Survival in the Wasteland: spinning

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Foraging Tour and Oil Lamps

We just led our first official Foraging tour, and were pleasantly surprised at how well it went. We had about twenty folks there, and planned th' tour for two hours. But as always with foraging, there's no end of surprises.

There were lots of kids, and they found a nice little hobo shelter to play in while we talked about th' yellow dock plant, and learned how to twist dogbane into a nice string, which me and Josh used for oil lamp wicks.

Rosemary with a nicely twisted string

th' kids in their hobo shelter

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Forager's Sickle

Well th' forager's sickle is finished, and not a moment too soon. As you may know if you've seen our foraging blog, th' harvest is already ripe for th' pickins, and what's a forager without a "forager's sickle?" Answer- us until yesterday. Th' blade is a replica of a bronze age sickle found in Scotland, and was made for me by an excellent knife maker. You can read more about it on th' Buschcraft UK forum here. He also made a beautiful sheath for th' blade as well. Th' handle is a piece of wild apple wood carved with another of Joel's knives, a copy of a medieval woodworking knife. You can read about that little knife on Joel's blog. So far i'm really liking carving with it, and the elm bowl in th' last post was also carved with it, with the exception of th' hollow of course.

sickle showing plug, and carving knife

Here's a few pictures showing th' hafting of blade to handle, I used a black walnut plug, and red deer sinew spun on a drop spindle and dipped in hide glue, as it would've been done in th' bronze age. That's real hide glue, not th' tite bond brand from th' hardware store which has chemical retarders in it. Now it's off to th' field to put it to use. No doubt you'll be seeing it in pictures on th' foraging blog from now on. Enjoy!