Building a Rock Fireplace INSIDE THE FORT IN THE WOODS-Sawhorse, Breakfast on the Fire, Axe Station.

Hey folks, how you doing? Joe here, we're at the fort. It's a little bit of a rainy day, but that's all right. We've got a project today. The main project we want to do today is to build a proper fire pit. Now you've already saw me importing the rocks from the lake. There's no rocks around here, which means I'm going to have to cut a trail from the put-in to my fort so that I can push a wheelbarrow through. Now I'm probably going to have to make two trips because even getting the rocks from the lake up the hill was a huge chore and I have to walk much farther now in the woods over top of downed logs and things like that so we'll take two trips in because it's gonna be too heavy I'm gonna need my saw my axe my gloves and we'll go out and we'll clear some trail just stuff like this again this is one of those break offs from the ice storm this is the top of one of them but this is all kind of get out of my way and that's it's been there for some time look at the decay look at the dirt wow yeah it's got to be a little mouse home or something too look at all that this is actually a pretty decent sized log uh down there it's pretty thick i think i'll cut it so anyone who's followed the channel for years will know this this is my grandma's axe i have a uh one of my most popular videos from back before i got popular was called my bushcraft axe and this was that this is probably like 10 years ago or something this is my Nan's axe found the head in her basement when I moved in had a buddy re-handle it great axe it's got a crack I messed up when I moved to the new house tried to split wood with it got a crack in the handle got to replace it but I think it's okay for now I want to make a big V here and hopefully just be able to move the log over after I chop it make it a little bit easier to flip over it's in there still puzzle pieced in with all these other deadfalls and jenga it in, if you will. Will you? Not cold, not cold anymore. Stinks, rotten dank. So all those other trees that I just did were really not that bad. We could go around them or over top of them, but this is the spot where I know it's gonna be difficult. Okay, well that's not bad, we can mush that one down. Cut this, and not even difficult, just more work. Cut that, cut that, cut that. Now we're pretty smooth sailing. Just gotta go through these trees, around that then we're laughing so the other things on the agenda for today after I move all the rocks and create this nice fire pit cook up some bacon and eggs and a bagel make a nice breakfast sandwich and I also bought a big tarp a big brown tarp that I can potentially put out here I might have to measure it up and put it up next time because I don't know the specific method that I'm going to be using to attach the tarp to the top of this shelter oh yeah soaked in sweat my My heart's pounding in my chest, but we did it. We got one more load to do. Invigorated. As much as I'd love to just dump this wheelbarrow out, wheelbarrow style, I'm afraid that some of these Limestone stones will break. So, a little gentle like. Uh oh, a little gentle like. Thought about probably double this total. Settle down, settle down. Oh man, that was some work. Sweating my butt off. Some food, I just ate a banana and a granola bar before I left. I've burned all that off for sure. some food real quick, pick up this fire pit, look for some suitable wood, cook up a great brunch, wow this tarp that I bought is 16 by 20. there's no way that this is 16 feet long or wide, we'll have some overhang on the sides and then 20, there's no way that this is 20 feet going up here, so this will extend onto the roof so what what I can do actually is replace this tarp with this one, same spot it is and then go up and it'll go farther than that tarp does up there and it'll cover maybe half of that roof, might do everything I need that's for after or next time, I'm really not certain but uh let's get this fire pit suitable rocks definitely i have to decide where i want my fire pit because it'll be permanent after this oh a little piece of rock broke off from the fire um they'll be permanent after this so i want to make sure i have it in the right spot where it's going to be out of the way of everyone it's still going to give me room enough to walk around so if i'm sitting in that chair that fire is way too far away from me now i certainly can move that chair that's not an issue i can move it anywhere i want in here and i can put other chairs in here to sit too but do i want my fire pit there in the middle of the shelter fort fort fort it's a fort where do i want it well if i here there's like a little hill going up right here okay if i put it just here i'll be closer if my chair is here i'll be closer to the fire it's less out of the middle of the whole place it is in the walkway though because i'm going to build a substantial size pit too maybe i'll just bring it a touch like maybe a foot closer not as close as is that let's start making it and see that's the thing i don't ever really have too much plans when i come out here it always just like works out it always just goes by what's happening at the time and i really like that and i'm fine with that and if you want to change things after move them around that's still totally cool there's no problem with that I guess I'll get all my rocks over here see what I'm working with show me what you're working with move those rocks build a pit I did this before it's an old bit this one I think is the biggest pretty substantially big look at all the pockets in it all the pores from the night pores but this is from water swirling around in there over however long in Lake Huron. I don't know if I want to line it with rocks too or not. I might want to build like it up off the ground. I think I might have enough rocks for that actually because in all honesty I don't want my fire pit too much