Living off the Land at the Log Cabin

Description

In this episode, I continue building the log cabin, cooking geese 2 ways on the campfire. I talk about my knives, my tarp and grill, and why I believe geese are an essential apocalypse, survival food component of a wilderness, living off the land lifestyle.

To see exactly how I process fowl for the table, check out these three videos. The third one is specifically about processing birds; the other two are hunting/tripping/cooking videos.

https://youtu.be/UuEtOTs1Dek

https://youtu.be/Q2L1CX0jpJk

https://youtu.be/JxcOJ82Bsvo

Tags: bushcraft,camping,self-reliance,survival,log,cabin,survival food,waterfowl,cabin building,cabin life,living off the land,canada,wilderness,apocalypse food,forest chef,cooking in the forest,forest cooking,alone in the wilderness,alone,joe robinet,dick proenneke

Video Transcription

[Music]

[Music]

hey everybody welcome back well it's the day after Labor Day and for me that means kids are back to school and I'm up at the cabin taking advantage of the early goose season reason I'm up here today I'm going to continue working on the cabin got the second floor going up with some hemlock beams twenty two three four one two three four five I've got five beams going across nine feet off the ground and then from there I'm putting on a floor two inch thick floor and that I can build a roof up from that point that can stand on that so it's gonna help me out but I really wanted to be up here for early goose season it there's so many Canada geese in North America now so a lot of you might not remember when that when Canada geese weren't all that common a number of years ago it's probably thirty years ago now maybe maybe a little bit more they had to reintroduce giant Canada's to southern Ontario they were becoming extremely rare that's the goose that you see typically in in cities and parks and waterfronts everywhere to just really become a nuisance so it's really hard to believe they're there pretty much endangered and had to be reintroduced so the great thing about them is there's always a lot of discussion about self-reliance food and living off the land well that's very hard to do in this day and age it just isn't the game populations that there were that there was 100 200 300 years ago and more habitats just not there we have so much private land that it's hard to get access to where the actual animals are where the food sources are the food sources have become agricultural crops unfortunately instead of wild food so that's been a boon to certain animals like crop loving animals and birds like Canada geese so in order to manage those populations the seasons are quite liberal so one of the great things about that is they provide a lot of food so one giant Canada Goose can go anywhere from 10 to 15 pounds you can get like 5 to 8 pounds of meat off of one bird so if you think about that a typical white-tailed deer in our area like a doe for example yields about 60 pounds of boneless meat well what that means is that you can harvest Canada geese and put as much meat in the freezer or more than you can by harvesting a big-game animal so let's say I averaged only five pounds of meat off each of these candidates well twelve geese and I've got my sixty pounds of meat the seasons are so liberal in the bag limits and and possession limits are so liberal to try to call the population so I can hunt Canada geese up til about December 20th and central Ontario so that's a long season that's a lot of food on top of that of course I'm gonna add ducks and deer and maybe a moose and bear meat as well so I'll get into that in another video how many calories you can actually legally obtain from wild game in Ontario Canada and you can extrapolate that for your region as well I'm gonna give average yields for all wild animals that you can harvest legally so stay tuned if you want I know this video is not for everybody there's a lot of people who don't want to see animals kill but this is the reality of self-reliance in my opinion it rather harvests a number of Canada geese put those in the freezer and cook those up then go to the grocery store and buy beef at $20 a pound but these geese that teri and I shot this morning I'm gonna process those right now typically with game animals you want them to sit you want them to rest they have to cool rake down in order for the fibers to start breaking down so if you eat if you eat any animal while it's still warm it's gonna be very very tough so I'm gonna get these things process try to get them at a lowest spot I might dig a hole in the ground get them into that and hopefully how cool that Kirk is down then I'm gonna put on the fire so not going to be the most tender there's burnin season so the thing about early season geese is that there's a lot of young birds in the population and all the adult birds have just recently molted so a lot of times the feathers are really hard to get out you get these little pin feathers which are not fully developed feathers so they don't come out far enough so they're basically you have to try to use tweezers to pick out them pull them out so what I'm gonna do first and just test the plucking to see if I can pluck them clean if not and I'll probably end up skinning them the other thing about early season geese is that there's not much fat on them so they so we shot these things over and out the harvested oat field so they were in there actually eating the old grains and because they're just starting to do that they've been on the water up until now raising their young and and molting they are not very fat they just have them fatten up good and sure enough I can see right through the skin I can see the meat which means there's very little but no fat on the breast and sure enough it's full and pin feathers so show you that so pin feathers see they're not developed that's the beginning of a feather starting to emerge and there's just so many of them I can end up skidding these things and then later in the season when the geese are fatter I'll render some of that fat down and also keep the skin on a bunch of the birds and roast them because they are more tasty that way it's just that that would take literally you know hours and hours to pluck that bird and still wouldn't get them all and it wouldn't taste good as a result so I'm gonna skin these so I'm gonna keep these wings for training Callie it's a good size she can get the scent off of this thing I can tie it to her training dummy and I can throw that for and she can learn to start tracking by scent and retrieving by scent so I'll keep those another first goose process but I just thought of something I'm not going to show that in this video well how many times you have to see a bird be in process I'm gonna put a couple of links in the description below or in the pin comment to other videos that I've done where I show the whole process one in particular I went to friend's farm last summer of the summer before and we process some turkeys it's a butchered slaughtered you know not gonna sugarcoat it we did the whole thing so we killed turkeys and geese and plucked them and and skinned them and cut them up into pieces and then cook them so take a look at that video you're gonna learn all you need to know about cleaning waterfowl and any kind of file for that matter from those videos no point to upsetting YouTube and upsetting people who want to watch the self-reliance part of these videos it's there I'm not being able not being a sissy about this I just don't see the purpose of a continuing to show the same process it's a little bit gory for some people I think everybody should see it so I really encourage you to go to those videos actually I've got a duct video to where I completely show the processing of a mallard last fall so check out those videos so in this video let's just stick to the basics of self-reliance I'm up with the cabin shot some geese processing them go to those other videos see how to process them and then just come back and watch this and watch how I utilize these key so I'm gonna cook these a couple of different ways today so sorry bugs out if you're looking for that in this video but like I said not big no big deal to go click on those videos and watch those quickly they're pretty entertaining in their own right anyway

