So he’s done a lot of knife sharpening, trying many configurations and possibilities. Always, his trials are informed by a thorough grounded understanding of the tool itself, and the job it has to do.

Man at Spoon

And having found a good way to ensure a sharp blade, Barn on this video shares with us his findings in keeping a knife keen.

Many thanks to Barn the Spoon. Look out for him on a footpath somewhere, fresh green spoons lining his smock, small knives glinting in the wooded sunbeams.

A compost loo was the best quick idea we could see to solve this problem, a big hole in which the rich nightsoil (we like that word) could break itself down, and harmlessly enrich the local earth.

First was the hole, which as we’ve mentioned, provided clay for the window-cobbing. Next, we placed 4 straw bales around the trench, and pegged them down with hurdle rods, so there could be no dreadful tumbling accidents. The bales also heightened the action position, meaning our hole did not have to be so deep.

Then a specially designed hurdle was made, with a hole in it.

This meant our loo was a squatting only contraption, which everyone knows is the only way to poo wholesomely. For guests who couldn’t handle this, there was a traditionally seated compost loo ten minutes walk away, at the other end of the wood.

Lastly, a hazel dome frame was dug in and woven over the top of the bales and hurdle, which was itself covered in canvas, to keep the our heads, and the composting deposits, dry.

What we dropped therein, we covered with either wood-ash, a useful double use for our regular stove clean-out. If wood-ash was short, then leaves sufficed. This helped with the breakdown.

We often wonder how people justify dispatching their poo with drinkable water, when there is such a shortage in this land, and in others. For one thing, water is expensive! And it is heavy. Having to carry our water only a quarter of a mile made us appreicate the daily duty of water.

Toilet paper was something we initially did without, but the regular guests in our winter home meant that this odd luxury was brought in, and often lingered after guests left. Certainly, the most local moss supplies ran low, and we were often glad of our toilet roll stash.

We can recommend heartily the act of compost-loo building, as an alternative to wasting gallons of good water a day. Every other living creature lets their excrement fall to earth, and we believe humans can do this too.

]]> http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/outdoor-living/our-compost-loo/feed/ 3 http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/outdoor-living/crafting-a-house-in-the-woods-some-extra-details http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/outdoor-living/crafting-a-house-in-the-woods-some-extra-details#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:03:13 +0000 Branching Arts http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/ This winter, we made all sorts of things from the wood around us. When we arrived, we had some rudimentary hand-tools, but nothing electric or powered. Good axes were brought from home, and a boot fair provided us with hand-drills and bits, an iron digging stick, a good shovel and a bow-saw, the best of available technologies.

the finished job

Materials-wise, we were coppicing, so hazel rods were plentiful, and standards (timber trees) were also being felled, so ash and oak were available too. Everything but the roof of our house (which was of secondhand canvas) was made from immediate resources – except for parts which we liberated from the local tip. We prided ourselves on using no metal or plastic in it, until the perspex slabs were donated for window use. The breaking of resolve on this point meant that we did finish one window with 10 little metal tacks. It was 20 times quicker than carving hazel pegs ourselves, and by then we were really getting tired.

Rose and Ayla were driving forces in the ‘free-time-equals-craft-time’ paradigm, and we are well grateful for all they taught us this winter, in practical and motivational terms.

Here is a short video compilation of the house, as it pops up to nestle us. Please enjoy.

Press MORE to see more crafty details of the house, built from ideas, sweat and hazel.

The House

Our first big challenge, which had to be done before the cold really kicked in, was the main house. This needed to be temporary, but strong enough to withstand anything the unknown winter ahead could throw our way.

Thankfully, we were between hillsides and treelines, so the wind’s worst lashes were avoided.

We had various plans, and they were all adapted in situ, for pragmatism overwhelmed all. But stage by stage, we got there. The hazel dome on stilts took 1 month to create, with the four of us working full time (alongside all the other necessary doings of woodland life…).

