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Bushcraft Camp Update 17 - Stone Fire Pit, Cooking, Knife Sharpening (SPIDERS)

Description

I head to the bushcraft camp to update the stone fire pit, do some cooking, knife sharpening and when it gets dark I go deep into the woods to search for giant spiders.

Bushcraft Camp Update 16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT7CFCvEJ1c

In the previous bushcraft shelter video, I came to camp and upgraded the large lean to shelter to a supershelter. We added some clear sheet to act as a thermal boost for the survival shelter to help make camp warmer in the winter months. Prior to that camp update, I had built a wood framed roof with adjustable tarp system for when it rains. The next stage was to improve the firepit, so using some pieces of large stone or rocks that I had left over from building at the off grid cabin, I carried these to the camp and began work on the fire pit. It is still a little too small for the super shelter, and it probably needs another two more large rocks to allow a better cooking surface and so that it can take larger logs for the fire in winter months. But it is a start. I cook a steak over the fire on the grill, fire up the hurricane lantern and then head out into the woods at night to see what wildlife I might find. Thanks for joining me on the adventure. - Mike

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Tags: bushcraft,bushcraft camp,camping,bushcraft camp update,stone,fire,pit,cooking,super shelter,solo,solo camping,alone,alone in the woods,cabin,off grid cabin,log cabin,build,building,building a shelter,shelter building,bushcraft shelter,survival,woods,forest,supershelter,spiders,camp,hunting tower,lean to shelter,shelter,raised bed,ladder,ta outdoors camp,ta outdoors cabin

Video Transcription

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that'll do Pig that'll do good lighting where's the light that we mmm that she's the tree the tree shade I was gonna do a bit more of a silent he quiet intro I couldn't be bothered you don't need a cracked open a can of Guinness by the way you know he's just meant to do a camp task and your men are do something someone in your group or somebody's men to get the fire going and you just think crap i crack open a beer love me McGinnis especially in the winter times it's like having a soup did what I could with the fire pay which I'll show you in a minute but to be honest I just want to relax and enjoy the woodland is actually half past 5:00 at night so I'm a little bit late come into the woodland I was gonna do an overnighter but I've actually got to do some bits at home now look after the dog so overnight it's not the cards anymore which sucks but I still coming out I bought a pack with me gonna cook up some food I wanted to get this part of the bushcraft camp done this fire pit love the stuff mmm it's so good definitely my favorite alcoholic beverage by far gonna push cross see fire lighting the same old just a bit silver birch birch bark this is the fire pit of built I say built I just chucked some rocks down it's it's some of those rocks that I had at the cabin pallet cabin some leftover ones so this is like fire pit version ten thousand of one at the bushveld camp and it's still not 100% how I want it but it will do for now so it's more to just have a bit of deflection so I've got it can you see this and then let me zoom back a bit we've got that the air pipe that we built in camp update I think it was 14 where we built the pipe that goes from out the camp and actually draws air through here so I faced the fire this way yes the secondary lean-to shelter over there doesn't get heat as much but this one the main one will well I thought so yeah this is it this is what I've got so far at the camp there's still a lot more like to do just before the winter properly sets in do you know I'm gonna risk it just go with that much let's just go for that much look barely got any scrapings there but we will see if I guess we can get any success don't go out don't you know shit a lot more little bit more like what's the moral of that story it's been lazy right good

they can be to the Spile lazy try again the minimal amount of dust good son you what I just need one of these tonight there we go that was pretty lazy and my part but we got there in the end se5 bit still a bit small to be honest in the summer months I wouldn't be too confident with this being very safe but because we're coming into autumn now I think we might be alright yes it's definitely too small I was doing overnight as I've worn it I've got some more Brown rocks so I'm gonna use those everything's still so dry it's so dry it's awesome awesome for fire lighting but yeah I kind of looking forward to some cooler weather we are beginning of October right now getting into the fall it's coming I'm pretty pleased for that so far that fire pit for just a 5-minute job' it's not too bad no need to get some more any some folks enough for the dog store it's another thing I wanted to do this was just a short short I say short camp update the video might be longer but shorter come up be always McGuiness where's my offer awful Oh

ignoring the plane check out this smoking stick you you that's on the vape all that smoke rings vape in stick so I want it I wanted to come out about here and a bit further that side so it's a nice long big one so I will extend it but you can see the back wall is there hopefully that should bounce some heat back into the main shelter who knows we'll find out in winter I haven't seen a woodpecker here in ages damn it Austin found him again him going up that Scots pine tree

