How to make Sumac lemonade

 We were fortunate to find some sumac horns recently while out on a forage and I thought I'd show you guys a very simple way to make sumac lemonade 

First, pick a couple of nice ripe sumac pods, make sure it's not poison sumac!

Put them in a pot and slowly bring up to a very low simmer

As soon  as it starts to simmer take it off the heat and let the pods sit in the pan for 24 hours, then strain.

After pouring through a muslin cloth, squeeze the berries to extract any remaining juice

Add a little sugar syrup if its too tart, chill in the fridge and enjoy, this is a really delicious drink somewhere of a cross between lemon and buckthorn.. 

Quick cooking tripod

 This is a very quick to make and disposable tripod to use with a pot or pan. No need to suspend it from a large tripod just cut three green sticks, hammer them into the ground, put your pan on top and place your fire between them. Of course they will eventually burn through but there's usually about 45mins to an hour of potential use before they do that and that's plenty of time to cook your food.

Scots Lovage - Ligusticum scoticum

 This is a plant of northern regions of Europe, quite rare here except for the most extreme points of the island. Its a member of the carrot family and is said to be quite edible and platable..

Only...its not, its supposed to taste like parsley or celery only...it doesn't,  its rank, one of the worst tasting plants I've ever eaten, even worse than scurvy grass. Now it might be better cooked but I wasn't going to try it after the offensiveness of the raw plant. However I'm glad we found it, as I say quite rare in Ireland but I'll not be adding it to my list of culinary foraged delights. 

Captivated by a Kephart

 It's a very very rare thing these days that I'm ever captivated by a new knife, I've seen them all a hundred times before, and as the good book says, there's nothing new under the sun.

However I've recently acquired a knife that has completely captivated me, it's a new take on an old model, the kephart.

It's in DC53 steel, linen micarta handle and a coyote colour kydex sheath and it has completely blown me away.

It is weighty, fills the hand, beautiful fit and finish and a joy to use. Unlike most modern bushcraft knives it's not a scandi, it's a full flat grind and it just looks and feels right.

Now it may not do every task perfectly but it does most of them well, the universal perfect all rounder may never exist but this beauty is close.

It even feathers beautifully, I'm going to put it through it's paces over the next few months and see just how versatile it is, for the time being, it's my new favourite.

Ore Smelting in the Antrim Hills

 We had an absolutely cracking day up in the Antrim hills smelting ore into iron in a primitive clay furnace, I had never seen it done this way before except in YouTube videos, so this was a completely new experience for me.. I'm not even going to say anything about the day, you will gauge how fantastic it was from the pictures alone!! Enjoy..

Rainbows on a Midgit Digit

 I love old lures, well I love lures in general but the older ones tend to get neglected for all the modern fancy ones we use. 

So I presented myself with a challenge, I had to use a lure that was at least 50 years old on my recent fishing escapade, no modern lures allowed!

It actually took a while to cycle through some lazy ikes, creek chub pikies and river runts until I found one that worked, the good old midget digit, first made in 1948 and last production run was 1974..

This little baby did the job and cleaned up for me!

But now comes the messy part, 

 

Quite a bit of work to clean them all out, but we now have plenty of fish for smoking, brining and whatever else we might need it for in the months to come.

Making Hazel withies

 At this time of year, young fresh growth of certain trees like willow and Hazel can be made into a rough, tough form of cordage or binding material called withies.

To make these, hold the end of the young branch in both hands and twist in opposite directions, this starts the internal fibres breaking, 

As you work along the stem start twisting it in a cranking motion almost like you are peddling a bike with your hands, the bark may start to break off at this stage but that doesn't matter

Once it gets too hard to crank anymore cut it from the tree and put it to its intended use, either fence making, shelter building or basket handles, if you've done it correctly you should even be able to tie the branch in a knot!

Get out and practise those skills!!