While it was being built, we all lived either under thin plastic sheets, or in the A Frame. Neither option was off the floor, so we became pretty savvy about the nocturnal habits of the wood mice (apodemus sylvaticus).

A platform was the first adaptation we made to our general hazel dome plan, as the woods were damp, and the millions of wood-mice wanted to sharpen their ever-growing teeth on anything we valued.

But a platform needed to flat, and we had no access to machine-made plywood. So we had to improvise, with hazel hurdles.

platform is strong

hurdle undersides make great waterproof storage

This was a learning process all of its own, which we discuss here.

The next step was in creating the upright structure, to hold the canvas and straw insulation off our heads.

dome arising

We then needed to weave the structure with long hazel rods, cut and trimmed with the billhook. This made the dome structure strong enough to support the canvas, and our weight. It is amazing how a single piece of flexible hazel wood can be woven with others, to create something many times stronger. Weaving seems to be a core human technology, for baskets, hurdles, fabric and clothing, and even computer information is woven (010101101100).

Anyway, next the canvas was draped and arranged, with twine from side to side, to encourage it to stay in place. It is pretty heavy stuff, so there was little danger of it blowing away, but better safe…

ed grapples canvas

Rose gets comfy

A hurdle foyer then provided the transition space between outside and inside, somewhere to remove shoes (which were never worn indoors).

the foyer gets made

Straw was then stuffed, by the slab, into the space between the canvas and the interior blanket layer. This kept the heat in, and made the whole thing look like a puffa jacket.

puffy with straw

The next step was in fixing the windows, which Rose decided would be best done with cob.

When i’m cobbing Windows

The perspex window panes were donated by a kind lady, and they were framed with hazel sticks, gouged out and pegged with hazel to hold all together. The gaps between these windows, which were bound onto the main house hazel frame, were decided to be best plugged around with cob.

Heavy clay subsoil, dug from the compost loo pit, was mixed with straw and rainwater in a tin tub borrowed for the task. The straw supplies the lengthy fibres which bind the clay together, and stop lumps dropping off. We mixed in as much straw as we could, Rose’s hands almost falling off with this job, but a surprisingly small amount of straw could be persuaded to mix in.

Old bottles were added to the mix, to allow light transference, and a splash of good morning colour.

free coloured glass

This was all done, and an overhang designed to protect the cob from the worst of the driving rains – a good hat and boots, they say, ensures cob will endure.

good cobbed windows

The old wood burner we installed in a corner of the house helped greatly in drying the cob out thoroughly, and likewise in keeping us alive during the chillier snaps.

It would have been cleverer to cob in the summer months, when there is no danger of freezing. But no such option existed.

cob and ice should be kept well seperate

Some sand in the mix would also likely have helped, as the clay has little sand in it. But, with the materials at hand, the job was bodged sufficiently well, and the windows let in light, while the cob kept out draughts.

what do you see?

This technology worked very well, and it is no surprise that as a temporary shelter, cob and hazel has such a solid ancient reputation – wattle and daub, they call it, and in places it has lasted many hundreds of years.

Using your Loaf

Have you ever noticed how, in the old stories, people throve on a diet of bread and water?

And have you ever met a culture where bread is still a fundamental part of the daily diet?

Bread was once known to be valuable in Britain, too. The very word proves it: bread-winner, your bread-and-butter, etc.

So how do we reconcile these ideas of bread, against its modern incarnation, the plastic bag of thick sliced white?

For bread, it seems, is not what it used to be.

Hope Rises

But the good old bread is still available, as it shall ever be. It just takes a little time, and patience, to make really good sourdough bread, which is as sufficient and strong as our ancestors would have known it.

This winter, we often bolstered thin meals with hearty bread. And we learned how to make it in the oldest way, as sourdough flatbreads cooked on hot coals.

Making Culture

Rose and Ayla made sourdough starter cultures before our winter in the Welsh woods. A starter culture is simple alchemy, the ingredients being nothing more than clean water, strong flour and fresh air.