[Applause]

[Applause]

so one of the three heats ended up being pretty mature and the feathers came out pretty good this blintz you have pin feathers but nowhere near as bad as that other ones so I'm actually gonna leave this one leave the skin on this one so it's pretty decent length walk too now I'm going to singe the feathers off of it it sends the Fed pin feathers so I'm just going to hold it over the fire spin it around and then I'm gonna hang it from the top of the tripod here and just let it slow roast and smoke for rest of the day while I work on the cabin but anyway that'd be good for singeing so monitor it closely would so wet we had he said we're gonna get three or four inches here of rain yesterday I'm not sure what we ended up getting but it sure didn't rain a lot all the wood is soaked that's why I had all the hardwood kind of piled up around the outside to dry it out now I'm just gonna push it in [Music]

just about do it it's not much if any feathers left on there now so now let that fire died down to some coals and I'll hang it up high let it roll slowly stick some my good old montreal keg spice on there yeah that's good so good smokey that's good it's uh see there's no feathers left on there at all now I'm gonna stick that spice on there and I can throw that on the fire that will be a nice meal it's too much for me but I can take it home it'll actually preserve it'll make it last longer it's like what is it 18 degrees 17 degrees Celsius Oh today and it's only going down to I think 10 tonight so all this meat could start to go off a little bit so I'm gonna cook it all that'll preserve it and then I can freeze some of it when I get home and heat up the rest just heat it up to another 180 degrees to kill any parasites it'll be good kill any bacteria no fire poker I need a focus really haven't cut much firewood on the property yet sand all this this hard stuff is maple but it's from a tree that fell a few years ago so a lot of its punky I need to cut some of this drier stuff well get it stored under under shelter so I can burn it all winter up in the camp you've got some students coming up at the end of October and in that what's goals of course plus we've got a few shelters around the property got that oh I add on deck shelter that Joe and I did back in love March I haven't been back to it I've even seen it actually since we built it so I should go back and check that out get back there and finish that up get some firewood stacked by that that's a shell crews wall just tripods good thinking it could be bigger Effie I think this tripod will end up at a smaller fire up at the camp and I want a big maybe higher tripod off about that high so I can put good size culture and hanging from hook up some big meals and probably do my maple syrup on this fire next spring as well or winter beautiful flip that over in a bit that's breast side up right now cook the back and then I'll flip it over and cook the breast slower when that fire dies down a little bit I want that to be the most tender person

