Burrs country park

I took the kids and the dog to Burrs country park for a little adventure. As a young lad, I used to knock about there quite a lot with my mates, swimming in the river and what not. It is also a great place, full of Wildlife day and night. 

Here they are playing on the river bank..
 

Great scenery if I may say so. 

There are plenty of things to do here such as a park for the kids, activities include canoeing, abseiling, orienteering and the place has the East Lancs Railway running through it. You can fish in the River Irwell or there is a lodge for coarse fishing. 

Louis has an affection for Bats and this is one of the best local places near Radcliffe where we live as Burrs is situated just outside of Bury. We have a bat detector and as amateur bat hunters, we can definitely identify at least three Bat species.

On our little adventure yesterday Rowan ran through a small nettle bush so he was upset as you can imagine. So I then thought a little bit of education wouldn't go a miss,(even if he is only three) :).

He helped me look for a doc leaf and I Showed the kids what one looked like, the best place to find one and how to use it to take away the sting from the nettles. To which they were both surprised at how quick Rowan's stings vanished and stopped itching his legs. 'Result!'.

I noticed a kingfisher was opposite us on the riverbank and saw that it was darting into a hole back and forth, back and forth. We then investigated and found a nice little but long hole dug into the raised part of the riverbank. As I neared the nest, the parent was looking toward us from high up in a tree on the opposite side of the river. There was an obvious alarm sounding call from the chick(s) coming from inside the nest. 
 

Here it is..
 

The keen eye will make it out but see how camouflaged the chick actually is.

The kids loved hearing the baby(s) in the nest. 

I would recommend Burrs country park to anybody, there is a great pub and a caravan site that overlooks the Steam Railway. Young and old can get real fulfilment from this local haven for fun and above all for me, the abundant thriving wildlife.

Lollibop

Here's me, with one of my Idols..

Yes, Shaun the Sheep.

We arrived at Lollibop 2013 and I don't know who was most excited, Karen (aka grumpyishmum), Louis (aka footymad5yearold), Rowan (aka asbo), or me, Ted (aka survivaldaddy). 

As we came through the gate, opposite was a stall where your children, yes children had the opportunity to make a wind mill. And neither Louis or Rowan seemed bothered at all about the prospect, however, (grumpyishmum), who I will now call (childlikeishmum) was very excited indeed and proceeded to make one and got right into it.

As we moved on, we learned from the schedule that Rastamouse and the Eazy Crew were due to perform so off to the main stage we went. Brilliant, we love Rastamouse and what a performance it was. Watching Rastamouse gave me a craving for carribean food, (yes I am odd), so off I went in search to the food stall area and found a Jamaican food stall and had mutton curry, rice an peas followed by a can of ginger beer. In a word, Awesome :)

As the day went on, we looked around all of the stalls an attractions which looked very good and interactive for kids and adults alike but and it's a very big BUT, the queues were horrendous for just about everything. Take the National Geo tent. They were educating us about exotic animals and letting kids have hold of Tarantulas which was all brilliant but unless you were 7 feet tall, there was no chance of seeing anything if you weren't near the front. The presenter wasn't on a raised stage and the tent was very small indeed. I don't mean to pick on Nat Geo as such but that was as good an example as any. 

Moving on, Louis wanted his face painted so I took him to queue up for one while Childlikeishmum took Asbo to the Little Tykes playground and a look round some of the other stalls.

 After an hour of queueing, Louis got his face painted..
 

He was very pleased in the end.
 

Rowan looked a little apprehensive about who Shaun's friends were..

..but decided that he'd stand next to one and look at Shaun from a distance. :)

After Louis had his face painted like Spiderman, we then found Asbo and Mummy only to find that Asbo wanted his face doing also but we had to deny him because there was no way we were queueing up again.

Sorry Rowan, we promised to get it done tomorrow, as you do.

Overall, I think that Lollibop was very good indeed and well organised but I definitely wouldn't have liked to have visited on the Saturday as it would have been a lot busier and the queues even more horrendous than the Friday.

I also made these.

While we're on the subject of things we made, here are my best creations:

Using one of these...
 

Which in turn created not one of these...

But another one...

My life would be..

Without these...

    My life however is as beautiful as one of these...

Or this..

