"THE HUT" E1- Locating a Camp Spot-Hauling Logs-Bacon on a Rock.

Come on, Scout! Hey guys, thanks for tuning in. Like the title says, I'm going to build a bushcraft camp today. I don't want there to be any qualms about it. I'm right near my house. You guys saw me coming out near the shed there. I walked out about a few hundred meters or whatever, and I'm in the woods. So I have this small patch of woods in the front of my house, like I've shown you. If you haven't seen the Dream Home video, I'll show it off in there a little bit. My plan is, because it's deer, moose, open season right now, it's not very safe to be in the woods with my dog. He obviously could be mistaken for a deer That's why I have that orange collar around his neck But I really don't want to take the chances and that's giving me a good opportunity to be here Nobody's coming to my yard to do that stuff. So Yeah, we're okay so I think the whole premise behind this is is just to have a place where they that I can come and build and practice skills and take My daughter out my dog possibly my wife and my baby Over for an overnight or just to hang out have a picnic have supper out here. Whatever. It's nice to have I've always wanted a patch of woods of my own and this is it so you can be bet your butt I'm gonna take advantage of it. So what we're gonna do now is walk around the woods and look for an ideal spot I do want to find a good suitable spot. I can clear any tree or a way I want anything like that I don't want to take down too many trees Because there's not that many really this is my nice buffer from the world and I want to keep it that way But we're gonna be building so let's go around and look for a suitable spot So my wife was driving down the road coming home the other day Just around the corner from my house a lynx came out into the to the road Lynx are very very cool animals pretty secretive too. I've never seen one So very cool that just tells you some of the kind of animals around here in this specific bush Right now that I'm in my front yard There's deer all the time. We saw deer beds two days in a row and deer tracks going through But I also see tons of snowshoe hare tracks squirrel and then dog there's lots of dog prints everywhere okay so let's just be completely honest let's just be completely transparent and up front right there is a spider on my spider oh it's a spider do you see him anyways shouldn't be a spider right now uh so this is my neighbor's yard this is my neighbor's driveway i should say right here where i'm at right now see the driveway house is up there and there's scout out near the road okay so here's my bush all in there so we are not in the wilderness even though my house is pretty remote uh we're not far into the wilderness so if we walk across i'll show you the complete uh width of my bush here now it goes longer than it does wide because there's my my shed and my garage out that way i'm probably about in the middle of the forest right now the bush right now then out there is my other is my driveway sorry where scout is right now is my driveway so again we're not in the middle of the wilderness but this is mine and i love it really combing these woods and looking i've come across this spot i think this is going to be the best spot i'll tell you why there's a big strong live straight cedar right here that i can anchor to and there is this one this in frame big white pine that's also alive I can see needles on the top, which is great Because I do want it to stand for a while right I want it to be secure So if I put it this way the wind always comes from like a diagonal coming this way off the lake So I'm protected from the wind the Sun rises in kind of that area That will be open to the shelter as well. The shelter will be open to that as well So, yeah, so, oh, you got your stick, eh? Don't knock over my camera. My de-limbing dog. So, again, it's that big tree to that one. And in the middle, I have maybe 15, 12 feet. 12 feet, I'd say. But the ground is not level in the least. Like, you can see it comes up on a big hump. I believe under there is like an old dead... Here, dig, dig, dig. Yeah, it's like an old composing log. So, I'll be able to get that out of there, no problem. Yeah, I'm kind of happy with this spot, actually. has a good feel to it I think this will be home I think this will be a camp you see that all right uh yeah I guess I'll get my backpack off and start building start clearing away the snow this is good this feels good it's like a beginning of a big undertaking type thing I will make a series on this definitely I got a little snowy snowy Joey that's like a little snow in the morning eh pre-orders for the scout knife are up right now this knife is available through Adventure Sworn the maker I will definitely put the link in the description he just posted these for sale a couple days ago I just haven't been out to do a video in between that I did post an Instagram picture and sold a bunch already there's still a bunch more be able to be bought and this is just that my model this is the Joe Robinette edition with the burlap and the orange but you can do complete custom different handle combos different options and it will have the scout logo on it too I will just kind of try and hold on to all the usable pieces usable trees that I take down or usable sized trees that I take down that first one obviously is nothing but that one I can definitely use for something later on keep them all in the same spot and I'll have them I will have to do a lot of maintenance I'm sure they're not for you keep this make a little coffee in a bit cook up some bacon and stuff this is gonna make an awesome camp knife like