MY DOG HELPS Build a Fort in the Woods-Huge Lean-To, Bushcraft Knife Skills, Using Grandmas Axe!

I don't know where I'm going. Uh, follow Tripper. He knows the way. Show us the way, Tripper. You're good, yeah. Where? You hear the plane? Everyone calls that Joe's plane because it always flies around when I make a video. Okay, come check this out. I saw this the last time I was here. Man, that plane is just flying in circles or something. Go away. Go away, bro. That's a woodpecker. You hear it? Tripper found his ball. Anyways, I wanted to wait for the plane to go away, but it's not. Yeah, somebody sometime long ago built something here. It could have been for hunting. It could have been a cabin. There's like a little canvas-y blanket thing inside it. Who knows? Like I said, this is an old hunt camp. Huge parcel of land. It's been used for what? Do you see a fort? You do? Yeah. well go check it out oh man that wind hey the sun went away too what the heck what do you think okay but i do think it's good yeah you don't have to humor me what uh tripper happened to that but the ground's a lot more flat hey than it used to be in here there's somewhat of a roof we can go up there if you want and check it out um yeah it looks different what it looks different yeah it does how you doing joe here obviously with mr tripper and the kiddo today uh the plan for today is just uh come hang out for a bit i'm gonna cut a lot of logs and get them either placed up or get them ready for the next time but emmy wanted to come out to the fort with me today and make a video so that's what we're doing so let's get started i'm gonna get my axe out my saw out and go find some wood you're gonna fit are you too hot okay because it's really warm outside all Alright. It seems like it might rain, Emmy. Hey. At least we're out here. That's a good attitude. Man. What? I brought Scout with me. Oh, that's very nice of you, Emmy. So he's out with us at the fort. Maybe just put him up on the bench. There you go. Mr. Scooter out with us too then, I guess. As a pup. It's snowing, Emmy. I've got a camera for you to use if you want. You want to use a camera? Use your own camera and shoot whatever you want? Want to use some of it in the video? Okay. I brought a watch. You brought a watch? Wow, that's helpful. Thank you. A Spiderman watch. Oh, nice. Even better. We'll be able to tell what time it is. and with the old grandma's axe today One minute. I am filming my own video right now. Is it on? Yeah, it's going to be on and off, baby, the whole day. Good job, baby. So what we're doing right now, Emmy, is we just cut down the tree because we need to use it for the fort. But we need to have it flat or flat enough for all of these potholes to be able to get out. Okay. So we're going to cut down the tree. down the tree because we need to use it for the fort but we need to have it flat or flat enough where all these pokies aren't poking out everywhere right it's a little axe you're right but it's a good axe to do the small work with yep okay so after asking you guys last week uh what you think i should do there's a lot of good uh ideas what i think i will do because i don't really know what i want to do with the rest of it i'm okay with making this hey sweetie into a lean-to on this side at least for now i kind of like the idea of coming in and out of that way as a doorway as well as this way because i can access the woods and firewood and everything i need that way but this way is kind of a jumbled mess anyways so regardless of what i do on that side i think this side i will make into a lean-to i'm gonna have to take this poplar down which is okay i don't need to do it today but i do need to uh measure some stuff so that i can get decent sized poles for this i don't I'm going to make what I have behind there where it stops and then there's a secondary wall to stop I think I'm just gonna go right to the ground here if I do the secondary wall thing It's a more of an angle and I'll have to find some very good waterproofing material And I don't want to put another tarp on but if I just go right to the ground, it's a steeper pitch I still get more and more horse They'll still get more room people still get to lay their storage or whatever and I won't have such a flat-ish. You've got to stop. Hold on. Okay, so let's measure this up and see the pitch I need. You should make like a little trail from there leading to in here. A trail? Yeah, well there's one start. There's definitely one created over the couple years we've been here with the trees in the way, but we've got to fill that in where you are right there, I think. Luckily, I have a lot of little cut-off end pieces here that I can use for measuring that are light enough to put up there and I don't mind moving around so much that's so many times okay okay uh today will be ideal right that's not such a crazy steep pitch and then i'm getting an extra like on the ground two and a half feet width wise and be able to stand until here you definitely put a bed or a cot or something down in here make another raised bed down in there i've got a new sweet new knife from MP Knives Matt Paul out in New York New York state I will show you guys that in a little bit me and Matt are old buddies from the Bushcraft USA days it's a