Bushcraft Babies; Axes, chainsaws and bugs.

We will be running a regular bushcraft babies feature on the Bushcraft Education Blog from now on, you may have seen an earlier Bushcraft babies posts on foraging for berries or seen my articles in Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine on the topic of practicing bushcraft with children.

Recently my children visited me in Riddy Wood while I was doing some work and had a bit of fun and helped me out. 

Michael's first experience with an axe was chopping up this rotten wood to make a dead wood pile for insects.

Lillie wasn't afraid of picking up the lesser stag beetle larvae she found. 

We found an immature smooth newt. 

Which Michael adopted as his pet dragon

They both decided they were lumberjacks

and helped carry some planks we made to be stacked for seasoning in the bivi. 

We look forward to sharing some more 'Bushcraft Babies' experiences with you in the future.

Geoff
   

Woodland Management in Riddy Wood; before and after

Here are some before and after shots of the coup I was working on in Riddy Wood this week;

We originally cleared this area to re-open an old access point to Riddy Wood and to provide a bench and an area for people walking their dogs to rest or just to sit and enjoy the scenery.  

 

That's the finished picnic area and you'll notice the thick growth of elm trees behind it.

You'll notice a bit of a change, the bench hasn't moved at all and that thick growth of elm is gone, it may look a bit extreme and almost seem like  deforestation or that we have damaged the habitat but I will post pictures next year and you will see a remarkable change, there will be massive growth from each of the 'stools' or stumps. The trees that are left are known as 'standards' or have been left to become standards and may be removed later or allowed to become veteran trees.  The new growth will be allowed to grow on rotation and probably be cut again in about ten or twelve years time. This method of management has another advantage of preventing the elm trees getting to a size where they will become susceptible to Dutch elms disease. 

This is a panoramic picture of the coup I was working on, the new track into the wood that was cleared earlier in the year can be seen on the left and the original bench on the right.  

This coppicing produced plenty of timber ready for sale these are just a few of the stacks of timber that I produced this week.. There is still brash to remove from the coup which will be turned into dead hedges, allowed to dry before being tied into faggots for use on the camp fire or chipped. This single coup probably amounts to about two thirds of an acre we will be coppicing several more coups this winter. We will hopefully see the benefits not only in the health and productivity of the woodland in general but all the new dead-hedges will provide nesting habitat for small birds and the now open canopy will let light into the woodland floor and promote the growth of wild flowers. 

Woodland Management Course for Bushcrafters and Forest School Leaders

Bushcraft Education is now offering courses through it's Riddy Wood Project .

The Riddy Wood Project is a not for profit enterprise managed by staff from Bushcraft Education to refurbish and rejuvenate areas of derelict ancient woodland. We have been working on a block of 21 acres of woodland in Cambridgeshire since last winter and are very slowly beginning to restore the coppice with standards management regime that once would have existed there. We hope you can come and join us for one of our courses on woodland management but even if you can't we are looking for backers who are willing to help us move our project forward; you can help by donating to our crowd funding project so we can purchase the equipment we need to really get the project moving. Without the chainsaws, winches, handtools and new trees to plant restoring the woods we are working in will take a very long time and it will be many years before we can invite school children and the public to look at and learn about the wonderful habitats that are deciduous woodlands, PLEASE HELP BY BACKING US;

The first for adults will take place in October this year and you can book your place NOW!

The Woodland Management Course for Bushcrafters will be equally suited to Forest School Leaders and environmental educators who want to learn about sustainable woodland management.

It may be useful as continuing professional development or help you gain experience of managing and sustainably procuring timber for craft projects. It may be something you could embed in courses and training you deliver yourself.