always just we're called it the scout like a jack of all trades type thing but Really good camp too. Okay. I think for the most part the area is cleared off. It does seem nice and big now Got like almost a half circle here. So very cool. Very cool Well as good as my dog is at digging I think I'm gonna grab my shovel It's just one of those cheap little folding saws everybody's got in their kit. You know where I got it Maybe somebody sent it to me. I'm gonna get it from Canadian Tire or Surplus even, it's had it in my backpack Sorry in my basement for a long time. Cool thing about this one It has like a pick on it so you can dig like that or like that i wonder if i can have them both out that would be ideal yeah it looks like i can okay that's something digger joe all these little rock pieces they'll come in handy for no this is a rock will come in handy for a fire pit later on no let's go oh there's lots right here actually this is good good little score why is it so dark it is what happened i'll show you here it's pretty cool actually so this is a big root like a very large root going to that pine and i'm not taking that out by any means it's fine it can stay there but what happened was there was like this thin rock on top of it and it grew the the root grew and expanded and popped the rock up so i'm getting all these little fragments these little chip off pieces of these flat rock because of this root which is pretty cool when you think about a tree growing i know i know everybody knows that trees tree roots can mess up foundations of houses and everything it's just kind of cool to think about how strong this is compared to rock yeah this thing's loosening up already that's all right It's not all right. Dern. Kenzie, dern. Okay, guys, let's take a look. So this is why I never... You can't eat that. This is why I never bring this type of thing on a camp. Like, here, it's by my house. It's fine. But, like, she legit broke. It's not even fixable. Yeah, it's not like it even, like, can go back together or anything. You know, I started out with Walmart and Canadian Tire and Sport Shack gear, like, stuff like that. And it worked definitely decent for me. But then when it comes time to this kind of stuff, it's like, you know, this is why I like quality stuff This is again. This could have been bought at the dollar store for all I know. I don't know. Anyways lesson learned I still have this how about you Able to mount this to a stick a piece of wood? Anyways, this will still help me while I'm out here. I'm trying not to go back to the house for anything, right? I can go back. It's no big deal, but I brought all my food everything with me I'd rather just pretend just pretend I'm out here building the fort Sunday making all that snowfall Kind of fun. Okay. This is really weird. I've been digging and coming down far right now I got a bunch of roots and everything but I'm finding charcoal like charred pieces of wood. Where the heck did it go? Yeah, like look it. See that? The mark it makes? This is a hundred percent charcoal like burned wood. Yeah, that's crazy I really don't understand that this house has been here since 2000 maybe 2001. I'm sure there was nothing here before that like built in this little wood lot Intriguing intriguing Anyway, I'm getting there. I'm still digging. There's lots of roots. I'm gonna have to definitely lay like a rock foundation for my fire pit There's just millions of roots crisscrossing everywhere a lot of these little ones I can get rid of they're not a big deal But like this one is a big one and I don't really want to cut it out and ruin the potentially danger of the tree I don't know just a personal choice, but I'm gonna I'm going to put the rocks over top of that yeah man this is all charcoal look at this this is so strange what is this it's so weird it's all charcoal in there charred wood I guess I should be saying strange strange strange strange what is happening this is crazy there's a bunch of rocks down there that look like they're almost like put there like especially like I wouldn't even think anything of it if it wasn't for the char good boy watch out good dog good dog okay well it's not that weird I I guess it's just a rock but the charcoal man is what this is just all rocks under here. This is super cool Hopefully I'll be able to reclaim these rocks and just use them for the full fire pit like the the groundwork and everything Okay, cool. All right, you can see there. I've cleared a pretty decent area I've flattened it out quite a bit that hump in the middle is no longer a hump and I feel pretty good about it. I feel pretty good about the placement and the size too As you can see, man, the wind keeps pushing all this snow off the trees. It's pretty awesome. Anyway, I feel very good about the size. And maybe I'll build a different type of shelter than I'm used to. Maybe I won't build just a normal lean-to with sides or whatever. Maybe I'll try and incorporate this whole half, like a U-type area. A half-circle U. I don't know. Maybe I can go ridge-pull, ridge-pull, ridge-pull, ridge-pull, ridge-pull, and then a bunch of wood around the sides leading up, and then a roof coming up and have the front open with a big fire there i think that'd be cool that'd be a decent sized shelter to sleep a bunch of people the family at least let me show you something behind you what i do have access to and what i haven't decided yet haven't made my mind up if i want to use it or not so like i said this house was built in 2001 and a lot of the wood was used from the property and and we moved they they moved wood from the property in order to to build the house obviously so i have all this wood all those