Food for the spirit

Last weekend a friend invited me to come up to his farm for a visit and a hunt...

Both of us were supposed to have gone up north with a larger group to work in the bush but a family illness in the group prevented this from happening...

A visit to the farm was an opportunity that arose from cancelled plans.

It's turkey season...

The fields are greening...

The turkeys are calling... and the bugs are only beginning to assert themselves...

Turkey hunting to me is about...

Getting up at 4:30 am

Watching the sun come up in the fields and forests...

Feeling the land come back to life after a long winter...

And enjoying the wildlife...

The challenge of calling turkeys...

And sometimes curious deer...

And quiet...

Although the weekend didn't produce any food for the table....

Time with friends and the forest ... was well timed food for my spirit...

-Martin

Nomad Dreams

Everyone has a dream...

Some are larger than others...

Some dreams are achievable and some are not...

A long time dream of mine has been to own a trailer...

A mobile space of my own that I can move on a whim...

Here is a project that I found on the instructables

(a favourite website of mine that I have mentioned before)

photo credit paleotool.com

This interesting trailer 

was built by an interesting fellow who has a blog called

Paleotool's Weblog

I find the design very practical, appealing, and simple...

Form following function...

It is built on the frame of an older covered utility trailer.

Here is a newer covered utility trailer...

I am on the lookout for an older trailer to use for a platform to build my own trailer... 

Where does the spirit to create such a wonderful creation come from?

click here 

and also

click here

for a link to 

some authors and ideas...

-Martin

Morning Hens

It's overcast again this morning but that hasn't discouraged this group of three hen turkeys from an early outing...

Just after 8am these female birds cautiously snuck out of  the bush to feed within feet of my kitchen window...

The birds spent about ten minutes scratching the ground for seeds and bugs working their way towards 

the deer food plot I planted last spring...

I have been thinking of running the harrows over my plot and replanting for this year but will wait until  the turkey hunt is over (still over a week away) because the birds are actively using it as a seasonal food source...

-Martin

Words of Wisdom

Today the weather has been all over the map starting sunny and cool transitioning to rain and cool and now...

 its snowing outside intermittently...

I know its a bit early, but craving some greens to eat,  a few days ago 

lettuce and beet seeds were planted in the garden on a hunch the spring is here for good...

Time will tell if this hunch was a good one ...

Here are some  of the six rhubarb crowns I just transplanted too...a gift from a friends garden.

I have tried to transplant rhubarb unsuccessfully in the past.

An old couple I met in a donut shop last winter told me outright that my previous efforts were flawed because...

 "you have to throw your transplanted rhubarb in sheep shit"

Words of Wisdom?

I will let you know in a few weeks...

-Martin

Necessity the mother of invention

A friend piqued by my last post about 

equipment woes and nuisance "sucker" brushwood growth

just sent me some ideas...

 Creative genius rising from necessity!

Actually the top and bottom drawings are his...

The middle one is one of Leonardo DaVinci's!!!

(Do you think DaVinci was trying to figure out how to pull suckers in his sketch too?)

"Necessity is the mother of invention"

Plato....The Republic

-Martin

Trimmer Trouble

Spring cleanup around my house is underway...

The gardens have been raked, tilled and planted and now I am trying to clear some "scrub" around the house.

Things aren't working out according to plan though...

I tried starting my brush trimmer this morning and its motor would not kick into action...

The spark plug is not sparking which means

that I will have to disconnect the kill switch to find out if it is a wire problem or a coil problem...

Either way this is a problem until I can fix it...

I use this tool for trimming sucker growth...

If you don't keep the sucker growth under control the forest will grow in around you...

My trimmer is old and

I'm hoping that parts are still available.

Although its frustrating not being able to get to a job at hand right away...

The process of problem solving this type of scenario is in itself curiously satisfying?

-Martin 

Wild Leek Bread

Thursday's wild leeks were made up into two...

delicious loaves of bread.....

-Martin

Forest Food

It's Good Friday and the snow in the bush is mostly gone now...

As the ground warms the forest floor is slowly starting to come alive... 

This transitional time marks the beginning of wild leek season....

Yesterday I went over to a new friends house for a walk in his Forest

I have eaten a lot of food from the forest but have never picked wild leeks!

Andrew showed me how to identify leeks on the forest floor and pick them properly.

Here is a bunch that he sent me home with.

Click on this link for a visit to his blog and some more information about wild leeks

This afternoon I am going to bake some wild leek bread!

-Martin

Film Review

A couple of days ago I watched INTO THE WILD a film inspired by the story of Christopher McCandless. 

I picked this DVD up at the library...

The story is about a young man who is driven to travel to Alaska and live on his own in the bush.

It is a story of someone passionate about life but ill prepared for his journey....

Christopher travels to Alaska...attempts to live off the land, and dies of starvation....

I remember reading about this story as a news event a few years ago.

Jon Krakauer wrote a book about the tragedy....

It was a tragic story to read about at the time it happened... 

Christopher's body was found decomposing in an old school bus two weeks after he died.

Some find Christophers efforts heroic and inspiring while others see him as a fool.

The film is  hard to watch at times but worth the effort...

-Martin