I took some time off yesterday though to go searching for some nettles. I happen to know of a spot where, in summer, they grow thick and fast. I wanted to know if there were any new sprouts coming up and figured that if I was lucky, I might be able to harvest a few for an omlette I planed to make for supper that evening.
Nettles are very useful plants. Consumption of nettles can alleviate allergy symptoms and have an anti-inflammatory effect, not to mention that they are quite tasty. They also make great natural cordage. I highly recommend learning about this plant! Most people, unaware of it's usefulness, think of it as a nuisance weed!!
Unfortunately the nettles haven't begun to grow yet. When I got to my nettle spot all I could find were the brittle, pale, straw coloured remains of last year's crop. Perhaps in another month or so.
I continued my walk up to the lake to see how things had come along in the last 2 weeks. The centre was still frozen solid, but melting action could be clearly heard, and the area around the lake shore was free and clear in many locations. In fact, it was a perfect opportunity to sit, very still, and observe the aquatic life. There were MANY caddis fly larvae. The picture below is off a caddis, encased in his "home" made of decaying leaves, sticks and fir needles.
Given the sheer numbers of caddis I saw, it's a fair bet that the trout in this lake gorge themselves on caddis whenever they are available (ie during a hatch). They are just too important a source of biomass to pass up. This is a key piece of knowledge to have, and the type of knowledge that is best obtained through first hand observation; any fisherman wanting to catch trout here would do well to come armed with a good supply of caddis fly imitations. It's also an example of why I love fly fishing so much... it's very much like bushcraft in that success is based on a genuine, first hand understanding of the environment that you are in. The equipment used is very secondary to the knowledge and experience you carry in your brain!!!
I also took the opportunity while I was out and about to try making some fuzz stick with a pocket knife. I had been curious about this for a little while and decided to give it a shot and see how well it turned out. The end result was certainly passable, and would do in a pinch, but nowhere near as convincing as when using a good fixed blade knife.
The part I thought would be tricky was splitting the wood. Making the curls by shaving down the interior of split wood works MUCH better that trying to simply make curls on the outer surface of a stick. The knife and a baton method worked fine, but with the pocket knife you have to use a very small diameter piece of wood. This is because the blade is relatively short, but also because it thins out near the tip, reducing the effectiveness of the baton. Basically, you can't really give it a good whack for fear of breaking of the tip of the knife! I could only use wood of about 1.5" in diameter.
As you can see from the pictures, the fuzzies are OK, not great, but good enough to light from a match or other source of open flame. There are a few which are very thin and have multiple curls, but most are rather thick and have only 1 curl. Nothing like what I make with my fixed blade, but in the pocket knife's defense, it IS in need of a proper sharpening, and probably would have made better fuzzies had it been truly sharp. Still, given that I was using only a pocket knife I was more or less satisfied, and felt that the result would be quite sufficient to get a good fire going if need be.
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