Bushcraft Basecamp - Building a Raised Bed, Tying a Ridgepole, Outdoor Cooking E1

It rained a lot last night, so the ditch that I had to cross to get over here was raging. This goat took a swim, and now we're in the woods. It's all yellow. Very pretty. Today I'm going to try to build a shelter. I'm going to do a little lean-to and line it with bark. I saw some loose bark on some trees on the way in. I think it's going to be a good day. This is going to be the location of the new shelter. This is the same location as my old shelter. I talked about it a little bit on a previous video. and I showed cleaning up the area a bit I'll put a link to that video in the description and put it right there I think you can click on see if you want but yeah basically the idea is I used to have a shelter here it was a lean-to I didn't I moved locations because it's too dark in here in the summertime there's too much leaf cover all these young trees and lots of leaves so being fall now it's time to move back it's been a couple years since I've been at this location itself I'm excited to build it and yeah I got a lot of building materials ready. There's my old fire reflector next to my backpack. I'm gonna keep the same fire reflector. It worked great for years. I've noticed that one of the trees that my original ridge pole was tied to has died. So it's an oak tree. It's good for wood, for burning. I think the first thing I'm gonna do is cut it so that the top doesn't get all wobbly and break off and possibly hit me or the dog. So I'll probably cut it just above head height. Gonna use my boreal saw today. Make short work of wood. plan on bucking up quite a few logs today before i do anything else i want to make a bench or a bed it's much much easier to assemble the bed underneath the shelter underneath the spot where your shelter is going to be before you build the shelter as opposed to building a shelter and trying to cram under there build a bed and stuff i've got one piece like that i've got to get four so three more pieces so i'm cutting my third piece now my arm's starting to get tired so i'm using two off two arms and it's nice that i can be able to do that because this log is stuck on the ground like this it's it's wedged in and out of trees laying down it's been on the ground for a while where as opposed to something i just cut to be trying to saw it like that it might be rolling around i might have to hold it with one hand so there's a big benefit here doing it this way where i can i can dedicate both my hands to the power behind the saw both my arms one more that's ironwood too pretty dense stuff some hardwood i have a good idea of what i want to do because i've already had a shelter here so i know where to lay things out there's a slope right before the trees the the poles i'm going to tie my ridge pole to there's a slope and then there it builds up it's flat and then it kind of goes down at the back too so right in between the trees is the biggest flattest highest spot and that's where i'm going to want my bed so i'm going to put two big logs. These are four inches wide. I'm going to put two on either side right by the tree and I'm going to distance them the same distance apart, same width apart, everything. Then on top of these four are going to be two wrist thick logs running the other way and then on top of that we're going to have big sticks or logs running the length way to make the bed. So now we've got to go and find sturdy pro actually I'm gonna cut some pieces off of that oak that I cut the top of this tree off because I know there's Solid and dead and strong. Yeah, that's what we'll do as you can see They're both the same length both gonna sit on top of the logs and then the actual seat is gonna run this way I'm making this shorter making everything shorter in this one the whole height of the ridge pole everything It's just gonna be closer to the ground. I don't want to make some big shelter I just want to have somewhere to come, get out of the rain, and sleep if I want to or need to. So I was able to use some logs from a previous shelter, so I didn't have to cut a lot, which is helpful. I think I may have enough. The majority of this wood is ironwood, but there are some ash in there as well. I'm still going to trim it up and set them properly and possibly even stake in the big round pieces that I put on the bottom. but just got to feel it out for now see where everything goes like a puzzle like a puzzle just rudimentary it works it's sloping down towards the back but we'll fix that up we got to fix these logs anyway if you notice most these logs are pretty straight but wrist thick and relatively sturdy this one in the middle here she's a bit rotten and not very straight at all so we're gonna get rid this one i don't like the way this one feels so she goes over there for now i could probably use it for something else maybe we can put this one in the middle but it's going to take some cutting to get it to fit between the two trees measure it against that tree and then just cut it a little bit long and i can wedge it in so if i cut it right about there ironwood is super tough some of these bottom very bottom logs that i cut aren't the same width around because they're from the same tree and it slopes down on this corner quite a bit so I'm just going to lift this whole back end up it's still going to have a little bit of gap there I might have to get rid of this log and switch out for a new one but if I don't want to slope down so much I have to lift it up regardless and the way that I'm going to do that is to split this in two and put it the flat pieces underneath this round piece and prop it up that way might work there probably works too nice so it's done the bed is pretty pretty well done it's uh somewhat even the middle piece is kind of higher than the rest which i can switch out at any time it's not in there tied in or anything but the width is good see how stable it is i haven't tied anything down nothing's rolling scout come here up up up up good boy hop up good boy yeah i think that's totally stable enough um yeah i could it could honestly use one more log on the end and I can get that there's room for I can do that it's it's not uh it's not imperative that I do it right now but like literally I'm pretty happy