Botany in a Day by Thomas Elpel book heads up

 There's a really good deal on this book on eBay right now. $18 each, free shipping, for returned or slightly damaged (bent corners, etc.) copies of this most excellent book. This is the most current edition. Here's the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Botany-in-a-Day-The-Patterns-Method-of-Plant-Identificat-6-1-Paperbk-or-Softb/164320624968?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908103841%26meid%3Db5ae2c121eb94844b6647b68ec18727d%26pid%3D100227%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D13%26sd%3D164320624968%26itm%3D164320624968%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2053904&_trksid=p2053904.c100227.m3827

Condor Village Parang, Using the Fire Tube, and Wild Edible Plants

 The Condor Village Parang is a hit! I've been working along the fenceline for last few days and it has done a sterling job. I will have to work on the handle to make it a hair smaller-a 4-in-hand file will do the trick and a finish up with sandpaper. My only complaint about the blade is it is convex grind and I will have to remedy that. It still cuts great but I love a flat grind. I've made knives so I have the confidence that I won't wreck this fine tool. I have no complaints about the sheath. It looks like Condor has fixed the problems they had years ago. I see online where some folks have a problem with it being a slow draw blade. Well, this is a tool and not anything near a self defense knife. If you're worried about that then you sure as hell better be packing. My choice is my .357 magnum with 4 inch barrel and target sights. In my opinion you can't beat a revolver.

I've had a few questions about the fire tube. Here's how it works. You get a nice red glowing tip on the cotton with a spark from your ferro rod/sparker/flint and steel. Blow on the glowing ember and put the whole deal into your already prepared birdsnest of tinder. Blow on the nest and when you see thick smoke you should be close to combustion. Keep blowing gently until you see fire. All done. Now pull the rope/wick back into the tube and leave an empty space at least 1/4 inch. Put your finger over the end of the tube and in seconds the ember dies. Let it cool of for a bit and wrap everything backup and put it away. I am careful not to damage the charred end too much so that I can get a good light the next time I put steel to it.

I notice everything going on here at the farm and be it birds, critters or plants I have an idea of whats happening. This week I found several edible wild plants that are coming up. Its been a not so typical north Florida winter so far. We've had more than the usual freezing nights and frost. We've also had a lot of rain. The days are getting longer and it can get up to 70 during the day. This is bringing a lot of stuff to the surface. Here's what I've spotted so far:

shepherds purse  Capsella bursa-pastoris

cleavers Galium sp.

chickweed Stellaria media

henbit Lamium amplexicaule

Florida betony Stachys Floridana

 These two photos show shepherds purse. It gets its name from the shape of the heart shaped seed pods. Note long narrow leaves and tiny white flowers. The whole plant is edible. The lower photo also shows henbit, cranesbill geranium and chickweed.

 These two photos show cleavers. It has a square stem and gets its name from the tiny hooks all along the stem which make the plant stick or cleave to your clothing. Entire plant is edible but its best when young and tender. Older plants can be boiled.

 

 These two photos shoe chickweed. The first photo has chickweed and henbit and the second two species of chickweed. The whole plant can be eaten.

 

 

These two photos show henbit. In the first it is associated with chickweed and cranesbill geranium. The henbit has the tall square stems. The second photo has a good example of how easy it is to confuse plants. The cranesbill geranium has deep grooves in the leaves and small stems whereas the henbit has rounded scalloped leaves and bigger square stems. Henbit is edible raw when young and the older plants need to be boiled and rinsed.

 

 These three photos show Florida betony. It has square stems and is in the mint family. The first two photos show the plant structure and the leaves while the third photo shows immature roots and tubers. Its also called rattlesnake radish for obvious reasons. In the mid to late summer these tubers get up to five inch's long and its easy to gather a latge quantity. The roots and tubers are eaten raw and have a unique taste, some say like celery. The only problem with this plant is the fact that it is one of the most fast spreading and invasive plants in Florida. It ranks right up there with wandering jew, mexican poinsetta, and Bidens alba or spanish needles. I've batted them all. They're winning.