different type of knife than I'm used to it has more of a belly oh if I call it a recurve but definitely a belly on it nice human he makes stunning stunning work all right let's actually we'll chop through this with the knife it's not meant for that but it's called the bushcrafter so I'm sure yeah I'm sure it isn't for that actually my camera sad what I meant by not meant for that I mean the smarter thing to do it to be a cross baton it as opposed to chop at it but whatever here's the knife I have the specs on it I'll throw them up on the screen here you had you had doubts you doubted your dear old dad it's a convex full convex true convex which is my favorite favorite grind of all awesome fur measure cut and repeat about 500 time okay we got a slew of logs now to work with let's take a look at them so a lot of these are live some are dead most of the live ones were broken off at the top so fair game regardless everything's fair game but even though I have fair use of this land everything is good to go there's tons of trees and I'll do whatever I want I still want to be conscious what I'm taking down if I can take something down that was in a stand where it has no chance of growing already it's gonna just compete for light and grow tall and thin and break off or something that already has broken off i'm going to take those over something that's flourishing regardless none of that really matters let's start to uh fit these up for the wall what my hand is up there you gotta pander pander up there i mean can you grab my soft one please you know what let's take down this poplar first off uh because that's going to be in the way of me making this this uh lean tube proper and potentially use this for support or something but it's it's not straight thank you it's not straight it's all wampus and it is poplar so it's more of a soft kind of folly a party tree but we can use it for something whether it be benches whatever all right i do want to follow this in a specific spot we'll put this back that way because anywhere else actually straight that way too what way does it want to fall yeah i can make it just go straight that way that's what we'll do so in order to do that we're gonna put the notch on this side right and then we're gonna cut back on this side and push it over we'll use the axe instead of this for the notch partly because it's funner and partly because this is a saw blade designed for dead wood and it's gonna get all gummed up in there there's a nice spot to hit and i can always saw it down after that now poplar is a very quick growing tree a lot of people refer to them as weeds you need to back off remember it's soft it's got some uses when it's older the inner bark can be used for birds nests used for making cordage tinder bundles animals eat it pretty clean notch soaked inside wow so if i just saw it right about there you gotta watch out here in the corner you can barely see from the camera, the notch this this is the apex so I'm just gonna go like maybe almost an inch above Above it. Emmy, Emmy, I need you to go back, please, quite a bit. No, you can stay over there. If you want to film, that's fine. Just go back, just in case this kicks up. And then kind of stand behind that little tree. You don't have to stand all the way. There you go, thank you. And then Tripper, go stand next to Emmy, buddy. Tripper, stay. Down, down. Good boy. You have to go down, Emmy. Weren't ready? I knew it. Got hung up. Tripper, down. Okay, not so bad. Not very graceful. I'm on a phone right now. Why? preaching to the choir on that one kiddo yeah right down now this stump has got to go on this side of it good job girl even autumn could have done that all right so we're gonna have to get rid of that no that's okay for now we'll probably work around that excuse me i don't want to have to cut that stump again with this saw blade okay we'll see we're gonna start lining up the logs now for the lean-to don't you want to see where i'm going okay show me okay show me going on that way and then you could just build out like a little opening there and stick your stuff inside it's a good idea a little garage a little shed yeah so this really open with this gone it really opens up here you know what i mean see more of the uh plan so let's start to get our logs up there have some thick logs some thin but the beauty of this is these logs are going to go underneath the roof logs and it's going to create like an overhang you know what mean already so that's even better this top so these logs will be covered from the water at least someone mentioned that the flat oh someone said in the comments a little flat roof good luck or something like that i know i understand it's definitely not a flat roof it's very close to it but i'm not concerned i'm gonna put some patching up there bark uh whatever i get and um and we'll see i know it's not gonna be waterproof i get that completely but it's gonna be fine and And then in the wintertime, for the snow, that might be the problem. Are you okay? Sit down and see if you have something in your boot. I need to put my foot. Okay. The snow might be the issue, but, oh well. If it falls, it falls. If it falls, it falls. And I can come over here and check on it and stuff like that. Thank you. I can get past you. And