Those are the adventures of Mr. Fimbulmyrk, in bushcraft and blacksmithing, mountainbiking and hiking, reenactment, writing, singing, dancing, stargazing and having a piece of cake and a coffee. Pray have a seat and look around you, but be warned - the forest´s twilight is ferocious at times.
This is another beginner-friendly crafts project. All you need is a Swiss Army knife again. For wood, I choose hazel, because it is easy to carve when fresh and dries out to be tough and resilient, due to the long, dense grain. You want to take a piece that is as straight as possible and with no twigs or branches. At a right angle, drill a hole with the awl of the SAK. Widen the hole with your little blade or by using the saw.
I made a little Video about it on the YouTube channel:
The hole acts as a stress relief hole.
Using your little blade, carve a recession, Equalizer on both sides, towards the end of stick. Use the big blade to split the wood towards the relief hole. Do not forget to lock your elbows to your sides. Lightly work the blade into the end grain. As soon as you feel the resistance of the wood go down, your stick is split.
Now carve a tear-shaped hole towards the end of the stick. Be careful not to remove too much material from the end.
With a scooping cut, remove the thickness at the middle of the clamp. What this does is reducing the spring resistance of the clamp.
Add a V- or stop cut for decoration or for fixing the pin to the washing line with twine. Add another at the end to cut the clothespin from the branch.
And just like that, you have a little helper that can also come in handy for re-closing packages. You can carve these as a beginner in just half an hour.
With more experience, however, you can carve one in less than ten minutes.
For me, that is a quick and satisfying project, especially when you have little time.
So, I hope that was halfway helpful. Thanks for dropping by, and take good care!
Recently I stumbled across a really great tutorial on YouTube, by The Maker Experience (Awesome guy, go check him out!) And of course I tried it out! It worked a cinch, although I did some of the steps in a different order.
I made some in hazel and some in cherry, hoping to add a bit of my own flavour to the idea.
Projects like this are really awesome. You can accomplish them with a simple Swiss Army knife.
Have a cuppa, sit in the woods, listen to the birds and whittle away.
It doesn't need a lot of your time, just a half of an hour is enough for some nice results.
You can always do better, as you can see in the picture, and you will make some good progress relatively fast.
And there is a punchline, of course. Because, while not on a primary level, making pretty and good things is political.
Why that, you ask?
Woodcarving and greenwood work is scientifically proven to be beneficial for your mental health (https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/project/to-investigate-the-mental-health-benefits-of-green-woodworking-in-therapeutic-settings-for-veterans et al). It offers a sense of calm, of self-empowerment, and of achievement. In a world that floods the zone with horror and bullshit in order to keep you in a state of learned helplessness in order to steal your sovereignity, your dignity and human rights from you, everything that enables your resilience is resistance. Add to that the soothing effect of being in nature, and it can really help you heal. Try it, you won't regret it. It certainly helps me keep what little sanity I still have, and it never fails to soothe my soul.
Maybe it can help you, too.
Take good care, and thanks for dropping by, as always! 😊
The other day, a little lady came to the Slöjd meetup and asked whether I could carve a mouse. I had never done so, but we worked it out together. And I thought I would share it with you. You start by cutting with the saw of your SAK, one rectangular and the second diagonal to the first, but only half of the depth of the first.
These serve as a stop cut. You can also use the blade, but the saw is a tad faster and maybe a bit safer. Take note that I left some length to the branch, the better to handle your carving.
At the first stop cut, reduce the diametre of the stick.
Carve a tip on that side of the cut. That will be the snout of the mouse. Reduce the diametre of the branch behind the diagonal cut. This will become the ears and the body.
With your saw, cut out a notch between the ears. Be careful, because you are cutting with the grain, and the wood splits easily. Refine the cut with the help of the little whittling blade.
Carve the back of the body. Refine the snout and back and saw the mouse off the branch. Refine the cut with your little whittler blade.
Carve the eyes and refine the snout and body.
It is a really nice and fast project, satisfying also for kiddos. You can of course refine the carving more, by working out the legs, or give it a more abstract form. Make it your own!
Shoutout to little Nele, who provided the inspiration for me to think about it!