 

Standard cautionary notice!!! Never eat a plant you find in the wild without 100% positive identification. The wrong plant can kill you. Period. There are a ton of books out there these days that will lead you in the right direction. Here are the ones I use:

Botany in a Day by Thomas Elpel-super good book to teach you plants identification!

Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America by Fernald and Kinsey-excellent book with drawings and uses.

Peterson Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants Eastern/Central North America by Peterson-one of the best with excellent illustrations and photos as well as uses.

Wild Edible Plants of Western North America by Kirk. I depended on this book when I lived and traveled in the western US. It has great drawings and descriptions as well as habitat and uses. Most of the plants are also found nation wide.

Of course there are a number of great books that I haven't mentioned but you can check them out on Amazon and see if its something you think you can use. Just do a search for "edible wild plants, foraging, wildcrafting".

More fire kit odds and ends

 I was impressed when I saw this tiny device in Ray Mears "The Survival Handbook" when it came out in 1990. The picture is part of a scan from page 48 of the book. I built one just like it from a Coleman Lantern Spark Igniter. I've had this thing in my fire kit for a long time and its never failed to  start char cloth, commercial tinders such a Coughlans Emergency Fire Starter tinder tabs, and jute. Not a bad little fire starter. It uses common cigarette lighter flints. It was pretty simple to cut down the Coleman's to match the one in the book. I carried it in a small medicine bottle with a few tinder tabs. Amazon has the Coleman Igniter for sale at around $7 if interested. https://www.amazon.com/Coleman-Company-Lantern-Spark-Igniter/dp/B001CEMK1K/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=coleman+lantern+spark&qid=1611968757&s=sporting-goods&sr=1-1 I put this piece of kit in my truck bag since I upgraded to the UST Micro Spark Wheel in my fire kit. 

The strange looking piece of metal in the last 3 pictures is a tool I bought from a member of Bushcraft USA in 2011. He went by the handle Petrifiedwood. I don't know his real name or what happened to him. He made these out of either O-1 or D1 steel and they are really tuff. This thing measures 3 inch's by 1 inch and 3/16 thick. I've used mine to strike sparks with a piece of flint, strike sparks with ferro rods, shave fatwood, as a handhold for a bow drill and a few other tasks. It's a handy tool for the fire kit as it can do a lot of things even non fire related. The long bottom edge of this tool is flat and makes a dandy fire steel, the end is ground to a chisel and its useful for a lot of things.The top edge has a 20 degree angle ground on it and is very sharp so its great for sparking ferro rods, shaving some fat wood or any similar tasks. I keep this with a big ferro rod, a piece of flint, and a container of char cloth in a leather pouch. I usually have this in my back pocket when I'm working here on the farm. I burn a lot of wood, brush and weeds and this keeps me in practice with flint and steel fire making.

The joys of online shopping

 Yeah, right. I live about 20 miles or so from the capital of Florida, Tallahassee. It is a dismal place to shop for anything outdoorsy,survival/preps, etc. There is Dicks sporting goods but I don't do business with the dicks at Dicks because they stopped selling guns to appease the progressive political left. Screw them. There are gun stores here and there and a plethora of pawn shops but prices are higher than retail. Oh, and we have the ubiquitous Wally Werld here and they have goods that range from pure garbage to fairly useful. They keep putting the guns away anytime someone gets into the chicken little routine. For example, election day and swear in day for the idiot Joe B. the pervo. They actually put everything in the back and had the nerve to lie to me and say "the manager who sells guns isn't here today". I will NEVER buy a firearm from Wallys. I've had better luck going to off the wall thrift stores. I've scored some very nice gear. For instance an Outdoors Products 13L small hydration pack brand new never opened for $4. Sweet! A brand new oil lamp for $3. Good deals. Now, as for shopping on the net, I do business with sellers on eBay and Amazon. We own a small business so we get some good deals on supplies and I find some new primitive/survival gear to try out or work with. I do a lot of leather work so most of my new tools are from eBay and I get some real good deals on leather. I recently picked up the Micro Sparkwheel from eBay for cheap and the Condor parang from Amazon on sale. There is a good chance to save a few bucks if you shop wisely. Now there are some real turds doing business on the web and the jerks I bought the Kershaw Camp 12 are a perfect example. I told them the tool was defective, the blade curved to the right, and I wanted my money back. They sent me the return authorization and yesterday I got the refund. Minus $15!!! For a restocking fee!!! They restocked a defective piece of crap to sell to some poor slob!! The blade was visibly bent to the right so this tells me that there is a problem with tempering and/or metal quality. And this is brand new out of the package!!! I've forged enough blades and other tools to know when there's a problem. What a bunch of jerks. When I bought one of the first sheath knives Condor made some time back, I noticed the handle was coming loose and it was a defective pin. I emailed them and they sent me a return label, fixed the handle, apologized and sent me back the knife. That's service. So, keep your eyes open for the good deals and watch who you deal with. Like an idiot, I didn't check out the ratings for the dealer who sold me the Kershaw. I learned the hard way.

