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It's about you, about me, about number one. I don't mean that as in, be evil to everyone how gets in your way or makes it hard own you. NO! No, no, no. We need to care about others, its part of being a developed human being, but how can we do this? When we don't understand what we, the singular person, need. Simple answer, you cant, or at least, I cant. And I am not saying I have found the one big secret to inner peace,  I don't even know if there is one right answer to that question. It's the same thing as asking what beauty is. There is no right answer. But I do know that when you find the right answer for you, everything makes a little more scene and get a hole lot easier.

As most of you know, my milt genera project was own bravery, but that just part of it. The hole picture for me are the thinks that make me feel complete make me feel like the person I am.  Simple, clean and no bull shit.

Blacksmithing, this was a god send. I final had found that one thing that I felt I was good at, and could expand into both a hobby and a art form. Pounding hot metal, working with not against it, to make something is the big picture in my shop. Sometime things don't go the way you want and that ok, just set it aside, make new or change it all together.

Junior Maine Guide, was what I would call a building experience. Meaning that you learned how to get along with other and work as a team. It is all so the best leadership training I have ever herd of.  This, for me was all so a test as well as a learning trip. I was going to find out it I had IT. I still couldn't tell what IT is, other than work ethic, friendship, determination, caring, bravery, loyalty, and all the other things I want to be. This was were I wanted to go and find it. Wasn't just learning how to guide other people, it was also a little of finding yourself.

So here as my last post, I am saying move forward, don't stay stagnate, look for those things that make you happy, and once you have found then work own them, get better at it, and they apply it. So you are in control of your fate and you the most important person can now be the most.                

Forest life.

Some people have a yard, a pool or a fence behind there homes. I own the other had have a forest. Yes, a forest, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Wouldn't, because of three little things.

One, having a hole area behind you home is a once in a life time opportunity. It your one big play ground, which has everything in it. Dead tree slides that you can run to the top of, and then try to say on as come down. Jungle gyms of beech and oak, branches all over the place just asking to be climbed. Tunnels made by tree root that the best hiding place. And of cores giant glassier erratics. Hodge rock that give kid there first rock climbing lessons. I must say, I made great work of this when I was younger. We had this one dead tree that fell into the crock of another an made a perfect 45 degree angle. This was my slide tree. I had small groups of beech around and they were fun to climb in, but there was one more. Standing alone and 25 feet tall, this was my favorite one to climb in. Once I hid in the top branches in a game of hide and seek, no one could find me because no one though to look up.    

Two, It is a nice place to relax, trees swaying in the wind, small animals running accost  the forest floor, run of brooks trickling away. Its peaceful at least when the bugs aren't around. But other then that its a great place to set up a hammock and sleep, meditate, or read if your into that kind of pass time. I can personally say that I have to fur tree that are the perfect distance apart for my hammock, an I am guilty of sleeping and meditating there, but I wont say anything about reading there.  

Third, great place to rage quit or blow steam. Nature supplies use with meany way to get our anger out. Sticks and branches are all over the ground, very convenient if you wan to have it out this some mean old spruce. Rock are available to, and it get fun to find out how far you can throw them. Final is running the fur gantlet. Just find a patch of fur trees that are unusably thick and then you run through them. This mack your really tired really fast, and I am guilty of all three.

The best thing about all of this is that no matter what I did, the forest wasn't mad at me. No matter how many tress I broke or brooks I messed up, it just fixed them and welcomed me back the next time around. And that is what make a forest so special.

             

Wet Day Fire

Rain is pouring down form the sky, you look around and all the things you would typical use for tinder are soaked. You have a grumpy group of people that just want to be warm. Pressure is on, and it all you.

This is not a uncommon situation for a person of the outdoors, whether its you that are cold, or a group that you are guiding, answers is the same. FIRE! Fire when everything around you is soaked, but it is easier then you may think. It all depended own if you now where to look for dry wood. Most of use would randomly go of into the forest hoping to find an area that is not so wet. This could work, but it dose depend own how long it has been raining. Much more then half an hour would will be hard pressed to find what you need that way. There is always an alternative.

Many of you have heard me talk about JMG "Junior Maine Guide", as being the experience that changed my life, and taught me much. Well one of the test was wet day fire, this focused own how fast you could use an axe and knife safely. The goal was to use a block of wood that had been soaked in water to light a fire that within 20 minuets could boil a cup of water. What! That what I said when if found out, but its doable, there was even a kid that did it in under 11 minuets, it cut it closer at around 13. The secret is in the block of wood. For even in a rain storm the inside of a standing dead peace of ceder or spruce should stay at least damp if not dry. This is were you get all the starting fuel  you need.