This is a fun little project I started in the magic troll 's living room. Actually there are few things that I love more-we were sitting there, after having some lovely, simple food, with our snacks and cozies and a hot beverage. I mounted a knife blade from Helle Knives, she made her beautiful Naalbindning needles, while there was some sort of documentary on the TV. To me, this is not only the perfect wintertime pastime, but it conveys a lot of meaning to me. I do think that this, or something very similar, was what our forebears did when the weather was grim, way back to the paleolithic. Well, without the telly, obviously. 😉 If you want to see her work, drop by Koboldkerker.blogspot.de, well worth the visit.
Anyway, I really do love Helle Knives. The blades always come in razor sharp, and most of them get the task done admireably. We had those Skóg/Fjellmann blades lying around for ages. It is made from H3LS, a three layer laminate steel with a carbon steel as a cutting layer and arming steel sides from 18/8 stainless steel, which offers rust resistance from hell, but cannot be hardened. It offers a bit of spring resistance, though, when forged. Blades like that are made by Helle since time immemorial and have been proven to be really resilient.
I mounted that little blade (80x2,7 mm) with a handle from reindeer antler and birchwood burl. At the first glance, it doesn't look any special, but it is
This is the original find. The pictures are copyright by @vegardvike and museum of culturalhistory, Norway. On the pictures you can see that the knife has a rather interesting handle shape, with sort of some diamond cross section and sort of a bevel towards the edge line of the handle. And testing my sample pieces, I found this to be a real game-changer for a lot of applications, from food prepping, to skinning, and it really excels at wood carving.
On the picture below, you can see what I mean.
I wanted to incorporate this idea in a more modern handle design. Because, while the handle on the Trollstein knife is actually really efficient, it also makes the sheath design a bstd to get right. Also, I do like a little more contour and purchase in the handle. So I put those facets on a more modern design. It is obviously not a replica, but really works awesome. It is about the principle of signalling your brain and body which way you hold the blade. And what I want to say is, that I would not have known had I not tried to make a replica of the find.
Archaeology gives us insight into the knowledge of the past. The principles that people applied historically still are relevant.
In Germany, there is something going on that can only be called a culture war against all things of cultural heritage, science and craft. I do know it is even worse in the US. At the Uni, there is currently a move of the administration, and behind that, possibly altright political forces, to close down entire ethically relevant faculties like Archaeology, literature and philosophy, but also actively defunding medicine, mathematics and physics.
Think about the relevance for your actual life situations. For Archaeology, it might not seem obvious, but the relevance actually is pretty commonplace. Call it "the knowledge of the ancestors" if you want.
I am not actually asking "cui bono" yet, because I do not need to. Suffice to say that this handle design is really a rather enlightening experience.
And it was first designed in the iron age.
If you possibly can, try it out to get my meaning.
Well, you know, politicians happen again in Germany. At the moment there is a bit of hope we might keep the sorry mess that is left of our democracy for a bit longer (but I wager, not for long) due to massive democratic and judicial protest, but who knows.
Since I wanted a pocket knife that is capable of carving and didn't look threatening to the Karens or our Slytheen that rule us, I came across the Helle Raud S. Normally, I would not have thought twice about a knife that small. Actually, the Vics are awesome and those are actually rarely incapable of doing things, but the proposal for the novelty offensive weapon act would have banned a Swiss Army knife, because it would be too long. Actually, the new proposal, which still is not aborted, would ban all things not Teletubby from the public, including all kind of tools, knives, bottles or anything heavy or sharp.
I spare you the rant. It is pathetic, and we all know.
Anyway, I was asking myself, could one find a capable knife with a tiny blade that were still able to do some of the things I want or need to do in the woods? Forget tactical neckknives, those are toys for people who will open boxes at the most. And I thought, well, my Mora carving knives are actually pretty decent for a lot of things I do. But them being fixed blade knives, they still look too threatening to the Karen Teletubbies. So, a folding knife it had to be. Originally, I thought about the Helle Kletten, but dismissed it because it would not work with a ferro rod, because of its three layer laminate steel, so it had to be the cheaper Raud S. To be honest, I wasn't too fond of spending 120€ on a knife I normally would never have bought.