what so what I've done is I've got the metal plate underneath steel underneath this large granite rock I think they're granite put this flat slab rock down there's one two three rocks the other side and then the old kind of masonry blocks from the previous firepit i just put here so any sparks that fly out hopefully hit them first and dissipate before they hit this really PT soil which is still so dry where we've had such a dry summer this is what I'm really skeptical about of this campus so let's so PT in the summer when it's dry this just catches light you got to be so careful but I need to build this fire because it's that logs not going to work while the camp well the fires getting sorry I'm gonna do a bit of funky oh yeah a bit of foraging because we're beginning of autumn now and it's perfect time for sweet chestnut so castanares sativa which is the sweet chestnut tree really awesome tree and looks like squirrels have already been let me show you this is do you mind thank you so you can see the leaves are just turning these days they're not quite fully going yet it's not full autumn but this is the show of a sweet sweet chestnut tree and actually the squirrel has been kind enough to leave one of the nuts behind this one hasn't fully developed yet fully formed but they come in this really spiky outer casing which is actually really soft and furry on the inside those of you who know your sweet chestnuts will know what I'm talking about but soft and fair inside this is what the leaf looks like it's quite a large leaf and they're dotted around various different Woodlands this one you know if you look up here it's all pine all pine all Scots pine very dense but actually over there it's all broadly from beech and more ash and things like that cabins just their camp is over there but um yeah these are these are last season's ones probably much older but that's what that's what they do they tend to open and then drop the see they're not and that the squirrels actually tend to get to them first I try and find one that's not open yet oh here we go maybe over here you generally need a glove to open them but oh this one you can see it's starting to split there say say yeah it's obviously much easier with gloves you can just twist in and pull it open but without gloves this it's pretty spikey so you just need to prise it open these these probably won't be big enough because it's it's quite early fall and this is only a small it's not a very mature tree it's fairly small so I think there's usually about four to six nuts in each of these good way and oh yeah so you see that if you guys can see that these are delicious when you roast them now in our supermarkets over here in the UK most supermarkets will generally import the chestnuts some giant chestnuts like this this big the supermarket's import these giant I think they're from Italy I think you can get them from Turkey you guys in Turkey can get big sweet chestnuts but I think most of them are from Italy they're lovely there they're massive great things and it's a real kind of tradition over here the Christmas markets christmas markets in general in europe are hugely popular and sweet roasted sweet chestnuts are you know it tend to be one of the favored snacks around christmas time and the festive period but these as you can see if I can get this 100 you can see on this one see how it's not fully developed yet it's gonna focus yeah it's not fully developed yet still white here it's still turning color and they're very small islands are small and they're still edible you still roast them that one won't be very nice day it's also very soft and you need to wait until they're hard

but you do really well to find some perfectly round big ones they're just very very hard to come by and often the squirrels will beat you to it so just get here early in the morning at first light and I'll just beat you to it so you have to kind of move around a lot and you have to be alert can you see that that's it that's a small too young too young to grow near those hunters out there now is an ideal time for squirrel hunting especially with you if you've got an air rifle or a little you know like a tutu that's a writ now's a really good time for rifle shooting and just general shooting squirrels so you guys can get a rough idea cabin the new fire pit which I built I'll put a big link to the video up here somewhere and camp over here so apparently dense woodland all Scott spine here all broadleaf there lovely oak tree here another oak tree there oak is always the last to go leaves leaves it just guy look at that just about the guy but these will last ages it'll be the last tree to turn the color probably all the acorns have pretty much strips on this one squirrels looking good now cooking good where's Arthur

ever ever put it huh Arthur so I wanted to show you a lot of you have asked how I sharpen my knife kind of out in the field when my axe have got that kind of sharpening Park although I do use this as well this is my tool maintenance kit and in it I do just have what's called a DC for just the name of it sharpening stone bought this years ago and it's got a sort of diamond and ceramic side rough on a coarse side to it this is actually a newer one wild almost knackered how am I gonna do this okay so my knife at the moment is fairly in need of a bit of TLC not majorly so what I tend to do if I was just just kind of refining the edge a bit just to get it back and it's only got small mix then I would just use this side it's a bit fluffier and I just I literally just keep my fingers out the way get the bevel find the bevel and then just cut just gently obviously being aware of my fingers towards myself there's loads of different ways to do this this is just my preference I do it just a couple of runs getting that bevel right it takes a while to find the bevel obviously if my fingers are completely out the way I know it's gonna be safe but you might want to do it a different way you can just nail this to a tree stump if you wanted to secure it in place maybe with some paracord but I do this way and I just worked my way along the bevel can use the stone if you want as well sometimes that's actually easier so we're actually getting a bit dark enough little tip which I do in my head torch I've shown this before in a video but I always reverse the battery because I've had it so many times there's the on button where this is pushed again it's my backpack turned on and then I've done an overnighter with a dead battery not very nice at all so this is just a single double a battery head torch but I always reverse the contacts I know you're not supposed to it's quite bad but it just saves me running out of battery in case the worst happens they then what I go to do my when I need to head torch which is seen screw this down we're good to go winter is finally coming usually had torches more that time - first time this year actually with the fewer hands still Manson or Huracan lamp is of great ease and I leave this one at camper just because this you know I don't have to lug it back in there leave it with some fuel you can use you know methylated spirits or paraffin I think I use paraffin in this one this bit can be time-consuming and you should they look lost turn the weight down yeah you can adjust the brightness of a flame if I bring this in that's a really dim flame and you turn this little nozzle here and it lifts the wick up so that it burns brighter obviously less burn time and it smokes more like that if you can see the smoke it smokes a lot more if you have a high flame and it also gets it all around the glass and blackens it up which isn't good because obviously it doesn't that offers much light than say I usually go I barely to kind of turn it on sometimes about their hanger up that they'll be spending some more hanging points ready [Music]

