BUSHCRAFT: Den Building Diaries Part 1 - Natural Shelter | TA Outdoors

Description

The Den Building Diaries follows three people and a dog who create their own Natural Shelter and 'Den' using basic Bushcraft skills. In this episode, Mike Pullen shows you how he builds a natural woodland shelter using an 'A' frame technique. Emmy is working on building the barriers and walls to the Den, and Beth is giving a helping hand with Emmy and Mike. The aim of this series is to help get children off computers and games and get them outside to experience the REAL world. We want them to experience the woodlands, mother nature in all its beauty. Hopefully along the way you might learn some bushcraft tips, from natural shelter building to fire lighting and more. But our aim is to have fun building our Den and to make a story of our Journey into the natural world.

We hope you enjoy the series :) - Mike, Emmy, Beth and Barney (the dog).

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Tags: Bushcraft,Camping,foraging,wild camp,skills,fire starting,fire lighting,natural fire,fero rod,shelter,shelter building,natural shelter,woodland,outdoors,mother nature,den building,den building diaries,part 1,a frame shelter,lean to shelter,log shelter,how to build a den

Video Transcription

well you join me here in the woods and deepest Oxfordshire and all I'm doing really is we're doing a bit of den building with mum My partner and me and her little sister Beth is 9 or 10 I can't remember now but it's bit of a lost lost thing really nowadays is this wood but this den building in the woods and things like that with kids so we tend to come here every weekend and we've only just started really we started last weekend building our den and we're just going to come each weekend really on a Sunday afternoon and just build it up each time really and hopefully are really good den by the end hopefully spring summer time maybe we'll do some overnighters here but I'll just give you a little tour of our den so you can see what we're doing so here's our then we've chosen the location up on a hill as you can see the lots of deadfall around so plenty of material to build to build things with we chose that the wind tends to come coming up from down down the hill that way so we've come right up on the hill here and we've chosen to go under some trees obviously we've checked the area for any dead four dead dead trees they look like they're going to fall and it looks pretty safe to be honest say one of the one of the main things really is the location of where you're going to build your dead it's important not to just go to the first place you see but actually have a look at some decent places with you know what benefits is that place going to bring you an idea you want to choose a place that's already got a bit of natural shelter anyway to save you all the work of having to do more building work really so we're going to have a further look so as you can see we've got the natural shelter here the evergreen trees inside and it's actually pretty cool inside we've got lots of open open area to build stuff in this is Beth hi king of our king of all Campbell queen of our camp aren't you Beth yeah what's it called tell everyone what's called the wolf stat the Wolf's den come and give us a tour show us around the place this is our stones lexington stone collecting pin this is here already wasn't it quite lucky really yeah well I can't fire this is where we're gonna have our fires in the summer yeah that's fine is for Barney the dog show you him later and you found this didn't you in the woods it's really handy actually that little great yeah what about we got any any protection to our base attend every building there's those tools back come let's have a look coming chef this is our main protection whistle where are all the bad things let's finally the dog hello Barney that's one well where's the other wall yeah it's quite neat one she filled in that up at the moment isn't she getting there eh so we're getting there we just protect your just building up the outside of art then the first partly done yeah that's not look here's em look at the hard work she's been putting on this wall this is the little a-frame shelters and girls Inlet it's really ready for the lease

yeah we're going to put put some leaves over it today I think yeah maybe like take a bed like that Randa yeah make it make it a bit neater yeah yeah we'll get some leaves on the bottom bit as well so we can have a sleep in there one day we've got lots of space inside here to do stuff there yeah but you might build another one of those yeah I think we're too similar one of these that lean-to shelters yeah maybe the other one a bit bigger so that men am good yeah yeah we'll build a big one and Barney he can have a little one this is my a frame shelter that I've been building simple one really I've got the main ridge vlog going down pinched up against the top there going down and buried I've dug a hole where buried the end down in that way just to keep it secure and the logs are at a slight angle here just so really to the counterweight really so that every if the wind blows one log it kind of has to blow all the logs at the same time so it just gives it a bit more strength to the structure and then I've got the entrance facing this way in there that's the entrance inside there and obviously I'm going to put some leaves and things on the outside okay what I've done here is obviously I've got the main ridge logged down there got the support logs there and now I'm just building up with twigs basically to purely because the leaves can't go

I put leaves on it now they're going to fall through the gaps of these main kind of logs here and they're just going to end up getting on the floor they're not going to support them so I'm building up layers each side with twigs and that's just going to help make a layer for the leaves to then go on top and hopefully they'll sit there once I've built that up I'll build the leaves up from the bottom first coming up and then this should stay up here what I do is with the bigger kind of tweaks like this I put the bigger twigs making sure that their base goes on bottom there and then the tangled part of the branch up near the top here that's purely for support again just so that there's more stable support down here and then all these tangley branches up here can hold those leaves because most of these are going to be built up at the bottom first and then their rock go up to the top obviously when you're out in the woods you're not gonna have a luxury of a broom so I have my broom here a little homemade stick but basically it's going to help me sweep up the leaves for that a-frame shelter

smile

back to work Quezon yeah

now obviously huh didn't come out here with all the tools today it's just a Sunday afternoon and collecting leaves can be quite tedious really after a while with just your hands it takes a long time

ideally if you've got a bit bit of top or something like that a sheet that you can put it on and carry a big load of leaves at once and then you can put on your shelter that would be great but unfortunately I don't what I did find though is a bin however the bin has a hole in it so although you might think oh that's no point using that I can't put any leaves in it actually you can just put it on its side parlor load leaves in like that and then you can lift it up like this here's half our shelter with the leaves on one side with what we did is you build it up first at the bottom and then you build up more leaves it makes it easier to stack them up towards the top there so here's our his first half of the shelter done so it's quite get done it there hello say all those twigs and things there they help keep those knees nice and compact and stop them from falling and wind and things like that the more layers you build up the more stable it gets obviously over time you have to put more leaves on it but looking good so we've got one more side to do ends round here doing a wall yeah there fits in there well and Barney just a little tip really there that I found quite useful if you use if you put the lights dry leaves on the shelter first and then underneath kind of this dead leaf is this sort of hard kinda soil really if you if you ended up putting that on first it's just going to fall through if you watch it just Falls straight through inside so use the light dry leaves first they get caught on the top and then you can pack it down or after you fill up on like this side with that the light dry leaves then you can get into that harder harder stuff to then pack it down and the weight of that harvest soil will help to pack it now don't don't use straight soils obviously use it with leaves as well but just put the light leaves on first and and then they just help to cover those gaps and then you can use the harder soil and the harder stuff after it's just to compact it down and stop the wind blowing away all you these something that I've found has helped me the wall is looking good I like how you stacked it say then to the vertical stick stop that well they kind of work together Nonie yeah what are you doing there bear this around the boundary Bob our den that's good

show me where it goes back garden I got no corner here he knows to get on the pathway so that it's the bat yeah so we're gonna have the fires isn't it have you enjoyed it yeah what we doing next weekend next Sunday um we're having some lunch err yeah and we're lighting the fire oh yes I don't know my support goes up okay didn't turn out isn't it at least for daddy no yeah it was a frame shelter I'm not quite finished where are you going - I see there's the main entrance in there on this