#AskPaulKirtley Episode 3 - Kids & Bushcraft, Ticks, Tinders, Friction Fire & Seeing Wildlife

Description

Welcome to episode 3 of #AskPaulKirtley. I answer questions about getting kids started with bushcraft, dealing with the increasing problem of ticks and people’s fears around ticks, alternative tinders when birch bark is not available, my favourite friction fire woods for bow drill and hand drill as well as giving some tips on tactics for seeing more wildlife while out and about… [CLICK SHOW MORE BELOW…}

#askpaulkirtley is your chance to ask Paul Kirtley questions about wilderness bushcraft, survival skills and outdoor life.

Ask Paul Kirtley is a regular Q&A show (also available as a podcast) with leading bushcraft instructor Paul Kirtley, founder of Frontier Bushcraft and author of Paul Kirtley's Blog. Find out more here: http://paulkirtley.co.uk/ask-paul-kirtley/

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Tags: Bushcraft,Camping,Children,kids,ticks,Lyme Disease (Disease Or Medical Condition),tinder,birch bark,Fomes Fomentarius (Organism Classification),Daldinia Concentrica (Organism Classification),inner bark,dried grass,bow drill,hand drill,friction fire,fire by friction,Tick (Organism Classification),lime,Tilia (Organism Classification),Willow (Organism Classification),Salix Caprea (Organism Classification),salix,Alder (Organism Classification)