so just gonna grill today Gabriel simple steak keeping it simple and quite yet figured out how to put folding grill on there yeah I guess I could put two logs either side and rest it like that but as this has legs might as well be something oh that might do it

so as well as I can of Arthur just got us a 28-day matured steak rump I think it is a trunk cut get some sticks buy somewhere clean its takes place I don't cook the steak on the car on the fire for a while actually tell Earl I did it with dust in the other day she cooked one but that was that was Friday this is some it's gonna be grilled so has been a while to be fair Phyllis date spice I think I've got some asparagus somewhere in my backpack put that in as well let's get this straight and the grill some asparagus and there is well actually it's almost I mean you can roast it so I guess it's kind of like roasting it she's almost ready to town in fact oh yeah

yes stakin author called it wrong yep that looks good I've been waiting a long time for you and that ladies and gentlemen is as simple as it gets man could not want much more in life than steak and Guinness roasted / grilled asparagus / woof I'm joking that's really nice that's good on to the main event it's very well done hmm Tommy's steak over the fire such a simple dish but but effective all right so good not much wildlife today compared to where I've been before in the winter it goes a bit devoid here except about now you get the deer coming through going a bit crazy one last piece I miss state it's only been about week what in the bed one of you noticed I did bedroom when was it last video or something and you're like what who's devastated where the beard when I had a pretty big beard it was about down here it was just getting really itchy quite hard to just manage and just get crumbs and crud in it so I gave it a trim it was a hard choice I didn't really want to but I sort of went for it and then I immediately regretted it afterwards so then I grew it a bit more again and I've just trimming it back now I might just grow out a bit for winter who knows I feel like this is the last of the warm nights it's gonna get colder now I'm looking forward to it ready got the wool blankets got the basic gear like going back to basics so I know that I've done a few videos at the cabin and here the camp lately I've not done sort of many solo trips in fact I haven't done a solo trip for a while so thanks for your patience for those guys who watch those videos there will be a solo solo trip coming up before that there's I think one more video here or at the cabin I can't remember there now I've got a multiple day overnighter coming four days three days four days don't remember and then actually following that I think I'll be going on another multiple day overnighter so basically the next month or so two months I've got a number of overnighters solo some with mates so yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be really good I'm really looking forward to it I appreciate the content at the moment it's been a little bit repetitive maybe but I needed to do the firepit of the cabin I wanted to do the fire pit here at a camp and make a start on it so we're getting there we're slowly getting there love this little lantern maybe she'll get a walk around the woods let's give her a walk around the woods with just this let's do it I'm have to whack it up but let's go see what's out of the woods so I barely got like 20 yards and I found this spiderweb just reflecting off the head torch look at this orb weaver that is a beauty just sitting in its web lair and actually it's a fairly big one if you look at the perspective I put my finger near it it's quite a decent-sized orb weaver it's a female full of eggs that is awesome

but it's really cool I nearly walked into it beast it'll be wary of these guys I just saw the web reflecting up there in the middle of your screen just there if you can see that reflection that's a spiderweb that's this one of these all believers and you can see it's going vertical it's going all the way up this tree you can't really see if it's going all the way up this Scott spine miles up into the air but what is awesome is that's how they that's how they do their web so they to get across each tree from tree to tree League they get on the floor and then they keep calling across with the web playing the web still go to another tree literally sometimes 14 15 yards away and then string up their web and it's incredible and I'm trying to get I'm trying to find you guys this this web if you can see on the camera you probably can't see it I can see it it's coming down there as the web comes down to hear it then it goes across and that's when the spiders gone on the floor and that's probably somewhere over there I'm trying to find the spider but I sadly I can't ah that did mean awesome to see it go into the other tree to make its web and again I nearly walked into the bloody thing off we go whoo into the woods

see what we can find again other than spiders

just don't wave us today I can't find those ruts that Lee whatever it was Hawk was digging and here's the camp in all her glory

what a nice nice something stupid I left my tripod out in the woods and now I can't find it wish I'm going on an adventure

thank you

well that is just about it from me here at bushcraft camp thank you so much for watching I appreciate it it's been a good evening at the bushcraft I'm sadly I can't do and have a night I'm pretty gutted to be honest I would have loved to have done one I was in the mood to do one but situations change and that's you know by the by but I'm out next week so yeah stay tuned to the channel thanks very much for watching and I see you soon

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About the Author

TA Outdoors

TA Outdoors

Bushcraft, Wild Camping, Wilderness Hiking Trips, Solo Overnight Camps, Shooting, Hunting and Backpacking. My dog joins me on some of the trips. His name is Jaxx.

My name is Mike. And I'm addicted to adventure...

Check out our other YouTube Channel TAFishing: https://www.youtube.com/user/TAFishing

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