longer than this. Really I could probably use this big fat one. Let's see a little bit bigger. Yeah it's a little bigger than this. Flat we can do this. That's lining up. That's as big as I want to go for the pit maybe I'll put a couple in front to like level it off rectangle it off as it were definitely like that Bam look at that it's meant to be meant to be sturdy fish looking on here doesn't look like the outline of the fish I don't have many rocks left three big ones three big flat ones at least this is kind of leaning in so I figure if I prop this big round one behind that's not going to go anywhere it's going to give a lot of support and i might be able to have it not lean in so much like i said i do want to showcase this one with the holes in it wherever it went wherever you go where you go okay okay i don't hate that i just got to get that in there properly so i got one more cool oh two more snap not too shabby could use a little bit more rocks just to like level it out from like boom boom like make a rectangle there like i was talking about but for the most part that's up off the ground it's a huge huge platform that can have a really decent fire there and with these all backing it's going to kick the heat back onto me i will go around and collect some clay and sand and dirt soil throw it all in there pack it in better get a couple more rocks from home but i am pretty happy with this all right well before anything else happens i need to eat because my stomach is very angry at me inside yeah bone dry perfect you know I built this big old tripod for an overnighter last year with tripper so he didn't knock it over I needed to be stable but I think I might be able to turn this I've been using as a ladder you've seen me get up and down there on there a hundred times but I think I might be able to turn this into some kind of a saw horse or saw aid at least so let's see I can move it back when I need it for a ladder it's not a problem you can make a proper ladder for it the fort ladder fort if not now we can lower this and make another one of these and then put it across and that'll be a sawhorse it's not time for that right now it's time to eat food well this might work actually well that works you know if this is dry now there's a crack here I might have water might have got into this feels rotten that was soggy and rotten okay we got one good piece from it it's not bone-dry all right well we got a sawhorse and we got one piece of wood a piece of wood yes oh no oh no well I got it around the one I wanted but it went on another one as well there it is well that worked I don't know how dry that piece is and my thing is stuck let's see if we can get it that's stuff wonder if this is even dry oh get the saw over here and find out whoa she's dry at least on one side of it say that and then it starts to get easy oh the core is no good ah look at that huh the outside is great the core is no good just like me watch this that's dense hard stuff then sponge very soft i just want hardwood i just want some dry hardwood the woods i normally don't go to i found this this is one tree this and that one next to it got two really really dry solid pieces of maple i want to spend some time cutting these up well i'm going to cut one piece and get of fire going and as that's fire starting I'm gonna cut the rest up have my brush before too long there's a bunch of birch bark it's wet it doesn't matter I'll keep it in my pocket anyway just to somewhat dry it off somewhat but doesn't matter alright let's see how good this saw horse is gonna work this way I'm not hunched right over the ground cutting all day you can see when I use the saw I use the full length of the blade sometimes it busts up on my finger but not too bad you got to learn how when to stop without stopping too short gloves help buffer it for sure okay we're dry let's uh split this you can hear how dry it is perfect it's slick i'm gonna keep all of this wood good i'm gonna cut it up into decent size pieces and keep it underneath for because this is quality quality stuff night again soon and uh once it gets like pretty snowy and this will be good firewood for cooking and keeping got my MP knife with me from Matt Paul check them out MP knives on Instagram very solid work this is a convex i'm just going to bust some of this wood down a little bit let's sit down we'll sit down Matt sent me this knife to mess around with i played around with it a little bit but i have a lot of rotation of them so anyways getting this one out today it's a pleasure to use Matt's a good guy i met him through Bushcraft USA we were on there for a long time together camped a couple times together He's in say where he is in case he doesn't want people to know but he's in the States for sure MP knives on Instagram He's a blacksmith actually forges and all if I'm not mistaken Could be wrong, could be wrong, the full height convex. It's pretty thick, maybe 5/16 or 5/32 seconds Maybe even 3/16ths beefy beefy stuff. So we can make some nice curls slicing through it This is hardwood too, I've got my prep all laid out here So I've got, this is really my second stage here But the shavings are not enough by themselves, not enough amount of them They would be enough if I got enough of them It would be sufficient, but I've got birch bark and somewhat on the inside, some of it's dry, just bust it up It's at the other, the other stuff like the the most the majority of it is quite wet to get this going even if it takes a couple sparks of the old fire steel so we got that, we got that together actually the shavings might even connect, I'm having a hard time speaking, I'm so hungry, the shavings might grab the spark and work so first, second, third, fourth stages, I have my old buddy Nick from HF Survival School, super duper fire steel he made me, see this knife throws pretty decent sparks, the birch bark ended up catching the shavings on top and then turn it all upside down she'll go she'll go