First you need to split the block with a axe, this should be repeated two or three more times before the slivers are the right size to be split with a knife, this dry inner wood is the kindling, shaving made form this becomes the tinder which takes the light of the match - which should be dry. Now I use a log cabin structure to get fire going. The log cabin give just enough air while keeping the flame shelters, and all so give a constant feed of fuel. So if you ever out in the middle of the woods in a rain storm, look for a standing dead tree, might just come in handy.

P.S. Love Capture the Flag!

           

Getting Our lines in the Water

Fly fishing and open water season are still a ways away, but to dedicated fly fishermen it never to early to start in peroration for that screaming reel and fast water and magnificent fish. Its all to fun and to existing to not start working on casting and flies right now, and to be honest I cant help myself.

But spring fishing is not the easiest, which might be why it so much fun, but this point still stands. The water temp is still cold and the fish are not moving as much as they will latter in the year. This doesn't mean they are not active or that they are not catch-able. For after the ice leaves the lake and the rives start to go down, food becomes plentiful and fish, especial game fish like trout and salmon which are more at home in colder waters, will start to feed. In our lake the rising temperature own the surface bring giant schools of smelts to the surface, where they become the main food for Brook Trout, Land Locked Salmon, and even the usually sluggish Togue or Lake Trout which will fight just as hard in these cold waters.

To go out to get these fish in the early ice out condition, fly fishermen will typical use streamer that imitate smelts or other bait fish. Flies like this Grey Ghost, and other of similar color

As you can see they do look similar to the fresh water smelts that are the intended food item. 

In Our River the rust most likely come after the Lacks to the fact the current makes it hard to keep the line in control and it also beats down the fish. When that water levels become more stable fishermen will start attacking these areas.

Here smaller streamer flies are sometimes used, for the same reason we used them in the lakes, but nymph paters are also put into action. This can work because all during the winter insect nymphs have lived in the rocks, and remained very much alive. It is believed the trout and salmon even feed on these nymph in the misted of the winter. What ever the case my be the are feeding own them in the spring. These bundles of protein are small so are the flies, so when you have a fish own a nymph it is not a good idea to horse it.

These are the basics of early season fly fish, the are especial the nymph fishing, but in my mind that just makes the strike and that awesome fish all the more memorable.

 

Hitting the Anvil

Ok, this is forge the wild so, while you will see outdoor info on this blog, that wont be all. I am also go to exhibit black smithing info and videos. So to start of is one of my favorites, traditional viking axe smithing. This is done buy taking a lump of soft steel and working it out into a handle hole and a blade. This is not as simple as it may seem, which is what macks it so cool in my mind. As you will see the smith, Justin Austin, used a fuller to separate the mass of the piece. After he uses a hot chisel to split one end, so he can craft this into a circle the forge wield(the cool part) the ends. After, he dose this to the blade before inserting a piece of high carbon steel, or cutting steel so that the business end of the axe stay sharper longer.

Axe Forging Link  

This is only one of meany points of the smiths craft, another is the artistic end of it, and with spring just around the corner it thought it would be interesting to see how a leaf is made. A leaf topically comes out of a length of round stock, as it is not one hug mass as the axe is. In doing this, Steve Wietecha sets a short rectangular tapper on the end that is to become the leaf. Then he proseceds to to set a fuller behind the tapper and then draws this out into a thin round tapper witch will become the stem. Final finishing the piece by flattening out the leaf and place the vies in with the cross peen hammer.

Leaf Forging Link         

My March Madness

My march madness doesn't have brackets, or scores. It doesn't have a winner or losers. My march madness doesn't depend own numbers of layups scored. It depends own sunlight, night to day temperature ratios and the time it takes to tap all of the maple trees. My march madness is all about maple syrup.

The maple syrup season typical starts in mid to late February and runs until the end of March, sometimes the beginning of April. Where Maine Maple Sunday falls at the peak of the season on the 4th Sunday in march. This year however it is about 3 to 4 weeks late. This is not fun and it not good. It's like have your favorite collage basket ball tournament set back a few weeks. This is all about the weather, the way the sap flows is a convection like system between the buds and the base or the tree. Freezing in the night, to keep the ground cold and high 30 to 40 degree temperatures in the day, to warm the top of the tree warm is what pulls that sap. And when these conditions don't happen that sap will not run.

However, as the temperatures start to warm, late as it may be, the run will happen. This is the tournament. We step off, into the maple stand, drilling holes and placing buckets, then returning to see what the tree has yielded. It can become a bit of a obsession. You start cleaning the evaporator and the rest of your equipment, watching the long term weather religiously, and going around your grove to pick out trees that blog sunlight, but we love it! Going around the trees own a beautiful day, collecting sap in 5 gallon buckets, all while trying not to trip own your snow shoes.  

But that is what must be done, and it becomes all worth it, when we boil. It's a party really, friends and family coming over to stand in the sauna of steam, waiting for the surge level to come close to perfect so we can sample this liquid gold.