We had a great time at Saskatoon Circle, the first primitive skills gathering in our beautiful valley. Thanks to all the people who contributed to making this event a success!
We taught brain tanning, buffalo rawhide sandals, animal processing, and gave horse rides to the kids. It was really fun and we hope to see everybody again next year!
Now we're back on schedule to teach our Fall classes. Right now Lynx is teaching Wild foods and this weekend Rico will teach how to work with horses.
I finally finished the webpage for the 2010 Stone Age Project, so go and check it out!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Rabbitstick and Saskatoon Circle
We had a great time at Rabbitstick, the primitive skills gathering known to many. We softened a bear hide, taught a buffalo rawhide sandals class, and gave a slide-show presentation of our Stone Age project. People seemed to be excited about what we have to offer and several individuals and families have already inquired about next year's project.
This week we'll be at Saskatoon Circle, the first primitive skills gathering happening in our beautiful Methow Valley. We're really hoping to make this a successful event so that we can gather again and share skills every year. So come and enjoy a week of skills and sunshine while meeting like-minded people!
We hope to see you there.
This week we'll be at Saskatoon Circle, the first primitive skills gathering happening in our beautiful Methow Valley. We're really hoping to make this a successful event so that we can gather again and share skills every year. So come and enjoy a week of skills and sunshine while meeting like-minded people!
We hope to see you there.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Stone Age Project 2009
We headed up into the mountains with our primitive gear and the dried wild foods we had gathered for the past few months.
We ate like bears, slept like raccoons, pooped like bobcats, sang like birds, communed like wolves. The Earth supported us and the sky shined or rained energy down on us to provide for all our needs.
Our existence was simple and streamlined, without fuss, complication, or distraction. We were happy to be; happy to live.
We oppressed no one; produced no garbage; relied only on what was given freely by our local environment, without reaching to the other side of the earth in someone else's backyard.
We lived with respect, responsibility, and honor for a whole month, like our ancestors before us.
We commit ourselves to pursuing our journey on this path, step by step, until we live completely sustainably all year round.
We ate like bears, slept like raccoons, pooped like bobcats, sang like birds, communed like wolves. The Earth supported us and the sky shined or rained energy down on us to provide for all our needs.
Our existence was simple and streamlined, without fuss, complication, or distraction. We were happy to be; happy to live.
We oppressed no one; produced no garbage; relied only on what was given freely by our local environment, without reaching to the other side of the earth in someone else's backyard.
We lived with respect, responsibility, and honor for a whole month, like our ancestors before us.
We commit ourselves to pursuing our journey on this path, step by step, until we live completely sustainably all year round.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Felting
This week's class ended our two-month preparation period before we head out into the wild and the Stone Age on Saturday.
Though probably the least primitive craft we've done the whole summer, we'll be grateful for the warmth and water resistance of our felting efforts while still a little envious of the buffalo robes Lynx and returning students will enjoy. We can't wait for next year so that we can make our own robes!
We started the week by picking the raw wool by hand to break out the clumps and shake out the debris from it. Then we spent long hours carding about half the wool, both by hand and with a drum carder.
We made simple hats to get used to the felting process and they all turned out "lovely."
The next day we spent several hours laying out our patterns with the carded and picked wool. Everyone had great designs, creatively using whatever color of wool we had. And then the grueling process of felting the blankets began. It took each of us a good ten hours to complete the process, gently patting and rubbing the fibers together to make sure our patterns would hold.
And, finally, real beauties emerged...
Though probably the least primitive craft we've done the whole summer, we'll be grateful for the warmth and water resistance of our felting efforts while still a little envious of the buffalo robes Lynx and returning students will enjoy. We can't wait for next year so that we can make our own robes!
We started the week by picking the raw wool by hand to break out the clumps and shake out the debris from it. Then we spent long hours carding about half the wool, both by hand and with a drum carder.
We made simple hats to get used to the felting process and they all turned out "lovely."
The next day we spent several hours laying out our patterns with the carded and picked wool. Everyone had great designs, creatively using whatever color of wool we had. And then the grueling process of felting the blankets began. It took each of us a good ten hours to complete the process, gently patting and rubbing the fibers together to make sure our patterns would hold.
