Mr. Kraft does life

• Preparing garlic for storage
• Scouting for bear
• Draw knife restoration and sharpening
• Ax restoration
  • Patterning old handle
  • Disassembling old ax
  • Finding an appropriate piece of hardwood for the handle
  • Splitting an ash log for the stock
  • Shaving the stock on a shaving horse with a draw knife
  • Rasping and spoke shaving details
  • Filing ax head
  • Shaving a piece of black locust for the wedge
  • Assembling ax
  • Aligning and sharpening blade
  • Sanding handle
  • Oiling handle and adding paracord for missed swing protection
• Archery practice
• Crafting meals with beaver parts
• Gleaning apples from the drops in the orchard
• Roots Rendezvous gathering in Vermont
  • Weaving cat-tail and Phragmite reed grass mats on a primitive loom
  • Icelandic Lamb Project: Using the Whole Animal with Nate
    • Slaughter
    • Skinning
    • Breaking down
    • Butchering
    • Foods
      • Blood and acorn flour pancakes
      • 3 types of sausages
      • Char-grilled meats
      • Headcheese soup
    • Hide processing
      • stretching on a rack
      • scraping
      • Brain tanning
    • Bone tools – awls, sewing needles
  • Wild Rice workshop
  • Stone tools and flintknapping workshop
  • Mushroom walk
• Swimming and bathing in the pond
• Gathering and cutting firewood
• Firemaking with bow drill
• Cooking on open wood fires and wood stoves
• Cracking and shelling red oak acorns
• Scouting for deer and wild turkey
• Foraging mushrooms, including about 15lb maitake (Grifola frondosa)
• Sewing tarps
• Dinner with friends
• Dehydrating mushrooms
• Apple picking for cider pressing
• Fabricating an archery target from scrap cardboard
• Integrating into the little community here
• Visiting local fields, forests, farm
• Gleaning tomatoes
• Hand-squeezing cultured butter with the neighbors
• Hanging out in the bakery for the late-night bakes
• Walks in the woods
• Walking barefoot or with moccasins
• Bowhunting safety course – passed
• Wood-fired sauna
• Fasting
• Restored my wooden bowl
• Harvesting grey birch poles for DIY yurt construction while doing Tree Stand Improvement
• Sleeping outside, even when it ain’t warm

Sleeping outside continues to teach me so much.  I’ve also found that my sleep is of a higher quality when I stay in tents or other thin-skinned ‘structures’.

Having enjoyed spending the majority of the nights this summer in a tent, I’ve been at my parents’ place this past week or so and when I arrived I immediately set it up again.  Leaving the house each night, walking through the yard and into my little nook in the woods was a great separation in many senses.  Electronics, air conditioning systems, and artificial light are not present.  Instead I am gifted the sounds of the insects and animals around me, or the tattering of the rain on the tent’s surface.  The bed of oak leaves below me is a welcome place to rest my body.  Waking up to a sky that brightens so smoothly, without the din of the alarm clock, makes for a kind rising experience to start the day freshly.

Thanks.

_S

The idea came about naturally, triggered by the onset of sun and warm weather.

“Want to go camping?”

Just like my feelings with large bodies of water, I am hesitant but still curious.

Spontaneity is our structure.  We are free.  Why not go out on a Tuesday?

Letchworth was still so sparsely populated.  Camping hasn’t crossed their minds yet.

Upon the peninsula of the small lake, layers of amber pine needles were gentle under my bare feet.

Spring-colored sunlight projected blues and greens with a clarity unseen for months.

The fire is the evening activity, here.

The volume of the insects around us was unbelievable.  Even in close proximity, our voices were raised to chat.

Morning; cool and so slow.  Another fire.

Rail bridge and waterfall below.  Height and breadth could swallow a tall building.

Thank you for these gifts.

We took a ride along the Erie Canal bike path.  Just shy of twenty miles, but it felt like only a handful.

Shirt off – don’t you just love Mondays?

The heat of the sun is a welcomed presence.

The Genesee is still quite cool, and so refreshing.  Hello, old friend.