the way he hunted, he fed hundreds of people. Yep he went to Africa and fed poor people. Where Elephants lived wild and free he shot them without their ever having known he was there, they were dead before the rifles bang reached their ears. The locals ate them. Where the Elephants were trampling and eating the crops of the poorest people on earth, he turned the loss of farmed foods into meat. Now tell me about about your cozy definition of Karma.

Sitting Bull "when the buffalo are gone we will hunt mice, for we are hunters and we want our freedom."

Let's not get started on the racism of your views about indigenous hunting, me and the deer are indigenous to northern europe, maybe if I dressed a little more colourfully you'd show me the same courtesy?

At last when we've talked it over, and you can't overcome the simple honest logic of the meat eater hunting their own dinner, I ask you if your objection isn't simply that I enjoy it, and you've said yes, so I'd like to pose this question

We humans are hard wired to enjoy the things we need to do in order for us to survive, thrive and procreate. Only in industrialised society do people toil at jobs they hate, to live lies that leave them unfulfilled.  I wish to live wild and free in nature, I'd like my dinner to live the same way, it's a freedom I'd extend to you too.

Thanks for reading
SBW

If this post has made you think differently about your dinner, or your more certain than ever, or somewhere in between Leave a Comment I'd like to hear what you think.

Urban Hunter [Spoof]

OK they're joking, but for how long? While I'm not a doom and gloom prepper myself the number of credible voices starting to talk seriously about coming food shortages are certainly rising. Suburban Detroit is already to be turned over to Cuban style city farms and several other cities are not far behind.

My own [early days] experiments with baiting suburban gardens suggest that while you wouldn't get fat, you'd be able to get a reasonable amount of protein from passing pests. If you supplemented pest control by keeping Rabbits and Hens even a very small space would feed a family.

Of course in Europe there are several precedents; during the Siege of Paris (19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871 Franco-Prussian War) market stalls did a thriving business in cat, dog and rat meat.

Le Monde Illustre, April 1871. 

The food shortages of WWII were felt even by the winners, with the rationing of most foods continuing into the 1950's. In Berlin pets weren't seen for quite a while after the conflict ended.

More about this to come

Your pal
SBW

Mark Zuckerberg Wants To Be SBW?

Really? I was delighted to read that you and I dear reader are not alone in our desire to have a more honest relationship with our dinner. Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook is joining us

"This year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself. So far, this has been a good experience. I'm eating a lot healthier foods and I've learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals.

I started thinking about this last year when I had a pig roast at my house. A bunch of people told me that even though they loved eating pork, they really didn't want to think about the fact that the pig used to be alive. That just seemed irresponsible to me. I don't have an issue with anything people choose to eat, but I do think they should take responsibility and be thankful for what they eat rather than trying to ignore where it came from."

See the very very rich are just like us after all.

Rumours that Mark is a regular reader of this blog remain unconfirmed, although a 'close friend' was quoted as saying "who wouldn't want to be like SBW?"
Meanwhile SBW was quoted as saying "My life? He's welcome to it, even if he only wants to try it out for a week or two, I'll swap places with him in a heartbeat. it's the least I can do"

More soon
Your pal
SBW

Hat tip to Chad for finding this one, and if you don't believe me the story is here.

Locavore Escargot AKA Snails

It's that time of year again Helix aspersa or the common garden snail is out of hiding and on the move. Towards my dinner table.

The plateful in the picture were harvested (picked?) from a pile of unused border tiles in a wooded, but still inner-city (zone 2) London garden. I kept then in a lidded bucket and fed them on salad trimmings for two days which purged all the grit they had accumulated from their natural diet. Then they were fed for two days on white bread. The bread passing through the snails and staying white, tells you the purge is complete. A lot of recipes say you only need to purge them for twenty four hours but my 'white bread test' reveals that it's not quite long enough.

Boiled, rinsed and boiled again (approx. 5-10 changes of water) until the slime and froth were gone. Stuffed back into their shells with a dab of parsley, garlic and butter. I baked them until I could stand the deliciousness of the smell no longer. Served with rustic bread to mop up the melted butter. Yummy.