Simply mix equal parts of flour and water in any small ceramic or glass container. We opted for whole-wheat flour, but most flours work fine, rye being especially good. And for containers we used old jam jars, with lids left loose while the starter gets going. The mix must be covered well with a thin cloth, to keep out everything but the air. And there must be enough space in the jar for the mix to grow.

air in...

Every day, a few times, the mix should be vigorously stirred, to help it breath more air, and to prevent moulds from growing on the surface. Within a few days, perhaps a week, the mixture should start to bubble. This is the beginning of fermentation, a very exciting thing. This tells us that multitudes of wild-yeasts, always in the air, have settled into the mix. These yeasties will make our sourdough bread rise, and be soft and delicious. The micro-organisms which colonize our flour-water, to make the starter, are happily very beneficial to the human gut.

These wild yeasts pre-digest the wheat, breaking it down to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide as by-products. The alcohol collects as a thin clear layer of liquid at the top of the starter (can be up to 15% vol.), and the carbon dioxide bubbles through the mix to escape.

When baked into bread, this alcohol will evaporate, and the carbon dioxide, trapped by the dough’s structure, will raise the bread.

These marvellous yeasts, which do such good service, are the same mini-creatures that turn apple-juice to cider. They are beneficient friends.

munificence

So once your starter starts bubbling, it needs feeding, a spoonful of flour every day for a few days. This will allow it to ferment further. Water should be added if the mixture gets too thick. Keep stirring regularly.

When the starter seems completely bubbly, and has a sour odour, it is ready.

Congratulations. The sourdough starter, now happily active, can be used to create all manners of bread. It is simply a matter of playing around with it, to learn its temperament and potential.

In our woodland winter routine, we frequently had big pots of porridge for breakfast. When leftovers remained, seldom very appetizing the next day, we make our old porridge into bread. It turned our lumpy old porridge into an exciting and palatable treat, which we munched with joy. In fact, porridge bread was better than pure wheat bread, was softer and tastier, when made this way.

Turning leftovers into GoodBread

The old porridge is thrown in a bowl, and the sourdough starter added. They are mixed thoroughly.

pour in your culture

At this point, replenish the (crucially) unwashed starter jar, with equal parts flour and water. It will soon be bubbling away again, ready for further use. Do not ever wash the container that holds your starter culture.

The porridge/starter mix, once well stirred, can sit for the day, and even the night too.

When the whole mix (or ‘sponge’) is bubbling, mix in a healthy pinch of salt, which helps the taste and structure.

salt is a really important thing

Also now add more flour, and any extras you fancy, like seeds or herbs. Add flour until the mix is too thick to stir.

sesame seeds are a super fancy foreign luxury

open...

Drizzle this thick mix with good oil, and start to work it with the hands, keeping the dough moist. Knead it into a nice ball, that springs out when pushed in.

This can now sit until it is wanted for use. We have found that more time waiting now, makes stronger better bread.

out of mice' reach

Making Dough Flatter

When well-sat, it is time to turn the prepared dough into breads. Pinch off small balls of dough, flour your hands well, and squeeze the dough-balls, mush them about, until the consistency feels instinctively right, and you have imparted enough into it.

Now roll them into a ball again, flour them once more, and slowly flatten them. There are many ways to do this, and you’ll doubtless find a way that feels like you’ve been doing it for years.

These flat dough pieces can sit atop one another, in a bowl, if there is sufficient flour between them. Without a flour-buffer, they will squidge back into one lump together.

To cook these breads perfectly, wait till your cooking fire is all done, and everything else is cooked and ready in their pans. You need the fire to be dying back, so plan for this moment during the whole cooking process. You may get your timing just right, or you may need to scrape embers to one side.