Condor Village Parang

I sprang for the parang. Yuck yuck. After the fiasco with the Kershaw useless piece of garbage I bought a real parang-the Condor Tool & Knife Village Parang. I paid $73 plus change at Amazon, free 4 days shipping, and its from the Condor Tool & Knife store so I'm getting the real deal. This is the cheapest I could find it anywhere. The sale price at Amazon was $68.65 so the rest is about $5 in tax's. If you want good gear you have to pay for it. The Village parang is a solid tool weighing in at 1 pound 9 ounces. The blade is 12 inch's long with a 10 inch cutting edge, with 6 inch handle its 18 inch's overall and the blade is 3/16 inch thick.  It is full tang and has a hardwood handle pinned to the blade with heavy brass pins. There is also a brass lined lanyard hole at the back of the handle. It comes in a leather sheath and I remember seeing some You Tube videos about the sheath being shoddy. These were made back around 2013 or so and I hope Condor got the message and remedied the problem. There are a lot of reviews on You Tube but most are pretty boring. I enjoy the videos put out by Paul Coakley as Junglecrafty and a short one by the master of the parang, Ray Mears. All of Pauls videos are well done and you learn a lot. Much better than some young buck wailing on a stump with a plastic handled parang or golok or an 18 inch bladed machete. Of course, I enjoy all of Ray Mears videos and sometimes I catch a few Les Stroud shows. Those are my favorites. As a side note you can get all of Ron Hood and John McPherson's videos on Internet Archive. https://archive.org/search.php?query=woodsmaster&and[]=mediatype%3A%22movies%22 for Ron Hood and https://archive.org/details/primitive_wilderness_skills for John McPherson. John and his wife Geri are the authors of two of the best primitive skills books out there, Naked Into The Wilderness 1 & 2.

I'll be using the parang around the farm and in my travels. I'll be sure to post anything interesting about this quality tool. Here are some images of the CT&K Village Parang.

Less is more......

 ....easier to carry. I have several types of fire making kits such as flint and steel, ferro rod, good old BIC, fire bow & drill and this one. It depends on what mood I'm in or where I'm going to choose the type I take.  This is my sparking wheel fire kit I sometimes carry when out and about. As you can see there isn't a lot of stuff that makes up this kit. In the first picture is a Micro Sparkwheel Fire Starter from UST (Ultimate Survival Technologies) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultimate-Survival-Technologies-UST-Micro-Spark-Wheel-Weatherproof-20-02032-02/323795978453?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 and I paid all of $13 for two of them on eBay. One for my kit and one for the wife's. This is a great little piece of equipment for anyone to own and its very easy to master. There are several YouTube videos showing it, however I personally don't recommend running the wheel on a rock. Using your thumb is plenty good enough. These are about 1 1/2 inches long and come in a handy little tube with instructions and 3 extra flints. I put a spare spring from a defunct Bic lighter which I cut to size in the tube with everything else. I was shown one of these when they first came out and I was impressed by the amount of sparks and the bomb proof construction. Next is a pack of spare flints by Ronson. I recently bought a bulk lot of Zippo flints on eBay, 12 packs of 6 for a total of 72 flints. $10 for all, free shipping. What a deal! These should last for a very long time. I took the holders out of the bubble packs and put them in an empty vitamin bottle with a couple of moisture absorbers. Ronson and Zippo flints are made in Austria and are top quality as well as capable of throwing lots of hot sparks. I think the flints that come with the Micro are made in China but I'll use them up none the less. Here's the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Zippo-Replacement-12-Flint-Value-Packs-for-All-Zippo-Lighter/261508751771?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 The brass tube with the kerosene lamp wick is a fire tube. I made a similar one years ago using a longer piece of brass and some 100% cotton rope. Link: https://ronsprimitiveskills.blogspot.com/2009/09/fire.html This one is made with 3/4 inch wide 100% cotton lantern or lamp wick. Again, I bought two 6 1/2 foot rolls of this for around $6 on Amazon. Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MXXVXW2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1  The tube is made from a fired .38 shell. This is much smaller than the one that uses the rope and you simply roll up the lamp wick, insert and you're just about ready. You need to char the end and to extinguish carefully pull the end of the smoldering wick halfway down the tube and put your thumb over the tube. Simple. The next time you need it just give it a dose of sparks and blow gently on the smoking tip.