are cedar logs yeah i don't know i probably will end up using some like obviously there's some that are way too big to use but i might as well right there's a lot of wood here and i don't really want to take down too many decent sized trees in the bush like you saw that it's not the biggest um yeah these are all cedar these are white eastern cedar eastern white cedar Thuja occidentalis and they are rot resistant I love the smell of them. It's not a true cedar, but that's the cedar we have here So there's ones can you see that one like that size? Maybe but both that size around that I can use I might even be able to put a floor in the thing Yeah, so I probably will end up using this stuff now. I think about it. Why not right? It's here It's no good for firewood. Anyway, they've let it sit here. There's moss growing all on it There is done. I try to cut up a couple pieces of the hardwood that's the pile next to it and it would have to be cut and air dried for probably a good year before it was good and plus cedar is not the greatest in the wood stove anyway so I do think that's what I'm gonna do it's a bonus you know I mean it's a bonus that it's here I still will use natural materials from the woods and everything but this being here is a yeah it's big help oh it'll stop for some water I think you know make up some food this used to be all all brown and blackish looking here snows all covered it again almost all right I am gonna stop and have a coffee and some lunch I got some bacon and eggs to cook so I'm just gonna for now obviously this isn't gonna be the fire pit forever but this is just today on the go kind of working type thing i'm just going to clear a spot where there's not many big roots sticking out and i'm going to line the ground with these small rocks and i'll just have the fire right on top of there for today and then later on as we go this is going to be a work in progress big time like i i want to come out here once a week oh it's a little hard rock little hard rock i want to come out here once a week and build and add on to things and constantly improve things and that'll do a couple things for me that'll give me weekly uh content that you can rely on that that you know is going to be out um and then i'll still do my trips and my normal stuff my bushcraft outings and all that but this will be my home base and i'll be doing all sorts of skills and building new things and learning new things and just improving here so anyways i think it's a good plan i'm excited to do it and uh yeah that's what I said I'd be doing once I got here right putting out more content this will be good enough for the fire today used an alas goat didn't eat too many of them so the problem in these woods that I'm starting to find out is there's not many dead standing trees there's a lot of dead on the ground rotten or standing rotten but not dead standing good so I think I found one here this looks to be a spruce or a balsam fir let's check it out the reason I think it's dead is because it's an evergreen and there's absolutely no branches or sorry no needles on the top she's dead and seems pretty dry so let's take this one down i can definitely push that over so let's just keep chopping pretty odd she's a hanger we got a hanger folks oh scout i love your crying so much it makes me very happy when you do that i was joking i don't like it at all i actually really don't like it you can stop this is quite brittle okay because it's so brittle i don't think i'm gonna try to like scrape it uh scrape the birch bark out to get fluffies i think i'll just do one of these just crunch it up as much as i can throw a spark right in there and i'm sure it'll go good and after that i do have these bigger decent pieces to put on so i think i messed up in my my last video nick uh uh emailed me and said you messed up on the link in the description so i really do apologize for that uh it's fixed the links to his fire steels and his etsy shop other his other wares but check it out i never even really showed it up close my focus is so screwed up. Nick from HF Survival School made this. Super good dude. It's a big one. It's a big one. It comes with a little hole in there so you can put a lanyard on it. Good thing I have all my fire prep ready, right? It's on there. One stick in it. I listen to my own advice. It's a hard thing to do sometimes, eh? Listen to your own advice. No joke. No joke. Got a coat back on. Getting real warm digging all the ground up and chopping and stuff, but kind of calmed down now and cooling down. Let me see how that works, eh? I think I want to call this series or even the shelter the hut I had a shelter when I was a lot younger in Windsor and before this whole YouTube thing I had something called the hut and me and my buddy Brian would go there all the time it's where I learned a lot of my like axe comfortableness with an axe and a lot a lot of outdoor stuff going on there not my proper bushcraft skills just outside playing in a fort type thing which really that's what all this is anyways so anyways let me know in the comments what do you think is a good name for this I want to call it like the series like building the hut or like you know like season 1 episode 1 building the hut dot dot dot searching for an area or something along those lines you know me so I can have it all laid out properly the hut the fort the shelter the lean-to the bushcraft base camp a lot of those have been done I haven't really heard the hut before so I think I think that is what i'm going to go with let me know if you think that's a cool name or not it's a little reminiscent for me and i think it's a good good fit for this especially if i do that type