When all flames have died back, and the embers are hot and well-spread, place the flat patties directly onto the glowing coals. If the flames are yet too strong, or you are cooking other things simultaneously, use a grill.

nearly ready

Do not think that bread in ash is unclean. Yes, the bread will get ‘ashy’, but you can blow it off. Remember, as long as your fire has been burining only wood (no rubbish, firelighters etc.), then the fire is the most well-sterilized environment for miles, cleansed at hundreds of degrees. Wood ash is perfectly clean. It is clean enough to put on open wounds.

Throw the dough on the coals, for a minute or a few, depending on the fire’s heat. Turn and adjust them occasionally, until each side is well cooked. You know: let them cook, not burn. It’s simple.

The breads will be ready at staggered times, in which case we tuck them into a piece of clean cloth, to hold in the common heat, until it’s time to dine.

Why Go Sourdough?

Sourdough takes much longer to make, and to activate, than bread made with monocultural shop-bought yeast. Making sourdough bread is more of a commitment than ordinary bread-making, taking a day or more, rather than a few hours. It is obviously a vastly different thing to picking a packet of bread off a shelf.

If you get everything right, with a good hot spot to sit your mix, the entire process could take as little as…eighteen hours. At a push.

The reason it is worthwhile: well, it’s tasty, in a way that the mouth doesn’t often experience nowaday. And it is very healthy too. Pre-fermenting the flour makes wheat far more digestible, as wheat is notoriously sticky for human bellies. A good bout of fermentation to kick-start the breakdown, and everything gets easier. There is also the added bonus of all the friendly family bacteria.

Some dietary historians claim that, in pre-mechanised supply chains, all grains were fermented before human consumption. The big change in bread-making came from the domestication of strains of yeast, which are used in isolation for most modern bread-baking, and with the increasing mass-markets, within which more consumers demand a single regular product, and things get more similar. Many medical experts believe that the change is not for our guts’ benefit.

Our intestinal tract contains a kilo or more of diverse micro-organisms, busily at work helping us to digest. Without this non-human inner life, we cannot survive. Humans are not sufficient, isolated creatures. We are being constantly helped, encouraged, even permitted to live, by other organisms. Sourdoughs, and fermented foods in general, boost this inner symbiosis, putting good bacteria in the best places. And it costs no more than air.

Common household fermentation methods need to be recalled, for our intestinal betterment. Many cultures globally enjoy fermenting traditions, like Ayrag, from Mongolia, an alcoholic horse milk drink which is the everyday national tipple.

It used to be so in Britain. We heard stories that families, when emigrating to America, would carry only their tools, their clothes, and their sourdough starter culture, for basic survial needs.

Saurkraut - another fermented hero food

Why not revive healthy traditions, and start your own sourdough culture? It is easy to share, with a mere teaspoon of a living starter culture in a jar of flour and water. And your culture will improve with age, as it gains experience, and as certain local yeasts start to thrive over others.

So give it a go. Spread it about. And enjoy eating good bread.

"crumbs" said William

A wondferful resource for fermenting is: Sandor Katz’ book, ‘Wild Fermentation’.

Also recommended, is Sally Fallon’s lovely cookbook, called ‘Nourishing Traditions’.

Being a detailed account of our experiences with electricity this winter, and how to build your own simple bike generator.

Food energy pumping directly into a battery.

Living in the woods, there are no convenient plug sockets. It is of course pleasant to live in a house without walls full of piped electricity – but it is also a fundamentally difficult thing. We know we don’t need much electricity to survive – our kettle, oven, hot tap and central heating are all provided by the wood-fire, and our lighting is most candle-powered. But, a little leccy does really make life easier.

Our daily focus, this winter, has been on the more obvious commodities – wood, water, fire and food. But the intangible force of electrics, in trying to document our findings, tell our tales and sell the CD, is still very important. We need power flowing into our two mini laptops, fairly alrmingly regularly. These devices are also used to charge our telephone. They are our main electricity requirement.

Everything else, such as head torches, cameras and voice recorders, are so infrequent to need charging that they can be carried to a local friend’s solar and wind inverter station.

