Ghillie Kettle

I treated myself to a Ghillie Kettle (similar to a Kelly Kettle, but with a whistle) for Christmas gone from a group buy on Bushcraft UK. I’ve been meaning to write a post about it since, but Ben has saved me the trouble with his post.

Great pieces of kit.

Baking and Wooden Spoons

In other, non-technical related, news…

Baking

For the past week I’ve been re-discovering the joys of baking. Numerous loaves of bread have baked and eaten (it’s very difficult to let warm bread go untouched), Flapjack has been enjoyed (although I need to get the quantities right - both batches have had Red Bull style effects!), and yesterday saw Schwuklet #2 and I baking a batch of 50-odd chocolate chip cookies. Currently only 1 remains…

Wooden Spoons

Earlier this year I was given a crook knife (mine happens to be a double-sided one) in exchange for a paracord watch strap. At the time I had a quick go with it and made something that resembled a spoon, but I wasn’t really that happy with - in particular the bowl was far too…chunky.

Yesterday (prior to baking the cookies) whilst laying a fire a piece of wood caught my eye as being perfect for whittling a (slightly short) spoon. I roughed out the shape using my mora and dug out the crook knife to make the bowl, and I’m very pleased with the result. As said, the handle is quite short, so it will be more of an “eater” as opposed to a “stirrer”. I need to sand and oil it, then sort out some pictures.

bzr status schwuk

Well it’s been a while I wrote here (if you ignore the Twitter spam :)) - in fact July was the last time I blogged in earnest - and a few things have changed, so I thought I’d talk about some of them.

First of all I’ve moved to the Distro QA team here at Canonical. This means that I’m now working directly on Ubuntu, and my work will be much more visible - both in the distribution and here on this blog. I’m working with a great team here within Canonical - Henrik, Leann, Brian, Steve, Ara, Pedro, and Marc - and the wider Ubuntu QA community, as well as the rest of the Distro team and of course the whole Ubuntu community. At the moment I’m focused on hardware testing, and you’ll be seeing a lot more attention given to testing in Ubuntu over the next few releases.

Apart from working I attended the “last” LugRadio Live - see you all again next year! - and had a great holiday in the South of France. I also spent a long weekend in the woods in Wales at the Bushcraft UK Bushmoot where I got the chance to meet Mors Kochanski who is an amazing, inspiring and above all friendly guy. The ‘moot itself was well worth the trip, just like LugRadio Live is, but meeting him made it absolutely worthwhile.

Last November I pondered moving to 64-bit. Last week after a few stability and performance problems (entirely self-inflicted) I decided to bite the bullet, wipe Vista from my hard drive forever (it came with the laptop, and I left it around “just in case” but it never really got used) and perform a fresh install. This was my first “real” install (if you ignore my testing work) since I first put Feisty on the laptop when I got it, and the install experience is really nice these days. Since I had the opportunity I decided to go with 64-bit, and I’m pleased to say that I’ve had zero problems with it. Flash is commonly criticised as being difficult under 64-bit, but it installed via the package in Synaptic and has worked since. If anything Firefox + Flash has been more reliable than it was under 32-bit.

In August I succumbed and got myself an iPhone 3G, even though I’m months away from the end of my current contract with my N95. So far I have been seriously impressed with it - browsing is excellent, and it is by far the best e-mail experience I’ve had on any mobile device to date. Oh, and it’s a decent phone too! I’ve not really encountered any of the performance/stability problems many others have complained about, except when I had it configured to sync OTA with Google via NeuvaSync when it would occasionally get a bit sluggish. That was with the 2.0.2 firmware, and I’ve not re-enabled OTA syncing since upgrading to 2.1 yesterday. This is my first iPod as well - the only other current iPod in the house belongs to Schwuklet #1, although Schwuklet #2 has put an order in with Santa Claus for a 4th generation Nano. The iPhone has increased my podcast consumption as well, which can only be a good thing.

That’s it for now, but I’m sure I’ll think of more things to post soon.