brace here one stick in it old school terry barney style as always it takes me a hot minute to get my fire prep ready but then once it's ready and going sorry once it's ready the fire gets going no problem i collected all hardwood for this because it's been raining and snow melting off everything and everything is just saturated with water let me show you an example normally I could just grab like some of these pine twigs or spruce twigs or whatever and you could still do it I just felt like getting some dry wood see there you can see they're slick that port looks so cool wait till that wall is done and that wheelbarrow is out of there oh fire we have made fire get some more pieces on there now other good reason to use all hardwood this is a smokeless fire now for the most part all dry dry wood It's not really that big a deal. I brought some nails in here This is just a cotton wrapped up around some nails in order to put the tarp on but we gotta wait and see What the deal is. I don't think I'm gonna be putting it on today. Got some eggs in here So this is the way I this is the way I pack my eggs Got there's a 12 centimeter zebra Billy can this is one of my oldest pieces of kit ever if you look at it It's like an egg shape itself because it's been warped and heated so many times I've used this on like five-day extended winter camps cold camps insert goes in there nice and tight because of because of the oval shape of the pan pot I'll put my bagel in my lovely everything bagel woodsman's breakfast right that hook goes in there and I got two eggs farm fresh eggs wrapped in some paper towel they just go in gingerly inside there insert goes in there put the bacon in top four pieces there nice little package neat little package this is my Snow Peak titanium spork that i've had for a long time and this is a GSI flipper spatula it's foldable as well this is my olive oil filled with debris and this is my field skillet my cast iron that is taking shape and getting oiled up like crazy and becoming my own super happy with that field company this is a size eight made in the states wow that's a gnarly piece man that's gonna be some good firewood one night all right i've let the hardwood fire die down i never even really tested to see if this would still stand up here but it seems like it will a little bit lopsided but that's okay so i think i want to cook my bacon right on the coals uh just to make more use of this hardwood that way i'm not going to eat all the grease either it's going to drip through and then i can cook my eggs in the pan make my little sandwich up so it'll be pretty good i want to get that bacon on real soon just let the the heat and a little bit of flame there try and clean it off a bit and then i'll maybe scrape it with some wood no most dank on there you know, Rocky Mountain fever no fork fever, oh my tummy's growling the dank coming off, how many How many times have I said dank in this video? I think it's like three count, three count dank, three dank count in the video. Too bad Doug wasn't here, he'd be confused. Is it a good thing? Sometimes it can be. I want everybody to go over to Doug's page, actually go to his Instagram, go to Doug Linker, his Instagram, and on his latest post just blow it up. Be like, go camping with Joe, blow it up for me. If you wanna see that, I want to do it. He doesn't listen to me, maybe he'll listen to you. Doug's a busy guy. I'm not joking about going to blow him up though, but camp with me. I'm dead serious with that Alright, let's get this bacon on here I didn't even intend to cook it on the coals I had every intention of cooking in my cast-iron just because I really enjoy using it but you know what really the truth is when you use one personally for me when I cook bacon and then I try to cook the Bacon or sorry the eggs in the bait in the bacon grease. It always just like Sticks or maybe I'm cooking it too hot or maybe I'm just I don't know but it always seems to stick because of the chunks in the bacon grease and then the yolk breaks and I don't want to break a yolk on YouTube because last time I did that before people were screaming at me sacrilege sacrilege you don't do that and I don't normally I don't even know I did it so that's gonna be all hardwood maple smoked you know why I like camping because it's intense what a nice day so a couple more projects I want to do while we're here I want to get this log put in place I want to make that into an axe chopping station excuse me I want to make that into an axe chopping station so that'll take some time not not big projects at all and maybe I'll get another log for the wall or something I think I will leave the tarp because I got to figure things out I got to I got to try and think about how it's gonna work so I'll leave the tarp till next time all my bacon's flaming flaming bacon no dripping all the juices off right now on a counter that's what makes it flame up well she's slippery slippery bacon still that bacon is almost done I should have had this bagel on a little bit before but we'll get it on now crisp it up and you know what also the eggs that come in that I wrap in the paper towel paper towels are never a bad thing to have a couple of them in the bush with you blow your nose whatever you need to do emergency type stuff anyway there we go great knife for cutting bagels oh man enamel super happy with this bacon though they're all pretty good there's some ends here that need a little bit more but that can sit back there well i cook everything else and i'll eat it like this no problem too super smoked it's even changed like smoke color not that it wasn't before it's bacon but so for example i've already wiped the fire steel stuff off my knife with the paper towel not like i don't always use my pants but whatever and from the way in my backpack it's got some backpack dank and oil in it from oiling it at home look at that and it's not toilet paper this episode of building a fort in the woods brought