But we wanted to become a self-sufficient group, and so for this electric issue we decided to put our faith in one of the cheaper and more hands-on forms of electricity generation – the bicycle generator.

None of us knew much at all about this sort of thing, but with Rose as our driving force of discovery, we soon found that it was very easy to bodge a machine that will gather (make?) the electricity we need.

To find out more, please read on…

Rose checking her power levels

For the first month of our Welsh woodland winter, the little electricity we used was fetched from friendly local places. However, the nearest ally lives 5 hilly miles away, and the journey always ages, mainly for the reason that its midway destination was warm and cosy, and we’d rarely hurry back.

It’s a fine thing to make electricity a social event, to go out, socialize, use broadband, and collect electricity. But, as an experiment in self-sufficiency and low-impact living, we needed to be providing for ourselves. So we sought new options.

Electricity is a serious boon in life. It makes many things easier. We feel that with decent reductions in our electricity consumption as individuals, and with experimentation into appropriate technologies, we could all meet our basic electricity demands with low-impact renewable resources.

Small-scale wind, hydro-electric and solar are solutions being tried by many folk we meet. Some generate sufficient power to re-sell to the National Grid, to in turn cover their net costs. However, such things require some decent investment, while we just we wanted to get it working quick and cheap. So Rose volunteered to experiment at building a bike generator, which she’d never done before.

A bicycle generator, while fairly inefficient and intensive, gives us a physical connection with the energy we use, and keeps our limbs warm. It is also a satisfyingly visible process, with whizzing wheels, and when not in use doubles as transport.

Talking to people, and researching online, gave us a good idea of what we needed. Half the parts were gathered before we came to the woods, and the rest found locally. All was assembled together in the spare minutes around the construction of our winter home, and was perfected a month into our stay.

The key component, aside from a bicycle, is an electric scooter motor.
The basic idea is…a scooter motor turns itself when electricity flows into it. But if we turn the scooter shaft ourselves, we create electricity, by reversing its normal function.

Simple. The scooter motor is a ‘permanent magnetic motor’, which means, as we understand, that inside it are two discs with magnets attached. Each disc has the same number of magnets, with opposite sides facing inwards, to pair the magnets, ensuring a strong attraction.  One disc is fixed, while the other turns, a bit like mill-stones.

The wheel touches the flywheel of the motor (little green wheel) and the power goes up the puppy proofed wires

There are copper coils where each of these pairs meet. When we turn the motor-shaft in the correct direction, we turn one disc of magnets past the opposing fixed disc, and the strong attraction makes electrons flow down the copper coils.
If it all sounds a bit like magic, well it is used in almost the same way. It is a technology, that produces results, and the workings of it are understood by means of childish pictorial story-language, a GCSE approximation of science.

But the story works, and the technology is proven. You could describe it as enslaved imps, all turning tiny wheels, and it would make sense too.

After getting the parts, and getting the intellectual concepts grasped, the most difficult part of all was putting it all together. Fixing something to the motor shaft, for the bicycle wheel to turn against, was difficult without metal tools and a workshop. So Rose took the motor to town, and found help.

Tim Gittoes runs an excellent agricultural specialist shop, in the back of the Hay-and-Brecon farm store in Llandrindod Wells. He suggested using a pulley, which he ordered in. Then he fixed this pulley to the motor shaft, by removing the cog, and sliding the pulley on with three pre-drilled holes. He then replaced the cog, and secured the pulley to it with three screws that sat on the cog’s indents.

The next step was soldering the diode between the cables of the scooter motor, with extra cables so it would reach the battery. This was then smothered in electrical tape. Then we put on alligator clamps to the cable-ends, for easy connection/disconnection of the motor to the battery.

The motor was then screwed to a flat wooden board, which was staked to the ground behind the bicycle stand, so that the rear bike tire could sit happily on the pulley, and turn turn turn.

