This morning at Wild Ways, we had a nice array of intriguing things to check out on the picnic table. Lauren put finishing touches on her new Willow basket and shared the process with students, talking about our beloved Willow and how to tend it in the wild. Everyone is pumped to get an introduction into Willow basketry! We also had out some supplies which we would be working with: walnut dye, honey, hide glue, feathers, fur and more.
After some fun in the morning sun, we settled into our fire-making routine, this time in the barn. We continue offering tips and helping to tune up kits, and one student got his first coal!
The craft of the day: making all-natural handcrafted paintbrushes and ink. These crafts came from an amazing book, The Organic Artist. For the paintbrush, we started with a tuft of hair, primarily from a bear hide I brought in, but one student also decided to use her own hair which worked nicely as well! These small bundles of hair were carefully bound with thread and inserted into a section of hollow feather quill so that the hair stuck out one end. We then used hide glue to fasten the stick to the other side. They came out beautifully. At first it was a struggle for everyone to get the hang of, but very quickly they figured it out and everyone made at least two. It was a nice activity that required a whole host of both physical and mental skills.
Next up was the ink: We brought in some potent Walnut dye. After cracking tons of walnuts a few weeks ago, the hulls went into a crock pot and we took this dye and mixed two batches of ink, one with a hide glue binder and one with a honey binder. Two groups put their brushes to work in a game of team Pictionary, which was a fun way to use their new craft.
The afternoon was spent on the land. A hike to an unexplored area on the land yielded some nice discoveries. We followed a very fresh deer trail through pine needles, and discovered many signs of the rut, including many buck scrapes and rubs. We also discovered a secret Hickory grove and some of us dreamed of all the fine bow staves that might be gathered there.
To put our tracking skills to further important uses, the groups split again to take part in what we all agreed would best be described as the Flying Deer Hunger Games. One group departed into the woods in single file, leaving a fairly difficult trail to follow in the leaves and set up an ambush armed with acorn and pine cone projectiles. The other group would have to track them down and survive the ambush. We played two rounds and had a blast trying to outwit the other team and hurling and dodging projectiles. In closing, we sat down in the Pine grove and shared some highlights and woes of our daily lives and also a high point of our day.