Well, the little knife arrived. There was a rather silly #nancysapplechallenge going on in the interwebs where you tried to demonstrate that you could not cut an apple with a short knife, which is a logical fallacy, because you cannot prove a negative claim. But, anyway, apple harvest was on the way and I had to make and conserve apple sauce from 5kg of crap apples anyway, so I put it through its paces. It obviously needed some adaptation, but it proved really not as inadequate as I expected.
Also, it actually did not work too bad prepping potatoes for soup and slicing up sausage and spring onions.
It had its shortcomings, but it is possible to use it for food prepping in a pinch.
Where it excelled, however, was carving.
It performs several classes above its size when carving wood. The blade shape and Scandi grind and short blade all combine to add up to a really great detail knife.
I made wall hooks,
spoons from seasoned oak,
a walking stick from holly,
wallhooks from dry cherry,
And after all that hard use it still made shavings like that.
Using it to help with cordage, foraging, mushroom hunting, it really does a lot of things.
Its biggest advantage is obviously that it goes into the small pocket of your jeans and is so light and nimble that you do not really notice it until you need it. The blade is 55mm long and 2.7 mm thick. It is made from 12C27 steel, tempered to 59HRC. The grind is a medium Scandinavian grind with the tiniest of micro bevels. It locks reliably by a sturdy back lock. There is no radial or side play whatsoever. The liners are made from sturdy tempered steel (almost a millimetre thick). The handle from beautiful curly birch , which is stained red, is 85 mm long. To me, that means, the pinky gets to rest behind the handle. This led to a bit of pain in my joints of that finger after several hours of hard carving. The handle, being rather stubby and chunky, lends itself to powerful cuts, though. Inverse cuts, chest cut, scissor cut and all Slöjd positions need a bit of adaptation, but are perfectly doable.
So, if you are looking for a non-offensive and light carry knife for Slöjd in the woods, and can live with the limits of such a tiny blade, this knife, apart from it being in line with the removal of your civic rights, performs admireably well for little Slöjd projects. It might also be a really great first Slöjd knife for kids.
So, apart from the political shitshow going on, it is a great companion that you do not notice until you need it, but that is amazingly and surprisingly capable. I currently always carry it alongside my SAK, because for carving, it performs really great. If you can afford it, and can live with its limitations, it might be a great addition to your EDC.
Having some sort of container is not only practical and sometimes even beautiful, but can also make all the difference in the woods. You can collect water in it and even boil it in order to achieve a certain degree of disinfection. Not the same amount as in tap water, but hopefully keep at least some of it in your body. And do not get me wrong: Modern people have no defence against E.Coli bacteria or some of the other bstds you can find in the creeks. So please do not try this at home. Your body is accustomed to drink Chloride- disinfected water. Boiling water will remove some of the ugly stuff in the water, but not microplastics or chemicals. Anyway, you could even improvise a water filter that way, not a good or efficient one, but at least some kind of it.
I usually use a tool kit for carving stuff like that, a drill wrench, several carving knives, spoon knives and an adze or axe. But of course it is really unrealistic that you have such a tool kit on you all the time.
