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So what have I been up to you may be asking?

It has been a very busy couple of years since I last posted, filled with lots of changes both personally and professionally, but I’m still here working and building on my knowledge and skills.

Over this time as well as teaching at survival school, I have been working with Survive and Revive, Kit Lyn Walken, volunteered as a tutor/instructor at Boot Up (forest school), and made an appearance and demonstrated/passed on skills at the first Cornwall preppers meet. There was also a TV appearance where apparently I was so Cornish I required subtitles!

At the end of last year I completed and instructed on Survival schools the Original Bushcrafter’s Qualification-the Otzi course which highlighted the wide skill set our ancestors would have had and used

Privately as well as practicing and honing my skills with foraging inland and on the coast, creating more bone flint slate and antler tools, I have been learning how to cast bronze with Neil Burridge of Bonze age Swords, how to felt wool, and making fish leather…..Lots of fish leather….

Currently I am working on my casting skills working with different metals and alloys using traditional/historic techniques to recreate tools and at the behest of my wife ancient jewelry.

At the end of this month I will be attending the freelance instructors meet with Northern Limits bushcraft which will be my first meet/event outside of Cornwall for quite a time.

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Also went nuts on the smoking, cooking pressing and food preservation methods the past couple of months, it has been mostly tasty. (Physical activity may have to be the new focus…I seriously doubt it!)

Hope to actually do a bit more on the ol’ filming of skills soon, even though I am not a fan of the process.

This year I will be back with Survival School, the Wilderness Gathering and a few other events which are to be confirmed.

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Well, long time no post!

It seems August and September were a busy couple of months for me. In August, I found myself teaching for Survival School, doing my first ever master class at the Wilderness Gathering, and helping my friends at Ancient Days and Ways with archery. September started off with teaching for Survival School, more archery, and brushing up on my costal foraging with trips to different areas. During these months I have been doing a lot of background work to find, suppliers for specialist resources, and trying to find locations to work from. This month, October, started with teaching foraging and wilderness cookery, which was interesting given the long hot dry summer. Recently I’ve been me getting out for more local walks and hedge bothering to see what plants fungi etc. are around.

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I have been up and out at unearthly hours preparing cutting, cutting grinding and shaping stinky bone and antler with rocks and flint to create new bone needles, awl/drill bits, arrow heads and hooks.

In creating the tools I like to use the flint microliths formed when I make flint tools to cut and shape the bone and antler before grinding. They are the perfect tools for the job, flint scores and shapes bone like nothing else, I can usually find the perfect size and shape of flake I need for the job in my pile of debitage, I hate wasting anything.

I have not only been working with bone and antler but gone full caveman and been revisiting flint knapping and slate grinding, starting off with expanding and fixing my knapping tool kit.

Even a trip to the beach resulted in a little lithic working, bipolar percussion and grinding in addition to some awesome art work thanks to the naturally occurring ocher.

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I have been making a collection of ‘mini’ or ‘desktop’ (OK, maybe smaller size rather than mini or desktop is more accurate description) traps. The idea behind this is to no only build my own repertoire, and hone my skills but to create portable working traps which can be used to safely demonstrate methods used around the world in animal acquisition. The desktop traps have the added benefit of being not only portable but also can be displayed and used easily in an indoor/classroom environment.

As it turns out this was a far more challenging than I first thought, working in miniature brings its own challenges and is rather fiddly. I have had to adapt methods and set ups so there are small loose bits do not fly off and cause injury and find the materials that work best for the specific trap on a small scale. However it is rather fun unless you are a stuffed animal of one of my cats toys.

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The rock sling or shepherds sling has been in use from Upper Palaeolithic period. It has been used for hunting, livestock and crop protection as well as a weapon of war. So significant in its influence, it appears across cultures in religious texts, myths and legends. It has such cultural significance it can be found represented on everyday objects, art, and in ceremonial dances.

Personally I am fascinated by both the simplicity and complexity of them. The variety of construction methods, materials used as well as their uses makes rock slings an amazingly interesting subject.

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