if not, even better. So, it's all a work in progress. It always is, always has been. You guys know that. Everything with me is. Let go. Thank you, baby. Lift up the top. put on the watch your head there you go look at her no you're good man you did it you doing trepper good boy grab the next one you'll be all full of sap that that nice vest that fluffy pink oh there's pink in it opal whatever you want to call it what is the what is the name of it what color okay wait even worse for the woods even worse excuse me there's a rope up there i know you did good you did an awesome job okay so it's starting to get longer i think we have to cut them a little bit longer now the pieces because everything's not straight up there obviously but look at that man you got some room yeah test it out model it out for us there you go why don't you go sit down underneath it yeah show us the room we get okay all right that's fine you don't have to don't have to you're fine you're good enough room though hey tripper come here bud get your toy come I'm just thinking about the end here, how it all looks good, but I'm going to have to eventually do what I did on the fort and just tie up some pieces here together, straight up and down to make an end wall, which is fine. But I'm also remembering that I have all these pieces. Emmy, come grab this out. Pull that straight up towards you, this piece here. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Pull hard. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Pull. Emmy, pull. Thank you. Oh girly. Shouldn't have worn that that scarf I don't think. Oh, okay you're right it is a hat scarf. I got all these cut off pieces that I can use that don't fit out anywhere else They're not gonna fit on the roof, and they're not gonna fit on the sides I got a ton of them, so we'll collect them all and see Because I imagine I'm done taking down trees for today. Me and Emmy are gonna make up some hot chocolate But there is some serious solid wood just kicking around here that I can make a decent sidewall width like just all right here i probably don't have to collect any the tops of them like these wispy tops that aren't going to be uh structurally sound for anything could start to go on the side as stashing or on the roof we're not i have a ton of them over there so that's cool too lots of building materials oh sorry baby you good yeah at my ready all right you want hot chocolate yeah in here well emmy and i are sitting here well i'm sitting here emmy's behind the camera watching uh i'm watching you watching watching uh i mean waiting for our hot chocolate to cook up and i just thought that i would play with this knife a little bit i'm supposed to give some feedback to matt he sent it to me to test it out and uh yeah i have had it for a while and i haven't really used it because um i've been out this is some dead balsam fir or spruce it is i don't know i think spruce white spruce so i'm just cutting it off the clean end like that and then i'll do this maybe i'll do a different so there i cut it i truncated the wood say if you didn't have a saw right you're going to use your knife for everything you're going to use your full knife to make a full bow drill kit you don't have a saw to cut it into pieces say i wanted a spindle i wanted a uh hearth board i'm not gonna actually do that because you see me do it 100 times and i can't legally make a bow drill fire anyway so but we'll use our knife to to maybe create some of the pieces so a good size selection is a little bit bigger than that so we'll start down here because we're going to lose some and now we can just carve in again like i did and go around and then flatten that off or you can do a cross baton so let's cross baton this this dead wood here and see how the edge holds up for them make a little x not just like an x angle but an x an angle in that way as well don't even need to do an x we'll do it but it's like 90 percent of the way through it so we didn't lose any we're still sitting pretty with much longer than we want when we then we need well man you can clean the end up a little bit if you want is that still going kiddo yeah it is i'm gonna split this in half you can do it by batoning probably don't need to though you probably do one of these look at that perfect split the thumbs up in all honesty i'd want something a little bit more thick than this thicker than this for a bow drill hearth board but doesn't still work for sure square up the ends make a flat bottom this is one of the times you do want a flat bottom a flat bottom bottom exactly i mean you know where i was going with that and then you're going to step on this part so you want you want the ground to be again you wouldn't put it on the ground because the ground's wet but put it there so it's pretty flat put there put your divot here don't go too deep because it's not very thick all good after that you can make your notch after you've uh burnt in which we're not going to do a notch for the dust to collect it's okay you've seen me do it when i make fire with a stick before oh so you're just making shavings kind of yeah i'm not making shavings i'm making a notch in the in the wood so there you go pretty easily done a few different hand grips you see me using there's all very comfortable