After our trip to Ed’s farm he gifted us some beautiful gourds which we took home and I started making into a bowl, which was great as I hadn’t brought one with me.
Gourds make a great natural bowl and a lot easier than carving a wooden one, on this project I let nature do the hard work. The next step after cutting the gourd was to wash it in salty water to remove the bitter tasty and then melt beeswax to waterproof it.
Today we went over to visit a great farmer called Ed who grows all sorts of amazing fruit, vegetables and has a flock of beautiful sheep.
Ed was needing a hand getting ready to plant gourds and to trim his sheeps hooves.
The first job was burning off all the dead vegetation so I got to man my first flame thrower and then we spread manure over the area to help the gourds get a good start in life.
Katie and Lydia helped Ed clip the sheeps hooves, one of the rams was particularly fiesty and carried Lydia across the barn on his back.
Katie helped us get started on our first buffalo project making bags and showed us some of the clothes she had made.
I decided to make a bag that could fit on the arm or leg to add extra warmth to my kit.
I took a pair of buffalo legs that are normally disposed of and also made some buttons from the leg bones.
Alex and Epona kindly invited us over to a hog roast up on their land, the pig was super tasy and the company was great.
Today Katie showed us some of the wonderful things that can be made from buffalo including bags, tools and canned buffalo meat.
Including these cute mini buffalo.
Food is always an important aspect of our lives. Over this trip I plan to try eat as healthly as possible with wild meats, tasty vegetables and plently of fruit.
In order for that to happen we need to gather and process different foods so thats what our main focus has been over the first few days.
Respecting the food that I eat is very important to me, which is much easier when it comes fresh and not wrapped in plastic.
Processing an animal into food is a very humbling experience and we try to use ever part of them to honour its life.
Twisp is an interesting town that almost makes you feel like your walking back in time to an old western movie but with the aditional health food store and laundry mat. Twisp is surrounded by beautiful mountain ranges and idilic homesteads.
The people of Twisp are very friendly, outdoorsy folk who enjoy a slower pace of life which I really enjoy.
Hanks is one of the most interesting grocery stores I have visited, filled will all manner of creatures waiting to greet you at every isle.
Twisp has a very arty vibe with beautiful artwork produced by local artists, creative wooden buildings and sculptures.
Including a cool mini library
Finally made it after various flights, delays and a grumpy airport official.
My old Trapper Nelson Rucksack approx 80 or 90 years old is ready to be filled before I head off tomorrow morning.
Trapper Nelson Rucksacks have a great design enabling the user to easily remove the canvas bag from the wooden frame through a simple eyelet system. This makes for a very versatile piece of kit allowing a variety of different objects to be strapped to the frame, simple but elegant.
So it’s the night before I set off to America and thought I would post up some images of the items I have been making.
Traditional Living Project 