Winter´s at the bay, folks.

 Made a quick "keitispuu",, three piece construction  out of sticks, to hang the small kettle above fire. Keitispuu is made out of word keitis, that suggests for boiling-cooking and Puu, that means both, wood for material  and tree.

Before i decided to take a longer pause, i used my Wild Stoves woodgas stove MK II, to make some tea, but then my buddy showed up and i did the bigger fire. However, this stove is absolutely magnificent. It bursts heat to warm yourself and your food, and its very stable, plus, it packs in to very compact size. The only thing it needs, is something to collect the ash...well..in winter, its pretty damn safe without one too.

 Yesterday it started to pour snow a bit better :)

 Taking a pause, while hunting grouse ( metso & teeri species in finnish..), this morning. Small swamp pond at high,rocky ground... Not complaining at all...crispy  weather, just tiny wind and few degrees under zero celsius, fire, sausage, coffee,  and most of all....not hurry to do a thing or to go to anywhere, just time to chill out.

 Firewood making, for work & money and for my self.

 Resin oozing from fatwood, in the heat of campfire (  Nuotio, in finnish)

 Fatwood, which we call "tervaspuu" as in tar-ish-wood, aint rare in my area at all....luckily.

Time to change for winter tyres and to find pair of snowshoes, ski´s and ahkio sled, from storage, it seems.

Just few days ago, the first sun came after i took this snapshot of my dog bathing in the fall sun.

DIY anvil, from railroad track.

Just a few snapshots of todays tinkering.

I had this crude rude anvil that i made a few years ago, and never even used it. I made it from non-used piece of heavier railroad track, about 40 centimetetrs long one, with blow torch and angle grinder and thats it, since i didnt have any other tools to make it prettier.

Today, i found it at morning while i was looking for my sheel metal brake, for one wood stove project.

 And i managed to get my self next to lathe and mill....and i now, could machine the railroad tracks convex like shaped face and the cheecks of it , even and straight, to get 90 degree angles in between the facing surfaces.

After these things, i used angle grinder and few sandpaper wheels attached to it, to make the horn a lot niver for forging, and some roundings that i did here and there.

What do you say ?

But thats about it, i have to run now !

Life´s good here.

I like it now, when the days are colder, and i hope hard, for permanent sub zero weathers, for this month, it would help me on grouse hunting, and i could live without this foggy, muddy weird season easily....

 Kånken is pretty darn good haling small, compact hiking gear, mine takes a stove, the wood fuel, a coffee pot, a kettle, and all i need.

                                   I dont care what some say.....i KNOW it can take a whole  lot of gear.



I took a dayhike in the woods with my dog and girlfriend, but as i have this cracked ankle, i didnt walk so much, as she did . Instead i stopped at familiar open area, and opened my new favourite, Fjällräven  Kånken, took off my woodgas stove and tea, rum and water, lit the stove and enjoyed watching the leaves in the wind, aas well as small game birds passing over the opening. If id had my rifle, it would have been an easy job to get some bird meat but i didnt take it with me. I just whittled and talked to my dog, and took a nap, and such, till my girlfriend came to my tiny camp and we returned the trail to the cabin, and had a nice long bath in the sauna.

Now, as i write, i am enjoying a mildly fried, salted fresh moose calf liver, that was todays catch on the moose hunt season.

Another i-am-alive post.

This just one of the meaningless posts ive been making for who knows how long.

Ive been doing nothing that i could link to any idea of this blog o´mine,  and if ive been out, ive been only pickin up mushrooms and berries. Mostly ive been spending my time handling chainsaw and brush cutter just about every day.

During next weekend however i am heading for overnighter in the woods. One night in the forest, one in the cabin, while hunting grouse´s.

Maybe then i come up with something worth something.

But, heres some shots taken after last post.