with this because I haven't tied anything down at all and on my previous beds and stuff I've used to have to tie a Canadian jam with paracord itself to each other uh to itself or to trees or even use stakes build uh make stakes and hammer them in on a diagonal to hold everything down but like I'm i'm very pleased with this this is my bed now we're gonna tie the ridge pull on next i think it is muggy man this is november 2nd i'm getting eaten by mosquitoes i'm sweating november 2nd guys so what i'm going to be using is canadian jam knots to tie the ridge pull on i've done this for years now and it works fantastically nothing's ever come come off it's fantastically a word nothing's ever come off so to do a canadian jam knot you have the end of your rope you're going tie a stopper knot about an inch away from the tail then you're going to tie a loose overhand knot just right in front of that not between the knot and the tail but on the other side of the knot okay loose i'm gonna pre-tie these so that because i'm only one person here putting up this ridge pull sometimes it's a little bit difficult but if you have these pre-tied helps a lot helps a lot he says accentuating the lot okay anyways losing my mind guys losing my mind and then again okay okay let's get the ridge pull i need to mark where i want the ridge pull i just want it just above my head so i'm gonna mark it with my knife where i want to tie it at, i'll actually lay the one end down, support this side with my body, normally i would do it with my shoulder but it's it's lower than that, come up on a 45 around both, around the both the tree and the ridge pole you're going to go through that loose knot you made and that loose knot is going to tighten up against that stopper knot. It's just going to create so much tension. I can tie a second hand security knot after, but I'm going to get the other side up first. Again, I'm taking my pre-tied Canadian Jam, coming up on a 45. What I mean by that is wrapping it around the tree, wrapping it around the pole on a diagonal and coming up. I've got my running end going through, going through the loose knot and then those are just going to again tension on them tension together and then to undo it i just have to pull this tail and it loosens right up but we don't want it to loosen right up, we want it to tighten so let's wrench on it, a little trick i learned from Iowa Woodsman, you can actually get a little stick and wrap the cord around it and pull that to get your tension as opposed to trying to yank with your hand cutting your hand with the rope i broke the stick but you get the picture so that's on there and i will just for safety's sake do a little wrap and a tie i'll just tie it right here it doesn't even need to be anything extensive i'm just going to do an overhand knot here tuck it in and that is done i always like to test it before i put weight on it before i start making it into my shelter it's pretty good i got headroom right just enough then as i lay the the poles on it will i'm gonna um put them past my seat here so i have to create like an awning so even if it rains i can sit here i'm not way way back from the fire i'm not totally in i'm on the edge of it and i have like a like a rain awning like a porch oh the shelter's starting to come together and i'm pretty pleased with my progress so far but this is absolutely crazy i'm getting eaten alive by mosquitoes i feel like i have to start a fire to get rid of some of these mosquitoes so that's what i'm gonna do i never thought i have a freaking sweater here man that i thought i was gonna have to wear i never thought i'd be having yeah look they're on me right now i'm gonna battle mosquitoes on november 2nd why are you crying Scott he's a whiny baby you see the whiny baby today yeah that's whiny Scott today i'm with my dog Scott he is cry lots of cry cry cry let's go let's go here Here, eat this worm bro. Oh, he just ate the worm. He just... they keep getting asked questions, where's your adventure swan, Joe? Why don't you play with your adventure swan anymore? What happened to it Why did you sell it? Well, the fact of the matter is I do play with it, I do use it, I didn't sell it I still have it and I like it a lot But I have a lot of nice knives, two or three that I like to rotate with, and I've just been lately on my Turley kick. I like a convex knife, but this is a great knife, I love it. This is my first my first adventure swan I think I ever had. I bought, I re-bought it off a buddy about a year ago. It's the Explorer model, it's a Bushcraft USA model, it's a great knife. It's in one, it's in 5/32nd Scandy so, in all honesty, it's too thick for a Scandy for my liking, but it's okay, I'm used to it. It's convexed over the years anyways, basically mostly convexed so that's a nice pile of shavings, of good shavings too but I just did right off the outside of this oak I didn't split it down at all. I find that the wood closer to the outside is easier to make shavings with And when the wood is dry, there's no reason not to. I always like the first fire in a new fire pit Like breaking her in, you know breaking the side of the champagne on the on the boat christening Better all of a beer Just marking where I want to cut my logs I'm able to find a lot on the forest floor right now, which is fantastic. Don't want to be cutting trees I'm not going to cut live trees, but I don't want to be cutting even dead trees to do this I want to be able to just use what I've had before on previous shelters and find deadfall on the ground to end up with a lot of these cutoffs But they're gonna come in use later on for building a shelter as well So we're just making a rib work right now trying to stick them into the ground a bit I'm just gonna get a frame probably three more substantial logs then we'll start working on on the cross ribs brought some eggs out I think we'll cook up some eggs pretty soon too it's 1137 I have to pick up my kid at 3 so I gotta leave here by 2 roughly 2 hours left so I need to make myself a pot hanger I'm putting a pause on the shelter build here so I can cook my eggs I'm looking for a green limb and I like I said I don't want to anything down that's green but if you look hard enough in the woods sometimes you can find green thing green trees that