Finding ember extenders in the winter can sometimes be tricky. Watch this video to find out about collecting clematis downy flower (or seed) heads in January. We talk about collecting clematis downy flower heads on our 2 Day & 5 Day Bushcraft Courses as well as the IOL Bushcraft Competency Course. You can see plenty of photos from all of […]
After previously posting a video on collecting and processing sweet chestnut inner bark, I thought I’d make a video showing how to ignite it. We teach lighting sweet chestnut inner bark on our 2 Day & 5 Day Bushcraft Courses as well as the IOL Bushcraft Competency Course. You can see plenty of photos from all of these courses on […]
We don’t have many conifers around our ancient woodland camp, but recently we were gifted some fatwood by Joe, who lives in Snowdonia. Joe attended our IOL Bushcraft Competency Certificate training course earlier this year. So I thought I’d put together a short video showing how to prepare and ignite fatwood. We teach how to […]
This is the only occasion on which I’ve found inner bark of beech. Over the winter a beech branch came down and so I put it to one side to use later for some carving. I went back to it recently and found that I could pull away fibres from the inside of the bark. […]
This time of year finds me collecting thistle heads to use as a tinder, amongst other species of downy flower heads. Because they’re seasonal I collect enough to see me through the next 12 months. In my experience downy flower heads work best as an ember extender, they don’t generally do much more than flash […]
I’ve been in the woods collecting goosegrass for tinder recently. Goosegrass (Galium aparine) is also known as cleavers, sticky weed, sticky Jim and a host of other names. It’s the stuff that sticks to your jumper! It comes through early in the year and starts to die off in late summer. Once it’s dried out […]
