Weekend skills

I think being able to travel on foot quickly and for long distances is an important survival skill to have. It is more important than being strong so I have stopped lifting weights and started running. I am also in a basketball league so I'm trying to get in shape for that. So far I can barely make 2 miles without stopping.

I ran at the park Sunday and afterwards sneaked into my sit spot. It was a little after noon, and I was sweaty so I figured there wouldn't be much activity. Noon is one of the less active times of day as animals are often avoiding the mid day heat. Animals also pick up on human scent so extra sweat wasn't doing me any good.

Yet after 10-15 minutes a muskrat came swimming by and never looked in my direction. He was literally 8 yards in front of me. I had never really seen anything besides birds and squirrels there so it was a very pleasant surprise. Right after the muskrat swam by I looked upstream from where he came and saw a family of mallards. Soon after that a pair of American goldfinches, birds I'd never seen there, flew in and played in the tree to my left for awhile. As soon as they left I looked up to see two mallards flying overhead. They crossed the stream and then made a tight descending circle and landed in the stream to my left.

It all happened in a 10 minute time span. It was pretty unexpected and pleasant as if a reward for getting myself in shape.

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I've been meaning to experience eating wild plants. While at the park I tried some young spruce needles as I was running. I think they are edible however I haven't seen them in any wild edible book I've read. They tasted pretty good and the texture was enjoyable. I also grabbed some chives that grow with the grass. There's something cool about being able to just grab plants and eat them as your walking by.

When I got home it was time to mow the lawn. Our lawn as most has dandelions. These are unacceptable weeds to most people. Since I'm trying to sell my house, I figured it would be a good idea to remove them. To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to remove them and eat them.

Below is a dandelion. Notice the size and length of the root.


I referenced "Tom Brown's Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants" to find out which parts were edible. The leaves and flower heads can be eaten raw so I tried that.


I've eaten the leaves in the past and I think the key is to make sure they are young leaves. Anything old or big enough to have fuzz is too woody. I also tried to boiling the leaves for five minutes. This did get rid of some of the bitterness but the texture isn't as nice as when they're raw.

Finally, I dried the roots in the sun and then baked them in the oven for 3-4 hours. The now brittle roots will be ground up to make tea. I haven't tried this yet but look forward to it.

For another look at eating from the yard, check out Rix's blog here.

A Little Birdy Told Me

I stopped by the park after work today to listen to the birds. As I walked to my spot, I didn't hear or see any. I thought maybe they had all migrated. After getting to my spot, I sat for awhile without any action. Then a group of birds flew through my spot. I could hear them calling as they came. One of them landed on the tree across the stream. I'm happy to say that I was able to identify it on the spot as a Tufted Titmouse. I looked through my bird book the night before so I remembered what it looked like.

Just as I turned to leave, I saw a small sparrow-like bird fly into the bushes toward me from the open field. Seconds later I heard a high pitched note from another bird. I immediately thought someone is coming in 2 minutes. I got 2 minutes from the Bird Language cds I've been listening to. It's about the time it takes a person to walk to where the bird is that gave the alarm.

I don't really like to be seen coming and going from my sit spot. People might be suspicious of someone walking into or out of the bushes. The scout in me also likes to hide from people.

So I decided I would wait for 2 minutes before leaving. Not long after the alarm I heard the sound of a man yelling at his dog coming closer. About 2 minutes later they were pretty close. The man was throwing a frisbee to his dog so they were actually running around the whole field area, but they definitely came in my direction.

It was cool to know that someone was coming 2 minutes ahead of time without even having to hear or see them for myself.

Views From My Sit Area

This morning I was at my sit area again. It was a pretty calm morning. I was happy to see that the water level had risen after all the rain we had over the weekend. As usual my duck friends came by. This time I got some pictures of them. The three pictures below will give you an idea of the view from my sit area. You can see that I'm on the bend of this little stream. If you look closely you can see the ducks swimming in each picture.

Looking Left


Looking Straight


Looking Right

More Goings On At My Sit Area

I went to the park again this morning. I was shocked to see that the water level had lowered by 5 or more inches. This is just in a 24 hour period or less. There were three catfish that were trapped in the stream in front of my sit spot. They were all less than a pound in size. Maybe 6-7 inches long. They kept swimming into shallow areas flopping around trying to find a way back to the river.