Enter the Mora Robust. Developed as a heavy duty work knife for carpenters and construction workers, it also has gained sort of a legendary status amongst bushcraft people and survivalists. The shorter blade (around 85x3.2mm) offers a Scandinavian grind with the tiniest of micro bevels and a stick tang. "A STICK TANG?!1!!1!!???", I hear you cry? Yes, a stick tang, but one that reaches nearly to the end of the handle. The culprit is that it consists of a glass- fibre reinforced plastic that is injection molded around the metal and offers almost the same tensile strength as mild steel. Of course I do have issues with plastic. It simply should not exist, period. But it does, and better a sustainable product that can be repaired and recycled than some flimsy shit from the webs. Look here for an extreme test of the knife that can only be called mad:
This knife is designed to stand extreme abuse. I do not think it is pretty, but having worked as a construction worker, roof tiler, carpenter and landscaper myself I can safely say that pretty knives need an almost obscene amount of maintenance in such a setting. And, to get that right also, most of the most extreme abuse you can throw at a knife in "survival" (and you know my stance on this) is but children's play compared to what you do on a construction site. Cutting tar paper, construction bricks and interior plaster boards, opening cement bags, prying,, splitting wood, probing rotten beams, and opening bottles 😉 every day for seven to twelve hours is nothing you would do in a survival situation. The knife also has (sort of) a legal reason built in. It is designed as a work knife. If you wear work pants and boots which are well suited for the woods, and you forgot to lock the knife into a bag which locks into a bag which locks into a bag, reinforce it with spells and magical sorcery runes and put it into another lockable bag that locks into a biogazard container (because it is obviously the object that is dangerous, not individuals with criminal intent), chance is, your legal reason (i.e. your claim of innocence towards criminal intent) might even be accepted by the almighty authorities. Or maybe not, because workers and craftsmen tend to be on the poorer side of wealthy, and the law is possibly only enforced on the poorer people in Germany. (Information-based opinion according to Art. 1 GG). If it would be confiscated, you also only lost 12-18€, and it isn't rare, so you could grumble to yourself and buy another.
So, chance is, this knife might be a knife you have on your person somehow. I suggest you keep it in your backpack and as inaccessible as possible, together with an obviously half-finished funny carving like a smiling wood spirit, some heart pendants or something like that. Yes, you got my meaning right. And I do not tell you to be cheating. I trust that no reader dropping by has any criminal intent at all, and that you are here for the special atmosphere of this Blog. There are other sites for the tactical crowd alright, and I think a lot of people are here because that is what you do with a knife anyway, namely carving stuff, being creative and prepping food. It is not your fault one must suspect some sort of hysteria or even villainous intent in people, fellow human beings or politicians.
That is how that challenge came to be. I honestly cheated a bit by using the saw on my Victorinox Farmer X Alox to cut a piece of birchwood. But the Vic is even more realistic to have on you in a situation where you need to improvise. The Robust is faster in carving such a container, though, because you can use it like a chisel, too, which I would not recommend with any Slipjoint knife.
Starting at the centre of the branch, I worked a recession into it. As I said, I also used the knife as a chisel. Fact is, with a different knife than this, you should not use a drilling motion or chiselling motion, but always a cutting movement, because both can damage the tip. Do not apply too much pressure, too. You can easily hurt yourself or ruin your piece. Patience is key.
Be it as it may, after about half an hour, I was able to have a #cuppatree from the branch. You can also char the inside a bit to make it more durable.
The knife is not the next big thing. It isn't exceptionally pretty or full of prestige. But it is extremely sharp and durable and does everything you can possibly expect from a knife. It is also pretty cheap, but sustainably and responsibly made in Sweden.
Actually there is no reason at all not to buy it. It is also really great for every toolbox at home or at work, around the house and garden and even for harder kitchen tasks like splitting bone.
Buy it, but do not forget those magical sorcery spells and runes and the biohazard vault to always lock it away. Remember, knives kill people, not people kill people. 😜
Anyway, do have fun carving and making stuff, take care of yourself and your fellow human beings. It is possibly a culture war against everything non-profit we are faced with. Those are the death throes of the Terror Squid.
They want to take the innocence from innocent people. Things like love, care and resourcecefulness are the antithesis to their idea of society. So they have to remove the assumption of innocence and spread discord. Do not let that happen. Do not even lose yourself in hatred against them. Lose yourself in good things. In work in the garden, in carving good things and foraging and cooking healthy, hearty meals.
Because this is human society, not some paper dragon brave new world.
(Doris Fischer: Flechten, Färben, Schnitzen, Aarau und München 2017)
Got myself a really cool book, which is rather unusual compared to other works. The systematic approach is centered around plants from the forest.
Centering around plants and their properties and resources, Doris Fischer offers comprehensive botanical knowledge, and describes fun little carving, weaving and dyeing projects, often with really enlightening moments. Learning is fun with this book.
I can really recommend it, especially, but not exclusively if you have kids.
The current move towards an even more strict offensive weapon act in Germany makes me want to reflect upon the topic.
It is, of course, easy to think along the lines of critics like Lemmy Kilmister.