More soon
SBW

If You Only Had One Wild Food Cookbook

'We live in an edible world. And yet many of us have forgotten the feast that lives all around us'

Regular readers will know that I'm a HOOJ fan of Hank Shaw's writing and recipes, his enthusiasm for reclaiming the foods of the wild is a massive inspiration to me, his book is finally out and for you lucky people in north america his book tour is under way. Hank has pulled off that rare feat of being a blogger who has been lauded by the publishing mainstream, twice nominated for the James Beard Food Awards basically the Oscars of the food world.

"I am not simply cobbling together all my old blog posts into a book. You will definitely see some of the same topics I write about here, but Honest Food will go deeper, be more helpful for those looking to get started on these endeavors, be less regional in focus (I’ve lived all over the country, so the book will not be California-centric.) and will – I hope – not only tell readers how to hunt or fish or forage wild greens, but will also tell them why they should bother in the first place."

So far Hank has confirmed for 20 dates across the US over the next three months and if you ask nicely he may well take a detour to vist your local book shop!

UPDATE several people have asked for a visit and Hank has now added:
San Diego, Toronto, Memphis, Billings, and probably Boulder, someplace in Michigan, Eugene and maybe even Bozeman. With Los Angeles TBC


Hank is updating this post with dates and adresses

Amazon have it for less than $15 and you can try before you buy at his blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

If I can scrape the money together you may even see me at the readings in Boston and or NYC

Your pal

SBW

Kifaru Stuff Sack Review

Well who-da-thunk-it a sleeping bag stuff sack that's actually worth reviewing?

I've always seen sleeping bag stuff sacks as a necessary evil, yes they do what it says on the tin and make the bulky less bulky, but they make your bag into a far from ideal shape 'Football' shape [OK 'soccer ball' to some of you].  So why no one ever thought of this before?

Of all the terrific and innovative stuff Kifaru offers, this is among the best.

http://exploriment.blogspot.com

In summation
As usual with Kifaru, not cheap, but brilliantly thought out, terrifically well made, and frankly worth the money.

More soon (as in more kit soon as I can afford it)
Yours in well equipped penury
SBW

Link to the kifaru site

Skinning Rabbits - Made Easy

Advice as good as this deserves a wider audience.

Yeah I know filler post, but a funny filler post.

More soon

SBW

Unboxing: Parker Hale Phoenix Air Rifle Review

Parker Hale Phoenix PCP (Pre Charged Pneumatic) Air rifle spittin' .177's @ 11.22 Ft/Lbs.

I first put my hands on one of these about a year ago, but sadly had to leave it in the shop. Apparently a pre-read newspaper and half a Kebab wasn't an aceptable offer, they wanted money too. Lots of it.

Parker Hale have taken the road less traveled with the design , there's no visible bottle so it looks more like a centre fire rifle. Air rifles (as opposed to BB guns) usually come bolt action or straight pull, Parker Hale have gone for a leaver action, that really works - straight out of the box 10 [poorly] aimed shots in 8 seconds!

I've sold my Air Arms S400 to Nurse Mc [you'll meet him later] and he kept threatening to collect it, which would have left me perilously under armed - you know how it is, the Tree Rabbits would literally eat E's woodland to stumps, if your pal SBW and The Northern Monkey weren't on hand, pellet guns at the ready, rubbing our hands with glee at 'the culinary solution'. So when I found a chap selling off dads old rifles I bought the the Parker Hale. Even as I went to collect it I was in two minds, as I'd been saving up for a Weihrauch, but the price was good so if it didn't work out I could probably chop it in against the Weihrauch. No way.  While a little heavier the Parker Hale has similar build quality and accuracy to the Weihrauch, but the leaver action is a revelation, it's just so much fun to shoot!