 

(If that's the way you roll) :)

Thankyou from the bottom of my heart and all the way to Mars xxoooxx

I Made This

This weeks 'The Gallery' theme is: I made this.
 

This is the third item I carved since starting my newest hobby which is woodcraft. The first was a walking stick for fathers day, followed by a nice little spoon (that the dog has now eaten).

I acquired a nice branch of Hazel which had a nice kink in it where I imagined the scoop to be. 

Here's how it looked.

The process is very enjoyable and can take you however long you want it to as long as you don't rush (and damn near slice off a digit), however, it took me around three hours to amble along and get it perfected :).

    

I am really looking forward to see what other people have made and read what they blog about on the 'I made this' theme..

Ok now, bye bye then..

Compact survival kit.

When looking for kit to take with you for a trek or a weekend in the woods, I think the main things to consider are the size, weight and efficiency of the kit you are using. I have been looking around for a small survival kit for some time and have purchased one which was very cost effective, lightweight, doesn't take up much room at all and has a good deal of items contained including;

 

1. Adhesive bandages
 

2. Button compass
 

3. Candle
 

4. Cotton wool
 

5. Dressing
 

6. Salt Sachet
 

7. Snare wire
 

8. Vinyl tape
 

9. Sewing kit
 

10. Zip lock water bag carrier
 

11. Fishing hook
 

12. Flint and steel fire lighter
 

13. Whistle ( containing emergency details)
 

14. Mirror
 

15. Small multi tool
 

16. Pencil
 

17. Razor blade
 

18. Safety pins
 

19. Wire saw
 

All contained in a vacuum sealed aluminium tin.

 I may not need to use all the items, i.e the sewing kit, but you never know. There are some very useful items contained within, some of which I will demonstrate the use of.

 

This kit obviously doesn't contain everything you will need, i.e hand sanitizer, bug spray, sun cream etc. It will however go a long way in helping you to have all of the right kit which will fit into the side pocket of your bag.

Basic Shelter.

When finding a nice spot to take/ make a shelter you have to take into consideration a number of thought processes. At it's most basic, you can erect a tarpaulin (if you have one) between two trees and sleep/rest underneath to keep dry and warm enough perhaps only in the space of April to September in this country. 

The first thing to consider when choosing two trees to tie the tarp to is to look up, to make sure no branches can fall and impale you while you're sleeping. Then you look at the ground to see if it's flat and there are no game trails or ants nests where your head is going to be :). In our country, our weather systems and wind come from a south westerly direction. So your tarp wants to be at least within a 45 degree angle with the back facing toward the wind. Erect the tarp at a nice angle and the wind should flow right over it and the rain slide down it. 
 

I think that if you have a tarp then it can be used as a quick fix resting spot in the right conditions. I will be using, investigating and making alternative types of shelter and writing on blog about the processes used for each one.
 

     Here's one I made earlier.. :)
 

 

Flat ground and good canopy above made this possible.
 

 

I utilised this axe bench as a bit of protection which also doubled up as a hanger :)

Back to Basics

Now, I have been going off on a tangent writing about spoons and sticks so we are going to go back to basics.

In principal, survival will consist of finding or making shelter, making fire, finding and purifying water and getting food. Clothing, tools, any equipment and any sort of training will help you in most situations. Obviously the location, weather conditions and state of health will all come into play in varied situations, i.e, if you find yourself in a desert, finding water will not help if you have no shelter to retain bodily fluids.
 

I was told to remember 'The Rule Of Threes'.
 

• In the first three hours, you need shelter.
• In the first three days, you need water.
• In the first three weeks, you need food.

Fire will come to play in and around these  principles. Fire keeps you warm, keeps insects at bay, heats your water and cooks your food. Not to mention, be a signal from the smoke it creates if you find yourself to be stranded on a desert island ( laughs uncontrollably ).

At it's most basic, Survival means;
 

To satisfy the human body's requirements for life.

If you are in a survival predicament, conserving your energy is most important. There is no point in taking on a strenuous task of building a shelter when there is a nice warm cave nearby.( providing there are no bears around). :)
 

In the coming weeks, I will be taking time to take on some of these tasks, implementing my existing knowledge and learning new tricks along the way :).
 

Enjoy, I know I will ..