Arrows

Earlier in the year I made this batch of arrows so I could stump shoot, hunt, and shoot at targets without worrying about losing arrows.  This is a problem that I have always had, and is just the nature of archery.  I made them out of river cane, and privet shafts.  There is an assortment of arrow heads, including metal broad heads I bought, homemade broad heads, and bone that I fashioned out of cow bone I found in the woods.  For the fletching I used Trueflight full length fletching that I cut myself for the right shape                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

 

One of the bone arrow heads I attached to the shaft with deer sinew I harvested from a deer last fall. 

 

 

 

After selecting a piece of sinew,  I leave it in some water for a few minutes to soften it up.  Then I use it to attach the arrow head to the shaft.  The sinew will harden, shrink, and glue itself together as it dries.  So you don't even have to tie a knot, and I did this one without any additional glue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The set contained twenty two arrows.  The cane arrows are my favorite because they stay straight, and are easier to process into shafts.  The privet is alright and is a good choice especially where I live, but it will tend to bend and stay that way until you heat or steam straighten them.  I cut nocks right into the shaft, and the fletching was seven inches long, and cut in a medieval  style.  This may be quite long by most peoples standards but it worked well for  me,  and it gives it a really cool sound when an arrow is sent through the air.

 

 

 

Here are some of the bone points.

 

 

 



 



 

The finished set.

The Red Fox

This spring I had the pleasure of watching a family of foxes that were located on a farm where I do some work.  I first noticed an adult Red Fox cross the yard and the barn yard in broad day light,  This was very unusual.  Then one day I was driving by the barn and saw the adult fox duck into the barn through a hole, between the door and the wall, but behind her I saw a little gray ball of fuzz run in after her.  Then I knew there must be a den near by.  So I backed up and went to the other side of the barn.  By this time the mother fox was laying in the grass out side the barn watching over her young.  As I approached she barked at me and trotted off, but she left behind three kits.  They were dark grey and quite small.  I did a little reading up on them and figured them to be about five to six weeks old.  They leave the den for the first time at around four or five weeks and their fur was still grey, another indicator that they were still rather young. 

 

 

 

I watched them for a long time, and would see them periodically through the weeks.  They had little fear of me, even the adults didn't seem to afraid although they would always trot away sometimes laying down close by to watch.  Both male and female foxes help feed their young.  The female hunts once the kits are able to leave the den, but she hunts closer by so she can nurse them,  the male however, hunts on a wider range and doesn't spend as much time at the den site.  The male will bring the female part of his catch.  Once the kits are old enough the adults start to feed them regurgitated meat from what they catch.  They mostly eat mice and rabbits.  I found rabbit fur, a duck wing, and turkey feathers around this particular den.  Foxes will take an old ground hog den and dig them out a little because they are too flat, and use them to raise their young.  The den will have multiple entrances although they may prefer one over the rest.

 

 

 

 

 

I began to take my camera with me in the hopes of getting some good pictures.  I never got any good opportunities until the day I took these.  There was an adult but the photos I took were not so clear.  I think there was only this one kit there but there may have been two.  By this time they were old enough that their fur has turned red. 

 

 

This little fellow was not very camera shy, I got nice and close, and as long as I didn't make any sudden moves he was O.K. with that.

 









Virgin Falls camping trip

Back at the first of November some friends, my Dad, brothers and myself took a trip to Virgin Falls state park.  We found it was a great place to hike.  There was a good amount of fairly difficult trails,  and a large cavern. Also the Caney Fork river was next to one of the camping areas.  The leaves were in their best color, and there were some good views.  We just camped over night but it was a very enjoyable trip.

This is Virgin falls, probably over 100 feet tall.

Here is my bag that I took. I added my leather sling bag to the back of my backpack for extra room.

 

                                                          One of the many rock overhangs.

 

 

 



 

Nothing like something warm to drink around the campfire.

 

 

 

 

All the wood was a little damp so the fire was a bit hard to keep going.

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of the views that we stopped for on our way out.  I definitely want to come back here again.  I am always excited to get to explore a new trail.

Back to Tennessee

Well I'm back in Tennessee, and I'm glad to be here.  My time at the Alert Academy was a very good time of learning, and growing.  Basic training was one of the most challenging times of my life and stretched me in many ways.  Emergency Response training taught me many valuable skills including high angle rescue, rescue diving, structural firefighting, rescue systems, and wild land firefighting.  All these classes were very hands on, and we got lots of good experience.  I also went on to take the EMT coarse they provide.  I found that I like emergency medicine quite a bit.  We got almost three weeks of clinical training.  Working on the ambulance and in the emergency room were very enjoyable. Also there was a lot of time spent studying the bible, wisdom searches, and personal time in the word.  During the coarse of basic it became clear to me that I could not finish without the Lord's help, but he was faithful and saw me through.  I have been away for the better part of the year, but it's good to be back in the woods of Tennessee. I have spent quite a lot of time hunting this season and I've been on a very enjoyable camping trip, but more about that later.