Next is a nickel plated brass pill bottle. These are sold at most drug stores and I'm sure they can be found cheaper at Amazon, eBay, etc. This one has a screw top lid with a rubber gasket. Its full of my favorite fire starters - Coghlans. These are getting a little hard to find but in my opinion they are the best. Treat them like petroleum jelly cotton balls and you will get fire at first strike. I don't know the formula but they are cotton with petroleum jelly and some kind of wax. They are pink when brand new. These are over 15 years old and take off like I bought them yesterday.

The small canvas case, about 4 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches, contains this fire kit and a few minor essentials such as a piece of fat wood, some safety pins, a very handy multi use large finger nail clipper, a scalpel blade in its package and my little Brunton key chain compass. I threw in about 5 or 6 pieces of bicycle inner tube maybe 1/4 inch wide. They are great for wet weather fire starting. I keep an eye on the weather and if it even looks like rain I have a small zip lock snack bag full of very dry tinder stuffed in my pocket along with this kit. Just a guess but the whole thing probably weighs less than 5 ounces.

Downsizing

 Next month I will be 69. When you get as long in the tooth as I am, you start to look at all the stuff you own and say "do I really need all this"? A few years back I had a big clean out and got rid of a lot of knives, hatchets, axes, and camping gear. Now I am down to just a few old reliable knives, 2 hatchets and a 3 pound felling ax that never leaves the farm. I kept my Bahco 7" folding saw and my collapsible buck saw. The military pocket chain saw is in my BOB. I whittled away at all the fire making gizmos and a host of other gear. I figure if its going to weigh me down, I don't need it. Let someone else take care of it. I don't use a tent. I like my nylon tarps. I usually use a bedroll instead of a sleeping bag. My backpack is a medium sized one. As for cooking gear I have a stainless wide mouth thermos of 1 liter capacity and my trusty Zebra kettle. I always traveled light anyway and lighter is better. On my last big adventure I carried my Norlund, my Bahco and my Kukri. I did fine. I see some folks out on the trail with everything but the kitchen sink. All kinds of stuff hanging from their packs and belts. That would take most of the fun of woods running away for me.At one point I owned several very good compass's. Brunton, Silva, you name it. I kept the British Army issue one. A Silva, I believe. I have a little Brunton keychain compass for backup. Thats about all I need. My fire kit contains a big ferro rod I got from Going Gear and a Micro spark wheel from UST. I really like Coughlans emergency fire tinder. It is similar to Spark-lite Tinder Quick and works great. I only need a pea sized piece to get a fire going. I bought about six packages of this stuff 10 years ago and have plenty left. It doesn't get old. I can make fire with a bow drill or hand drill in my sleep and I leave them where I used them. The fire kit is for bad weather or emergencies. I do carry a small flint and steel kit in my back pocket to start fires here on the farm. Its just something I do for fun. The whole outfit weighs maybe 3 ounces. The truth is its easy to accumulate a lot of stuff you think you may need someday. Well, someday is here already for this pilgrim.