And maybe he was right, and maybe he was not. But this is not my topic here.
I have worked with politicians for twelve years and I retched my guts out every single day before going to work. For several reasons. Some of it my own fault, but also because of, let us call it ...their moral flexibility, to stay polite.
But it is the easy way. We need to reflect ourselves.
You see a lot of knives on this Blog. Also carving, smithing, culture, and recipes, all of which is facilitated by the use of knives. As stated in my disclaimer, the use of knives as a weapon is not part of what I want to propagate, and if so, only in a cultural or historical context.
In the contrary, since 1998 I have worked with kids in difficult social contexts in order to prevent social violence and violence in general. Often voluntarily, often under dire circumstances, most of the time I was poorer than the parents of the kids on social welfare. Only when I started working with politicians I understood that while officially my work was appreciated, that was an outright lie.
But back to the knife as such. Youth associate a knife with a symbol of status. To admit, well, that is the case with a lot of us knife nuts. Few of us older folks, however, actually associate status with violence. Or knives at that.
When we grew up, there was one or the other old conker or lady showing us what to do with a pocket knife. And what not to do. I would spend hours on end helping my grandmother preparing veggies from our garden, fruit from the orchard and mushrooms from the woods while listening to her stories of Yore. My father, grandfather and granduncle taught me how to whittle and carve and show me how to use a knife and a shiteload of other tools. They showed me how to use a scythe, too. I really loved scything, but the downside was that I had to help mowing the fields. And there was neither discussion nor passive aggression about that. From neither side. You just did it. You had to take responsibility. And if you did something wrong, that wasn't the end of the world, but you had to stand up for it.
Of course I also had what many kids had: A wrong idea of knives because of the Rambo movies, which were all the rage in those days. But since we had to use our knives for actual work, that didn't last too long.
When my father bought me a new pocket knife, always some kind of pocket or other utility knife, it always was a right treat for me. I have carried a pocket knife since I was four.
I never, ever used a knife for violence. I never drew a knife in anger. It always was a tool for me, associated with good food and carving and making good-natured things.
Emil of Lönneberga, Ronja Rövardottir, Pettson and Findus, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Goethe and similar idols have made my image of using a knife far more and impressed me far more deeply than the Rambo movies ever did, even if those obviously had an impact on me, too.
When I tried to teach difficult kids to take responsibility, I used carving to excellent effect and with great success. Still have the notes of excellence rotting away in some box in the attic.
I was fired, not in spite, but because of it.
Leading authorities of law enforcement criticize the push towards even greater restrictions (https://www.bdk.de/der-bdk/was-wir-tun/aktuelles/brauchen-wir-ein-schaerferes-waffengesetz), because it will most possibly not show the desired effects. It will remove the institutional assumption of innocence by decree. The authorities in question also criticize the lack of funds and law enforcement personnel, and the lack of funding for social welfare, integration and education and hint of the Offensive Weapon act in Germany first being institutional in the Third Reich. Demanding even stronger restrictions has some grave implications. Let us hope for the best. Let us hope that it is not that bad.
As a matter of fact, however, one would be naive not to acknowledge that knives are used for bad things. Knives are also used as weapons. And truth be told, as kids we were fascinated by the Rambo movies because of that aspect. The lone, but PTSD-sick special forces guy taking out the bad guys and putting an injustice more or less right simply appealed to us. We learned soon that this was not necessarily a good thing, even though we used to make fun of German Army forces on manoeuver in our forests, because, well, we were eleven, and, apart from one sniper, we were better than the grown- ups (and yes, we had permission by the unit and our parents). Additionally, my father was a deputy law enforcement officer. I grew up around weapons and law enforcement and military units, hunters and fishers. And we learned that it wasn't fun and games, but a grave responsibility. I actively prevented several hundred crimes, two to five felonies, since I was six years old. It wasn't anything to brag about, and my Dad was sometimes a tad too daft and dangerous. But I am not naive. People do crimes. People also use knives as a weapon. Period.
Now the bushcraft and survival community is a great one, but there are also a lot of people, mostly men, who have or claim a special forces background. If that is so, every serving person had my utmost respect. I in no way do claim such a background.