And, finally, real beauties emerged...
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Food Processing
Our last days of food processing were blessed with high temperatures and blue sunny skies to help us dry our food.
Nate and I made some nice drying mats out of black ash and they were perfect for drying our Saskstoon and Huckleberry cakes.
We also collected some buffalo berries to use as "soap" during the stone age project. And just to try what we read in books, we beat the berries into a froth called Indian Ice Cream. With lots of honey it had a very interesting taste: Soap with Honey. Though unusual, I can't say that I disliked it as much as I thought I would.
We also took out our sinewy jerky and pounded it to separate the meat from the sinew. Once our berries are dry we'll mix them with buffalo fat and the pounded meat to make pemmican. Yum!
Finally, we got gourds to serve as water and fat containers and, after cutting the top of them, we cleaned them real good with hot water and some hardy scrubbing.
Nate and I made some nice drying mats out of black ash and they were perfect for drying our Saskstoon and Huckleberry cakes.
We also collected some buffalo berries to use as "soap" during the stone age project. And just to try what we read in books, we beat the berries into a froth called Indian Ice Cream. With lots of honey it had a very interesting taste: Soap with Honey. Though unusual, I can't say that I disliked it as much as I thought I would.
We also took out our sinewy jerky and pounded it to separate the meat from the sinew. Once our berries are dry we'll mix them with buffalo fat and the pounded meat to make pemmican. Yum!
Finally, we got gourds to serve as water and fat containers and, after cutting the top of them, we cleaned them real good with hot water and some hardy scrubbing.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Berry Picking
We started the week by going down the Methow River in two canoes. Despite being turned over twice and almost breaking one canoe (yikes!) everyone was safe and the gear still mostly dry thanks to handy 5 gallon buckets.
We spent two days gathering Saskatoon Berries and Squaw Currants. I'll just let you read what everyone said about their experience:
"Pick me! Pick me! they cry; their juicy sweet round little forms all vying for my attention. They want me and I want them and one should be sad lonely and left on the bush. The plants are using us to propagate as much as we use them, a symbiotic little dance; no toilets allowed! - must complete your service to the service berry. Personally, I've always thought berries were sexy; the way they hang themselves out there and tantalize, the way they goosh and beg for more. Who wouldn't want to fondle and devour, be fat and roll on home? Like a bear for winter. Oh yes, can we please be bears even just for a day and slip the berries with our big pink tongues?"
"Today I learned much about the physics of berry picking. The quickest way to fill a bucket is by grabbing clumps of four +. It is a real treat to find bulging clumps of a dozen or more berries. The dried ones are sweeter but harder to pick because the stems remain stuck. Picking berries has made me realize that I am in Eden."
"We have lost touch with wild abundance. 'What are those berries?' residents in town ask as we load up our baskets in the city park. Fruits they've passed by for years... 'Aren't they sour?' 'Are they poisonous?' 'I think they're too seedy.' This is just not something we do, going out to seek nourishment from Nature. Food - this is something grown, managed, cleaned, shipped, fat and juicy, purchased... We hike up an old gravel road. Service Berries, Saskatoons, Shad bush, Sugar Plums, June Berries, Amalanchier; whatever you call them and they're everywhere. Every turn, step, another bush, purple clusters of ripe fruit, basket after basket, shrubs sprouted from bird scat, coyote scat, bear scat, mouse scat, moved and shared year after year. We pick, we eat, we store, we participate, brushing our fingertips along the edge of wild abundance."
"What an abundant place we live in. It is so good to see berries all over the place, letting us know that our needs are taken care of if we just want to reach out a little bit. Collecting berries also makes us aware of the other beings dependent on them: all sorts of bugs and birds all around, gathering their food along with us. I also always think about how it would be to gather berries everyday all summer long so that they could feed us in the present but also for the winter. It sounds like a lot of boring work and it makes me think of the necessity to have a tribe so that 'work' is mixed with play, songs, stories, bets, games, little kids running around, and the wisdom of the watchful elders."
