Had a friend ask what online training is available to get their feet wet. Some courses are very expensive and some are cheap. I tend to do the cheap ones. The expensive ones by Paul Kirkly are well worth the cost and go through a full year. The ones by Grey Bearded Green Beret I always grab as soon as they are released otherwise I wait for sales.Im saving up to do the Nature Reliance courses anything by Craig Caudill is well worth looking at.Jake Cassar does a good intro to foraging. Outdoorcore are cheap but I do everything I find on their site very well made.
Ive tried a few different versions of a Ranger Roll. From using a bivi bag combined with a sleeping bag and canvas bedroll for a ground sheet. This one is more of the traditional version incorporating a Helikon tex Taiga Green poncho combined with a Helikon Tex Swagman Roll in adaptive green and reflective blanket.
colour differences between the adaptive green and taiga green
I may also include a wool blanket for winter use, however this will mainly be used for 1) my GHB Get Home Bag to reduce weight for carrying long distances and 2) a trial use to test out for when Dave Cantebury returns to Australia to teach his Level 1 course. In my GHB I also have a Snugpak Stasha Tarp and a Snugpak special forces Bivi bag in coyote.
toggle attachment system for corner grommets
The idea behind teaching it on survival based courses is to use one item for multiple uses but in reality Id rather carry an extra tarp so you dont have to take apart your sleep system to set up overhead shelter. The same goes with a poncho. You would have to take apart half your sleep system, but thats the idea of learning to adapt with minimal equipment.Adds to the challenge. Ive chosen to stay with a plain colour scheme, no camouflage. Multicam is very hard to come by at the moment.
Something I would like to try with this system is to use a SOL Escape Bivi instead of the mylar reflective blanket and keep the reflective blanket for use as a tarp. I dont think anyone has thought of using the SOL bivi along with the Swagman Roll,it would free up the use of the poncho.
While Im laid up for the next six weeks in a leg brace and walking frame I thought this may be a good project to do when I can sit outside. Ill be looking for a nice piece of ash when I can get out and about.
In 2006, Bushcraft Magazine ran an article for the “Mors Kochanski’s Try Stick”, a woodsman/bushcrafter’s teaching aid for students to develop their blade skills.
The “Try Stick” is nothing more than a stick, approximately an inch to inch and a half in diameter, and about fingertip to armpit in length. on the stick one carves various types of notches that would commonly be used in woodcraft/bushcraft.
Had a few new products arrive to test out for my get home Bag. A MSR Pocket Rocket Stove, A Helikon Tex Taigaia Green Poncho and a All Weather Survival Blanket.Im sitting here in my old caravan after being let out of hospital hobbling around with a leg brace for the next 4 weeks doped up on endone. So I dont know how much posting Ill be doing. Maybe ushering people over to the van to test out the poncho with the wet weather ? Id like to say thx to Bazza for helping me set up the van and looking after my staffy for the last two weeks. Without his help I would be in a lot worse situation. Looks like the throat biopsy is benign but still waiting on results but they said it didnt look bad!Still have another chunk of meat to be removed from my shoulder so that will make life on a waking frame that much more interesting.Will be grabbing some gorilla tape to try out Dave Canterburys reinforcing video for a project to do. Concentration isnt the best and not eating well from the pain in the throat. Just had a handfull of pills so off to sleepy bo bo’s. Goodies reference.
There is a range of courses Ive found here some cheap some expensive. Aiming at anything from identification of wild species to growing your own. Depending on how far you want to take things. Id like to become confident enough that I could explain features to someone else and not poison myself. Im also aiming at doing as many in person mushroom tours as possible. Ive tried to base most of them in Australia however some are overseas that Ive found interesting.
One thing I have learnt from foraging . Its fun but not sustainable if you want to live of the wild all the time. Id rather grow the mushrooms I like eating in an easy manner and not have to spend my time walking over kilometers of farm land and then spending more time identifying the species. Im more a grow it yourself and eat them person. But Id never turn down an opportunity to go for a hike in mushroom country.
looking into growing my own
The other thing is mushrooms have a season. If your not growing them yourself.If a course is under $200 Im likely to do it. There are several below Ive signed up for or will be putting my name down to do. Im doing mushroom exam and am attempting to look at Outdoorcore, and either Milkwood or Little Acre courses are reasonably priced for growing them myself. To take things a step further Im looking at either Permaculture Australia or the Mycologos Basics and Beyond courses.. I might as well take advantage of being in a leg brace and walking frame for 6 weeks and do some training online.