Bushcraft Bookshelf

Apart from the obvious exception most of my recent reading and book purchases have been – probably unsurprisingly – bushcraft related. The following are books I have recently bought or been given.

Tree Identification - Black Poplar

I originally identified this tree as a Beech, but as soon as I identified a real Beech I realised my mistake. It’s taken me a while to correctly identify this one, and I hope I’ve got it right this time!

Move over Beech, it is time to meet the Black Poplar – (Populus nigra). I have a prime example of this in my garden, although it will have to be felled soon as it is slowly succumbing to high winds.

The Black Poplar is a deciduous tree, and another native of the British Isles. It can grow up to 30 metres tall and often leans, giving it a distinctive shape.

Like the Beech, its twigs have alternating buds althoough the buds are shorter and stubbier than the Beech, and they grow more in the direction of the twig rather than outwards. Towards Spring catkins will also be evident.

Its bark is a mixture of grey and brown, and is thick and furrowed.

Whilst Poplar is a poor firewood, its timber is both light and tough and so used for a variety of purposes.

Idle hands

I like learning and practising new knots – a few even end up being used in real life. A while ago I stumbled across a paracord bracelet someone had made. The idea intrigued me. Paracord is useful stuff, and I normally have some with or near me, so having a (highly unfashionable) bracelet made of the stuff seemed a nice idea. An idea that promptly sank to the back of my mind and was forgotten until today. I don’t know what prompted me, but I googled for instructions and came up with some, grabbed some paracord and gave it a try.

This is made up of approximately 3 metres of paracord.

The knot used produces a nice weave, and isn’t too difficult to get to grips with. A very satisfying yet easy and quick little project.

I could link to the instructions, but I’m going to write up my own anyway.

Instructions can be found here.

Tree Identification - Beech

I’d like to dedicate this post to Xalior since I know how much he is enjoying this series.

I got this one wrong The photos have been replaced with ones of an actual Beech, whilst you can find the original photos correctly identified as a Black Poplar.

As the (mighty) Scots Pine fades into the annals of the interweb, our attention is turned to the Beech – (Fagus sylvatica – meaning “Beech of forests”, imaginative lot these latin speakers…). I have a large number of these in my garden, with the majority former a border between my garden and the rest of my land.

The Beech is a deciduous tree, and a native of the British Isles. It can grow up to 40 metres (that’s over 130 feet) tall, although the large examples are in decline due to a combination of lowering water tables causing die back in some and high winds felling others.

Its twigs have alternating shoots, with long slender buds growing out from the twig. It’s leaves are glossy green on the top, and have plain edges.

Beech trees often keep their leaves long after others have fallen.

I’ll update with a photo of the leaves later in the year.

Beech bark is typically gray and smooth, and retains this appearance throughout the life of the tree.

Beech wood burns well when seasoned. Green Beech wood will burn, but not as well. As well as being a good firewood and for producing charcoal, the timber is used for furniture – although usually used for smaller components – and flooring.

Apparently the leaves make a “fine salad vegetable”, but they are better eaten in Spring than later in the year.

Beech nuts, best gathered in Autumn, are edible although tedious to peel. The kernels can roasted and ground to make a coffee substitute, or pressed to extract oil which can be used for salad dressings or cooking. Sawdust can be boiled, baked, mixed with flour and made into bread.

Tree Identification - Scots Pine

Last time it was the turn of the Silver Birch, this time it is the mighty Scots Pine – (Pinus sylvestris which means “pine of the woods”). I have a few of these in my garden.

A coniferous tree also common throughout the UK and native to northern Europe – in fact it is the only native British Pine. Its needles grow in pairs up to 8cm long and are slightly twisted.

It has a scaly bark.

Pine wood burns well, although it has a tendency to spit. Due to its high levels of resin it makes excellent kindling. Its wood is also commonly used for all manner of wood products.

The needles of a Pine tree make an excellent tea, which contains plenty of vitamin C. Pine trees can also be consumed in various other ways as described by Euell Gibbons in an excerpt from his book Stalking The Healthful Herbs.

Sound advice

There are many who would do well to remember this.

Appropriate

‘Nuff said.

Taken from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.