But there are also the others. Overweight incels claiming to be tough guys, preppers hoarding weapons and little gamer shitheads advocating violence in a crisis situation. Seven vs Wild, Alone, Naked and Afraid, they are all entertainment formats which are perfectly okay in their own right, but in times of permanent crisis they are also projecting a false image. It is always "one tough guy against nature and all odds".
Knives are not weapons. This is what we need to advocate, not only for our own privileges of freedom. Freedom isn't free. We need to fight for it. Sometimes that means to take a firm stand, maybe against one's own peers. But not as one tough guy against all odds, but with friendliness, manners, kindness and cooperation. We need to save a culture and preserve a cultural heritage of the old conker giving his (or her) knowledge to the young ones. Regardless of the outcome of the political shitshow going on. We need to take a democratic, but firm stand against the proposters and ursurpers of our time.
Actually, doing this can be fun. Why always carve tent pegs or war clubs or traps? I mean they have their time and own right and can be fun projects. Never made myself a war club, but want to try out for certain, because it can make you understand a culture. But you are neither allowed to set traps in Germany, as there is no such thing as legal wildcamping in Germany, and if you make a real Native warclub, you would be asked wherefore you need it, and if you are not an experimental archaeologist, you would be hard-pressed to find an answer. Fact is, it is good to be still able to do such a thing, but fact is also, you normally do not need them. If you don't need them, you can also carve a funny little gnome, a flower or a toy. And there are a lot of more utilitarian but no less fun projects. Shuttles, spindles, spoons, kitchen ware, you name it. Knives can be awesome tools. But I find that my survival knives are sitting in drawers and boxes these days more often than not, because my Vics, Grampa knives and Moras and little bushcraft knives simply do a far better job carving and making things. I found that out by using the shite outta them. I learned a lot by doing this. That is not to say that big knives do not have their time and place. If you can use your Bowie for delicate carving tasks, all good and cudos to you. And there is also a time and place for the "one-tool-option"line of thought, and first and foremostly, if you are not some criminal, you should not be made one by law. On the other hand, there are a lot of people completely freaking out if you even take out a Swiss Army knife in public. That is obviously an unfortunately really common mental illness. There is even a diagnosis, named aichmophobia, for it. And of course, kindness should not go as far as you becoming as mentally ill as the ones you want to help with that kindness. But I do not want to make people uncomfortable, especially if they are mentally ill. Not just because of them, but because they tend to do silly things if you rouse them. A SAK or Grampa knife is not that threatening to them, and everyone finds hearts, toys and flowers cute. So I carved a lot of them and left them at the trailside for others to find, and, hopefully, enjoy. Most of them are no longer capable of deducing that they have been carved, but some of them will, and hopefully connect carving with creating things they enjoy. Carving a delicate project really sucks with a Cold Steel SRK, and yes, I tried.
This is a really fun, quick carving project, also great for carving with kids. Carving a mushroom is relatively easy and fast.
Take a longer stick and round the tip. Carve or saw in an incision around the diametre.
Carving towards the incision, form the stem of the shroom.
Carve another incision, this time a V-shaped cut. When you have cut halfway through the wood, do another cut, this time at a right angle. This will be the bottom of the mushroom. Now carve towards the right-angle-cut. You can even form the top of the next mushroom that way. Do not carve all the way through.
Simply snap off the mushroom.
You can add tiny shavings below the head. There you go, a little mushroom.
Still alive, but just so. Still alive. I am well and healthy and I still got a home. Not much to eat, no heating, no electricity.
And just recently, I have to admit, I gave up. Gave in to despair. I mean, I have no perspective and there is no such thing as a future. After the pandemic a worlwide economical crisis will take place, and climate change will take care of what is left.
Yes, I gave in to despair. Just refused to get out of bed for some days.
But then it occurred to me, not exactly all of a sudden.
On the one hand, we are all fucked. I have to pay taxes on money I do not have and will never get. It is a criminal system of corruption, where the rich prey on the poor and if you are rich, you get richer still, and if you are poor, that little money you have is taken from you.