It will include the following;

• Plant and tree identification - learn to identify native tree and plant species and learn some of their uses and particularly their suitability for coppicing and woodland crafts. 
• Traditional woodland tools, their care, maintenance and use (bill hooks, axes, draw knives, etc...)
• Coppicing - the coppicing of native hardwoods and the associated harvesting of material, care of coppice stools and methods of increasing stocking density)
• Coppice products - the processing and use of coppice material of different sizes, storage, uses and coppice crafts (you may be able to make hazel hurdles, cleft wood fencing, dead hedging and other coppice crafts over the course of the three days)
• Science and Ecology - How coppicing works and the value of coppiced woodlands. 
• Wild food- the cost of food is included in the price of the course, although you may have to cook some of it yourself on the camp fire but your instrctors will introduce you to several wild foods over the course of the three days and you may even get a chance to help skin and butcher one of the evening meals. 

There are eight places on the course in October and we intend to run an identical course in February for sixteen (dates for this course will be published in due course).

You will arrive on the morning of the 26th and be introduced to the wood, the management plan we are opperating on and to the tools you will be using. We will do a short session on plant and tree identification and give you some time to explore the woods yourself before starting to do some coppicing.

The evening will be yours and we will cook around the camp fire and you are welcome to use some of the material you have harvested that day to do your own bushcraft or green woodwork projects.

On the 27th we will start with a camp fire breakfast and continue with coppicing until lunch time, you will also learn to layer coppice stems to increase the stocking density of an area of hazel coppice. After lunch we will move on to the uses of coppice products and using the brash we have produced will make some dead hedges, and using some of the larger material we will construct hurdles and cleft wood fencing. 

In the evening you will get to help prepare the evening meal of venison which will itself have been harvested from the same woodland you are working in (this will not be a compulsory element of the course so if you would prefer not to take part alternative meal arrangements can be made).

On the 28th we will cover some of the science and ecology of woodland management and coppicing and continue to process and work with the materials you harvested on the previous days. There will be time before you leave after lunch to cover any specific questions you have or to address any particular practical tasks you wish to try.

Accomodation will be provided in simple woodland shelters equipped with hammocks although you are also welcome to bring your own shelter solutions if you prefer.

The cost of food is included in the price of the course although you may have to cook some of it yourself, the only cooking facilities available will be the camp fire.

Washing and toileting facilities are limited and consist of a composting toilet and a solar shower.  

Book your place with the Buy Now button above or conmtact us for more details or to book directly. 

I look forward to seeing you in October

Geoff 

Applied Bushcraft (3): Woodland Management

Those of you who keep up to date with the Bushcraft Education Facebook page will be aware that we have just embarked on a new project: managing a woodland, actually a suite of small woodlands. The focus of the project, to begin with, is restoring an area of ‘ancient semi-natural woodland’ (yes, that is a technical term) by putting it back into a ‘coppice rotation’ management regime. This post will both provide a bit of an introduction to this project and information on the elements of bushcraft which we will be applying over the course of this project.

Those who think of Bushcraft as another term for survival skills may think this topic is out of context. But when Bushcraft is considered as the skills necessary to ‘live comfortably outdoors for extended periods’ then a knowledge of woodland management becomes very useful. Managed woodland provides more than just firewood, such as craft materials, building materials, charcoal - the list goes on. But what is more significant is that these resources are provided consistently over time. Woodland management is a long term venture, it is not exploitation or deforestation, but a planned and sustainable harvest of renewable resources.

Coppicing

A freshly cut hazel stool.

This post is not intended to describe woodland management methods in detail, there are far too many to describe in detail in this context. In the UK, particularly the lowland areas where deciduous trees are dominant, a version of coppicing is the most likely management method to be used. This involves rotational cutting of trees to encourage regeneration. Depending on the intended use of the crop, and the species of tree, this rotation period could be anywhere between 4 and 30 years. An area of managed woodland will be divided into areas called ‘coups’ in which all the ‘stools’ will be cut at the same time providing you with a crop of similar sized wood. This method of woodland management would once have been prevalent all across the country, but as mass production and synthetic materials replaced craftsmanship and wood the need for the materials dried up and with it the wide spread management of woodlands.

