Wood carving

Here are some photo's of an Owl I carved about 2 years ago. Wood carving helps improve manual dexterity and was actually taught as "manual training" in schools during the 1800's through early 1900's. Do a search at Internet Archives http://www.archive.org/details/texts for "Sloyd" or "Slojd" and you'll see. Notice the style of knife used. Its a Scandi very similar to a wood handled Mora. Matter of fact it probably is a Mora. Basically, the more you practice carving the better and faster you become. In a survival/bushcraft perspective, knocking out a spoon, tent peg or trap part in a few minutes is a valuable skill.

These knife illustrations are from a few of the books available for free download from the archive.
Here are a few titles;
Barter-Woodwork (the English Sloyd)
Hoffman-The Sloyd System of Wood Working
Larson-Elementary Sloyd & Whittling
Salomon-The Teachers Hand Book of Slojd
Schwartz-Sloyd
Sutcliffe-Hand Craft


The owl is carved from a growth that forms on mesquite trees when they are attacked by mistletoe. They look kind of like a club and usually stand straight up on the limb. Unfortunately a lot of mesquite trees are dying from the excess mistletoe growth. I read somewhere that the Indians harvested the mistletoe from the trees. Since this is no longer done the trees are in danger.

Thanks

I would like to thank everyone who responded to the stove request. I'll be putting something together soon. I just got home from shoulder surgery and everything is fine. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (4 hours). They gave me some really good pain killers so I'll be going now...............take care everyone.

Home made camping stoves

I was looking at Mungo's blog and came upon his "Ikea" wood burning camp stove. I've been looking at the "Bush Buddy" but $100+ seems ridiculous! Does anyone else have any plans for their own designs? I'll post them here if you would like. Maybe make an archive of do-it-yourself camp stoves? Who knows..............

Down, but not out

Here's a photo of a variety of Oregon carnelians. These were gathered on the Pacific coast. They are also known as beach agates. I went to a gem show Sunday and I bought a bucket of odds and ends and these were in it. I should be able to get a few nice points out of this material. I also picked up a nice boulder of Lavic siding jasper. This stuff comes from the Mojave desert of California. Its usually brown, red or yellow and a mixture of all three. I'll get a photo on here soon. There were several slabs of obsidian in the deal including mahogany and rainbow sheen. I like knapping slabs since stock removal is half way done.

I've decided that I will not let my bum shoulder put me out of action. Typing is a chore but since I chicken peck anyway, doing the one hand shuffle isn't so bad. I was able to help me load these goodies into the car. After I bust out a few arrow points or knives from this stuff , I'll post pictures.