About a half an hour in the family of ducks made their way in from the river. For some reason the father has been missing since shortly after the mysterious bird of prey sighting yesterday. I was curious to see what would happen as the ducks entered the water where the fish were freaking out. Unfortunately the mother led the little ducklings around the stream at that point. They did enter back in directly in front of me. Now that the stream had lowered, they had to get closer to me to be in the water. I wish I had my camera to take some pictures. I'll probably bring it next time. It was interesting watching the ducks. The fish made a pretty loud splashing sound and all 7 ducks froze in place for a second to figure out what was going on. They then went back to feeding. It was cool to watch the ducklings walk through the leaf debris and see them almost disappear as their dappled brown color blended in so well.

As I considered the fish, I wondered just how bad off they had it. I walked toward the river. It was easy to follow the dried up river beds because they were smooth and there was dried up green algae marking the path. It became clear that these fish were basically stranded 30 yards from the river. There was hardly any water between them and the river and nothing deep enough for them to live in. I wondered if I should try to move them, but I didn't get the feeling that I should. Maybe it will rain in time for them to escape. If not, I know there is a raccoon that walks by there frequently that will take care of them.

A Beautiful Way To Start My Day

As often as I can manage, I've been trying to spend about an hour at the park before I go to work. It is a great way to start my day. I don't immediately have to jump right into stressful or boring work. I think that if I start my day with work, it puts my mind in that mode all day. If I instead start my day in a peaceful manner by tuning all my senses into nature, I feel more aware all day long and I'm happier at work.

I usually get to the park just before 7am and stay until about 7:50am. This is a pretty good time to be there because there is at most one or two people there when I arrive. It is also one of the most active times of the 24 hour cycle. 5am is generally the peak time for animal activity. I have a spot in the woods next to a bend in the stream. I sit there quietly and listen and look in 360 degrees.

Lately I've been coming up with excuses not to go...Too cold, went to sleep too late, too rainy, too much on my mind to focus. Today, I thought I would have too much on my mind, but it wasn't so. The time flew by and my mind was occupied with the goings on in the area, not on other things.

When I entered the woods to get to my spot I pissed off a squirrel in a tree about 10 ft from my sit spot. He yelled at me for a good minute as I settled in. I didn't understand why he was so pissed until later. Deeper into the stream was a family of ducks. They weren't spooked by me. They are regular visitors. I was surrounded by all kinds of bird calls and songs.

There were squirrels playing in the trees above me and I learned to track there movements by the sounds of the dew splattering as they jumped from branch to branch. At one point they gave me a nice little shower from above. 30 minutes went by and I noticed drops of dew landing in the stream. I finally realized that the pissed of squirrel was still in the tree. As I examined the tree I figured out that it was hanging out over the stream and there were no trees close enough to it for him to get away. He was stuck unless he came down to the ground.

It was about this time that he started his little trust exercise with me. He cautiously moved down the tree pausing after each hop to stare at me and flutter his tail around. At some point he would then bolt back up the tree. Meanwhile the family of ducks slowly made there way past the stream in front of me. I think the squirrel saw this and then decided that maybe he could trust me.

He proceeded to hop down the tree and then bolt back up each time getting a little closer to the ground. 4 feet, 3 feet, 2 feet, 1 foot. He finally stepped onto the ground. He was actually on the ground a few inches from the tree and then he ran back up! One final time he came down and made it to the ground. I figured this time he would haul ass away on the ground, but he calmly hopped away like the whole thing was a joke.

Because I was so enthralled with this, I didn't perceive the sounds and silences that warned of a coming bird of prey. As I turned to look back at the ducks, I saw a large bird in a tree. Then I heard the chatter and alarm of lots of birds. I could only see the bottom half of the bird and saw that it had a long tail. I grabbed my binoculars and tried to locate it unsuccessfully. When I put them down the bird was gone. I thought it might have snatched a duckling, but I counted and all six of my little buddies were still there.

Time flew by. So much happened in one hour this morning.

My first Spring weekend

I had a pretty nature packed weekend. As I said in my last post, I've been listening to a lecture series on bird language. To learn it I'm supposed to find a sit area to visit as often as possible. This means once a day if I can manage. After work Friday I stopped by Broad Ripple park on my way home. It is a five minute drive from my house. Most of the park is open field where people play sports. On the northern edge there is a stream that feeds into the White River which comprises the park's western border.

