Clean your blade with Sloes

Here's a little tip for those of you who use your knife to harvest pine or spruce resin, you've all seen just how sticky and difficult to remove it can be, well here's a little in field trick to help you clean your blade

 

 

first gather some fresh sloes from a blackthorn

 

cut a slice from the sloe and use the inside flesh to rub the blade

 

you'll soon start to notice that the acid in the sloe starts to remove the resin, it may take a little while but persevere

 

and after about 5 minutes.. a fresh clean blade!

 

Fortunate Fallow Preparation at NIBC Meet

At the most recent Northern Ireland Bushcraft Club meet we managed to take a fallow deer which was used by the guys there to provide us with food for the weekend plus lots of craft materials for later on projects..

 

 

strung up and allowed to cool before the prep begins

 

Gary and I took turns at skinning the beast and I have to say it didn't take long at all, we are definitely getting the hang of efficiently prepping large game.

 

I took the backstraps off and set them aside along with another little treat for dinner later that evening..

 

 

my favourite cut of venison, I absolutely adore this meat

 

 

after the meat was all prepped, Gary and the rest of the crew took the time to flesh the hide, hard work but they did a great job, the skin was then stretched and made ready for tanning!!

 

and our little treat.. the heart, lighlty cooked by our most excellent camp cook Davy, it was one of the finest pieces of meat I've ever eaten, the rest of the off cuts were used to make a venison curry which we dined on that night, the bones, sinews and left overs were then split between the group for different projects the gang all have in mind..

A thoroughly enjoyable weekend.