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 What we’ve been up to?

Well May turned out to be another busy month, with a range of courses being run from our Wiltshire site. But we kicked things off by heading to the North Somerset Show, where we had a stand displaying what we offer here at Hands on Bushcraft. We also demonstrated some of the skills we teach, including spoon carving and friction fire lighting. A big thank you to everyone who popped along to say hello and braved the very wet and windy weather!

         
After the show it was straight into courses including our popular Wild Game Butchery, where we had a selection of game setup  ready for the group to learn how to prepare. The weather started out nice and hot and as the day went on the storm clouds ascended and the final couple of hours turned out to be very wet... good job we had a couple of tarps set up! By the end of the day, everyone walked away with a cool box full of rabbit, pigeon and venison. 
 

(Wild Game Butchery - May's group)

We also ran our wild food forage. After beginning the day with a nettle tea, we headed out to identify and gather the first few ingredients for our mid-morning snack. This included, Dandelion flowers (for a tasty green tea), hawthorn buds, garlic mustard and thistle stems. Once our baskets were full we headed back to base camp to taste some of the wild food delights. And after making flatbreads, we all tucked into them with a helping of homemade dandelion marmalade or garlic butter - a perfect accompaniment to the dandelion tea. 

(Wild food foragers making and cooking flatbreads!)

It was then back out to gather some more wild edibles, this time our focus was on roots. This sparked a challenge between the participants... who could find and dig up the biggest burdock root! Becca was also brave enough to venture into the water and harvest some bulrush roots, a starchy root that is high in carbohydrates.

  
(Harvesting some cattail and burdock roots)

We then returned to base camp and cooked up the wild edibles alongside some wood pigeon, creating a delicious lunch. 

  

(Chris butterflying the pigeon breasts)
Check out our Facebook page for some pics.

Our Flint knapping course is designed to take you through the core skills of flint Knapping. You'll spend the day learning about all things flint. First we'll teach you how to get flakes from a nodule of flint. From those flakes we'll then show you how to make items including arrow heads, hide scrapers and maybe even a rudimentary knife blade. If you're interested in primitive technology and how our ancestors made these tools, then why not join us on our flint knapping day in July.

Date: 16th July (only 2 spaces left!)

Course cost: £85

Courses Dates

11th June - Bushcraft 24 (Fully Booked)
12th June - Bushcraft Essentials (spaces available)
25th-26th June - Bow Making (Only 2 spaces left)

New Course

I'm very excited to announce a new course which has been in the pipeline for a while now. Based on our popular Wild Game Butchery courses comes The Whole Deer. 

The Whole Deer is a day butchery course dedicated field dressing deer. In pairs you'll be given a deer to prepare. Our instructors will take you through the whole process starting with skinning. You'll then be taken through how to joint up the deer, taking off each haunch, fillet, tenderloin, etc. before producing the various cuts of meat. Our instructors will then take you through how to make some marinades to infuse your venison steaks in. Lunch will be provided and will of course be version, which will be cooked over the embers of our campfire. At the end of the day you'll walk away with a cool box full of meat for your freezer and the knowledge of how to prepare a deer.

Course date: 12th November 2016

Course cost: £179

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