200 BAR bottle good for 60+ shots more if you go for the longer barrel and .22

PROS
Nicely made, fast to the next shot, easily accurate enough for hunting

CONS
A bit heavy, no pressure gauge, can't fit an adjustable butt pad

Next steps
Lower scope mounts, find that Accucover, choose a bipod, and a posh leather sling

Your Pal
SBW

PS Hubert isn't blogging at this time but his blog Rabbit Stew is far and away the best air rifle hunting blog on the web, and attracted intelligent comments. Here's how the grownups debate .177 vs .22

For really informative air gun writing visit B.B. Pelletier's Pyramid AIR and Nigel Allen's Air Gun Blog.

Food Inc.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. A fascinating documentery about the industrialisation of the food chain. Here's the link to LEARN MORE

More Soon
SBW

Modern Life - Still Rubbish

I feel a paralysis not because these images are horrible but because this particular issue is just one (a faraway one at that) of the many problems in the world and I don't know which should get my attention and hence no issue gets my active attention.

From the excellent Boiled Down

More soon

SBW

Weekend Reading: New UK Blogs

I've been meaning to update the blog roll for a while now, but time and tide haven't deigned to coincide, so in the meantime I thought you might be interested in these blogs, linked by the simple fact of being UK based. Some mentioned before, some I'm glued to either way worth a read

First up, bit transatlantic this one (and all the more interesting for it)

Milkweed and Teasel an American from a liberal New England college town who ended up in Old England 15 years ago. My day to day life is like something out of the 19th century, working for nobility and living on an estate (as seen in period films). I was the head gardener when I met my husband, the head gamekeeper on a neighbouring estate, a few years ago. Between us we hunt, shoot, fish and grow lots of our own food and supplies. We have the best and worst of both worlds - the present and the 'peasant'. This is a story of our successes and failures as we try to get the balance right.

Another Shout for Artemis and his blog, I know a few of you have been to check him out already- well worth a read. Hunter's Harvest I am 34 years old and I love the countryside, I have been shooting since I was big enough to tag along with my dad

McShug who I stalked with on the East Sussex Safari with The Bambi Basher has started a blog, he's still introducing himself and the cast and crew at the moment, but he's going to post lots of his amazing wildlife photography from a trip to India any day now and they're stunning - definitely worth adding to your RSS feeds McShugs Life

The fascinating Working For Grouse Making the most of advice from professionals, friends, books and the internet, I have thrown myself into the task of converting 1,600 acres of desolate sheep farm into a shooting paradise; a place where respectable bags of snipe, woodcock and red grouse can be summoned with a simple click of the fingers; a place where roe deer in graceful abundance can be taken for the pot at a moment’s notice; a place where declining black grouse numbers can be developed to provide a shootable surplus, and where groundnesting birds infest the peaty tussocks of heather and bracken.

For foraging and bushcrafty stuff Paul Kirtley's blog is very good
A professional Bushcraft instructor. I studied under the guidance of Ray Mears, the world-renowned Bushcraft and Survival expert, for 10 years. I worked for Ray from 2003 to 2010. I now split my time between bushcraft instruction, writing this bushcraft blog, and having my own adventures.

More of my own stuff to come
Your pal
SB-Dub

Where Architecture Meets Bushcraft

This filler post comes from the intersection where architecture and bushcraft meet

'The living bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. This tree produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks'. Learn how the locals get them started, and a whole lot MORE HERE

back soon

SBW

One In And One Out

The ethics of the hunt have been in my thoughts this weekend. One young man had to be deleted from the blog roll after reporting that he and a friend had caught a very impressive Trout which they'd then nailed to a fence post and used as a target. My blog my rules, do one.

An interesting  conversation about the perception of hunters and hunting broke out over at Tovar's And in an unprecedented move I've added a blog with ONLY ONE POST to the blog roll, I've not added people with less than ten posts before, so this really is an unprecedented move, Artemis kicks off with a really good post about a deer management stalk where he ends up taking the pictured 'antlered doe' interesting stuff and well written too, it really does look like his blog Hunters Harvest will be that good. Stop by, say hi and encourage him to tell us another one

More soon
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SBW