this self-taught Sisson old thought that my parents picked up at a garage sale so it's really rusted I see now and it's not seasoned that all so I'm gonna put these two breasts with the skin and the fat face down so that it greases the pan a little bit are then I'm gonna fill it with water anyway and just simmer these things and then I'll roast them or grill them or barbecue them after they're actually cooked just to give the moon nice char on the outside usually do it the opposite way but don't really have a grill set up yet on this part of the campsite this part of the cabin got a couple of the heart hurts as well let this brine a little bit with that salt pepper and other spices on there and then I'll put it on that tank they'll suspend it from the tripod once that first goose is done but I don't need it to cook for that long so I might as well wait till that one's done anyway that's a good height off off the fire so it's cookie really slowly which it's good get back to the cabin I'm gonna let that brine for a while like I said that's I'm gonna flip that over shortly I would say another hour and that thing you'll be done stick that on there let it simmer simmer rate I think retail bed time then I'll put it somewhere safe so the Bears don't come in and get it and then probably throw it back on and have that for lunch tomorrow well I'm sitting here waiting for dinner to cook want to talk about my knives quickly they notice I might notice I use a lot of different knives depending on what I'm doing today I've got two with me not necessarily because I need to but because I had my reliable old Puma in my truck and I just pulled it out because I was gonna do some batoning but want to show you this knife I got from virtus virtus knives in Saskatchewan simple abroad of the owner nice young guy from like I said Saskatchewan Canada makes these knives I first saw this particular knife I think it was the virtus I think it was the traveler on Far North bushcraft and survival Lonnie was given one of these away I think the one he was giving away might have had brass inserts which I really like gives it a knife gives that knife a really good has a good weight to it but anyway I decided to get this one from from Sam it's the traveler like I said it's the narrower the point narrower point than the other one that he has he's got a utilises well which has got a thicker blade right to the point I really was looking for a knife to do some bushcraft work some some woodworking around the fire and end up at the camp so this one fit perfectly it's eight and a half inches overall it's four and a half inch handle four inch blade like I said some narrow point a 3/32 steel it's hardened 258-260 HRC I've been putting it to the test trying to bend that blade and it's really holding up pretty well has mosaic pins the 3/8 lanyard tube blue-blue liners with a black liner to fill in the gaps worth did some cool a full tang full tang barbed wire file work in here and in the Tang here nice pommel it's pretty pretty sharp really good 90-degree back to the knife throw some great Sparks and yeah it's just a comfortable little knife I really like it

surprised I've never actually had a knife like this I usually have different kind of grind I do a lot of hunting and fishing as you know so you use specialty blades for that that that I ended up using for other purposes as well one of them I'll show you the Puma that I normally carry and why I carry it but as far as doing working around the fire or even that cabin one of the reasons I like this one I don't like plastic or g10 you know full handle full-scale like like it more traditional looking knife but wood I usually don't even like the liners but

I think this one looks pretty cool so this one's curly maple it's a light gray staying on it so I think it's pretty cool I'm gonna use this a lot up here at the camp it's been holding an edge really well too I've really put it through the through the ringer so that's the main knife that I'm using a Kydex sheath nice tight fit on it and it's on a dangler I put it behind that loop so I'm not getting it you know if you have it in the front especially a regular traditional she got it in the front there and you're sitting down so he's digging in especially if you're slipping on rain pants or or winter pants which you will be doing soon enough so I always hang it back there but it's a nice tight fit I think what I'll probably do is attach a lanyard to the sheath at the top and I'd feed it through the lanyard tube so don't tie it to the knife I don't tie the lanyard to the knife I just slip it through on a loop then I slip it back over top of the sheath

