Well we had another great weekend in Cavan. The more I use the area the more I love it. The weather had threatened how much we’d get done but luckily it only rained on the Saturday morning. Still we would be able to do a good bit even with the rain. First task was to get the steak and start to jerky it over the fire. It took most of the day for them to dry but they were great. Smoked and salted, they were much tastier than any I had done in the oven
I brought down some bannock mix. Although a bit doughy to touch, they turned out very tasty.
I wanted to experiment with purifying water. So we gathered some of the most stagnant filthy water we could find. I used a sock, some moss, charcoal, stones and grass to make a filter.
It worked quite well, to make it perfect, just use 2 sock filters. The water came out alot better than it went in, almost completely clear with only small bits of charcoal showing, which would be ok to boil id say. Tony got working on making a primitive bowl
Using embers from the fire, he got a perfectly shaped bowl. He then heated some stones up to boil the water. The granite worked very well, though the quick immersion in the water caused them to crack. Thankfully Granite doesnt seem to spit with it cracks. It didnt take too many stones to get it to a rolling boil
So with your socks and a fire, you can manage to purify even extremely dirty water 🙂
Myself and Jim work on a Debris hut while Tony work on the bowl. I always like building these, although they are a bit of work. Here Jim tries it out for size
We touched on other such useful areas like; Bluebell glue, more foraging, water collection from a tarp, fire management, cordage and an Elder straw. Unfortunately the camera ran out early, so not everything was documented. Although a quite relaxed weekend, we got alot done and the weather turned out to be great