Knife show revisited

Well as promised I have got round to taking some pictures of the 2 knives that I bought at the Bristol Knife Show. They make an interesting contrast - some might say from the sublime to the ridiculous! See what you think.


The top one is a khukri and the bottom one is a Special Edition Mini North Star made by Bark River Knife and Tool Company.

Both are very nice pieces of equipment and both have come with razor sharp cutting edges. I decided to get the khukri partly out of curiosity and partly to use as a machete-type of tool for some heavy cutting where an axe is not particularly suitable. I have not had chance to use it in anger yet but that will be for another post later on. I already have a North Star so it was hard to resist this little sister. It has a black and green linen micarta handle with some nice mosaic pins. Lovely!

Bushcraft on Exmoor

Yesterday I ran a One Day Bushcraft taster course at my site in the Exmoor National Park. We had a great day and covered an awful lot of material. However, just as we were about to pack up and leave, we had some visitors!
The ponies were not at all concerned by our presence and did not get phased when we were moving around and taking photos. Exmoor ponies are not the tamest of horses so it was a great testament to my students that the ponies were happy to stay with us for almost an hour before moving on.

Bristol Knife Show

Well it's been quite a while since I last posted anything. I have been very busy with work recently doing all my other jobs (media and IT). However I did manage to go to the Bristol Knife show last week!

It was a nice little show - all contained in one room at the Aztec Hotel. There were plenty of sharp and shiny things on display and I nearly managed to get away without spending money but I failed miserably. I ended buying a couple of knives of which I will post pictures later.

Overall, I'm glad I had a look at the show but I did fee that it was a bit expensive for what it was. There were not a huge number of exhibitors there but it was a great atmosphere and it was fantastic to have such a show in this day and age of paranoid press hysteria about knives.

Chop, chop!

Well I have just recently taken posession of a lovely new and shiny axe. It is a custom jobbie made by a guy, using the screen name of Cegga. It is very well made, has a lovely balance and beautifully finished. All in all it is a lovely piece of kit.

This is a picture by itself showing how well it has been polished and finished. The next picture shows the Cegga axe next to my Gransfor Wildlife Hatchet - which is a more mass produced beastie and has a much rougher looking finish to it.

Sand

A couple of days ago I went for a walk on the beach. This was too good an opportunity to miss when it came to some easy tracking. As always there was lots of dog and human tracks but in amongst them were a few gems like this Crow.

I love it when it is as easy as this - just the lazy side of me talking! Tracking is often very challenging but that really is half the fun.

Action Indicators

I came across this great example of an action indicator the other day. It is one of my cats (and not the Beast of Exmoor). An action indicator is pretty much what it sounds like - it is an indicator of an action. In this case the print on the right shows a turning motion indicating a change in direction.

I think it is clear that the print on the right looks as if it has been twisted in the mud - which is of course exactly what it has done! Any questions just post a comment!

Exmoor badgers

It has been a while since I posted anything so I thought I ought to get something down in writing. I have been quite busy but I did manage to get out a few days ago for a walk around the local patch.

It was very nice to come across new activity at a badger sett entrance. There was fresh earth liberally scattered around as well as some nice compression shapes in the soil.

I walked further down the valley and in amongst the human and dog prints I found a particularly nice badger compression shape. It was great to be able to follow this particular badger for about 40yds before it turned off into private land. You can also see an indirect registration with another foot.