A Wire Saw & Some Pine Tea

 I wanted to show how those budget wire saws can do, and I figured I might as well make a hot beverage while I was out in the cold. Packed up a haversack and hit the trail They had plowed a couple of other areas so there's a nice change of scenery.

Below is the pitch pine needles. Notice the group of three.

Eastern white pine. 5 needle groups.

A couple of ways to know if pine needles are edible are by how soft they are. If they are somewhat soft and flexible it's usually safe. Also, if you rub them so the oils come out they should smell just a bit resinous with a hint of citrus. But again, I still suggest the book on foraging.

I want to mention that in the following video I accidentally call the pitch pine ponderosa pine a few times. 

Belt Kit Outing

 

Happy New Year

 

Another Snow Shoe Trek

 

Out for another snowshoe trek. Some light survival kit musings.

MRE For Breakfast

 Embracing the suck I packed up and headed out with a real feel of 4*. My plan? To heat up and eat an MRE and make some coffee. The MRE heater didn't really work out this time, so I ate a cold beef and bean taco with rice and corn MRE. Surprisingly, this ne actually had some coffee in it. But as my wife reminded me, I cannot have caffeine, so I guess it was a good thing when I went out with the first one there wasn't any coffee.

Fingers are still a tiny bit frostbit, but not bad. hard to wear cloves to eat and make stuff to eat and drink.

Snowshoe Hike

 

Some Light Snow

 

Fall Cabin Trip 2025

 We left last Monday for our Fall cabin trip. The weather forecast wasn't looking to good and it was pretty correct. We had more rain than we had dry weather. We just went with the flow and made the best of things. I did have to miss one day of hunting and the rain made me bail a couple hours early the next morning.

I usually do a bunch of bushcraft practice, but this year I just wasn't feeling it. I did get the wood stove going with a ferro rod one night and flint and steel another, and of course hunting is bushcraft, but that was it really.

We did some touring in the car over to Long Lake, Raquette Lake, and found out one area was sold and the new owners have blocked access on their land to one of the more popular state owned mountains in the area we go to. What can ya do? Things change I guess....

The only deer seen was a very small doe on my way to my hunting area one morning. 4 days of the early ML season and the regular season opener for the NZ.

That's really about it. Not a lot going on this year for that trip.

Last First

 I put the video for the last day of the archery season and the opener for the muzzleloader season together. So far it's not been a horrible season, having seen deer on 3 of the five hunts I've been able to get in.

Yesterday was part of the game on public land.

When I got to my chosen spot there were already two vehicles there. One smaller SUV and a pickup. The owner of the SUV was already gone (so to speak- see later), and the two guys in the truck were just finishing up getting ready. They asked where I was going to be (I wish everyone on public land did this), I told them and they said they were going to be in the second field. Which was fine as it did leave me a good area to watch.

They headed in and I threw my pack on and locked my own SUV and started in. I noticed a light coming back from the first field and figured one of the other guys forgot something. Nope. Upon my getting on the trail I was greeted by two dogs wearing orange vests with a third back with the owner. The light I saw was a pheasant hunter who was now leaving, in the dark. My best guess is he decided to give up the area to the deer hunters. At least I'm guessing for the benefit of the doubt here that's how it went. No night hunting allowed in any of the areas near home so....

I got to my blind and set up. After about 40 minutes I saw a doe trotting from the woodlot to the field and was out of my safe zone in less then a few seconds. She slowed and stopped for a second between me and the other field the other two guys here hunting. I didn't even get time to think about grabbing my ML/ I managed to get a little clip of her on video, but with the low light it's a little hard to see her.

So my morning consisted of seeing a good doe but not having a shot and hearing turkeys where I never heard a peep from a turkey all last May when I was hunting them.

Deer Hunt 2

 

First Deer Hunt Of 2025

 The archery opener was last Saturday, but I had stuff going on all weekend and most of yesterday. But I was finally able to get out this morning. It felt good to be back in the deer blind. Plenty of acorns were dropping in the woods so things should get interesting pretty soon. Providing those woods don't get over run with pressure. It seemed very strange to be using a crossbow instead of my compound bow. You get used to something for so long it can feel off to do something different.

I didn't see any deer on this hunt. I might head back out tomorrow or Thursday if I'm feeling up to it.

Some Light Hunting & A Discussion

 We set out this morning to go over to the camp because I wanted to do some light bear hunting, try and locate a coyote den, and state why going forward my annual virtual gathering as well as all ABB outings will be set up through my forum now. So te end chat for this one is very dry and direct.

So upon arriving in the area we got a call from my buddy he had to help his father with a goat. Due to some bad cell coverage we thought he had said they also needed our help so we said we'd meet at the goat pens. Once there there was no one else around so I did manage to get ahold of my buddy who then explained that there was a mix up due to the call breaking up, but since we were there the extra hands would be appreciated. Turns out his father had suffered a nasty gore cut by one of the goats horns. So we got things handled. His dad drove himself to the ER even though we all tried getting him to let us take him. So off to the camp we headed.

Upon getting back in we talked for a while and then my buddy and I set out to look for the den and see if there was any fresh bear sign around. We did a big zig zag and passed by two of my hunting blinds but did not find what we were in search of. Back at the camp we opted to pass on making fire due to it being 81* in the Adirondacks in late September. I made the closing clip for my video then we talked about deer hunting, reworking the firepit at the camp, and the upcoming cabin trip.

From there we headed back out loaded things back into my SUV and went to see how my buddy's father was.