The bike-stand, which we could have spent £70 in buying, Rose made entirely from coppiced hazel. Obviously the back-wheel cannot touch the floor, or the bike would career off as it should. So it was lifted from the ground by right angle triangles of hazel, secured into the soil on each side of the rear wheel. A bit of hazel was carved to slot over the rear wheel bolts, securing and holding the bicycle up. Two more angled upright posts, at the handlebars, compensated somewhat for the general wobbliness of it all.

The notched hazel stand, supporting the rear of the bike as it sits on the motor

The next thing to do is find the right battery, to store and regulate the power, and to find car-cigarette-lighter connections, by which to chare the laptops direct from the battery.

We started off using old car-batteries from the local tip, which while not powerful enough to start a car anymore, did suffice for our needs. But the frozen climate, and our initial infrequent usage, meant the half-dead batteries soon slumped completely, and we had to borrow something healthier. This came in the form of an unused bus battery, which is now working a treat (this blog-post being the evidence).

The battery connected to the motor only (input, no output)

Checking the battery levels with a voltmeter.

A 12V battery, used in this way, does not want to be taken lower than 11.7V, or it will lose the capacity to re-charge and hold charge. There is also a maximum capacity charge, but we’ve never yet approached it.
So all that remains is bicycling, and keeping an eye on the multimeter to see how much charge is held and lost, to try and master these rhythms with good sturdy pedaling.

Singing helps you go faster

A typical reward, for cycling one hour, is about 3.5 hours of internet work, or 5 hours of typing. Lucky us.

Rose checks the power on the laptop she is pedalling into

£46 was spent making this bike generator, and £12 on the multimeter. But it could certainly be made for no money at all. Old parts are often lying around unwanted in friends’ workshops, freecycle and the neighbours’ shed, could possibly sort you out with everything. Many other motors will work as well, or better, than the scooter motor. It was our motor of choice only because it was a safe bet, and time was short.

The bike in its place in the corner of the A-Frame

Here is what you need to make a bike generator like ours.

Motor: a 12V 240W scooter motor (e-bay – £29).

Wheel: attached to the motor shaft, for the bike wheel to turn on. We used a pulley (Agricultural Engineering Supplies – £12)

Cables: to extend the motor cables to the battery. We were given some, ripped from thrown-away broken power tools.

Alligator Clamps: to attach the cables to the battery. (£1.50)

15 Amp Diode: put in the cable between the battery and motor, to stop electricity from flowing the wrong way. (e-bay £2.50).

Electrical Tape: to safely cover the wires (£1).

Battery: Initially we found a used car battery at the tip for free. Now we have borrowed a larger leisure battery from Ed’s dad.

Bicycle: we used Ayla’s Raleigh Racer. A better bike, with slower gears and a more adjustable seat-post, would have been better. A comfy seat is crucial.

Bike stand: made out of hazel from the woods, one of our most abundant resources.

Multimeter: bought for £12, though you can find them cheaper.

Soldering Iron and Solder: we borrowed on that runs on lighter fluid.

Connections to charge appliances (12v cigarette lighter chargers)

Hazel stand, lifting the back of the bike off the ground so it can spin freely

As beginners in the cottage-electricity industries, we have created something that works, but it is by no means is as good as it could be. Various improvements could be made, had we the time, tools and inclination to do so. The following are our recommendations:

*     Use the best battery you can find, and treat it well. The system is only ever as good as the battery.

*     Use as small a wheel on the motor-shaft as possible, to create more motor-turns for each bicycle-turn. This  is common sense efficiency, yet our own system uses far too big a pulley wheel, making it all that much harder.

*     Try and make the bike-stand to fit the best bike you have. The more gears on the bike, to allow slower harder pedaling, the better. Right now we have to pedal fanatically to keep the voltage high.

*     The more comfy the bike seat, the more likely your electricity will not come at the cost of future children, and the longer you will be able to cycle.