Video Transcription

hi there welcome to episode 3 of a sport currently in this episode we're going to be talking about tix we're going to be talking about starting kids off with bushcraft we're going to be talking about alternative Tinder's we're going to be talking about friction fire lighting woods and we're going to be talking about techniques for getting a bit closer to wildlife this episode of ask Paul curtly comes to you from the Lake District in the North West of England we're here running an expedition canoeing skills course myself and ray Goodwin are leading the course it's the first day and raised out on the lake getting the students up to speed with their basic paddling skills so while he does that I'm taking the opportunity to answer some of your questions for ask appalled curtly all right first question Tim asks my lad is five and comes camping with me but what is a good age to start teaching kids bushcraft and where to start ok Tim that's a that's a really good question it's a sensible question and love the picture you sent on Instagram more of that from people if you can take a photograph you can put text in the photograph or underneath taggat a sport curtly that's a really nice visual way of asking a question and Tim's done a great job there really liked that so I think kids are old enough to start bushcraft when they're really old enough to start going camping or even when they're old enough to go outside you can get them interested in nature from a young age and you know kids are closer to the ground and how it's an obvious thing to say but they're very inquisitive and they see a lot of things that as adults we don't see because we're further away from them and because we live in our adult world where we're thinking about shopping and what's for dinner and you know with more distracted and they're really inquisitive they're into every they're interested in everything encourage that show them things show them animal tracks show them nuts that have been nibbled by squirrels show them those things get them interested because they are naturally interested so you can get them interested in nature as soon as there as soon as they're being inquisitive and I think that's a really good way of introducing them into the world of bushcraft because at the heart of it really is a is a study of nature then if you're taking them camping you're taking them out you can start them with some of the important skills get them used to being around a fire and get them to understand that there are hazards around a fire but equally get them to respect it and be comfortable not be afraid of it but you know have a fire you know if you light a fire next time they'll want to be involved as well so you can start getting them involved you can let them have a go with a fire steel or a flint and steel you can start getting them involved in some of the things that you're doing has show them how to strike a match carefully and you know always be doing things like leaving no trace of your fire so that that just becomes a normal part of the routine and get them to enjoy camping out get them to enjoy being out in the dark and not being afraid of the dark they're all great things that you can start doing with your kids from an early age and then in terms of some of the harder skills of bushcraft such as using cutting tools again I think you can start relatively early but you just have to do it in a way that's progressive makes them respect the tools because there are hazards start them off with very simple things I remember I had a I had a Swiss Army knife from when I was about six or seven years old so you can start people off at an early age and you do it in a way that you know kids know when they're misbehaving and I remember I stuck my Swiss Army knife in a tree a couple of times in the garden my dad saw me and he took it off me for a week and I wasn't allowed to use it and so as long as you set out the boundaries very clearly and you tell them what they can and can't do and make sure they understand the basic safety issues and that they they look after each other if you've got more than one child so that they know if somebody's come comes near them and if they've got a younger and older brother or sister if it's somebody comes near them if they're using a pen knife or a or a small more a knife that they put the knife down and wait for the other sibling to move away and in that way you build up naturally their understanding of what's safe and what's not say so I think your lads five get him out getting out in nature more introducing to nature introduced into fire lighting introduced him progressively through using cutting tools that will need close supervision to start off with but over time he'll be able to pick it up and do things safely without you needing to worry about it and that's exactly what you want so great question Tim let us know how you get on send us some more photos on Instagram thank you next question Darren asks pull what are your favourite UK woods for both the hand drill and bow drill ok good question Darren and I keep saying the good questions of course the good questions I've selected them as good questions so but there's loads of good questions coming in and I will say some of the questions coming in by email a little bit long they're not really one question there's sort of multiple questions in a paragraph if you can just send one key question in then we can keep the show relatively short I'm trying to keep this five questions in under 15 minutes that's what I'm trying to do here so if we can keep the question short I can give more of an answer and keep it more concise for people so Twitter and Instagram are great remember to use the hashtag a sport curtly so I can find them if you're going to send one via the speak pipe on my blog that's great keep the message under a minute or if you're going to send me an email keep it quite short one or two sentences and then we can get through the questions more rapidly and they try make more of these but and keeping the questions concise really helps so Darren's question about using different woods for bow drill and hand drill in the UK bow drill when I teach bow drill I tend to use willow or older not because they're necessarily the easiest woods in the world to use but because they are common and widespread and you're going to find them and it's all well and good teaching people to use IV or introduced species like red cedar but you're not going to find them in the UK so my favorite ones from a practical purpose other ones I'm going to find when I need them and to me the top of that list a willow and older also in parts of the country where there's lots of Sycamore sycamores good as well so those are the ones that I'd be concentrating on and if you've got lime limes really beautiful wood to use for friction fire lighting but you don't come across it everywhere focusing on the ones that you're most likely to find first willow just make sure it's not too hard check and the article on my blog for troubleshooting with your bow drill I'll put a link to it in the show notes on my on my blog older sick and more try those if you've got access to Lyme have a girl with that as well and then you can progress from there with a hand drill for the drill out and out favorite is going to be elder you can make really super drills with elder and you can get them really nice and straight using heat and get a really really good straight top quality hand drill from that in terms of a half would that goes with that and use something like Clemmie tiss or play matters however you want to pronounce it and found on chalky soils and typically and that's a really good needs to be seasoned and nice and hard and don't try and cut green and season it inside it needs to be dead outside collect that nice and solid that's a really good combination going back to the bow-drill woods just just for clarification when I'm talking about the woods to use that's for the spindle and the half and use the same species for both particularly when you're learning don't introduce more variables where you're using hazel on pine and all sorts of different combinations it just makes it more difficult to get it right in the beginning just get some good quality willow good quality older good quality Sycamore make the drill and a half from the same wood and work them together get to know those materials and you'll have success thanks for the question Darren Cheers next one next one's from mark and he asks about ticks hi Paul I hope this voicemail finds you well my name is Mark Hudson I am a veteran curly student and the proprietor of country or bushcraft my question is centered on tix locally here in the West Country numbers appear to be on the increase year-on-year mild winters and increased deer numbers are proliferating their population my concerns and queries and numerous but they're really centered around public and personal safety recommended precautions recommended removal and bite treatment and as importantly how to manage people's perception of the threat without frightening them away from our local woodlands hope you can help me with that take your ball all right there's some good questions there mark and it is a number of questions rolled up into one and I'll start with the last question first and then I can direct you with the other ones in terms of people's perceptions I think you're absolutely right i think the media in general is very good at frightening people away from nature and tabloid journalism in particular is bad for this you know killer sharks killer tix killer this dangerous this bears wolves reintroduction of this is going to kill all our dogs all these things it's just bull most of it and we're growing to be a