Bushcraft Basecamp E2 - Building the Lean To, Bucksaw Use, Outdoor Cooking.

I plan on spending the day out here, so I got some stuff to make some food with, sausages and pancakes. The main thing I want to do today is throw this grabber blanket, this space blanket on my shelter on the inside, patched leaves and sticks on the outside, to basically get the back portion done today, and we'll see how much farther else I get, that's the main thing for today. If I remember correctly, these are five by seven, and that's about the perfect size for what I want. I'm going to put this reflector blanket, the space blanket, facing what some people would consider the wrong way. So there's this silver on it, this reflective part, and I would assume the idea, the smart idea, the normal idea would be to put it facing in, so it would reflect heat from the fire back at me. But I'm not too concerned about warmth here, and I would much rather, and I'm going to be thatching the back, so you're not going to see the silver from the back. But I don't want to see the silver from the front either. I don't want to be laying in here and see silver. I want to see green. It's a little bit more of a neutral tone, and that's what I want to see when I'm inside my shelter or looking at my shelter. So again, the silver part is going to be covered up on the outside, but it would not have been covered up on the inside, and the silver would have been exposed. Not that it's a deal-breaker by any means. It's just my personal preference. So all I did was I tied one grommet to this side, and I've tucked it all up underneath the logs I'm going to tie the second grommet to this log and the ridge pole so nice and easy all I'm going to do is take my my running end throw it through the grommet on the grabber tarp I'm going to move my my rib over as far as it goes and then I'm going to tie the the space blanket the last rib and the ridge pole all together it's giving a little bit more security and it's on there and all i'm doing is using an overhand knot like i would tie my shoe with that way i can take it down easily if i need to all i have to do now tie it on the bottom do the same thing and then tie the sideways posts underneath it get down as tight as i can so this is how it turned out looks about perfect the size is spot on um the only there's only one problem When I start to thatch the back, this is going to bow in towards me. So I'm going to get two or three thin, straight poles that I can tie running sideways on here just to keep this from bowing onto me too much. I was able to get my pieces. Two of them are straight and not free. But this third one is pretty gnarly, and I don't want it poking through stuff. So I've just got to clean it up a little bit, and it'll be fine. To clean it up, I'm just going to use my axe, my 20-inch sandvik. Go on, buddy. Lay down. So I've got them all tied up there, three. I might need to put one in the middle here or even one here, but we'll see. I can do that after. It's no big deal. What I want to do right now, I'll take you around back and show you what it looks like. So you can see the back of it here, it looks very aggressive, very abrasive. It's going to stand out a whole lot. So right now, I just want to get that covered up. And all that's going to entail is laying debris up and down, like just thinner sticks like this and then leaves on top of it warming up again man it's been about a week since i've been here and the temperature hasn't changed a little chillier on the way in today but even so it's 10 o'clock in the morning now i'm having to lose this flannel shirt but bam okay so the back is looking decent i'm gonna go try and find some downed trees that have loose bark to uh to really give it a good look this downed ash can potentially give me some big sheets it's a little far gone so getting the bigger sheets off might be a chore but that's okay and it's okay if i only get small pieces too because i can just get it use a bunch of them it's okay buddy yeah these will help the longer the better all right this is a start good decent haul of bark bark keep in mind that this thatching material is really only to blend the the shelter in it's not for keeping it dry that's what the grabber blankets for on the inside i don't have to worry about starting at the bottom thatching my way up and getting three feet of of thick leaves and all that stuff because i do have that man-made material in there that's going to keep me dry or dry-ish it doesn't have to be necessarily completely dry in there i'm not too concerned about that but all this bark is doing now like i said is just blending it blending it into its surroundings i don't want this silver mylar sticking out everywhere so we're just going to set this bark on top then we're going to throw more debris on top to hold it down the back here is 90% done i can still fill in more but i can't see any of the grabber blanket uh from this side looking at it it just looks like a brush pile so that's what i was going after i do want to make sides i'll do that as well and then i was i had planned on extending the roof up past to get rain protection but I have another idea what I'm gonna do to add on to this so I am gonna go along and cut all the long poles that are sticking over top of the shelter off yeah and then we'll I'll leave the second part of the building for another day but it'll be cool we have like a lot of protected area I'm pretty happy with it I do have to move my bench back a touch which is no big deal just slide everything back a little make maybe three inches and then that way i will be completely covered by this ridge pole as it stands now my body is covered by the ridge pole but this last maybe not maybe my body's fully not covered i need to be back here a little bit so what i'll probably do is take this front log off switch it to the back and then add another one or it might be okay just like that but again i'm not sleeping here tonight i'm not too worried about it tonight uh it will do but i'm hungry and i need a big basic holes to cook to cook with so i'm going to start a fire now for peace i guess so today i have my Deering bushcraft EDC Deering knives i like this little knife a lot this is some ironwood i'm using and again they're just taking shavings off the outside of it because it hasn't rained in days and i like the that the little bit of wood there's a little bit of decay in the wood right on the outside makes it really really nice curls like it's spalted that's what they mean by spalted it's like a stage of rot or decay usually you see it in maple a lot more they'll use it people will use it on knife handles and stuff like that that'll do just cutting up some firewood for my fire and i need to get something to start it with so the sassafras is always a good option it's nice and light it's too long to put in my little fire pit like this and it's too short to rest on a log and cut so here's another trick i learned from Iowa Woodsman when you have a buck saw you can use the weight of your body to cut the the wood and it works a hell of a lot easier too so you have your buck saw you put it on the ground handle down you put one foot inside it one foot behind it depending on your buck saw this might differ you just take both your both hands and go lightly Super easy that way. And it's not awkward when you're cutting such a small length. It's bouncing off. Has anyone seen my fire steel? Has anybody seen my fire steel? Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I got my frying pan of shavings. I'm going to take the super paper thin ones to start with. And these will all go right on top right after. I got some locust twigs to put on. It'll be good to go from there. a sassafras, locust, and ironwood fire. That's a different one. Is that a fire steel in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? While that's burning, I think I'll keep working on the shelter. I want to get rid of all these and make them flush with the ridge pole. All right, so today, as I mentioned, I've got breakfast sausages, about four of them. I'll probably give one to Scout. I've got pancake batter. This is the just add water one. And I got some chocolate chips in there. I got some lard. I got some syrup, a sizer. I've got a foldable spatula and my grill. Oh, and one more thing after the grill. I'm sorry about this grill, guys. It's still in the process. I know a lot of you guys ask me about it. It's still supposed to happen. I will let you know when it does, if it does. And then my new frying pan, my foldable handle frying pan. This should be a good lunch, we'll call it lunch. What are we gonna do first? First I'm going to fry up the sausages in the frying pan, then I'm going to, halfway, and then I'm going to start cooking my pancake in there and then I'll finish the sausages off on the grill so that they get a grilled, smoky flavor as well, as opposed to just fried. Let's do it. You can hear those sausages going. So in the past I've used a Billy can to mix my pancake dough batter, I guess. But today I'm going to use a Ziploc bag. Less mess, all about the less mess. So I'll start with that much, add some water, but I gotta flip these sausages real quick. So you can always add more water, right? It's hard to take water away. Oh, I have a hole! I have a hole in my Ziploc. I wasn't expecting that. What do you do about that, Ranger Joe? What do you do about the hole in the Ziploc, bud? Oh, I forgot I got walnuts in here too. Ah, things are going to sh. Yeah, we'll do it in the Ziploc bag so that there's no mess this time, right? After that fiasco, I'm kind of clean now. Let's get these off of here because they're mostly done and we'll have to rig up no-scope, not for you. Oh, my telephone. We'll have to rig up something in the back. So we will, oh, that's hot. You guys hear that in the background? The four-wheeler or something. So we'll go like this. These are a little hot. I'll use the spatula. So we'll leave that there and cook the pancake here. I'm going to add some lard to this sausage grease. just not enough sausage grease i don't think if it is so well lard is not going to hurt anything it's going to make it taste better okay i'm just going to squeeze it in there like that i think a little on the thick side i'll have to flatten it out a bit yep that helped so it's got walnuts and chocolate chips in here it's going to be thick and cook with lard so it will be more of an actual pancake cake in a pan as it were if i don't rip it all the sh okay we shall see all Alright, I gotta flip this thing. She's getting there. Not as golden as I'd like it to have been. I'm losing heat on this fire, too, even though I had a rock or rock and fire before. Might have to eat the sausages now. I think that's what I'm gonna do. I decided I'm gonna give one to Scout and eat one right now. To save two to eat with my pancake. Because I like to put syrup on it all. But the broke Scout's open because they've been super hot. It's been chilling. cooling down here buddy come get it come come into frame good boy it's just for you super gentle super gentle good boy oh and i would laugh i lost so much water making that pancake through the hole in the ziploc bag that it turned out way too thick the batter turned out too thick but it's okay it'll be like more like a dessert bannock thing and it's not even chocolate chips that i have and i forgot i put raisins and walnuts in it jerk ass joe strikes again okay i'm calling this done i've been blowing on the ashes blowing on the embers to just keep the coals going i believe it's done i've uh cracked it open it looks cooked to me so i'm calling it good got my sausages there and uh yeah well i guess we'll find out all right so just like last time it's a little warm i'm gonna put it on this log on my lap trusting the whole maple syrup dose it nicely i'm gonna leave some of this because it's more of a bannock style without syrup on it i'm gonna put my sausages over with the syrup part glaze them up nicely then i'll leave some in case i don't really like the way it tastes with the walnuts and raisins and syrup we shall see though it's good on its own try a bit with the syrup on it it's more like a dessert with the syrup on it but a piece of sausage that's what i was waiting for i'm gonna eat this up i'm trying to figure out the lighting in here it's hard to hard to deal with anyways that was really good mind focus i can't see anything it was really good i didn't need to end up eating at all so i left a little portion of it up on the tree there for some critters but i'm sure they're gonna get nice and sugar high from it so despite my uh having put runners going sideways it's still bowling a little bit in the middle it's a lot of weight there and i don't want to mess around with it too much but i figure if i stick this down in there pry that up and prop it against the ridge pull it should do something for me i don't know we'll see if it's worth it i might lose more room with the width of uh of this log but we'll see we'll try it out anyway just trying to flatten it out a little bit so that i don't have to prop up as much uh on the ridge pole as much material i think that's good i think that'll work really well i'll hold that one straight from bowing give it a little more structural integrity i don't lose any room not too bad it's coming like home I just got the call I got to be the one to go get my daughter today my wife was supposed to but now she can't make it I got to get out of here within 20 minutes that's not too bad I can still do one more thing before I leave I want to fix up the bed a little bit I've been playing with it and uh it's not as sturdy as it was before so I do want to pound some stakes in so I'm going to get uh some sturdy dead wood and make some stakes real quick after I pack up this is a piece of Really strong, dead red oak. Planning on splitting it right down the middle and using either side for a peg each. There's lots of noises going on out there. Move Scout, well, not that even. What is that out there? Farm equipment, I think. Okay, so this'll be a good peg, this one. So all I want is this log tight up against here. Move Scout. All right guys, thanks for watching. Hope you enjoyed it, I had a good time. I'll be back out here soon to do more work on the shelter and spend a night in it. Take it easy guys, have a good day.