On the water

Didn't get to post anything during last week cos I was busy kayaking and canoeing during the day and being lazy at night. I've gotta try and keep this short, cos I have to pack my things for our Russian trip tomorrow and get the train back to Kuru soon.

I wasn't gonna risk capsizing with my camera in my pocket so I only got some pictures on the last day. Aras was the cameraman, he was sat on the shore for a while as he warmed up from a little swim he had in the morning.

The previous days we had been learning different paddling techniques in the kayaks and canoe's, but this day was all about rescuing. Trust me that water was cold.

Ready for Ralph to try an Eskimo rescue.

He is supposed to capsize himself, then I come along so he can grab hold of the end of my kayak and flip himself upright so he stays in the kayak.

Didn't quite work out. He let go or lost his grip of my kayak half way up and went back under so ripped his spray deck off and popped out. 

So began the other rescue.

 I have to take his kayak, drag it up over mine and flip it over to empty out the water. Then put it back into the water and hold to it so he can climb back in.

I had already been the victim. My rescue didn't go as planned, basically help took its bloody time. I don't know how long I was in the water but it felt like a long time so by now I was proper cold and couldn't feel my fingers.

I helped Ralph back into his kayak and made for the sauna. Warmed myself up and came back to do basically the same thing but in the canoe.

Ludo and Andy practising the Eskimo rescue.

 Some of the others doing the canoe rescue.

 Robin and Tim

Ludo

That's it for pics of last week. We had another orienteering practise on Thursday that took a bit longer than expected but that's what practising if for. 

I'm off to Russia in the morning for two weeks. Should be good, we have the first snowfall of the year forecast for next week so looks like it might get a little cold especially at night. Luckily my new sleeping bag was delivered last week so I'll get to test it out very soon.

I bought it from Wiggy's in the USA. Its a modular sleeping bag system, two bags together rated down to -40c. Hopefully that's enough for our winter expeditions. The outer bag is rated down to 0c and the inner bag is rated down to -20c. I'll be taking the inner bag with me to Russia cos the nights will be dipping below freezing, nowhere near -20 but I'm not getting cold this time.

Hope I have enough food packed for the whole trip. That weighs in at just over six kilo's, plus all my kit = one heavy back pack.

Gotta go get ready now. be back in two weeks.

Laters.

Number 10

So as it turns out, the reason I couldn't find all the flags orienteering last week was because some of the flags were put in the wrong places, even in the wrong forest in some cases. Henkka owned up to it on Friday and said sorry. That leaves me wondering how some people found the flags that were totally in the wrong place's?? Anyway, we get another crack at it next week and Henkka promised the flags would be in the correct locations.

I completed the First Aid 1 course last week. Learnt how to do CPR, Heimlich manoeuvre and other good stuff. One important thing to remember is to control an unconscious patients head when moving them from say a seated position to the recovery position on the floor, and not to let go of the head half way so it bounces off the floor (sorry Irina). A bunch of paramedic students come up from Tampere to teach us how to brace broken bones, deal with concussions, sprains and strains, and different lifting/carrying techniques. Hopefully I wont need to use any of what I learned in a weeks time when we head to Russia for a 10 day expedition. We continue next month with First Aid 2.



 Russian planning group presentation

As Andy is our Russian speaker, he is kind of the main guy. Well that is if he gets his visa sorted out in the next week? He's ok to get into Russia cos he's from Belarus but his entry into Finland was slightly dodgy so he needs to make sure he can get back in after the trip.

Some info on the local area and history. Oh and by the way Andy is now a full-on carnivore. He's been eating ham and sausages all week like there's no tomorrow.

Our main route. It's only about 55km long but far from a walk in the park. No paths, just forest floor, bogs,  plenty of hills and rocky cliff faces to climb and a river crossing. That's with all our kit on our backs. Every morning we pack up camp and move out leaving little or no trace. I've been going over my kit list and trying to cut weight wherever I can but my backpack is gonna be heavy. The only good thing is that it will get lighter as the days go on when I'm eating all the food I'll be carrying. Not gonna say too much about it yet apart from I'm looking forward to it.

Here is the beggining of a spoon I'm working on, Its the first one I've done so I can only get better.
I started off by chopping a few pieces of Aspen, and selected a peice with the least knots and grain runing pretty straight. I actually started on the outside of the wood because it had a natural dip where I could form the bowl of the spoon.

I made the bowl of the spoon by placing a hot coal from the fire onto the wood to burn the main shape out as it's easier and quicker than trying to carve it out with a knive, and used a stem of Wild Angelica to use as a blow pipe to concentrate the heat on where I wanted to get the shape.

 Basic shape of the bowl, carfull not to burn through the bottom.

 Next I carved the rough shape of the spoon with an axe.

Then with my knive I carved the shape and took out the burnt wood from the bowl. I took my time, no hurry.