*     An inline fuse, fitted to the positive wire before the crocodile clip on the battery, will stop a possible short circuit and fire hazard.

Personal note from Rose

I didn’t know much at all about electricity until I started getting interested in making a bike generator. To be honest I still know very little but have managed to bring together a functional bike generator. Electricity has always seemed like quite a scary thing to me, capable of serious harm if not careful. But working with 12V electricity and starting with something simple like this bike generator I’ve become less fearful, though still very respectful, of electricity. I am more confident that I would be able to make more complex electrical systems if I so desired (possibly a small wind turbine). It has been a brilliant learning experience and it is empowering to have a better understanding of that which makes our modern world go round.

Rose had a big breakfast and went for it

Please let us know if you have any questions and let us know about your experiments with producing and consuming your own electricity!

Resources to check out:

Magnificent Revolution
Bicycology

How to use a Multimeter

Please click below to read more.

Firstly, a  few tools that will be useful to you:

• An Axe for splitting and preliminary carving. Here we use the Gransfors Wildlife Hatchet.
• A saw for cutting your first block and starting the shape. We find Laplander pruning saws very good.
• A strong sharp knife for carving.
• A crook-knife for carving the bowl of the spoon.

Ginger makes beautiful crook knives, let us know if  you wish him to make one for you.

Start by finding a good solid piece of wood. Oak, Birch, Beech….experiment with different woods and their properties.

Look at the wood to find a shape that would accomodate your spoon and cut the basic block. Make sure there are not knots or splits that will cause problems later. Split the wood in half with a sharp axe.

Saw two square indents to achieve a basic shape.

Split the wood from the top down to the saw cuts on either side.

Start to work the shape with your axe, resting on a steady wooden base.

When the basic spoon shape has emerged and it is roughly the size you want, start to refine the shape with a knife, carving always with the grain of the wood.

Carve the bowl of your spoon with a crook-knife. If the spoon is for eating with then test the shape in your mouth to see how it feels.

Here comes a miracle. When the shape is refined and completed to your satisfaction, give the whole thing a thorough sand, making sure you’re sanding with the grain of the wood.

When all is smooth, rub some oil into it. Any oil will do, olive oil, sunflower, vegetable, as you feel. Work it in and reapply until it is good and saturated.

And there we are. You can re-oil it every now and again. The oil from the sides of your nose at eye level is particularly effective.

As well as spoons you can now make spatulas, wooden forks and other cooking implements.
They make great gifts.

Perhaps find a good piece of wood that would split into two spoons that you and your love can carve together and exchange when finished.

We settled in the Ashdown Forest for a few days, as we had Alex and Nejm with us and wanted to spend time together in a settled place, rather than on the constant move.

So we walked till our maps were useless, noting as we did so the location of all water-sources (which were ample), and then we hid our backpacks and roamed in 5 directions to try and find a good spot for us all to stay.

Ginger soon whistled for success, and we returned presently to check his findings. “It’s not the place” said Ed, and we kept looking. 20 minutes later, Ed whistled for success, and led us all to the same place Ginger originally found. This led to banter, but certainly accord, and with a mighty beech at the centre of the clearing, with wood aplenty to keep our fire fed, we set to making camp.

Ed and Alex struck up a partnership to make a cabin with wooden poles and their ponchos, wherein they could sit comfortably with a fire to give heat and light. “All very well,” said Will, “but i’m going to try something new.”

So with his mind full of Tom Brown style shelters, Will set to building a mummy-like coccoon, a shelter made entirely from the materials around him in the Forest. Obviously, if this sort of shelter could be used, then there would be no need for tarpaulins, roll-mats, or sleeping bags. This, at least, was the idea.

So a long ridgepole is found, and propped up at the opening with a forked stick high enough to permit access.

Then more sticks are added, like the rib-bones of a whale. The more ribs the better, as this will soon be all covered over with leaf-mulch and the stuff of the forest floor. The plan is to make a natural semi-permanent sleeping bag, made from leaf and twig.