have just died that have just been pushed over by another tree that they're gonna die anyways or in this case i don't know what it is somebody might have cut this it kind of looks man-made but there's an ideal green tree down that i can use a maple this is what i was talking about that's the break i can't really tell man it kind of looks kind of looks it wasn't cut but it kind of looks like it was pushed over and it broke on that spot why are you crying bro why are you crying hey they're still yellow and not falling off very easily so this must have been pushed over pretty recently um i'm going to just take the top half because that's the part that i need here i can flex it flex it and cut it oh buddy all right there's one piece of wood i'm going to make my my full pot hanger because i have that fire reflector in the back i can use that as part of it just cleaning it up a bit but perfect all right so the whole idea is that i'm going to to put this stick through so far that smash that down and the weight of the the water in the billy pan is going to just hold this even having nothing on the back just the weight of the the stick pulling it down on that end and the weight of the billy can pull it down on this end let's see if that works so i brought some eggs like i said bring them in inside my billy can i'll wrap them in a paper towel and nine times out of ten they stay all right and even if they don't they're just cracked and losing a little bit which is fine but keep that paper towel it's invaluable I'm gonna fill my Billy can up quarter of the way almost between a quarter and half the way full and then I'm gonna put my top dish in my zebra crack my egg crack my other egg I got some Montreal steak spice which goes really well on these believe it or not just a little bit in there a little A little dab will do ya. Lid on. Ba-bam, son! It's kind of not over top of the fire, though. So we'll adjust and see if it still works. Put that like that in case. So I have the top. There's a little knob sticking there so it doesn't fly off. I left that there on purpose for that reason. That is a boot perfect. About perfect, guys. So I'm coming to the realization I'm not going to be able to finish this today, having to leave at 2 o'clock to go get the kid. But that's okay. I kind of kind of had that in my head anyways that I might do this in a series Kind of like what Lily did with her bug out camp I'll only do maybe two or three videos tops And then I'll spend a night here the third video might be me Finishing up the shelter and then sleeping here or something like that. I'll probably bring Scout too, but yeah right now I'm starving starving so yeah I'll maybe I'll just name them like specifically what what things I did in that video like I'll call it like a um bushcraft base camp episode one building a bench and a ridge pole and a fire and a pot hook and cooking eggs that's a long title how's this mustache working out guys how's this how's this mustache working out for you let's just zoom right in on there ah time to shave time to shave what do you think let me know in the comments should i trim it should i keep it should i try and grow try and grow something oh the fun we have hey i'm guessing it's done now yeah nice and white now the pothook will just get taken out of there stood up right here for the next time let's get a look at these bad boys oh you know what i brought some tea snap i brought my fruity little tea ball with my fruity holiday treat tea and doug always makes fun of me for so i'm actually going use that same water that was used to cook my egg i'll let that steep in there and then i'll have my tea not that it's cold out at all okay so this is a finished product egg with the Montreal steak spice on it it's a little warm so i'm going to put it on top of a stick on top of my leg as opposed to just resting it right on my my leg and i already carved up a little eating utensil oh for all the yolk is nicely done ah it's so hot there's the yolk right there that's just yolk nice and solid oh buddy the only problem with doing this is a little bit of a pain in the butt to to clean it after but if you scrape right as it's still hot it all kind of comes off the bottom but it doesn't matter it's not a big deal i've used this with that stuff on it for days after while i was camping it's no big deal did you get it all good boy what's your step see i was able to score some good pieces of wood uh only a couple of them i have to cut again so i'm going to use one of this these logs as a marker how long to cut it really glad I brought this buck so I'm gonna clean up this bottom part I didn't want to saw it twice you can see the bottom parts all rotted out it's a good idea to get rid of it but this little ax will make short work of it buddy I left a little bit of room when I cut it because I knew I was gonna do this so I cut it a little bit longer than I needed to we're getting there the idea is to have like a good framework of strong ribs decent like none of these are going to break if i lean on them this is all oak ironwood ash ash sassafras at the end um yeah so a good good structure of strong logs i'm gonna start working my way around to give it sides but i'm gonna weave in or tie probably tie in thinner ones on the inside running length uh vertical nope horizontal one of them good day good day in the woods it feels uh very nostalgic very nostalgic all right guys i really hope you like this let me know in the comments actually is if this is something that you want to want to see if you if you don't mind seeing different parts of a series uh some i get comments all the time telling me different things i don't know what people want to see so i'm trying to do my best let me know what you guys think this this kind of format two or three episodes in this series uh about building the shelter and um and then camping in it will be the culmination but then this will be here you know i mean this the shelter will if if it doesn't get torn down or broken down in the storm or something like that will be here and i'll be coming back to here and shooting videos and stuff so okay that's it thanks for watching have a good day i'm gonna leave Goodbye, guys. The scout's content, eh? Content to just lay there finally? Old Scooter Magooter. Let's go home.