Resources from Coppicing

Hundreds of years ago coppice managed woodlands would have provided building materials for pretty much all dwellings - larger trees (longer rotation coppice wood or ‘standards’; a small number of mature trees allowed to grow within each coup) would have provided main supports or roof beams; smaller poles would have provided the wattle (as in wattle & daub walls), thatching spars (to hold the thatch on) etc etc. It would also have provided wood to burn; charcoal to forge metal tools, the handles for those tools, material to build furniture, post and rail fencing, the list goes on and on.

These days many of these uses remain only in historic demonstrations, which is a shame. In Bushcraft these materials can still be useful for all sorts of uses - shelter building, tool making, basket making (willow) all sorts of green wood working projects and many other uses.  

Bushcraft in Woodland Management

So here’s a piece meal account of the first few days of our project as an illustration of which skills used in bushcraft overlap with managing a woodland.

Above: Dogs Mercury
Below: Bluebell (Nibbled by deer)

Plant ID - One of the keys skills for any bushcrafter is the ability to recognise useful plant species. This was where we started with our project - identifying trees which could be coppiced successfully. We found hazel, elm, ash and oak, all good coppicing species. We also found blackthorn and hawthorn in abundance, not very nice to work with (spiked hands aplenty!) but brash from these trees can be used very effectively to make dead hedges to mark out the coups, or if located appropriately ‘layed’ in place to create a similar barrier; in addition both burn very well!

Plant ID skills are also useful for the conservation aims of the project - identifying ground flora species allows us to record the species richness of the woodland, including ancient woodland indicator species (including Bluebell and Dogs Mercury both found in ‘our’ wood). This will in turn allow us to monitor for specific species which rely on some of these plants - both trees and ground flora.

Woodland management these days is most often practised because of the conservation benefits it has - it opens up the woodland canopy allowing more light to reach the ground encouraging additional growth, which in turn provides food for invertebrates which in turn are food for birds and mammals and up and up. In addition the increased diversity of structure and age benefits biodiversity by maintaining a wider range of ecological niches than a single age woodland structure.

Shelter Building - The first thing we did when we arrived in the woods on the first day was fell a couple of dangerous trees which we didn’t really want to be working under. The next was to build our shelter - Camp Coppice - which would be home for the next week, and indeed every week that we return. Although living in the woods being managed is no longer the standard practice when woods are being worked it would have been a few centuries ago.

Camp Coppice - home from home, or
at least it will be when it's finished!

Being February we needed a shelter which would keep off the rain (which was plentiful) and hold in the heat (which was limited). What we built was very simple, a large tarpaulin over a ridge pole, supported by a pair of A-frames. We then built, or started building as materials became available, walls simply by stacking straight wood between stakes to keep out the cool night breezes, and to keep in the heat from the central heating… stove. Everything in the shelter (with the exception of the tarpaulin & the stove) came from the wood, and it was pretty good. A bit more time to finish building up the walls and putting a chimney on the stove, and it really will be a home from home, which is nice because we will be spending a fair bit of time there in coming years.

A billhook resting by a recently
cleared stool. 

Tool use & maintenance - Just above plant ID, the ability to use edged tools (and keeping those edges sharp, so that they are useful) is right up there on the list of important bushcraft skills. The most common tools we use in bushcraft are probably the knife and the axe, however in this instance the most useful, and most commonly used, tool was actually a billhook. It wasn’t the only edged tool we used of course, we also used axes, machetes, folding saws and chainsaws, and it goes without saying that for smaller tasks round camp a good old knife was never far away. Because of the heavy use these tools needed to be kept sharp: using a blunt tool is less efficient, more tiring, more likely to result in injury (because the cuts are less predictable) and of course everything takes longer. There are no upsides to not maintaining tools correctly.