society where were frightened of nature and we certainly don't want to be adding to that we want to be encouraging people to to get out into nature to value it to understand it and I think we need to keep things in perspective and I think you're absolutely right for raising that as an issue yes there are an increasing number of tix there are tick hotspots where you get more than others and there are years when you get more than others depending upon the weather conditions that you know if it's damp if it's warm you're going to get more tix around potentially and there are some precautions we can take and we can talk about that in a second but equally you've got to remember the main issue with ticks is not being bitten by the tick the main issue with ticks is Lyme disease which some of them carry and having looked it up recently it's only about twenty percent of ticks are thought to carry Lyme disease so the odds are in your favor in that sense than that if you even if you get bitten by a tick it doesn't necessarily carry Lyme disease and then if you do get bitten by a tick that has Lyme disease he's still not necessarily going to get Lyme disease so we need to keep the risk in perspective you know we're quite happy to drive to the woods in our cars that's much more risky than actually being in the woods itself and so we need to keep these risks in perspective not just in terms of as being in nature but also in our in our life in general it's much more risky crossing the road than it is going to the woods so let's keep it in that perspective but in terms of people's perceptions yes there are tix around you will get tix where there are healthy deer populations you'll get tix where there are populations of other animals that the tix feed on and that's pretty much anywhere in the woods you know long grass Bracken they're going to be in there and so if you're walking through those sorts of spots where you think they're going to be ticked make sure people have got long trousers on make sure people are not just wearing shorts make sure that maybe they have trousers that are elasticated at the bottom to stop that is less likely the tix can get in there or one of the pieces of advice that some people give is putting socks tucking your trousers into your socks that said I've recently seen somebody who was doing that and they still had ticks on their ankle because the tix went through the weave of the sock so it depends on how densely woven the socks are but basically the more clothing you've got on the less likely the ticks are going to get onto your skin so that's one thing you can do also to discourage the tix you could also put insect repellent on the apertures of your clothing in particular so you could put some DEET around the base of your trousers and that's going to discourage them from going into the area they don't like DEET in particular and and also once you've been out if you're in an area where there are ticks I think the thing is to check regularly and check each other and don't make people be embarrassed about the fact having a tick I think if you've got groups in the woods I think you just need to be open and say look there are tix here but it's not that massive an issue if you get one the important thing is that we remove it as quickly as possible and so if you've got a tick don't hide it don't be embarrassed wherever it is if you need some help removing it come and find one of us and we will help you help you do that I think that's the important thing and then also explain to people how to remove them themselves so and make sure that they're that they're fully aware of what to do and I listen to a good podcast recently where mark Yates follow a fellow podcaster and interviewed a lady from a charity when the leading charities to do with raising awareness of ticks and Lyme disease and i will put a link to that in the show notes of this video cuz i think that's well worth listening to it answers a lot of the questions that you that you have and but i think in terms of managing groups in the woods in your particular instance make sure they're aware put the risks in perspective make sure they understand how to protect themselves and make sure that they're not embarrassed to tell you it particularly if you've got kids make sure they're not embarrassed to tell you and that they've got a tick and for you to help them remove it and that that would be my advice good ? thank you and as asks what other materials would you use for lighting the fire with a fire steel if birch wasn't available yeah that's that's that's that's an interesting one and this because we do get very much stuck in a rut we have our favorite violating materials that we go to and we have a favorite combinations of fire lighting devices and materials and then sometimes it can throw is when we go to an area and we may be carrying our fire steel we may be carrying a flint and steel whatever it is that we like to use matches cigarette lighters whatever it is that people like to use and we don't find the materials we want to light our fires with that's part of the challenge and the fun of bush grafton that we learn different materials and that we can go to any environment and have a range of different things that we can choose and use that's that's part of putting the different tools in our toolbox as it were but equally we have to know what those what those are and so if you don't have birch bark then there's a whole range of different things that you can light and in fact birch bark kind of sits in a category on its own really and it's a special one and it's why it's our favorite often but there are many other things that you can light there's a there's a range of fungi if they're dry that you can light so you could like cramp balls delden your concentric ER you can light particularly with the modern fire flash you can like horses who fungus the tram a layer of horse's hoof you can light that directly with a fire flash you don't need to do any processing like you'd have to if you're using flint and steal so there are there is certainly a few fungi around that you can light directly they will hold they were catch and hold an ember and then you can take that into a tinder bundle and blow that into flames and that's one method some dried fibrous plant materials you can light directly the sparks are so hot from a modern modern Swedish fire steel that you can light many dry grasses particularly if you buff them up you can light them directly and dried in a bark of some trees such as sweet chestnut or oak you can like those directly as long as they're fine enough and you get a big enough spark and if you want to know how to like really big sparks with a fire steel I'll put a link to the video in the show notes and the YouTube video of this of this video and podcast if you're listening by the audio only so go to my blog poor curtly co uk in the show notes there for episode 3 the links to all the things I mentioned that there are links to will be there for your your easy access and for your convenience so those are the things that I've been looking at there's some fungi there's some fibrous parameters even dry grass will work very well in the right conditions hi Paul I just wondered my wife and I go walking in the woods and we go canoeing and while camping in Scotland do you have any tips that will allow us to maximize our chances of seeing some of nature's wonderful wildlife that's a great question Mick and yeah there are some simple things that you can do you don't need to go around plaid so head-to-toe in camouflage and stalking around and wearing mute colors that are that blend in well with the environment and it doesn't necessarily have to even be the right color for some wild I think just similar shade will allow you to to blend into the environment and moving quietly and our voice carries a hell of a long way humans are quite noisy so just being quiet moving quietly and pointing things out rather than shouting oh look what I can see it's an obvious thing and just being aware of the noise that we're making and being aware of where you're standing with your feet not that if you're in the woods in particular not stepping on sticks and then cracking and making a big noise that's important and also a couple of simple things that you can wear and such as wearing a hat with a peak that covers your face and also because that shades your face you know if you're walking in the woods your face doesn't stand out as much of a beacon and also wearing gloves if you're using binoculars in particular looking moving your binoculars around your hands are again beacons if you can wear gloves that all that will allow those to be less visible in a distance and use binoculars and look through the woods into an area to see if there's any wildlife you might see a deer in an opening ahead you might see it he is moving and you're more like to see that with binoculars and look into the area look beyond where the sound is that you're casting see what wild life is moving around and then move quietly towards it you're much more likely to see things that way so there's simple tips wear suitable clothing move quietly be aware of your voice look through the woods of into areas where your sound hasn't traveled use binoculars cast shadow onto your face and wear some gloves if you're using binoculars so I hope that helps so that brings us to the end of episode 3 of a sport curtly keep sending your questions in use the hashtag ask for curtly the guys and girls are back from their paddling with Ray and it's time for us to take some lunch so catch you on the next episode thanks for watching and listening if you're listening to the audio okay good there's a lot of questions roll has to stop button ring from black you