just to hold it in place for what I'm canoeing or something because I don't what I'll trust an open sheet that's gonna hold the knife when I'm going down through rough waters anyway that's the that's a great new night fun said what's that yeah July August September now three months I think I put it through good enough tests that I was finally willing and able to talk about it I don't like promoting products that that I'm not a fan of and that I haven't put through the tests get lots of people sending me stuff or asking to send me stuff and if it's not something I believe and I just don't do it so check out Sam's website it's virtus knives calm got a great Facebook feed and Instagram feed as well so check about there you'd be surprised at the prices they're pretty reasonable knife prices range from about 220 bucks up to about five four ninety five and that's Canadian so you Americans of course can save another 25% off of that right now

for the foreseeable future I would say the exchange rates not going anywhere in our favor so like I said check them out I also want to show you this knife because you see me carrying this quite often and you might wonder why you don't see too many people carrying these things even though this company's been around forever and it's you know it's a pretty robust good quality knife this is the Puma white hunter and the reason I carry it is be for sentimental reasons my dad got one and I don't know my mom bought it for him I think she might have back in I want to say 70 or 72 which is I think when they first started with this model yeah and he didn't do much hunting he did a little bit of deer hunting and so I don't think he used the knife all that much but when I got into my little bush crafty stuff when I was a young teenager probably probably 12 years old I took it out to the forest all the time and I lost it wasn't happy I don't think he was too happy well he never really gave me too much of a hard time about it I just felt really bad so I ended up replacing it maybe 10 years later and then I bought myself one when in my early 20s and somebody stole that pretty sure I know who it was but anyway that was gone and then I think my wife might have got me another one and then I went and bought and then that one was then I lost that when I think on a moose hunting trip or a caribou hunting trip so I ended up behind myself another went in the last five years you know it's not a not a cheap knife so it's a bit painful to keep doing that that's 500 bucks Canadian I think so like I said mostly sentimental reasons not the most practical design has some cool features and I do use those features and when I am it's probably one of the better knives to do it on the back of it instead of a 90 degree spine it has a chopping blade a dull chopping blade and a flat spot here that you can actually pound quite easily nice wide flare on it good grip right there it's got a little bit of bone cutting serration right here on the base of the blade it's got a stag horn handle brass rivets in a brass lanyard tube so I think it looks cool it's like I said I'm not sure how practical it is it's hard to sharpen because it's got such a sweep here goes from narrow so it's kind of its kind of concave here and then comb backs here cut this little micro grinder along the edge here so it's pretty hard to get that on a jig even and sharpen it so you usually can't get through skinning a full deer or bear we're certainly not a moose without doing an actual sharpening job not just a straw but when I am processing something like caribou or or a moose or even a bear I like the heft of that and this thickness and strength of that blade I can actually cut read through the pelvic bone and split the animal wide open so I can get the entrails out and get that carcass open for cooling so it's a good knife for that so for that reason I carry it I guess that's good for doing some heavy heavy work around the campsite something I wouldn't want to put the virtus through it's just too small a knife and it's perfect for its purposes but it's not but it's completely different than this knife and I'd use it for completely different reasons so those are the two knives I'm caring for the most part these days and I'll probably continue you'll likely see me with my Puma Catamount 2 later in the season the hunting season because that's more specific and it's very good knife for skinning deer likely gonna see some fresh deer sign down here put a couple out here I'm pretty sure I'll get a deer up here this year and maybe a bear and maybe even a moose we'll see and if no it'll get a deer at least down in southern Ontario so that's my two main knives for those people have been asking and if you have any questions about these knives are any my other ones just comment below and I'll get back to you the meantime don't forget to check your virtus knives online and just let him know I sent you I'm gonna flip this thing over I haven't done much work on this cabin I need to get back up on the second floor there and start pounding some boards together before I have to set up my bed in there I'm actually gonna sleep inside the cabin this time use this stuff once or twice a good old rival keg space I don't know if it's much different than what everybody else calls a rut your old steak spice probably got one or two different spices or maybe it's just more more of one than than other regular Montreal steak spice so a lot of salt garlic onion pepper and fennel that's the only things I can for sure identify I'll do is hang the pot all right so I'm gonna keep the want to keep this goose up here because there's no I don't think it's quite done probably in the middle so I'm gonna hang the poof I'm gonna hang the pot from the chain anyway

