Greener Glens Bushcraft & Wild Food

So as many of you are aware I know my mushrooms from my elbows (if you know what I mean) so I'll be doing a bracket fungus identification demonstration at the gathering this weekend.

Fungi can provide food, medicine, bushcraft materials, dyes & also determine whether the tree you're sitting under is safe & stable enough to tie your hammock to.

I'll be giving a talk on fungi & their tree hosts at the gathering this weekend - there are still a few tickets left. Hope to see you there.

Preparations for the gathering are in full swing & demonstrators are coming out of the woodwork.

Our multi-talented pal Colin will be joining us & bringing his vast knowledge of first aid & healthcare with him & if you are lucky he will be belting out some tunes on the guitar around the fire.

Armed with a faux bushcraft accident victim (mannequin) Colin will be doing some first aid demos & answering your questions on what to do when you get an injury in the context of bushcraft. Axes, knives, saws, ropes, fires, insect stings & falls there are lots of opportunities for injury in bushcraft & greenwoodworking & already knowing what to do in these situations can make all the difference.

Colin will also be bringing his larger than life stage persona Sasquatch from Sasquatch Tunes with him. Colin has a very impressive set of lungs & whether on the ukulele or guitar he will have you tapping your feet & singing along around the fire.

Sasquatch tunes link below - 😁

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089842148997

Hi folks, we are having a bushcrafty / greenwoodworking gathering from the 18th to the 20th of August near Tarbolton in Ayrshire.

We'd love to see as many friends as possible but if you're into bushcraft, the outdoors & spoon carving then come & join in, there are 50 tickets. There will event tents where demonstrations & workshops can be held if the weather breaks. There will be space to camp, portaloos & fires to cook on.

- Friday

Arrive anytime from 1pm & set up camp.

We will be demonstrating how to butcher a lamb or deer on the Friday night to cook in a ground oven for the communal meal on the Saturday night.

Socialising around the fire

-Saturday

We will have a very open spoon carving / general greenwood working workshop on Saturday during the day. There will be plenty of wood to carve, axe blocks & a limited number of tools to use if you don't have your own. This will be aimed at spoon carving but if you're feeling inspired or are more experienced then feel free to embark on something more ambitious & we will help you through it.

First aid demonstrations & Axe throwing will be on during the day as well.

Communal ground oven meal.

Socialising around the fire, there will probably be a sing song so if you have instruments you want to bring then feel free to join in.

-Sunday

We will be discussing a variety of offgrid living skills, bracket fungi identification & uses & wilderness survival skills.

First aid demonstrations & Axe throwing will be on during the day as well.

This will be a very informal gathering, you are welcome to participate as much or little as you want. If you have a relevant skill you want to talk about or share then have at it. If you want to socialise around the fire all weekend & carve a spoon 👍.

We will have space to camp in the field around the gathering, we have to keep the noise to a reasonable level, you can have you're own fire but we ask that you prepare the ground properly, we are asking £20 for the tickets just to cover the cost of the portaloos.

Bring your own food & snacks for the meals apart from the Saturday night & bring your own bowl, kuksa, cutlery etc for the meals. There will be running water on site for drinking & washing up. Alcohol is allowed but we ask that everyone remains compos mentis 😁.

Email for tickets - [email protected]

More details on the scottish bushcraft group page.

I treated myself to a Kalthoff small carving axe recently & I must say I have very much enjoyed using it.

I had a lovely day in the woods carving a few nice spoons including this eating spoon from quite a special piece of plum wood.

This axe is light in the hand, the handle is easy to grip in various positions, it rolls nicely for guillotine cuts & splits very nicely as well. I find it very comfortable to sinch my hand up under the beard for precision cuts & believe me when I say I have taken delivery of many MANY sharp tools in my years & this is the sharpest tool out of the box I have EVER bought.

It can be hard to convey how much we greenwood workers enjoy a good bit of wood grain 😊 but it gets easier when looking at photos like this.

New gadget fitted to the Apache canoe tonight & it's looking very nice.

This is a leeboard or an off-centre daggerboard which will help with stability & drift when I am canoe sailing.

Those who have experience with sailing will be familiar with the function of daggerboards, leeboards & keels but it is a foreign concept to most canoeists. It is basically to help stop a big gust of wind capsizing the canoe by providing a water anchor perpendicular to the direction of travel but it has other functions as well.

I paddle as much on open water as I do on rivers & I can tell you that having a sail makes long sections, where you'd normally be just doing loads of power strokes, much easier & more fun. You can really eat up the miles if you can harness the wind.

This kit is supplied by solway dory who make excellent equipment for sailing canoes.

Holy moly! I always forget how good tempura hogweed shoots are until they start sprouting again - take it from me they are absolutely delicious.

These are the unfurling leafs of common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium).

I have dipped them in a mixture of plain flour, corn flour, seasoning & water then cooked them in some very good butter for a few minutes each side until they become a little crispy & golden coloured.

Consistently you will find foragers answering the question of "what's your favourite wild vegetable?" with "hogweed shoots of course! " with only a few exceptions - sea kale might also be up there 😊.

Throughout the year common hogweed gives us foragers many harvests which include the leaf shoots, the flower buds, the seeds & the roots.

These common plants aren't a wild edible I recommend to beginners though as they are member of the Apiaceae family which include some of the most dangerous plants in Britain.

Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) & Hemlock water-dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) are members of this family & are 2 of the most dangerous plants to be found in Britain. Both could be confused with common hogweed by a beginner which in the case of the giant hogweed could lead to severe phototoxic burns & in the case of hemlock water-dropwort severe gastric upset & potentially death.

Common hogweed itself has the potential to cause less severe photosensitivity in your skin than giant hogweed if you get the sap on your skin. If you do get familiar with identifying common hogweed then I recommend being careful to avoid the sap when harvesting or wear gloves.

When foraging I encourage people to become very familiar with the dangerous plants & fungi first before looking at what can be eaten. Once you do this you can forage with much more confidence & safety.

Nice little basket of tasty early spring edibles. Flowering currant flowers, wild garlic leaves & unopened flower buds, some blackthorn flowers & hogweed shoots.

The currant flowers can be used to flavour all sorts of lovely syrups, cocktails & deserts but this time I'll be drying these for teas.

I'll be making wild garlic stock cubes with the wild garlic leaves & nice salty beer snacks with the flower buds.

The blackthorn flowers will be used to give last years sloe gins an extra almond-y kick & I'll be dipping the hogweed shoots in a tempura batter & crisping them up to have with dinner - mmmmmmmmmmm.