of shelter that i was talking about where i kind of put a ridge pole all the way around make a half circle and lean it all up that is more of a hut that's not like a lean-to by any means yeah i'm excited guys i'm excited to have emerald i'll have emerald in a couple videos out here doing it with me um they're not gonna be hour-long videos maybe half hour long videos but regular content right Sprinkled in like my trips my winter camping other stuff. I'm gonna be doing a scotch tasting soon scotch tasting video I watched a video from PewDiePie. I know it sounds weird, but if you haven't watched them lately don't knock it He's not a bad dude at all. He's actually one of the better ones Anyways about a year ago. We did a scotch tasting video, and I thought it was really cool So I'm gonna do one too. I bought five bottles of scotch so me and the neighbor are going to film it obviously and And, yeah, that should be pretty cool. I think scotch is a woodsman's drink just as much as anything else. You know, nice and smoky, peaty, scotty. I got no Japanese scotches. Only Scottish scotches, Scottish whiskeys, single malts maybe. Not really sure. Not really sure. But I will do my research and I will have the correct phrases for the scotches. She's such a trip. Hey, sweetie. I think she's a Pyrenees mix. She's about nine months. She's a good dog. scout loves her like loves her they're best friends winter what you doing go here why are you doing that Scout he never acts like that with her good boy it's okay go on see the avoidance now so that wasn't anything bad that was just him telling her to kind of back off right now he's not feeling it but uh i think it's because we're out here and i'm about to cook i got that fire going he knows and it might even just be a feeling too like he's never had a dog roll up on him in camp before so who knows but usually they're she's like the boss of him pushing him around herding him everything so they get along really well uh winter is not scout's old friend again if you watch that uh dream home video i would have explained a little bit more well whiskey is his old friend and whiskey does not like him anymore whiskey whiskey growls at him and she's she's very ornery so anyways whiskey's little little sister winter and scout her friend so that's good it's really good actually he's gonna live a lot longer out here i know it he's gonna he has a spring in his step he's he's not cooped up he's out here with me all the time he's out here with the dogs all the time even when we're in the house he's just out roaming around it's fine there's there's no traffic at all and like right now because of uh the season it is i try to keep him near me or indoors a bit but anyways that's only for a couple weeks yes i do have my titanium heavy cover canteen out here and a zebra i didn't know what i was going to do when i came when i thought i might make a little pot hanger and stuff and well as much as i do like the heavy cover i really like it for it's lightweight it's very very tough and it looks cool i just really really like using it um it doesn't hang well you can you can rig it up so it hangs but it's not easy to hang like it doesn't have a bail like this so that said i'm not even gonna hang this now because i've been so long-winded and i probably probably already will have an hour video on this one um i'm just gonna put on here and the reason i'm not using the canteen for that is because this has a wider base that's water boiled up and then I'll have a coffee going and then I'll be able to cook once these coals once these flames die down into coals while my water is heating up here I want to put this rock on the fire as well just start warming it up and that's how I'm going to cook my bacon gradually warm and then once this boils I don't even need to really wait till it goes down to coals I can just kind of put the rock right on top get it hot there's whiskey get it hot and Yeah, and then start cooking bacon. I'll show you Whiskey. A bunch of doggo friends today. Hey, Whiskey. Hey, girl. She's showing her age, this one. She's the same age as Scout, believe it or not. Hello. Hello, Tubby. She's a big girl. She's a big girl. Whiskey, what are you doing? Come here. Come here, Waggy. Come here, Waggy. This dog is a trip. Her little tail. Her little wiry tail. Who's a good girl? What are you? You're straight eating snow? What are you doing? Is that dirt? You're eating dirt. It's not food that waters ready as you can see I've dropped that rock down. She's probably piping hot I'm sure let's go. Yes. Y'all get you get you some bacon. Don't worry. I got quite a bit actually here Cook some decent amount of bacon. It's a little little little long No, no, don't do it. All right, that's gotta come off. That's gotta come off for a minute and way too hot Oh my goodness Heart attack right here. She's still cooking on there Now it's probably a good time to take a break on that and make my Jeeva coffee These clips on the zebra make it a lot easier to pour. I think the firebox stove sells them Could be wrong about that. All right, make a nice little cup in there. Actually, that's gonna be strong, isn't it? That's gonna be really strong. That's going to be quite strong. Maybe I do this instead instead. Let it dissolve in there and then pour it in, huh? Old Joe, stick with me, boys and girls. Let's go. Your foot's kind of close to the fire, dude. Like, are you cold? You should probably move your foot, man. Let's go. What are you doing? Move your foot. Look at you. You're burning your foot. Dude, I'll give you some bacon. Calm down. All right. This is much better now. Okay. Forget I said anything. This temperature is a better