When you are involved in a project like this it is easy to forget or get sloppy with appropriate safety precautions for using edged tools: when you are tidying up a felled tree it is quite common to have poor footing, because you’re often stood on branches and twigs; when you’re freezing cold, it’s pouring with rain and you just want to finish that block you were working on so you can get the kettle on who cares if the cutting angle is all wrong - well your fingers will, as one of my knuckles will attest after exactly this circumstance 10 years ago. It was my first experience of proper coppicing, It was a freezing cold February half term while I was still at college, I’d been working for several days straight, my hands were sore and I wanted something to eat so I took a shortcut by not keeping my non-cutting hand out of my cutting line (using a billhook) - a poor cutting swing, an unexpected bounce, and a chunk of my knuckle later I am far more cautious. Young readers learn from my mistakes so you don't have to make your own!! This in turn reminds us of one more essential - a first aid kit, any time you use cutting tools you should have one close by.

These are not the only bushcraft skills you may use of course, simply based on our first week of working in the woods the most common. It was a great week and I am sure there are many great weeks and indeed years to come where we can watch this woodland come back to life in many ways, and it's already a lovely place to be! Bushcraft (and woodland management) really is enjoyable - even if it was pouring with rain for a couple of days!   

Richard

NB: For anyone interested in coppicing or woodland management check out the link below.

Woodland House (Grand Designs - Channel 4) - Ben Law, a woodland manager from Sussex builds a house in the woods with only what he can harvest.  Great programme. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grand-designs/on-demand/33678-005

"Too many men work at parts of things, doing a job to completion satisfies me"

Richard (Dick) Proenneke had worked as a naval carpenter, a diesel mechanic, heavy equipment operator, fisherman and sheep rancher before retiring, not to comfort but to one of the harshest wildernesses on the planet. And he didn't even have a house to live in, he built a beautiful cabin from the resources available to him, the trees, rocks, sand and moss which could be found along the banks of the lake he had made his home. The place was Twin Lakes in Alaska, a remote but beautiful part of the state. Not only a skilled carpenter Dick was a keen naturalist and took many hours of footage using a cine camera of the Alaskan wildlife and also documented his cabin building project in film and extensive journals. 

Of all the heroic figures that feature on the history of outdoor pursuits Dick Proenneke stands out for me as someone who lived the dream, short sharp experiences of being in the wilderness were not enough for him, the fleeting visit to the summit of a mountain before descending or even the most prolonged camping trip were not enough. He lived in the wilderness and made himself comfortable in it, a goal I would love to achieve myself.  

What an example to modern students of bushcraft and the environment, this man packed basic gear with him into the wilderness and literally plucked his life from the wilderness. He survived from the fish and meat he harvested from his surroundings, vegetables from his small garden and the occasional resupply by float plane. Even the basic skills of being able to make and/or repair the handles of tools and make containers from waste cans that he demonstrated are often overlooked by modern practitioners of bushcraft who want the shiny kit that the latest TV survival expert is using.    

His saying; "Too many men work at parts of things, doing a job to completion satisfies me" is a continuing inspiration for me in everything I do, In my eyes Dick Proenneke is truly a hero of outdoor adventure, perhaps especially because he never intended to be. 

Sources

One Mans Wilderness; An Alaskan Odyssey (2006) By Richard Proenneke and Sam Keith; Alaska Northwest Books,U.S.; 26 Anv edition 

Alone in the Wilderness (2003) Bob Swerer Productions 

Practical Bushcraft Projects for Countryside Management Students

My students have recently been able to carry out some bushcraft tasks related to their studies of practical estate skills, game bird production and green woodwork.

Over the last couple of weeks they have made several functioning pheasant traps of the sort that would have been used by game keepers to catch pheasants for breeding purposes, nowadays keepers normally use large catchers made of steel mesh or adapted partridge pens with which they can catch dozens of birds at a time. The traps the students produced are much more rustic (despite the blue baler twine) but would still be functional.

The students had coppiced the willow used in the construction of these traps themselves and after some experimentation with trigger mechanisms (they didn't think my suggestion was good enough apparently) they settled on using a split stick trigger and a trip wire with bait being spread underneath the trap.
They will get a chance to test the effectiveness of these traps as well as more modern alternatives in January when they begin to catch up the estates pheasants ready for egg production in the Spring. 

Another recent project was this small basket made from willow and nettles and seen here full of shaggy ink cap fungi;