I can just drip into the pot that's gonna be nice to have that cabin done and have things as much as I like camping when I'm out in the bush this often like up in central Ontario nice to have something more comfortable than a tent all the time or a bivy so it what I'm talking about is utensils cloths somewhere to wash your hands like that's gonna be awesome when that's finished gotta get my button gear and get that done in the next in let's say in the next month I'd like it to be 100% roof on floor in wood stove and it'll be the end of September which means October when the leaves are full peak color and all the games moving around up can be up here hunting want to be just here enjoying the place instead of building it though I always have some projects to go work on I'm sure I know I will because that tons of plans for this place so it's gonna finish finish this one last beam we pee ice from that smoke plus I got up at 2:45 this morning to make the drive up to that goose hunt so maybe an early night anyway got this the way I want it can simmer for the rest of the night I'm gonna jump up on top of the cabin here and finish off that last beam and then I'll set up a tarp for the night to sleep in the cabin and then tomorrow I'm gonna finish off of those lost now the last course of the walls and then some time later sleep this week I can start working on the roof that's gonna be exciting too hot nice-size fire pit when you have a tripod like this is that you can keep moving the fire around the outside just push the coals in under this pot that's way too hot in the center and right now just raise that up I go get some more water in there [Music]

6:13 I think it sunsets just after 7:00 so I think what I'll do is we're gonna add some jambalaya to this that's what I had virtually brought for dinner not knowing if I was gonna shoot anything so I'm gonna add that to this big pot of stewing em goose here even if I don't eat that tonight it'd be awesome tomorrow and I can cut some chunks off of that but anyway well I think what I'll do first though is to get my bed set up cuz that sunsets makes it a lot more difficult to get get to bed arranged in the in the dark I'm gonna be sleeping in the cabin but because it's calling for rain today there's no roof on yet I'm actually gonna put a put a tarp over that probably just sleeping on sleeping bag no video on me so I got you know what I wanted to get done today I got the last of the floor trusses up for the second floor so now I can start putting a floor on there and then building up to the roof level but I'm looking forward to this goose and getting pretty hungry actually the coldest jambalaya

but I guess missing a few ingredients to know him or no ham or shrimp in this one so I have rice tomato sauce onions some fresh tomatoes out of the garden lots of garlic pork sausage from some pigs up my sister raised and chicken so I'll throw that in the pot and that tomato sauce being acidic is gonna help break down the fibers in this goose since it wasn't aged properly let's so let's throw this in here and that'll set up my bed then come back and eat and then sit around the fire probably for a while before heading off the bed maybe do some reading on my phone read some alone in the wilderness should have brought an actual book that he had one on the counter and no leaving it and I regret it that's hot that's gonna help break down that goose nicely it's too bad it's called for rain tonight I wouldn't bother setting this tarp off otherwise nice to have the four walls around me it's but the wind calmed it down and it's actually quite comfortable in here just of course there's no roof so if it rains I'm gonna get so so is my gear so I'm gonna set this tarp up up in the rafters here I'll set up a sleeping bag and sleeping pad I guess right here yeah I think that'll work get up in the morning get the fire going again and get to work on know that last course of logs it's actually a turf that my wife Joe will Robin Antin I've been designing this is a sample that we have manufacture that of a parachute material it's really really light and small compacts really small a couple of minor things we're going to do strengthen up the seams I think and maybe put another coating of waterproofing on the underside but I am really happy with that did a test had to hang it from the cabin when it was lower across like this and filled it with water and just to test the tear strength the seams and the waterproof yeah and how waterproof it was and I was really happy with the results so obviously they're not going to get a blue tarp made and like I said it's a few minor changes we need to do so once we're happy with the final product we'll put it on the websites and start selling it I'm really looking forward to it it's hard to find a good 10 by 10 tarp that's versatile like a square type is it more versatile it's hard to get one that's exactly 10 by 10 with the right tie out in the center of the tarp as well and nice color light weight and a we'll pray so I think it brought me another month or two in the meantime we had a bunch more of those little girls made up we got two of them here actually that I've been using set up a big bigger more permanent girl of course for them for the once the cabin is done but I'm gonna keep using that little drill for the canoe trips and backpacking trips so those are going back up on the website should be available next week all right I'm meeting it's late give it a try I'll let get expect it it's pretty tough but it's really really tasty so I'm happy with it but it needs more time on the fire holy that is really tasty actually smoky combined with the salt and the fat from the goose man that is so good maybe I'll try one of these try one of these wings might be a little bit more cooked in the front here I see where it's been lured to them to the fire yeah that's beautiful