to you by generic paper towels have you heard of these brand new things they call them paper towels i have no shelves one hand i might have messed them up anyway uh-oh uh-oh might have messed them up anyway try to put in some oil there so I don't want it super dippy because I am putting it on a sandwich oh that one's gonna break anyway lost half of that one but anyway got to cook it a little bit trying not to burn it which I think I'm doing I gotta take it off the heat for a minute all right she's done this one popped this one's still good but it's a little bit solidified now that these are super crispy eggies on it's just one of my favorite things to make the bacon on save the crispy pieces to eat that's what i want to do oh put this one there we go there we go look at that stack bro upside down and everything let's get some grill marks on that oh yeah the yolk is coming through the top oh baby grill marks grill marks oh what do you like what do you like i like everything bagels in the woods hey okay it's hot now it's Oh my goodness first bite of our food cooked in this fire pit for the first time look the yolk It's like soft-boiled and it squeezed up through the bagel hole Bagel hole so worth it for a while I stopped being hungry. Enjoy this I'll get back to you that big little glob in the middle. Very local on my face This spot's always really nice and dry powdery dirt there. I'm gonna store some wood I was able to saw up quite the pile of wood here It's got one piece left, but I wanted to show you that before I cut it But they're all decent size, and 90% of it is extremely dry. Too bad. We've got a sawing method that I've shown you before that usually works better with bigger bow saws, but now I've got this 24. It might work better, and I've not tried it. So when you have a piece of wood that's an awkward size, it's almost two pieces left. It's too long to leave in one piece, and it's awkward to hold it and cut it. I could definitely use the saw horse and do this, But this is a good technique and it looks a little silly but it works really well and it saves your one arm because you're using both your arms and it goes pretty easily actually. It's a good technique. Kyle likes to use it quite a bit. So you hold, you throw the saw, you hold the saw with your feet in place with your legs and your feet and you grab the wood and you just kind of move the wood up and down. This blade does need to be tightened like I was saying last time. It's cutting fine But I can tell that I need to tighten because all of my cuts are on a crazy Angle and that means the blade is moving. So it's not as efficient as it could be Anyways, this is 90% of the way through and we don't need to continue to cut it But look you can see if you can see just how wampus my cut line is it's all over the place and that's not Stereotypical of me that is more of a novice type cutter that used to be what i used to look like when i cut back in the day anyways i certainly don't say novice to try to be degrading by any means like i said uh that was me back in the day and a lot of times you'll see people only cutting a piece of wood and it'll be like you want to do one of these for some reason cut on an angle like you would with an axe and i don't know why but a lot of people like to do that and i was like that too anyways the blade does need to be tightened and that will fix the uh the bending issue but i don't have my multi-tool on me so we'll do it at home or bring it out next time and do it here to show you what i mean that's what we'll do all right check it out i got another log on there so two more logs put on today six seven logs on there all pretty sturdy this last one oh gummy gummy this last one i used a shim i um i didn't cut any off the bottom i just kept digging super deep and pulling the rocks out and then it was i got to a little bit too short so I just used a little wedge in there she's on I'm pretty happy with that I want to secure this into the ground and make an actual axe station an axe working station splitting station so I got some poles the edges into the ground or top of the log that we're working on right now that way see how it's rolling a little bit when I'm doing this that way it won't roll at all pretty good the edges at the top just a little bit so it doesn't mushroom out on me too bad i'm gonna make four of these i might split this one down because it's super long and try to get two out of it the bigger ones on that side one's gonna be way too long but maybe i have a use for it being too long who knows we'll leave it and see starting to split out pretty good but the logs in there could be a bit tighter see if we can do that there we go it's not moving at all nice okay i'm gonna love tap here i love tap there here tap there a tap Everywhere I tap tap. I'm happy with that. Cool. All right. Well, we've got to test it now, right? We'll test it once We got to get going. I'm gonna use the biggest gnarliest piece I found or I have cut off that maple go from the other side here just for the sake of doing it But normally I'd probably stay on that side because this tree is kind of close. You know what? I'll move the camera I'll move the camera and do it properly. No Lazy Joe today. Love the grandma's axe. I'd say that works. In true Joe fashion I said I was gonna leave it long. I'm gonna cut it. I just don't like the way it is But this is it. I'm wrapping this video up got a lot accomplished today I feel real good about what happened today hauled all those rocks here built that awesome fire pit cooked up an amazing Brunch put more wood on the wall figured out my saw horse deal made up an axe station Found amazing wood stacked tons of wood. Yeah, good day anyways you guys have a good one come back to the fort real soon i'll tell you right now in the forecast there is snow but we shall see what happens with that but as of now that's what we're planning on all right guys you guys have a good day you all have a good day