there's a little bit of a guard slash choil thing not really choil you can put your fingers up on there if you want to get more oomph for curls that's what we'll do we'll make some curls like emmy's saying and then this will be your spindle and all i would do to make my spindle is just again round it out as much as possible which is nothing that this knife can't do and then i would make a tall long hallelujah frictionless point at the top to spin in the bearing block and then at the bottom you'd want a sharp I mean a dull rounded obviously point to drill into your baseboard like this remember what I'm talking about now I mean okay but for shavings oh yeah I'm just seeing how fine of shavings and how nice what this knife can do so earlier when I said the choil thing my hand is up past the handle a little bit but it's fine I'm getting super good control with it up there and this being a full convex knife i'm i'm actually not act yeah it's doing really good i'm not surprised i'm pleased i'm pleased that how how it's working on me was that my camera oh no is it leaking something leaking something creaking anyway you could do the fast ones me too it makes it more curly yep yeah nothing wrong with this knife man stay back then girl me for you oh your dad's good that's not like you cut yourself with an axe before. Not, not at all. Hot chocolate time. Yep. So it's because of this little belly. Decent chop to it. It's not a hefty knife by any means. It's a thick enough spine, but he really, really gets it down with that convex down to super thin. Daddy, also could have put this. Alright, bring it over here, Emmy. Could have done that, yes. But the, um, my backpack was hanging off that hook. Is this even in frame? Not that it matters. You guys need to see me pour hot chocolate into a pot, right? Oh, boom, boom. Yeah, they really do. It's so interesting, Dad. See what I have to live with? All right. Oh, think about Mom. We make fun of her. Clock in the wall, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock, clock. Yeah, we do. The side to the side and the side, side, side. Yeah. What else? I don't know. Okay. Fatbridge. Oh. And that wolf. Cool wolf? Yeah. What am I? Dad bridge, yes no, you're a camp wolf, camp wolf that's the coolest name i've ever heard in my life, that's not okay, fine, go up net is it cooler? what a good girl, here you go, i got those ones from here, that was a lot of work cleaning off the boughs but i just noticed if you look here this one's broken off at the top too, uh where'd she go, that one so let's take that down over here This is right behind the fort, so it's nice and easy pickings, easy picking strips What'd you say? Avoid that, not dead i guess yet Okay, we got the last few here should probably be all for today I imagine we're gonna go look for some leeks Me and you're gonna go find some leeks and dig them up and bring them home Leeks are onion garlicky bulbs from the ground, remember from last year, the green leaves We're gonna find them and we're gonna pick them today So that will give you a good remember, but give you a good remember That's pretty good for one day here, have my helper helping me out getting some sticks All right, Emmy and I'm gonna be your helper soon here. Exactly too short Yeah, we'll mix, I took this one down to measure We'll switch it with a different one, but it doesn't matter right now Alright, well Emerald is collecting some sticks for her fort We're gonna deal with this poplar so you can see just how tall it was And I don't want to leave it laying on the ground. It is poplar, but I might be able to use it for something. And seeing as how my saw blade, like I've said a million times, is not meant for green wood, and I'd like to use my grandma's ax, let's buck this piece of poplar up into maybe two or three sections. Long enough I can still use it, but enough where we can get it up off the ground. What are you doing? See, when you're cutting something with an ax, you always want to go at least as wide as it is or wider the notch wider than it is in diameter of the piece of wood you can see here two or three hits I got this big plate off and then as I chopped in again I'm chopping right in the same spot I chopped before if not like very very close nice clean chopping few chips and plates more likely. Chop and cut. What? Chop and cut. Here you go buddy. Found what baby? Oh a pokey stick? Nice. Pop bubbles. So what you been doing over here girl? Popping sap bubbles. Just popping sap bubbles. Here's a big one. Oh sappy. Oh it's sapped all over you. Go wrap your legs around the tree. Go Emmy. Are you climbing up there? Yeah there it is. Go. watch out i'm coming up all right guys that's it for us thanks for watching this video probably gonna be a short one i say that all the time ends up being 40 minutes anyways but we'll see you guys have a good day we had a fun day out here do you have fun yeah we got a little sappy yeah but uh all right guys i'll see you on the next one goodbye how are we getting it down yeah man you can jump down and then you're good catching all right let's do it every time let's do it okay get down all right cherry tree maybe this cherry tree will be our ladder maybe that's why we left it up that's a good idea so bad up too shabby you jumping