What`s this Brass Monkey thing you`re whittering on about?

So for some reason that I`m not quite sure about I have found myself having just decided to go and live back out in the woods for a year without a tent, which is all very well but it does get a bit chilly up there in the winter. Not to worry though as right now it`s quite hot and sunny so being in the woods will bring a bit of relief from the stuffy atmosphere in my apartment.

Currently I am in the UK packing up all my outdoor kit ahead of flying to Geneva on Wednesday, from there I travel to Verbier and then even higher into the mountains to a spot I scouted out a couple of weeks ago. Basically I`ll be using the same kit as I had whilst living out in the woods in the UK, with perhaps a warmer sleeping bag and I`m definitely going to have a coat this time. I`m allowing myself to the same waterproof sheet, bungee cords, tent pegs and bivvy bag that I used before, well maybe not the same bivvy bag as the only perceivable function of the one I had was to get in the way and occasionally attempt to suffocate me. I shall, for fear of frost bite, allow myself to build a shelter although based on previous attempts I hold out little hope that it will provide much in the way of shelter, Ray Mears I aint.

Whilst living in the woods I shall be working as a private chef and also using as much local produce as possible, so I`ll be picking, foraging and purchasing produce in season and preserving, smoking, bottling and drying as much as I can in expectation of the winter ahead.

More soon

ODM aka Brass Monkey

Back Once Again (like the renegade master?)

After a break of quite some time I find myself back at the keyboard tapping away on the Ditch Monkey blog. It has been some two and a bit years since I last wrote and so there is a fair amount to catch up on but I shall not even attempt to do so just now, instead lets look to the future.

I am not in the jungles of Ecuador, I have not even been to the jungle in fact the closest I have come to it has been spending an afternoon clearing bamboo with a machete in Spain. However, Mrs Ditch Monkey and I (a lot has happened in the past two and a bit years) plan to move to South East Asia in the summer. There I shall attempt to live for a year in the jungle whilst Mrs DM lives somewhere with a shower, she refuses to entertain the possibility that I might be able to build a functioning shower. Quite what she bases this belief on I do not know.

In the mean time I shall be passing my time in preparation for the next adventure, we currently reside in rural Dorset where I have been considering the possibility of living off the land as training for living off the land abroad. It is perhaps prophetic then that on my recent birthday I received a book on seafood cookery, a crab net, a new knife (the old having been lost in a bar in Spain) and membership of River Cottage which gives me access to online courses on topics such as hunting, fishing and foraging. The idea of spending evenings by a fire eating fish I caught myself is a most appealing one. Then again, it has only been three or four months since I finally accepted the inevitable and moved out of the woods and into a house and I have become fairly enamoured with the comfort, cleanliness and convenience of the arrangement. There is also Mrs DM and her incomprehensible desire to see me of an evening to consider, she is a game girl but has not fully grasped the delights of walking for miles into cold wet woods in order to get smoke in her eyes and insects in her tea.

I suspect that some form of compromise will have to be found but I am rather keen to start the new year with some form of resolution, perhaps to live outside with some form of resolution to live off a pound a day with my diet supplemented by what can be supplied by nature. I could live, mostly, outside and thus Mrs DM and I could work out some sort of routine ahead of hitting the jungle. In the mean time I shall chart my preparations, most of which appears to be fattening myself up through the application of butter and double cream to every recipe I know.

Afterthought

So it's now July the 11th, only three weeks from the solstice and yet already there is a subtle change in the weather. Last night it was windy and a little bit rainy, and whilst it has been a largely hot and fine summer there is nothing new there, what there was though was an ever so slightly diferent feel in the air. The wind brought with it the first signs of change, the very tantalising soft first edge of the coming winter, the sort of weather to bring out the wildness in one, a gauntlet thrown down; if I don't get to the jungle in time I'm going to be facing another one of these it seemed to say.

bring it.

The corn is going yellow, some of the taller grasses, having seaded, are dying away - just perfect to use for tinder - all of last years growth being hidden away by this years, slowly rotting away and returning to the earth.

So the seasons travel on.

I feel as though I have only scraped the surface, there is a huge untapped wealth of knowledge hidden in the wild places, mostly now that knowledge is no longer stored in people's consciousness, not passed from generation to generation but resides in dusty books in librarys. Fortunately I have access to the Bodleian library in Oxford, I am writing from there now, and a bit of research into this lost knowledge will help to break up the day from what is turning out to be the monotonous task of planning the trip to Ecuador. If I discover anything startling I will share it with you here.

The blog of my life right now has moved here

http://bethejam.squarespace.com/preparation/

The lasting memory

"Ditch Monkey" by Peter Kavanagh

Topic of Conversation

Since I have decided to go and live in the Rainforest there is one topic of conversation that comes up where ever I go; dangerous creatures. People now seem to find discussing snakes, spiders, anacondas, malaria infested mosquitoes, creatures that burrow into flesh, millipedes, cockroaches and no end of things with teeth to be something that needs to be done in my company. I think I need some new friends.

Fire starter

Photo by Mark Bassett www.thesourcephotography.com

Ok so this isn't entirely over

A couple of nights ago I was visited by a photographer who came out and spent a couple of hours taking photos, the odd thing is that I have kind of got used to this now, anyway one of the things he wanted to be taking shots of was me cooking. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a problem, I quite like showing off when I’m cooking; maybe not at the last dinner party, some things got a little bit singed – one trout even caught fire but nevertheless cooking is a passion and I like people taking an interest in it. The problem was that I had nothing to cook, so it was decided that a few shots of a blackened billy can hanging from the tripod of hazel sticks into the orange glow of the fire would be good. After a few minutes of messing about with different angles and filters I started to get worried that the pot would melt, there was no water so the only options was to pout in another liquid but which; sloe gin, liquid soap, Talisker or tonic? In went the tonic and it happily bubbled away for a while. Then came the request to be putting something in to the pot, I did have some rice. Some? I have kilos of the stuff so I was happy to pour a load in whilst the flash went off and filters were changed once more. Have you ever cooked rice in tonic water? No? I don’t see why not, it gives off a delicate aroma somewhat reminiscent of cat sick in the sunshine; this isn’t really the smell that you need when being photographed with spoon to mouth and an expression designed to suit the request to “look like you are enjoying it”.

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If you are here looking for all the stuff on the trip to the Jungle and the Travel guide that is at www.bethejam.com