By: Vague
Where does a day go? In fact, where does time go in general? I’ve been out here for over three weeks now, yet it barely seems any time at all.
My days recently have been full of shelter building (more on this later) but a large percentage of any day is given over to the tasks connected with food.
These include gathering food itself; berries, mushrooms, seafood etc; gathering wood, sawing it into little logs, splitting the logs with axe and knife, keeping axe and knife sharp enough to shave with (not that I have – in fact I have a proper Jeremiah Johnson beard). Then there’s finding, carrying, purifying water. And cooking itself.
I’m looking forward to having my shelter finished so that I can have a proper fire, rather than using my stove. They’ll be less sawing and splitting then, and less smoke too.
The shelter I am building is quite spacious, with a place to sleep, a bench (which is ten feet long), a place to store things and a spare side, where anyone who cares to join me can sleep.
And, as I mentioned, it has a fire pit in the centre, quite literally central heating.
The door is designed so my poncho can be tied to it, enabling an upwards chimney effect for the smoke to rise. As there is a gap in the centre, there should be no need to worry about smoke collecting inside, or the shelter catching fire!
At present the building of this backwoods palace is at the thatching stage. This is where the fact it is a group shelter design falls down – if there were the three of four people it can accommodate, then it could be built in a day or two; gathering materials on my own, finding them, collecting them and carrying them back is a time consuming affair.
So why build such a large shelter? In fact you may ask why build a shelter at all, after all, aren’t I supposed to be moving along, heading north?
Well, at present I have found an incredible place, oak woods are rare and this one is full of life. I am on a south facing slope, so I am making the most of daylight, and I haven’t seen anybody else since resupplying over a week ago.
I can move on when I want, I have no rules, no time constraints to stop me doing what I want, when I want.
Besides, I want to practice certain skills and making a shelter is one of them. And it is a challenge; I have used no cordage throughout the design, the frame is supported by each constituent part; and it is very strong, today I proved how strong by laying on top to thatch parts I couldn’t reach from the base. (This is where I made a slight error, making the upright posts too tall, but by the time I had sawn through five ten inch thick seasoned oak logs, I didn’t fancy sawing through them again to reduce the height).
As mentioned earlier, I am currently thatching the shelter. I have already added log diagonal supports, then a lattice-work layer of thinner branches (there are lots of cut down rhododendron to use for this, and windfall branches too) and now I have thatched three of the four sides with heather.
The next stage is a layer of bracken, woven into the heather which will create a solid base for the following layer of dead leaves and forest floor debris. The final cladding will be moss, which is everywhere and can be collected in huge carpet-like rolls.
All this work may seem excessive, but the final product will be totally weatherproof, and very warm, especially with the fire at the centre.
And then? Maybe I’ll stay a week or two, maybe I’ll move on, who knows, I’m just enjoying being out here; the time to think, about my past, my future, I’m enjoying being immersed in nature, part of a bigger picture.
I’m having a lot of fun.