Hunting

The Best Laid Schemes

(As Robbie Burns opined) “o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain” (‘To a Mouse’: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43816). The photo of Spot and I testing out the new Klymit packraft (http://www.theultralighthiker.com/klymit-packraft/) on the farm dam give no hint of this. I need to inflate it some more I think. I

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Hiking in the Rain:

This is a very useful article. The author (http://gossamergear.com/wp/rain-guide-to-backpacking) is certainly right that after a while you are bound to get soaked to the skin. This may mean you have to camp early to get yourself under a roof and warm up (See: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/the-importance-of-a-roof/) or it can be avoided by using an umbrella or (I

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I felt quite rich when I found my knife, flint and steel in my shot pouch:

Hugh Glass (‘The Revenant’, ‘Man in the Wilderness’):  ‘Although I had lost my rifle and all my plunder I felt quite rich when I found my knife, flint and steel in my shot pouch. These little fixens make a man feel righ peart when he is three or four hundred miles from any body or

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Porridge:

Is undoubtedly the most compact energy dense and sustaining breakfast to eat on the trail. Unfortunately the ‘instant’ versions of this staple have been so adulterated and laden with diabetes promoting nasties as to be almost downright dangerous. Here is Della’s ‘traditional’ porridge recipe. It is astonishing that it needs only one level teaspoon of

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