A field guide to foraging: How to identify, harvest, eat and use wild plants
By Diego Bonetto
Description
There is food within 3 metres of your front door.
Three generations ago it was common practice all over the world to collect this wild food; knowledge of what, where and when to forage was a necessary part of daily life. We still had lived experience of harvesting wild food with our own hands. But with the advent of supermarket culture the knowledge associated with foraging has mostly been lost.
Today, we want this knowledge back. From forest to seaside, riverbank to city street – even your own yard – there is wild food and medicine available to those who know where to look. In the face of global challenges such as climate change, food insecurity and pandemics, we seek to empower ourselves with the information and skills that enable self-reliance and equip us to care for our families and communities.
Eat Weeds shows you how to engage with wild food sources, transforming your neighbourhood into an edible adventure.
You know how you somehow end up getting smoke in your eyes wherever you stand around a fire? Well, it turns out that’s not a curse! It can explained with physics or more precisely thermal conduction and convection. Or every time the smoke hits your eyes you can say rabbit rabbit rabbit!
Mushroom foraging tour run by the String and Salt cooking school in Warragul Victoria, hosted by Michelle and Mel and an honorable mention and thanks to Dave who cooked up a great meal.
We started by meeting at the Streatside Cafe and Eatery for complimentary coffees and headed off to 4 or 5 different properties looking at many of the edible and not so edible mushrooms of the Gippsland area.
We were supplied with a 12 page handout covering code of practice, parts of a mushroom, shapes of the caps and stems, gills , pores and spines. We received an explanation of taking spore prints and tips in identifying edible from toxic and not so edible fungi.
We covered Pine Mushrooms, Field Mushrooms, Slippery Jacks and Slippery Jills, Birch Bolete, Shaggy Mane, Shiny Cap, as well as the poisonous species of Death cap, Yellow Staining Mushrooms and fly Agaric.
A great six hours, good company, good conversations and detailed instruction. We ended the day with a luncheon in the hills prepared by Dave of Wild Mushroom Stroganoff, Polenta and a Foraged Green Salad with a glass of wine around a fire. The best part South Australian Beer. Cant go past a Coopers Pale.
I probably should have been taking notes throughout but it was one of those days I just decided to enjoy the experience. Well worth doing a great day out. I came away with a great deal of knowledge and at-least I can now tell what a Death Cap looks like.
class looking under birch tressfly agariclaughing jinsspore samplesspore sample of a death capLeucoagaricus leucothitessome of the landscapelooking out from the mushroom paddockwhole paddock was fullmount worththe cook outits traditional yourve got to have a fire to have a beer aroundmount worthexplaining our foraged green salad, I may never buy lettuce againgreat food, I almost ate it before taking a picture. had to have secondssome of the different species we collected
Needles grow in clusters of 2,3 and 5. Pines with clusters of 2 are red pines, pines with clusters of 3 are yellow pines. Pines with clusters of 5 are white pines.
Im placing this here because on the day I could not remember which was which. Saffron milk caps only grow under Yellow Pines.
The fifth scout of the area. First lesson dont drive unfamiliar tracks fully loaded with a trailer of firewood. Second lesson always have your recovery gear. Luckily I left my compressor in the 4WD or we would have still been there. Not many camping spots near good water sources.
burnt out stump practicing photograhingant nest next to large stumplots of tiny mushroomsnever seen these black and orange oneswhere we got boggedother side of hilljust below where we had to turn backsmall clusterswhat was left after 2 hours of trying to get back up the hillgreat area to explore
We slid down that hill of clay with a jack knifed trailer and had to do a 3 point turn by lowering the tyre pressure to 10psi. Had to move a metre at a time by sliding treds under the front tyres.