Kånken has proven to be nice minimalistic daypack without any nonsense funtions. Yet it has space for :

-knife, on the side "pocket"
-small hatchet ( A.S.W) on the other
-US army poncho blanket
-Savotta space blanket
-ViHe rain poncho
-Small first aid kit
-MSR 0.85 titanium kettle
-Wild stoves MK II woodgas stove
-2 army dehudrated meals
-0.7 liter canteen and its aluminium cup
-Petzl E-Lite headlamp
-Compass, a real one instead of button type
-Telescopic fishing pole+line,spares, fake bait etc
-tent pegs, a few, msr
-10 meters of paracord
-Spoon & Fork combo thingy, Guyot Designs.
-Firesteel
-some sugar/tea/instant coffee satchels
-whistle
-spare socks, mittens and a Buff scarf.
-And on the handles, theres a bit over meter long, 7mm thick cheap mattress piece, just enough from head to hip bones.

I think ill switch the stuff, for hunting purposes for the next weekend though,but really, Kånken has capability for more than adequate overnighter in the bush.I did one kota-nighter with the stuff mentioned up above but i havent done the required overnighter yet, but thats what i am doing in a week.

At one day, while i was clearing the overgrowth of willows surrounding an abandoned old farm, i was eating a sandwhich , sitting next to the quite big log-made barn. The wind brought scent of old tar and smoke to my nostrils and i had to yank the old door open. I was looking inside an old sauna, an smoke house of the old type, with out any chimney. They used to smoke seeds and meat here as well as bathe. The roof has mostly collapsed so i could not get any better angle to take a snapshot as the roof  might collapse all the way down. You dont see these anymore so much even here on the countryside. All those pitch black log walls could tell a story or a few if they could speak or if we knew how to listen em...

 Ive been hauling fatwood, quite lot of it to home...maybe 100 liters or so.

 A day at the work. One of my offices.

 Found an old scale.

 ..and aquired some birch burls for making stuff out of it, i hope ill get a decent for making a Kuksa.

 One of my buddies made a familiar looking knife :)

You can get a free firewood easily often, if you fell snow damaged trees and take care of its "disposal".

In this piee of occasional sad traditon of forest dumpster, youll also notice an old "kiuas". The wood heated stove used to warm the bathing place we call sauna, you might call it a sweat lodge or something. This is the type youll mostlikely warm up once instead of adding wood while bathing. Theres a lid that you open when you the sauna is in proper temp and you throw water through the opening, so the heated rocks in it, cast the hot misty air inside the sweat lodge. Nowadays usually youll find "kiuas" that does Not have this closed structure surrounding the rocks, instead, the rocks are visible. The old ones with closed system and that "door" are good as they usually didnt need wood to be thrown in the furnace, and usually the heat, after days bathing, remained behind closed door of , in the rocks and you could bathe also at morning, as well as they usually saved wood, and allowed longer time of bathing that was often needed as there was bigger  families in the houses back then.

Typical, old log based sauna. These stood along the fields everywhere back in the days.

 Bagfull of fresh mushrooms...

 Butter and deer meat....

 Slices of bacon...

 Some cream...let it fry,stir it and wait.

 Thats how you make dogfood.

 This, we call "kinnerpuu"....you use it by hanging the game animal, from its back legs muscle joints, through the spikes of this raw wooden tool, while you skin and gut the game.

Found and old knife, made in WW2, forged from bayonet and the handle is made from crashed airplane aluminium and some fiber pieces. Who knows how many ruskies met this long shank.

Checking the sights for upcomimg bird hunts.

Using nets and canoe, is worth the time it takes. Fresh fish, every day if i want.

Another place of work. I would not change my job, for deskjob for any price. Yep, my wage is poor as i am, but id rather work outside, every day, possibly in different place, than grow spiderweb behind a screen with huge income. No stress, no tension, just as i prefer it to be.

I could show you chainsaw and 4x4 pics too but i think you arent interested in em. Ive been fixing one old  4x4 car, lifting it a few inches, adding a winch etc, and fixing chainsaws, but thats not worth writing.