Snakes

 If you've been watching the channel, you know I've had an encounters with snakes on most of my outings since the weather got warmer. One of the local spots I go to often has an infestation of eastern water snakes. Yesterday on the walk back to my car a guy asks me if I'm taking pictures (I had my large tripod with me). I said sort of and he said take a picture of all these snakes. Ugh! I dislike snakes, I dislike them very much. I had already seen one, that was enough, but I went to see what he was talking about anyway when he asked what kind they were.

There's a small area on the pond they have railroad ties stacked to keep the bank from eroding. It's not very long, only two in length. He shows me the spot, and sure enough, there's at least 5 snakes laying on top, little snake heads poking out of holes in the wood everywhere. They were going in and out of the wood like something from a horror flick about snakes. All In all I did count at least 11 different snakes ranging from small maybe 8", to one that was about 4 feet.

The eastern water snake we have in my area isn't really venomous. Not technically. But, their saliva contains and anti-coagulant. They are strong, and because they can and do strike several times if they do bite you're going to bleed, a lot. It is recommended to get to an urgent care or hospital. I'd also personally recommend carry some like a blood clotting powder in your FAK if your in an area with them.

You also have to be careful as the colorings on the eastern water snake closely resembles a cotton mouth. Or in some instances, our eastern rattle snake and timber snake. I've seen them light colored like a rattler and darker like the cotton mouth, and almost black like the eastern racer. The latter is what I thought the first snake I saw yesterday was.

This was the first I saw yesterday.

This was a picture of the railroad ties.

Revisit: Bushcraft/Woodcraft VS Survivalism

 I am not a fan of AI. But I do find it's accuracy sort of spot on in many cases, more so then the old days of search assistance.

AI answer for "Why do people insist on using the word survival in bushcraft?":

People frequently conflate "survival" with "bushcraft" because the two disciplines share significant overlapping skill sets, such as shelter-building, fire-making, water purification, and navigation.  Since bushcraft involves living in the wilderness with minimal equipment, many assume the primary goal is emergency survival, leading to interchangeable usage in casual conversation and media. 

However, the terms represent distinct philosophies and objectives:

● Intent and Duration: Bushcraft is a voluntary hobby focused on long-term living, comfort, and sustainable connection with nature.  Survival is an emergency response to immediate danger, focused on short-term existence until rescue or return to safety. 

● Philosophy: Bushcraft emphasizes crafting tools and items for pleasure and deeper engagement with the environment (e.g., carving a decorative spoon).  Survival prioritizes efficiency and speed, using any available method—including modern gear like tents or lighters—to stay alive, often ignoring environmental impact. 

● Mindset: Bushcraft practitioners seek serenity and joy in the wild, while survivalists operate under stress and urgency, focusing on mental resilience and quick decision-making to avoid death. 

The confusion is often exacerbated by media and reality TV shows that dramatize outdoor experiences as life-or-death struggles, obscuring the peaceful, craft-oriented nature of traditional bushcraft.

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Pretty short and to the point. I usually like that, but lets expand the hobby of bushcraft a little more.

Bushcraft, a simplistic manner of practicing a hobby with minimal gear using a skill set based somewhat on primitive skills.

Yet, look at YouTube, type in bushcraft, and you get videos of people building elaborate shelters, a good share of those are half naked women doing the building. I'm not sure who watches those that actually practices bushcraft. Well, I do know who watches them, and the arm of a chair comes to mind. But lets move on.

Go to most forums and you'll see a lot of pictures of shiny new gear that's never seen the woods. Not a mark on it.

Don't even get me started on the videos and pictures of EDC items without a mark on them....... Or most gears reviews......

I also want to add that homesteading isn't bushcraft either. Oh boy...

A lot of that is exactly why Firepit Outdoors was created over two years ago. To get back to basics of actually leaving the house and going into the woods...

OK- I'm veering off here.//Sorry.... Lets get back on point....

American woodcraft (bushcraft) is a practice of using the skills the old frontier people used. Hunting trapping, fishing, making shelters, clothing, and so on. This hobby is based on the camping way of traveling, or setting up a short term camp. Nomadic life as it were. They did not rely on friction fire, many used flint and steel to build fires. They had moved past the days of the caveman. The frontiers people didn't run around clubbing dinosaurs over the head and eating raw meat ripped from the carcass.  Believe it or not, the settlers had and used the modern technology of the time to smooth it. Even the old books use the word hobby, and while they may say survival skills, it's meant as a means of surviving being lost or hurt. In none of those books does it state or show how to build a bomb shelter or stockpile food and firearms. A lot of people just don't get that. Those old timers even say if you have the means, to use the best gear you can get. They even do so in using canvas wall tents, which were modern tech at the time of those writings in most cases. The goal of bushcraft is to have the skills of the settlers or frontiers people, not Rambo. Bushcraft- To go into the woods to have fun and enjoy it. 

Growing up my friends and I used a lot of the skills associated with bushcraft, but we simply called it camping. It was and is, a hobby, which after a while, may become a way of life as those skills carry us through our outdoor adventures. The smell of food being cooked over a campfire, the bonds we make setting and keeping camp with friends, the sounds of the woods. It doesn't matter if you are in a drive up camp site in a state park, or 5 miles into nowhere, it's about being out there. Or should be anyway!

Do I have trips that deviate from general camping or my hobby of bushcraft? Sometimes, and they rarely make it to sharing with anyone. 

I could go on and on about this and the distinctive differences. Sometimes I feel like I have, and do. Probably because I think the distinction between bushcraft and survivalism is pretty big.

Is there a point to any of this? Yes. I hate to use this term, but, if you know, you know. If you know, you get it.

In closing:

Plan a trip! A day trip, a camping trip, a few hour hike, and go get it! Go out, practice a skill, hang your tarp, whittle a try stick under a tree by a stream or lake, cook some food over a camp fire! Go alone or bring a friend or two! But go!

Dispelling The Mythos: Gear Advice

 Not a lot to this one.

Never rely on advice from people who post pictures of unused gear to prove how good or bad something is. Or worse, they don't post pictures proving they have used or even own said item

Never trust a review from anyone who just sits at a table reading the specs of the item or posts pictures of said item unused. To review is to KNOW how something works.

Updating The Camp

 Last Saturday we updated the Adirondack Bushcraft Brothers™ base camp with a some new furniture.