One more for the road...

I leave again tomorrow, and wanted one more day in the woods before I depart.

Nothing out of the ordinary, just enjoying the tranquility of winter in a shelter doing some fire prep and a biscuit in a cup, thanks for that IA Woodsman, turned out pretty good.

Oh, and there's a bit of bacon...

I'm off to work for the rest of this week with more travel right after. So this will likely be it for a while. I enjoyed the time I had, grateful for it.

Thanks for looking.

A Day Out With Ace

Ace and I went for a walk today, was cloudy and spitting snow all day but it was good for the both of us to get some woods time in.

I'm often asked exactly what I did to be able to keep Ace from running off all the time. The breed was bred to run from man, away and drawing hard on the line, the sled skimming the snow as the man shouts direction and encouragement. It's what these dogs were meant to do. It's a combination of luck, geography and bond I think. He stays when I want him to, comes when I call, he doesn't streak and for that I'm grateful. I think most of the reason is he isn't leashed, tied, chained, or locked inside. He's free and thus his energy level remains relatively level and even keeled.

The video shoes us afield with both of us doing the kinds of things we were meant to do.



Some of the other images from the day...

Today was the first honest outing with the Heavy Cover Titanium Canteen. If fits very snugly in the side pockets of a Frost River Isle Royal Jr.

It was very cold today, the titanium lid froze to the canteen itself, it was very hard to get the cap off the first time. A couple taps and it came free but there is a definite possibility of freezing the lid on.

Random shots of fire prep, gear used and so on.

This is a Nordic-ware pan, kinda has a concave bottom, has a nonstick coating and is very light. I wanted to try it out for baking over a camp fire.

Using a wooden spoon to push the mix out over the bottom of the pan.

Pulled some coals out of the fire and set the pan on them, then scooped some more coals onto the top.

Thanks for looking!

A Walk Along A Frozen Shore

A brief outing along the frozen shore of Lake Superior.

Collection of stills for those who don't want to watch the video. The ice was like giant sheets of fractured glass at the water's edge and to see that you'll have to watch the video. I couldn't get any good stills of it that did it justice. Some of those pieces are huge and incredible, clear as glass and some as large as a SUV.

I've lived a lot of places but live here now in large part because of the sheer beauty and wonder of the place. While all of the seasons here are gorgeous none can quite compare to winter, the King of Seasons for me.

One Handed Day Out

Put this up in the forums the other day. It's a day in the woods shraftin one handed.

With surgery on my left hand and having limited to no use of it I still wanted to spend sometime outside, the following is how it went.



Thanks for looking!

Titanium Canteen from Heavy Cover

Not long ago Terry (Monkey Stomp Gear Reviews) did a review of the Ti canteen offered by Heavy Cover. I knew I wanted one but hemmed an hawed about it for a couple weeks. Finally I made the decision and placed an order for the Titanium canteen.

Then I got a phone call the next day, caller ID popped up as a local number but I didn't recognize the name. Turns out it was Chris, owner of Heavy Cover. We're almost neighbors! He lives in the town closest to me and after getting the order realized he'd be shipping quite locally, so he did some back tracking and found Frostborne Publications and ran down the blog.

Long story short he called me and wanted to know if I'd like to meet, sure beats paying shipping right, not to mention I wanted to meet him anyway.

We met today and talked about a range of topics not the least of which was Bushcraft and gettin out in general. We're planning a couple outings, looks like there's going to be more than me in some videos, man I am stoked!

So thanks Terry, not only for the product review, I'd never even heard of them till you did it, but also in a round about way I got introduced to a good dude right here in my neck of the woods!


How awesome is that?

To the point.

When I analyzed it I realized I'd paid well over the asking price for one of these each year for the past three years in various other pots and bottles, never really liking them as the final solution. Annually I was spending more on cook gear than the cost of one of these and I'd done it for three years! It took a minute for that to sink in.

It's too soon to do any kind of proper Grouchy thoughts on the matter but it's off to a good start. Will definitely be 'burning it in' this weekend.

I can't get over how light it is. The Ti canteen, cup, lid all weigh less than the single standard stainless steel cup by itself.

You'll be seeing more of this in the near future!