On the other hand there are the Plebejans shouting revolution, the raving mob wanting to turn things upside down, the intellectuals, too, wasting time and energy on futile and idle discussions.
And, do not get me wrong. Not technology will save us now. We are faced with a cataclysm. You cannot argue with a virus, and you cannot argue with climate change.
I have fought for 30 years now to prevent this time from becoming. I lost. I would do everything just the same as I did, could I do it all all over again. I have no regrets, and I am prepared to die. For most of us will die, and soon. Do not get me wrong, I love to live. It is just not very probable that I or the next guy or my loved ones will.
That said, I am faced with but a really tiny shred of life left. And so I say no.
I say no to your society, your petty dreams and your blahblah. I wear my mask and disinfect my hands and stay away from people. I care for my loved ones, but everyone else is a potential danger. I also say no to the raving mob and your Nazi paroles, your politics and stoopid endeavours. I say no to your consumerism. You only deserve my utter contempt, because you are not capable of making things with your hands.
Oh, I still do not wish anyone anything bad. I just do not care anymore. People are, for the most part, toxic and contagious in more than one sense.
There are things I care for, however. Knowing things can make you rich.
Now, it was winter, and I collected some Chaga. I seldom drink coffee these days, because I do not get the point why I should bother if I can find something better in the woods.
When collecting the fungus, I thought "well, isn't it a shame that you have to still drink your tea from a Kuksa you bought? Now do not get me wrong, I bought my Kuksa from a very nice young Finnish lady who dated me for a cuppa afterwards on the expo, and ever since I heaped fond memory upon fond memory into the notion of it, so nothing wrong with it really. I will keep using it, too, it is nothing at all like being dogmatic. But still, I somehow never made myself one, and I feel a bit like it is an apprentice piece for any bushcrafter. I just wanted to know, too.
So I just fired away and made myself one. I made it in the woods, deep in the woods, in fact, and was at it well into the night, while the foxes were yelping and tawny owls were hooting and I think an odd eagle owl, too. I took this as a sign, somehow. I made the cup from nothing special, just some humble birch wood. Made some mistakes, too, but it still worked out. I also got the whittling bug bad again. There is a kind of beauty to the simplicity of sitting in the woods making things with simple implements. If you get into that zone, if you get into the flow, everything just falls into place and suddenly you realize that life is meant to be this way, not.... whatever the sorry mess is that we created. Life is meant to take place under trees. Do not get me wrong, that does not mean to be idle, in the contrary. It just means doing something that actually even makes sense for a change, hard work or no.
The other day I went to the woods again, and my despair was nowhere to be found. I prepared some scales out of broom, made myself another baton....
... And worked on the kuksa. Now I carved a triquetta in, and oiled it some.
But, as I said, I got that bug bad again. My laid father did an awful lot of woodworking, even more than smithing, and I grew up with it, and it is a bit like shaking hands with an old friend. And I am really stoked on it at the moment. Also it is a bit of a stinky finger into the face of the world, since most of the tools I also made myself.
The Kuksa being in good order I also started a small bowl and a dish, and it felt really good...
To have tea while carving from the cup I just had made.
Actually I know that these things are not the best there are, but they must not be in the first place. It was all made from scraps. Even my tools were, for the most part, made from junk, as you well know.
Society has proven through time that it does not want me. A long time I thought this was because I was inferior.
But the people that kept judging and ostracizing and spiting and mobbing me just now are showing that they are utterly inkompetent at living. They stacked up big time, so much in fact, that the ship is sinking.
If the ship is sinking, jump.
Jump and swim, swim as far away from the ship as you possibly can, in order not to be drowned in the downward draft.
I suggest you ask people who never belonged. Learn from indigenous people, with respect. They have, if anyone has, one key to a possible survival of our species.
Run from capitalism and communism alike.
Ask the woods. Help them, for we owe them dearly, and come humbly.
And do not forget that some things even now do not change. Make something good with your hands. Build a garden, a homestead or a farm, plant a tree, carve, forge or build a house, tile a roof.
But get a life. Switch off the Phone or Computer.
The cranes return.
Spring is on its way. ☺️ ❤️
Take care, care for the elderly, the weak, and for those who had bad luck. Thank you.
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