Spoon

What ho!

You may recall my being challenged to make a spoon and then create some cordage from nettles. The spoon is coming on in leaps and bounds; sure it takes a little imagination to actually see it as a spoon but its getting there. I guess you could say it is a spoon of unconventional appearance. Now I just need to figure out how to carve out the bowly bit at the business end. I have some bees wax to finish it off so it should hopefully look quite nice in the end.

The problem I was facing with the nettle cordage is that the nettles once picked need to be soaked overnight in water. The problem was that I had neither spare water (all water had to be carried in) nor a container. Well I now have an empty 5 litre water bottle and I will use it catch water that runs off the roof of my gore tex sheet - then I have the joyful task of picking nettles without gloves (why did I say I would do that?).

I was also challenged to make a bowl – sounds tricky to me. So far I have got absolutely no where with this one.

I am planning to make a natural filter with which to filter rainwater and make it drinkable. I do have a pump with a filter that I bought but I think that making something of my own would be great. There is plenty of chalk about and I’m fairly sure I can make charcoal – I remember reading how to do in Swallows and Amazons when I was little – I think these two things are fairly central to a filter. Thanks to the BCUK website for coming up with that idea.