JMB Spring Term Day 3

Date: April 22, 2009
Location: JMB, Masardis, Maine, USA

Summary:
I took another walk to the river after waking up. This was followed by breakfast and an entire morning spent on knots. It had just rained so lunch became an impromptu lesson on starting and maintaining fires in wet conditions.. After lunch we did our "plant of the day" nature study and carved bow drills.

Accomplishments and Observations:
1) Learned 3 knots: i) jam knot
                              ii) slippery sheet bend
                              iii) non-inverting slippery bowline
2) added Thuja occidentalis (yellow cedar) to herbarium
3) carved bow drill (Thuja occidentalis)
4) got 2nd bow drill coal (I had only managed this once previous to the course)

Initial Reflections:
Knots are hard. It will take a lot of consistent practice to internalize these knots. Lighting fires when everything is wet is also hard! I am interested to see what strategies are available in temperate rainforest to combat the  wet, both in terms of fire and bush life generally.

Current Reflections:
I found (and continue to find) knots quite challenging. On top of the obvious practical use of knots, the process of learning them is important for my self knowledge. Like most people I have a tendency to prefer tasks that come easily to me. As knots are a challenge to learn they are useful for building my patience and gaining a better understanding of how I learn.

As someone who lives in the rainforest I really enjoyed learning wet weather fire skills. It seems like much of the challenge of living in the temperate rainforest is dealing with the wet. We may not spend much of the year below zero but soaking wet at 6 degrees is "not fun".