"Was I once human? I claw through the berries, frenzied by the deep purple clusters, full, ripe, drying, dry. Together with the birds and wasps I feed. Stained fingers, I recklessly tear through the bushes, heedless of the thorns, to pull down the branches that are dripping with berries. Together with the bears I gorge. Oh yes, it is what it once was to be human."
We spent two days gathering Saskatoon Berries and Squaw Currants. I'll just let you read what everyone said about their experience:
"Pick me! Pick me! they cry; their juicy sweet round little forms all vying for my attention. They want me and I want them and one should be sad lonely and left on the bush. The plants are using us to propagate as much as we use them, a symbiotic little dance; no toilets allowed! - must complete your service to the service berry. Personally, I've always thought berries were sexy; the way they hang themselves out there and tantalize, the way they goosh and beg for more. Who wouldn't want to fondle and devour, be fat and roll on home? Like a bear for winter. Oh yes, can we please be bears even just for a day and slip the berries with our big pink tongues?"
"Today I learned much about the physics of berry picking. The quickest way to fill a bucket is by grabbing clumps of four +. It is a real treat to find bulging clumps of a dozen or more berries. The dried ones are sweeter but harder to pick because the stems remain stuck. Picking berries has made me realize that I am in Eden."
"We have lost touch with wild abundance. 'What are those berries?' residents in town ask as we load up our baskets in the city park. Fruits they've passed by for years... 'Aren't they sour?' 'Are they poisonous?' 'I think they're too seedy.' This is just not something we do, going out to seek nourishment from Nature. Food - this is something grown, managed, cleaned, shipped, fat and juicy, purchased... We hike up an old gravel road. Service Berries, Saskatoons, Shad bush, Sugar Plums, June Berries, Amalanchier; whatever you call them and they're everywhere. Every turn, step, another bush, purple clusters of ripe fruit, basket after basket, shrubs sprouted from bird scat, coyote scat, bear scat, mouse scat, moved and shared year after year. We pick, we eat, we store, we participate, brushing our fingertips along the edge of wild abundance."
"What an abundant place we live in. It is so good to see berries all over the place, letting us know that our needs are taken care of if we just want to reach out a little bit. Collecting berries also makes us aware of the other beings dependent on them: all sorts of bugs and birds all around, gathering their food along with us. I also always think about how it would be to gather berries everyday all summer long so that they could feed us in the present but also for the winter. It sounds like a lot of boring work and it makes me think of the necessity to have a tribe so that 'work' is mixed with play, songs, stories, bets, games, little kids running around, and the wisdom of the watchful elders."
"Was I once human? I claw through the berries, frenzied by the deep purple clusters, full, ripe, drying, dry. Together with the birds and wasps I feed. Stained fingers, I recklessly tear through the bushes, heedless of the thorns, to pull down the branches that are dripping with berries. Together with the bears I gorge. Oh yes, it is what it once was to be human."
Friday, July 10, 2009
Buckskin clothing
We had another week of hard work making our clothes out of buckskin. It was definitely great to transform all the hides we had worked so hard on into something that functional. Indeed, buckskin is warm, windproof, durable, and flexible; really great stuff. The only bummer about it is that it doesn't do well in water. Thankfully, for our climate it's the best clothing you can get.
I made a nice heavy pullover and leggings while Nate made a beautiful pair of pants. The pants will definitely be warmer and more durable but I was glad I didn't have to deal with all the seams on the pants!
I still need to make my loincloth and I want to make another shirt of a lighter weight with short sleeves but that means I have to soften another hide and smoke it in the next two weeks. And I would also like to dye all these clothes with black walnut. The stone age project is really approaching fast!
I made a nice heavy pullover and leggings while Nate made a beautiful pair of pants. The pants will definitely be warmer and more durable but I was glad I didn't have to deal with all the seams on the pants!
I still need to make my loincloth and I want to make another shirt of a lighter weight with short sleeves but that means I have to soften another hide and smoke it in the next two weeks. And I would also like to dye all these clothes with black walnut. The stone age project is really approaching fast!
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