temperature for cooking bacon everything's working out now i'll try to get these off here so i don't put fresh bacon on here at the same time cook these up and uh i don't want to get bacon dank on them oh she's still piping hot it's good i haven't had one of these probably since the last time i did on video this is my Soul of Siberia cookware I really like it this is the one i brought on my 10 day uh alone journey ah very good check him out on instagram soul of that scary bud he took oh the bacon grease just lit up anyway uh soul of siberia that's his little emblem there i like it a lot this time of year i like to change up my gear you know in the summertime it's like even into early fall it's like a lightweight backpacking canoeing type gear but right now until the spring i like heavier wooden camper type stuff i like i like the fact that i'm so close to my house i can bring out heavy stuff excuse me i can bring out a cast iron uh dutch oven if i want to i can bring out a big old grill like a permanent grill that i leave out here and make just make it comfortable and easy out here right like have a fun place to go instead of roughing it all the time what a novel idea what a novel idea so again another thing i have to rethink is the placement of the door of the shelter because like i said the wind always comes off the lake in like a 45 degree this way but right now and all day today that smoke it's when the snow hits it it flames up the grease flames up that's crazy um hey bud the snow and the wind has all been coming in like this right in the direction of the shelter although right now it's parallel which is exactly what i want so who knows i'll have to watch it for a couple days and see like the the main direction but i got time you know i mean that's fine well i'll probably wrap the video up here i got stuff to do today emerald's gonna be done school soon and i have to go get her we're gonna pick her up today and uh do some stuff with her so let me give you some back up so it was a nice day out i know i didn't get a lot accomplished on the shelter build at all but i knew i wasn't going to it wasn't that wasn't the intention of today today's intention was to come out just figure out the spot kind of like secure the spot in my head and on land now that i've cleared all this area out i do want to use it it has a good feel to it i like the shape buddy come on yeah i knew i wasn't going to that was the whole thing I just just wanted to come out and spend the day out with the dog secure a spot and feel good about it I will probably bring some of those logs over before I'm done just so I have a better look to it even when Emerald comes home I can show her a little bit more as to what I've started I hope you guys I hope you guys are into this I hope you guys want to see this series I hope that it's something yeah that you'll enjoy it's a little bit different you know I mean I understand it's not some crazy wilderness adventure I get it but does it always have to be i hope not you know what i mean i hope to do some videos around the house um wilderness camping is my bread and butter it's my favorite thing to do and it's what people expect i'm gonna keep doing it you know what i mean but like i've been saying i'm trying to add more i've been doing this a long time and um i'm re-energized you know what i mean it's there was a point there guys where i was i've heard other youtubers talk about it too it's just like you get burnt out you get like what am I going to do next I've already done this all a hundred times you guys have seen me camp blah blah blah blah just feelings of like is this even anything I'm happy to say that that's gone you know what I mean and that's been gone since ever since probably a month or two before we moved just because it was it was real I knew we were moving up here and the guys I did man I used to have to drive so much like I'm not joking like so much like if I would go do I know I've said this before too but if I would go do an overnighter it would be a three night thing at least or maybe maybe a two night thing, but mostly mainly three nights and then coming home because I had to drive so far. Right. And I didn't want to start the trip after driving all night and not sleeping or start the trip at night. You know what I mean? So I would have to stay at a place. I have to stay at a hotel or I would have to stay at a buddy's house or camp beforehand. Um, lots of time away from family. I would have to drive there. I would have to do that. I have to drive back and then I would have to edit. And as much as I love it and as much as I'm like super happy in my position and or sorry I was you know I mean still and like the money's good all that stuff it was like at what point where's the breaking point I can't keep doing this like I can't keep being gone from my family and then home editing for two days and then leaving again it was like this vicious cycle right like it was like never home so we had a baby too anyways finally finalizing on this house and knowing we were going to move up here and then coming up here has greatly re-energized me and um yeah i'm very happy for it so hope it hope it's coming through in the videos and i hope you guys want to see more videos from me so thanks for watching this video uh let me know in the comments what you think let's have a little bit of discussion i'll get in the comments on this one a little bit more and um yeah thanks guys so tune in next week for part two and in between that there might even be a well they're probably there is gonna be I'm going camping I'm going camping there's gonna be a good camping video so lots of stuff to come thanks for watching guys goodbye