nice fresh goose that is so good if you've never had Canada goose and most people haven't or a lot of people haven't at least a lot of people don't even know that you can hunt Canada geese because it's called Canada goose people in Canada think you can't shoot them and because they're at the parks but hitting a Canada goose getting a goose of any kind in the past when you were duck hunting was a real bonus it was a you know something you're really stride for and you were lucky to get one in a year now there's so many of them people think of them like rats but there's nothing wrong with a wild goose up here they're actually quite wild when they're up in the you know more of the wilderness areas and think about the limits that I talked about before the bag limits and the possession limits and how many you could harvest in a year and how many of your annual calories could you get from geese I mean there's obviously lots of other game that you're gonna harvest but ducks are a little bit harder to get you know if you get five ducks six ducks and then have a possession limit of five or twelve depending on where you are they don't provide as much meat obviously but they're also they migrate earlier the season starts

it's just hard to get into a whole bunch of them they're harder to hit or when you're hunting them so these geese are really really good self-reliant food they're a good source of calories for somebody who's trying to live a self-reliant lifestyle I would add Canada geese to your rabbits and your if you rabbit to your other waterfowl deer bear moose all the game up here that you can harvest plus fish that you put together it's gonna give you enough calories it's gonna give you enough protein calories and fat calories at least for the year without geese I think you would have a hard time getting enough calories from the wild at least protein and fat in the form of wild animals you know you need to get a moose at least one moose you need to get deer you need to get bear or you get a whole ton of wild geese no if I could just tenderize that so tasty like can't even explain to you you'd have to try it you have to try it so I'm just gonna heat a little bit more of this and I'm start thinking about maybe going down and get some photographs of the sunset and hopefully hear some wolves tonight be nice to capture them again yeah it looks like it's going to be beautiful what I'm hungry I'm gonna stay here I think and cut up some bread and dip it into the jambalaya

this chicken sausage tomatoes onions garlic that's it and rice well I am ready for bed that was a great day though it's a long day started at 3 o'clock in the morning getting ready for gooo something went out with Terry and had a great shoot not great shooting but lots of geese came in got some work done on the cabin I'm gonna get up early tomorrow morning and get to work up here I want to get that talk course on and then into the roof and I need to start hewing some boards and beams for the for the peak going to use do a log gable sorry so we'll kick continued this up about 5 feet higher on a peak and I'll have a ridge and then to interim beams ridge poles as well and then I'm gonna frame that with like 2-inch thick wood all the way down not frame I got a board a 2-inch thick wood all the way down maybe four inches for insulation value so lots of work but getting there I'm excited to do that part it's actually gonna go pretty quick once I get the gable ends done the roof itself should go fairly quick and then I can get to get a waterproof so yeah like I said I think a month and see how many days I can string together anyway it's pretty exciting great light in here walk in the wind actually so I hope you enjoyed that one guys the beginning of hunting season I'm going to be doing a lot of that in order to put some meat in the freezer for the family and I'm going to continue to work on this cabin hopefully by the time the snow flies in a month or two I've got the roof on this thing got to closed in got the wood stove roar and we cooking our meals here while I hunt in the surrounding forests and and then we'll get it to somebody fishing I've got lots of stuff going on this year I'm glad to finally have this cabin to do this from and can't wait to get a cellar built here and get some meat stored on the property and and some other food so we can spend a hell of a lot more time up here so thanks for watching this video guys hope you enjoyed that one I'll see you in the next one