After a little sanding, it's still not finished but its as far as I've got, almost there tho.


This was something else I was messing around with the same day. It was supposed to be a butter knive but looks like it kind of turned out to be a butter/survival knive.

I've got a few other mini projects I've been messing around with like a wood gas stove. I'll get them on here soon but I'm hungry so I'm going to eat.

Laters

I love getting blisters

This is gonna be short cos I'm tired.
I got some lush blisters (again) from my new trainers this time doing some orienteering today. I failed the course cos I couldnt find the first bloody flag but I soldiered on and got the rest of them. It was only a practice so I'll have plenty of chances to pass. Only one person passed today getting all flags in the time limit of two hours, not sure how long the course was today?
On my way round I almost got shot by some people hunting birds, well not really but it was a bit of shock thinking your on your own in the forest and a shotgun goes off next to you.
I also ordered my sleeping bag system from the US ans A. Hopefully it will come before we go to russia in two weeks cos it might be cold? during the night atleast. I had enough of sleeping cold when we went to the forest the other week.


More pics from cooking with Turkka last week.

 These were Kuru haggis, a meat and herb mix that were packed and boiled in some nylon tights.

The haggis is ready for boiling. I dont remember how long it took to boil but it was pretty tasty with a little mustard.

 

 Tim fried us up some fish cakes the girls made for a snack

Clay oven chicken

 Seishi getting the clay ready for the chicken

 The chicken was stuffed with lemon and wrapped straight in the clay, a few leaves of colts foot beneath and on a wooden board.

The clay oven in action on the fire, we left it there for a couple of hours to cook.

Ready to eat. I didnt get a picture, but one of our 'veggie' friends went to town on one of the chickens. Proper scoffed it down and still says she's a veggie.

 Mira frying us some pancakes to go with our afternoon coffee.

What is this? (Borat)

Cooking eggs in sphagnum moss. It didnt really work out cos the fire was too hot and it was hard to get the eggs close enough to the fire without burning the moss or exploding the eggs, so some of them wernt cooked properly.

Thats all folk's. There are probably a load of spelling and grammar mistakes all over the place cos my spell checker aint working today. Never mind.

Laters

Meat feast

On Wednesday we cooked the meat we butchered on Monday in an earth oven, got a dutch oven on the go and made some cheese and buns.


First thing in the morning, me and Andy set about digging the earth oven. About 1m x 1m and 0.5m deep.


Lined the pit with rocks on the bottom and up the sides.

 Then we made the fire and had to keep it burning for five hours to get the rocks nice and hot.


While a few of us were messing around with the earth oven others had started making the cheese and bun dough. I just caught the end of it.

 After bringing full fat milk and cream to a boil they added the sour milk.



















Took it off the heat, gave it a mix and left it to do its business for a while tuning into curds and whey. Then it was time for coffee and buns.

The dough was rolled out to like a long sausage, stabbed a stick through the end of it, wrapped the dough around the stick and got it over the fire.

Tikkupulla, maybe translated to stick bun? Here's my effort. I didn't burn it and it actually tasted pretty good with a bit of jam on it.


OK now for some serious business. The veggies in a coin toss game, if it lands tails they continue the day as normal, if it lands heads they will be eating meat. They said they were doing this because they felt pressured into eating meat. But you can see from the pics of Monday that they were just looking for an excuse to get to eat that sheep.

Andy flips the coin as the others watch.

 

And heads it is.You lucky veggies.

 A soup lunch with the smoked pork from the previous day.

The boys prepping the meat for the earth oven. Oh and adding a little bacon.

























Bagging it up, we're getting closer.
































Nettles going in the dutch oven with more meat. I didn't get a picture of the oven in action, but if you don't know you put the pot on the fire then cover the lid with hot coal's so it gets heat from all over.

After waiting five hours for the oven to get hot enough, we pulled the hot coals off the top, put a layer of hay down to protect the meat a little (had to be quick before the all the hay caught on fire) , got the meat on, put a layer of cardboard (it was supposed to be birch bark but we didn't have enough at hand) and piled the hot coal's back on top followed by some gravel. Then all we had to do was wait another five hours for the meat to cook.

Five hours later...

Removing the rocks and coal's, and being very careful not to damage the precious meat packages beneath.

The meat out of the oven and straight into our bellies cos we were hungry!

Here's the cheese we made, we had taken it from the pot earlier, added herbs and alot of salt cos most of it will filter out, wrapped it in a cloth and put some weight on it to help the liquid drain and left it to set for a few hours. It was a real nice soft cheese. We had potatoes and salad with the meat, no time to take any pics I was too busy eating.

'the last six years were a mistake'                                                           Emily pretending not to enjoy it.

It was a long day cooking, about 12 hours. But we ate well so I was happy. One day of cooking still to report, possibly tomorrow? so until next time.

Laters