As bushcrafters, we are often on the lookout for raw materials for various projects, but even when we’re not, when an opportunity presents itself, we take advantage when we can.
After a day at work, while exploring the grounds of our accommodation, we struck up a conversation with the groundmen who were hard pruning avenues of lime trees. Thoughts of hearth boards, spoons, tongs and Kuska sprang to mind. After carefully easing bushcraft into the conversation, I was kindly offered the use of a wheelbarrow and saw and set to work.
And here are the fruits of our labour.
As someone who struggles to strike up a conversation, I rarely take the opportunity to leave my comfort zone and start a conversation with people I don't know. It surprised me, how a completely accidental conversation about that week's bin schedule, lead, through several stages, to an unexpected result. This quite small encounter with a large windfall made me reflect upon what I had discovered.
Bushcraft is such a wide and diverse subject that it can often crop up in the most unlikely places. I feel very privileged to be able to travel the world teaching and exploring the natural world and using bushcraft as a way of adventure. Enabling myself and others to share unique and extraordinary encounters with wildlife and wild places. BUT that isn't all bushcraft is! Bushcraft can be found much closer to home. Bushcraft is nipping outside on a clear night to put the bins out and taking a moment to look at the stars or taking a few minutes to listen to the dawn chorus in the early morning. And sometimes is as simple as bumping into a groundsman and asking what colour bin to use for household waste, that can lead us to bushcraft.
It just goes to show a how stepping out of your comfort zone, and doing something that feels unnatural to you, can lead to unexpected results.
This can also be relevant to bushcraft itself, be it learning a new skill, going on your
first expedition, or even just getting out there and giving it a go for the first time, you
never know where it could lead, or what it could lead to, but there's only one way to
find out!