The lecturer said a good sit area should have some or all of these characteristics:

• Convenient - If it's not convenient, I won't go very often.
• Close to water - Water attracts animals
• In a transistion area - This is an area on the edge of a forest. Animals like to have cover so they avoid open fields and forests where there is no ground cover.
• A place with a view - If I want to see animals I can't be sitting in a thicket especially when the plants start to grow leaves.

I knew that the stream area could satisfy all these criteria. It has a transition area on both sides of it. On the park side it is next to a path that people frequent with their dogs so I expect that I'll be able to learn a lot about how birds react to people and dogs. On the other side there is more open field and then houses.

As I looked around the stream I started looking for candidate sit areas. One big advantage of this stream is that it is about 10 ft. lower than the rest of the park. There is a steep slope that is perfect for sitting on to get a higher view point of the area. I looked for awhile for different spots. Finally, I walked to a spot and as I reentered the thicket, a robin flew up and landed on a branch about 6 ft. from me as if to welcome me. I looked across the river and saw three squirrels playing. This was my sign that I'd found the right sport. As I walked down the slope to have a look, I found out how perfect it was. It was the only spot I found where my view was completely unobstructed. I could see all the way to the river. I was also at the bend of the stream where I'm hoping some animals will visit.

There was only one problem with the place. There was trash everywhere. I thought there was no way I was going to be able to enjoy this spot if I was looking at bottles and cans. I decided that before I could even begin learning, I needed to clean the place up. That would have to wait till Sunday.

This is a picture of one area that is pretty bad. There's even a pilon in the stream!


Saturday I drove to Bloomington for a tracking club meeting. There were only three of us since it was an extra meeting on short notice. They usually meet every other Sunday. We met at a nature preserve on the north side. We spent three hours identifying birds, trees and animal tracks and sign. It was cool to id some trees without relying on leaves. We found one small two square foot patch of mud next to a stream that had three different species of mammal tracks in it.

See if you can find the three species of animal tracks in this photo. The fake bird tracks do not count. Post a reply with your answers.


Sunday I went to Lowe's and bought one of those tools for picking up litter so I wouldn't have to bend down. I drove to the park and began picking up trash. I thought it would only take a couple hours to clean the whole place up. I greatly underestimated how much trash there was. At times I could literally stand in one spot and spend five minutes picking up trash within reach. It became clear as I continued that no one had ever cleaned the place up before. I found pepsi and beer cans that were so old they had the pull off tabs to open them. The mouth of the can looked like a tear drop not like the wide mouth cans we're used to. These have to be more than 20 years old. There were a lot of other interesting items I picked up: 3 different sandals, a cell phone, and a lego to name a few. The cell phone had scotch tape holding in the battery so I'm guessing this person finally dropped their cell phone for the last time or got so pissed with it that they threw it into the woods.

Last August I took a week long class on caretaking and have been meaning to find a place to caretake. While I was at the park I decided that this stream would also be my caretaking project. I spent part of my time doing some other general caretaking. I made a small stick pile from dead branches. Most of the branches had fallen on living plants and all were found within 30 feet of the pile. So I was able to help other plants by removing heavy branches, clear a blocked trail and hopefully build a home for a small animal. In the end, I filled two garbage bags with enough trash that I could barely carry them. I think I cleaned up about 30% of the place. I have more work to do.


As if I hadn't done enough over the weekend, I finished Sunday off by completing my first obsidian arrow point. I also practiced the hand drill. I still haven't gotten a coal, but I'm close. I also got my first bow drill coal with the new firebow I made as seen in this previous post.

My first obsidian point

Current Projects

I have a few different things I'm working on right now. I don't really know when any of them will be completed. First, now that the weather is nice, I've already started flintknapping. I'm working on my first obsidian point. Thus far I've only worked on glass bottle bottoms so this is a new challenge. If the weather is nice, I'll have the point done this weekend.

I'm also working on a new bow. This will be my first osage orange bow. I made a mistake early on but I don't know if it will be a problem until I figure out which part of the stave my bow will comprise.

I've been listening to John Young's Advanced Bird Language series on CD. John Young was mentored by Tom Brown Jr. of the Tracker School for many years. It is a pretty awesome series and the stories are cool. With knowledge of bird language, you can move more stealthily through nature, see more animals, know where animals are before you can see them and generally increase your awareness. For example, in the wilderness John Young knows when a person is coming 2 minutes before he can see them by listening to birds. How cool is that!