Basic training

Starting January 19 I will be at the ALERT Academy in Texas going through basic training, so I will not be posting much for quite some time.  I had planned to post some more before I left but I am having some difficulty loading pictures. Here is a link to their website http://www.alertacademy.com/iaa/, and here is a link to their blog http://www.alertacademy.com/alert/blog/.  And I wanted to re post this photo I took last year, it  is one of my favorites.

 

Camp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Well I have not posted much lately, so here are a few things related to woodcraft and the outdoors that I have been doing.  The pictures are from a camping trip I took back in November.  I wanted to test out some new  equipment, build  a shelter at my camp site, and camp in colder weather.  I started out late so I ran out of daylight quickly, but I was able to build a shelter before dark.  The main idea behind the shelter was to use some cedar tree tops that I knew were in the woods.  So I tied a cedar pole across the two trees at the camp site, and leaned the cedar tops end first on the cross piece.  Then I trimmed all the twigs from the inside and made sure I could get in.  Then I covered the top with leaves and branches as needed.  During the night it kept the cold wind from coming blowing in, all except for a spot that had not been covered, and that kept my face cold.  I will need to improve this shelter in the future,  but it was not bad for being built in a short amount of time.  My fire was very cheery and was easy to start and easy to keep burning, this is not usually the case.  The fire kept heat coming into the open side of the shelter and made it very comfortable, if I had built the shelter a little higher it might have been even warmer.  It got quite cold and there were deer running around my camp all night long.  At one point I heard two raccoons chattering in the dark very close.  Deer were all over the place and I could see them in the moonlight.  The next morning I sat by my fire drinking cups of hot tea warming my insides and watching wildlife, the deer did not seem to notice my fire and walked by quite undisturbed.  A little later a group of turkeys came within just a few yards, it turned out that my shelter acted as a blind and concealed me very well. 

 

I have also been making alot of spoons, forks, and other utensils. This has kept me very busy. 

 

I have also been experimenting with a short bow that is attached to my back quiver.  I use it as a back up for any other bow I take out.  Well that is a little bit of what I have been doing in my woods, I hope you all have a happy new year.

 

 

 

 

Fresh meat

Well I finally got some meat for the table.  I shot this little 8 point buck the evening of opening day of the rifle season, at about 30 yards with my 30-30 lever action.  My brother and I had been hunting all day long and it was nice to finally get this deer at the end of a long and hard day's hunt. The Lord was very good to me with providing all of this meat.  It will be very good eating.

 

 

 



Hunting

 I have been doing allot of deer hunting in my spare time, and although I have not been able to harvest any deer yet I have gotten quite a few pictures on my outings. So here are a few of them.

 

 

 

Here is a grey squirrel, it had a partner in the tree with it, and they just sat there and looked at me like they didn't know what to think of me.  The leaves were wet so I was able to move around without making much noise at all.

 

 

 

This is the other squirrel that was with the first.  I could have easily shot him, instead I shot a few pictures.

 

 

 

This is a buck rub on a yellow poplar.  This and another poplar a few feet from it have been rubbed for the last three or four years.  This is  what I call an annual rub, and it is rather unusual for a tree to be rubbed year after year, at least in my experience.  It is on a fairly well traveled trail and right in the middle of some very thick cover, and leading into a part of a field where I often see deer.  I would guess that the deer (or bucks) feel very comfortable using this area.

 

 

 

My brother gave me these notebooks for my birthday and they are really neat.  I use one to keep all my hunting records in, deer sightings, stand placement, deer sign, and so on.  They come in packs of three and they fit in a shirt or coat pocket very well.  I do not have the web address for Field Notes on hand, but I'm sure you can Google it and find it.  I would recommend them to anybody that needs a small notebook or likes to write things down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Dawn.

 

 

 

Here is a fawn, I could have shot a whole bunch of fawns if I had wanted to, but I don't like to shoot the fawns.  They just don't know danger very well and they come in close and give more shot opportunities.  I have seen lots of deer, a few nice bucks, LOTS of squirrels!!!, and even a coyote chasing a deer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is my self bow that I am using.

 

Fall hike

This past weekend we had our annual church camp.  The leaves were very nice, and I was able to get lots of pictures.  There is a hiking trail that goes part way around the camp and it goes through some nice woods.  The first day I hiked it was cloudy, damp and cool, the second day the wind had dried everything out, and the sun had come out, but it was colder.

 

 

 

 

Here is the driveway looking toward the camp exit.

 

 

 

My knife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American Beech (Fagus grandifolia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The leaf in the center is Sassafras (Sassafras albidum), a very useful plant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo).  I had been seeing turkey sign the whole time, then I saw these out in a corn field close to the end of the trail.

 

 

 

 

 

Plantain (Plantaginaceae).  Plantain has a host of medicinal uses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yellow- Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera).

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the trail was about a mile long, and it had some easy ups and downs, I was glad to be able to explore some new territory.