This took a lot of floor-scraping. Eventually, the best method was found to be using the boot and foot to drag all the mud and rotten leaf and fresh leaf into a pile, which could be dumped around and atop the frame. Once this was all covered over, more sticks were placed on the leaves, to keep them from blowing away, and the process begins again, with more scraping at the floor, and more leaf and mulch.

This material should insulate the shelter, and prevent the rain from seeping in.

So Will did his best, and spent the next 3 hours gathering sticks and leaf mulch, up and down, forward and backward, getting it all piled on.

Once that was done, there was the making of a door, or plug to block it in. This was made with a bag-cover, all stuffed with leaves, that slotted into the open end of the tunnel.

Once this was made, the last thing, which proabably should have been the first thing, was the internal mattress. Will started with dead bracken, which is sketchy for its apparently dangerous pollen, which may be carcinogenic. Will figured with the recent heavy rain, this pollen would have all been battered away.

The second layer of mattress was young boughs of pine, which gave an amazing resinous odour to the enclosed space.

Will tried this shelter in a huge storm, which conveniently fell the night after he made it. There were a few drips, which were off-putting to a good night’s sleep, and the ground was too cold.

So he tried it again the next night, with more pine on the ground, and more mulch on the roof, and it was much bett. Still, for a March home, it was too chilly to sleep with no covers, to rely on the shelter to provide all the insulation from the night. Will got about 2 hours sleep, before waking up cold, shivering, and emerging to go and grab his sleeping bag to assist his night’s sleep.

So, in verdict, this shelter was a pleasure and a joy to build, as it is made from nothing but what lies around. It needs a great deal of floor insulation, however, and it needs a really well-fitting plug in the door. Next time, these isues will be rememdied, and we’ll let you know how it goes.

Enjoy your duvet while you have it.

Birch Polypore grows as a bracket like fungus on Birch trees.

The clean white flesh has anti-bacterial qualities and can be used as an emergency field dressing for wounds.

Here is a demonstration given by Alex while we were in the Ashdown Forest:

Cut the bracket from the tree, making sure it isn’t too old and shrivelled.

Cut a rectangle into the white flesh and gently lift the piece off, just less than a centimetre below the surface.

Take the rectangle, apply the spongy inner surface to the wound and bind it on with whatever cord or stringy plant you can find.

This will help you to keep the wound clean and protected until you can find a more permanent dressing and some wound healing herbs.

Biting insects

The most enduring protection from fleas, mosquitoes and other biting blighters is to have a bitter tasting bloodstream. You can achieve this by cutting down on sugar, eating lots of garlic (wild or garden), eating plenty of green leaves, especially parsley, celery, purslane and nettle. Bitter herbs like wormwood, hops and chamomile can be taken as tea….bitter tea, go easy.

Bee, Wasp and Hornet stings

Lightly brush the sting away without spreading the poison. Squeeze the sting and suck the area with plenty of spit. Apply either raw garlic juice, raw potato juice, raw egg white, course salt or vinegar into which marigold flowers have been crushed.

Wet clay or mud can be applied and reapplied every hour.

Headaches

We find Feverfew tea very effective, also rosemary, wild or garden mint (not peppermint) and lavender. Apply cold cotton cloths soaked with lavender or mint infused vinegar to the forehead.

Toothache

Ed had a time of getting toothache only when sleeping in church porches. Chewing a few cloves in the area of pain is very effective. Sprinkle tooth cavities with cayenne pepper (not too much!) or chew on the root of Yarrow.

Remove the outer skin of a large onion, heat it until hot and hold against the troublesome ache.

The Eyes

We were told by a fellow in Dorset that the deer eat the new beech leaves to improve their eyesight. We suggest you do the same, in early Springtime they are very tasty.

For grit in the eyes make a herbal brew from any above-ground part of Traveller’s Joy (Clematis) and use as an eyewash.