Hiking the Birch Forest.
Today was time to head out hiking the Birch Forest. The weather has been perfect recently for foraging for fungi so I headed out into the woods to see if I could spot any.
As we started to walk into the birch forest i could see there where many slippery jacks but not fresh that morning.
We had a good walk around saw some birch polypores these are inedible but have some use in bushcraft and emergency situations:
Birch Polypore (Piptoporus betulinus) is also called Razor Fungus and can be used as a strop to give a blade a Razor sharp edge.
As well as giving your blade a super sharp edge it can also be turned in to a plaster. By slicing out a piece of the underside of the fungus and peeling it off you can make yourself a bushcraft plaster!
Funny how nature works the same thing that keeps your knife sharp also keeps your blood in when you cut yourself!!
I enjoy hiking the birch forest we had a look around but no fresh fungi so decided to stop and make some breakfast and coffee.
I was using a small bush box for the fire and was using a flint, steel and birch bark to start my fire. Camera messed up so missed filming starting the the fire.
The area I stopped for food was full of slippery jacks so I marked the area on my view ranger app for a time when conditions would be better for fungi.
More on foraging
I had recently been playing and designing a foraging pouch which can be clipped onto a belt and is rolled up in a leather holder (below).
First attempt was ok but I need to remove some of the clasps and turn them around so the bag could be removed from leather holder. Also so that the top of the leather holder could be clipped to inside of bag.