As a side note, I won't be discussing guns much on this blog, but those Thordsens are a huge step up from the spur if you live in here in NY. The best option by far if you want to go featureless. The 10/30 Hexmags aren't horrible for the price either. 

While at the camp we saw a few of these caterpillars.

They are Hickory Tussack. We looked them up when we got home and while they are very cool looking they secrete a slightly toxic fluid from the hairs that causes a rash. Pretty interesting little critters if you ever feel like looking them up.

Walking The Long Bow

 I felt like stretching my legs a little this morning, so I grabbed the long bow and headed out for some squirrel hunting and then stopped to get my TRC picture.

 

First Official Gathering of the Adirondack Bushcraft Brothers™

 

Tracker Action

 I had to rebuild a brush blind this morning. I still may need to do a little work to blend it a little more on the side but for now it's very useable. My Boker Plus full size tracker and an SAK Ranger Grip 79 were my tools of choice. Good combo for some light chopping and sawing.

At The Camp

 Been a very hectic and sad week. The camping trip I had planned was cancelled but I still headed over to the camp for a few hours.

A Weekend At Lake Durant

 My wife called me last Wednesday and asked if I wanted to go camping this weekend. I'm not one to turn down getting out in the woods so I was on definitely on board. I was in the ER a short time ago with come chest issues and she has a bad knee currently. But those things be damned, we went camping. We mostly sat reading and staring at the lake on this trip, but it was still better then sitting in the house moping.

I want to say, I don't think we'll ever go back to that state campground. It was beautiful and the view from the camp site was awesome. The staff were good and the sites were cared for as well as the rest rooms being clean. It's also one of my favorite areas of the Adirondacks. Some of the people were just flat out rude. Not all, as upon arrival the people on our left were packing up and gave us their left over firewood. But...The site to our right was closed and I guess that closed sign means free for all to use as a hang out instead of your own site to some people. Other campers would go sit at that picnic table and talk at the top of their lungs, yell, and just be obnoxious. It was even harder to handle when some groups would wait util 9PM for to this. Last night the campers on the other side of the closed site waiting until almost 1AM to start playing kick the cooler around. Not kidding here! At first I thought it was a bear slamming a cooler the people forgot to put away. But, when I looked out of our tent there was no bear over there, only two people doing who knows what. They were dragging and banging that cooler around or something. It sounded like the cooler had been left in the back of a moving truck while the truck was speeding around Baha and the cooler was bouncing and slamming around the back.

Anyway......

Over all we have a nice trip. Odd that during the entire trip I didn't see or hear a single fish jump. I know there's fish in there. but it was very strange they didn't seem active. Especially when I was trying to catch a few (one would have been nice).

Friday:

The drive up wasn't bad. Once we got off The Northway traffic on the secondary roads was fine. The drive up 28 from Warrensburg to the campgrounds is beautiful. We make that drive at least once a year into Indian Lake and it never gets old.

We got everything set up and took some time to relax. I actually used my small pack axe and one of my full size axes to process wood. I generally baton wood down into kindling with a knife, which I did a little of anyway, and used the knife to make a good pile of shavings for use as tinder. Then I broke out the ferro rod and got the fire going. Friday night was ham sandwiches for supper. Something nice and easy after making the drive and setting up camp. Then we sat talking and watching the fire and a beautiful sunset.

There was also an incident on Friday involving my FAK. No one was hurt. After supper I was getting ready to get up from the table and a bird in the tree over head took a shit on my hand. It hit my hand and exploded all over my other hand which had my phone in it. Nasty stuff man! I used an alcohol prep pad to clean my hands and phone.

Saturday:

Woke up to a nice layer of fog sliding across the lake. I'm not sure what it is, but I enjoy watching fog or mist roll around a lake. It's just really cool watching it swirl and move. I thought it was around 57* or out. It was pretty chilly but very tolerable. I got out the little backpacker stove to make coffee and heat water for an oatmeal breakfast. Using a stove is pretty rare for me these days. It's usually a twig stove if I'm not making an actual camp fire. French press for me and some instant for my wife. Speaking of, she has decided she wants a French press for next year herself. So after some hot coffee and oatmeal we headed out to pick up more firewood and a sweatshirt for the dog. He was shivering pretty bad so yes, be bought him a a sweatshirt as we had forgot his. Upon getting into the SUV my initial guess at the temperature was wrong. It was only 43*.

Back at camp my wife went about modifying a person shirt to fit the pup while I grabbed my fishing gear and heading down to the lake. After an hour of not even a bite I went back up to the site and made sandwiched for lunch. Then split up some wood into smaller pieces that burn a little better. The wood bundles at the camp grounds and little store up the road were $11 and $14 for small bags. Even driving down into Indian Lake was a better price. I got about 5 times the amount for $15. It's usually a but damp but the once you get a good fire going it dried fast enough. For the savings in money I'll fiddle with it a little.

I also took a little time to harvest some pine pitch.

Got the fire going so I had some nice coals to cook a couple of steaks. So a couple hours was spent tending the fire and reading. Once the fire was ready and I had a nice bed of coals and not a lot of flame I got supper on to cook. Steak and some pasta salad I made on Thursday. Stoked the fire back up and a little more fishing.

Then I settled in to just sitting by the fire and staring at the lake as another beautiful sunset over the mountains and lake.

Sunday:

Awesome sunrise. Then we broke camp and came home.

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I have to go through the video clips then I'll get the video edited, rendered together, and uploaded.