No I don't mean hairy bush, I mean wild and woolly bush.

We are talking about wilderness stuff here, right?  Not 1970s porn?



I do a little.  Less than I used to, but I get pretty in to long term wilderness stuff.

My dad was a prospector and a legitimate crazy bushman, wild beard and everything.  He didn't speak enough to teach me anything directly but I inherited his interest in deep wilderness living.

I like fire lighting quite a bit (and have a lot of experience there).  I also get a lot of knot work in which is nice because I do a lot of aerial work at my job.  I'm pretty good with axe work because I grew up in an old (1920s) uninsulated house, in Canada, with a wood stove for heat and dealing with the fire was my responsibility from when I was really small.

I like tree identification a lot and I'm pretty good on all the trees that grow in this part of the country - probably partly because of the amount of time I spent dealing with bucking up blowdowns.

The thing I'm worst at is IDing any non-tree plants and of course that would be the most useful to practise and since I'm not interested in it I never do it so I never get any better.  I always figure that if I get stranded in the wilderness long term I'll be warm, happy and well off...and die after a few months of some vitamin deficiency because I have no idea what plants to eat to supplement my diet of animals.

So i guess manly common sense is now "bushcraft"?

Will there be participation trophies or will we be judged on our craftiness? 

I would say yes, if common sense applied to a motorcycle is proficient motorcycling.

In my experience, people who reduce any activity to "common sense" tend not to have the level of expertise that people who make a specific study of the subject do.

Perhaps. 

It just seems that a lot of this nonsense is just made up by folks that spent their youth in the house. Now think they are special because they figured out how to start a fire without the Bic candle lighter and a wax log.

This made me chuckle -- thanks ;-}

Someone PM me when teh discussion turns to El-shaped mechanical ambushes, please . . . . . .

Perhaps. 

It just seems that a lot of this nonsense is just made up by folks that spent their youth in the house. Now think they are special because they figured out how to start a fire without the Bic candle lighter and a wax log.

definitely if that was the extent of someone's knowledge I would not be very interested in having that discussion.

I watched several seasons of Survivor and a couple other shows on netflix about surviving in the bush.  I'm sure I'll remember it all and be able to apply it should I ever need it.  I also have BDUs so
that puts me at a distinct advantage.  If I were to wear my NRA hat, I'm sure I'd do even better.

As a bonus, I"m sure you can stealthily traverse the mall with no one seeing you . . . . ninja like . . . . .