Old Cleaver Gets a New Handle

A couple years ago I executed a trade in which I received an old cleaver, at the time I was all fired up to modify it but like many other things, it ended in a drawer and work took over my life.

Fast forward until around April of this year when I handed the cleaver off to a friend of mine to make a custom handle for it, and man o man did he do an outstanding job!

I've known Jeff for a number of years but it wasn't until earlier this year that I became aware of his creative wood working talents and capabilities. Known for his sense of humor I found that he wears a goalie mask while turning wood on his lathe, the reason for that was a comedic tale while worth the telling, I'll preserve Jeff's adventurous mishap as a private conversation.

Jeff chose to use walnut and whitetail deer antler for the handle, and went so far as to get the grip sized right as well as the swell on the right side for a right handed user. I could go on and on about how satisfied I am with his work but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Jeff absolutely nailed what I was looking for, I couldn't be happier with his work. In addition to the handle he went above and beyond and did a little something extra for me, he hand carved the detail work in the cross below, another example of just how talented Jeff is.

I told Jeff that I'd post this and would forward on anyone who wanted to pursue a project with Jeff. So for anyone who does, you can use me as the point of contact. Jeff's a very creative and talented individual capable of a lot of different things. I wouldn't hesitate to work with him.

Update on the wood shed

A little bit ago I posted about a Wetterlings splitting maul and there were some pictures of my woodshed back then, that was July and I've not had a lot of time to add to it but we've managed to fill it as of this past weekend.

Shed is 24' wide, 14' deep and the stacks are 7' high, doing the traditional math that's 2,352 cubic feet and when divided by the common cord requirement of 128cf it would appear I'm sitting on over eighteen cords of wood. Been figuring around 6 or 7 cords a winter on average, though that shot up to 12 cords in a winter once but the quality of that wood wasn't the greatest.

Well here's the shed as of the end of the weekend, packed to the gills mostly. I'm breathing easier these days as not only is this done, but I've got about this much more again seasoning in the back. I've given up my old ways of cutting in the fall. I wait for winter and snow now, cut the old logging road open and skid everything out with the wheeler. No fuss no muss, no heat no bugs, no big crowns to deal with, nope, heck of a lot cleaner and I get the true meaning of wood heats twice, once when you process and once when you burn.

There's a certain satisfaction standing in this shed, the kind that comes from good clean work done for yourself by yourself. Nothing quite like it to be found anywhere else, least that's been my experience.

Hope your winter preps are as far along as you want them!

The Fast & The Forager

I snuck out late this afternoon, yes, I used the word 'snuck' which apparently isn't a word, at least according to Blogger's spell check. Bleh, 'snuck' has been in this southern man living in the north wood's lexicon for as long as I can remember, and there it will remain. So with the short hand drifting past the four o'clock mark I grabbed the youngest boy and out the door I went.

Two, well three things had me itchin to go. One is our raspberries are exploding off the bushes, that's in and of itself is plenty reason enough, but also because I wanted to use a new foraging bag, and finally because youngest son loves bustin' the berry bushes and talking to the birds as he eats his way down the path. Finer entertainment cannot be had, especially when the birds seem to be talking back.

Our raspberries came in a couple weeks ago but they come in phases so we've had nice big fat juicy berries for a while, and like my pin cherry trees there's gobs and gobs of them. Right now if you tap them they'll fall into the palm of your hand, this is when I like them best and so too, do the bears.

Note the flattened area where a bear had laid up during and after gorging on berries and cherries.

 I could see clear bear trails throughout the bushes and in fact I found several places where they'd bedded down while they gorged themselves. I also found some pin cherry trees they'd pushed over and just absolutely stripped them bare. Our backwoods are pretty thick right now and saying I was more than a little leery of the fact that there was obvious bear activity where the boy and I were picking would be a bit of an understatement.

Also found a log the bear had been at, digging out whatever critters were inside.

Never the less we would not be deterred!

With not a lot of time I'd only planned on gathering a quart of raspberries which brings me to the part about a new foraging bag. This handy dandy little belt pouch is the bees knees. Made of leather and waxed canvas it folds flat for belt carry and it's perfect sized to hold a quart mason jar.

As you can see it doesn't take up a lot of space on the belt but when you unfold it there's plenty of room for whatever you're foraging, or container of choice. It'll hold a 32oz nalgene or jar no problem.

And so we went, merrily picking and eating, me trying to keep up with the boy as we went until he'd eaten his fill and I'd gotten what I came for.

This is a shot of the set up riding on my belt as I picked.

If you're interested in one of the pouches they are made by a fell who goes by billybass on the BushcraftUSA forums, you can find more information here.

Pretty handy and Backwoods Bum Approved!

Pin Cherry Jelly

If I had to guess at the number of Pin and Choke cherry trees on my property I'd go with between two and three hundred of them. Across the three hundred and ten acres that abuts Superior National Forest they grow as common as weeds, they line every old logging road and the edges of every clear cut. They are down right prolific.

I'm blessed to have them and enjoy everything about them. Well the Pins are in and we set about collecting enough to make a year's worth of pin cherry jelly. Reality is they are very easy to harvest, it only took us about an hour to collect eight quarts or so of them.

While we were out we kept getting distracted by the thimble berries and the red raspberries. Kids spent more time looking down and eating them than collecting pin cherries!

Even so the haul on the cherries was more than enough to do what I needed.

I don't do anything fancy, though next year I think I'll switch pectins and go with a honey sweetener instead of sugar. Been hearing lots of good stuff about using honey in jellies and jams, I'm interested but wasn't ready to try it this year.

Pretty simple process I follow. Clean 'em, remove stems or most of what you can. Put in a pan and cover with water, boil until they are nice and soft and squishy.

From there I pour into cheesecloth or flour sack cloth which I place over a larger stock pot. The goal is to get the juice out. Because pin cherries are so small, the pit being large it would be exceedingly difficult to make a jam so you collect the juice in quantity.

After doing that repeatedly I ended up with nearly six full quarts of pin cherry juice! From there I transfer the juice into this large container. Sometimes I use it for ice tea, or lemonade, in this case cherry juice dispenser. I fill a regular quart mason jar with 3.5 cups of the stuff which then goes into a pot with the pectin, bring to a boil and add the sugar, stirring constantly till a vigorous boil for one minute.

Once that's done I follow the normal canning process, pouring into sterilized small jars then boil etc etc. Some how my normal set up went missing, still have the lid to my giant pressure cooker but not the base. I'm thinking one of the kids used it for something they shouldn't have because I can't find it anywhere. Had to improvise, pot, jar rings in the bottom, boil away.

 Here's the end product, 19 jars and I've still got at least 4 quarts of juice that we'll freeze and use like a concentrate to make cherry juice drinks later. My process might not be what others do, it's worked for me so far and I've seen no reason to change it.

Nothing like some tart fire cherry jelly on some butter toast with some oatmeal on a cool morning! Ugh I AM HUNGRY!

A Dutch Oven Dinner...

Sometimes, you find time. Work has been crazy again here lately and we've had precious little opportunity to get out or do things together. Unhappy about that I decided all of us getting out and having a dinner together was in order.

We didn't drive the sixty odd miles to the nearest decent place to eat, instead we settled around a fire and a dutch oven and chatted the afternoon away just being a family. Some of the best times are the unplanned times doing the simplest of things.

And the food wasn't bad either...

Happy full bellied kids and dogs, momma and daddy too, what else can a man really ask for?