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Trouble far From Home. © Keith H. Burgess.
I rarely have a problem entertaining myself when away from home; there is always something to do or something that needs doing. A simple wooden kettle hook is soon made with my clasp knife and then I can go foraging for tinder plants or hunting for animal sign. Even making a simple rabbit stick is satisfying in an isolated situation. If I find a suitable dead tree then I can enjoy some tomahawk throwing, practice is always worthwhile and fun. I learnt to throw the tomahawk by walking through the woods carrying my tomahawk and every time I came across a suitable dead tree I would judge the distance and throw. Hitting the target was not the challenge; I learnt to hit the target at a set distance on a proper target. The challenge here was to judge that distance without pacing it out. Now I no longer have to measure the distance.
Throwing the tomahawk taught me how to throw the rabbit stick. The rabbit stick can be a digging stick too because it has a sharpened point on each end. The length of the rabbit stick really depends on the user, but it should not be any shorter than from the point of your elbow to the knuckles of your clenched fist. The rabbit stick can also be used to hunt ducks and geese coming off the water. The Natives here use the boomerang for this purpose and if they miss their target the boomerang comes back.
The first time I had to really use a rabbit stick I was not expecting it. I had one young son in a baby carrier on my back, and another, my eldest at seven years of age stood some distance away on the other side of the grass flats. As I watched him a snake suddenly rose up beside him and struck at him. It was only a warning strike but I could not call out for fear that my son would turn toward me and the snake would strike for real. I could not run with my younger son on my back, so I strode as fast as I could toward my son and the snake searching the ground before me and around me for a suitable stick. I found one within several strides and threw it. I was at least a good 10 meters or so away, not the furthest I had ever thrown a tomahawk but the carrier on my back made the throw much harder. Since that time I have started practicing with my knapsack on my back. The stick struck the snake hard and knocked it away from my son’s leg. You just never know when a certain skill may be needed or come in useful.
This day though I was far from home and I had decided to have some target practice. This is not something I generally enjoy doing because it costs me lead and powder but on this occasion I had not used my firelock for quite a while and I needed to know I could go this length of time and still point my fusil without thinking about it. To make it a fair test I did not choose a target on the spot, I walked off through the woods carrying my fusil clubbed over my shoulder as I often do. Then when something presented itself as a target I rolled the fusil off my left shoulder turning it completely over and straight to my shoulder.
There was a “clatch” as I touched the trigger and the flint hit the hammer, but no boom! No “flash in the pan”, nothing. Well I thought philosophically it was a good job it did it now and not when I had an enraged boar bearing down on me! This is the sort of situation you learn from, I did not have a spare hammer with me, and in fact I did not have one at all. I went back to camp and got a fire going and put the kettle on for a cup of coffee.
I have this thing about taking my fusil with me wherever I go, having it with me even though I do not intend to use it, it just makes me feel right. Well I had my fusil with me but it would not work, the hammer was not sparking and I had checked the flint and it was still sharp. I sat thinking until my coffee was barely warm. Staring at the fire I suddenly had the thought that I might be able to re-harden the hammer.
I had a turnscrew (screw driver) with me so I removed the hammer (modern name is frizzen) and dropped it in the hot coals of the fire. As soon as the hammer reached cherry red I hooked it out with a couple of sticks and dropped it in my coffee. I wiped the hammer dry and fitted it back on the fusil, then I primed the pan, plugged the horn, pushed the horn to my back, closed the hammer over the pan, brought the fusil to my shoulder and squeezed the trigger. There was an instant satisfying boom and the old familiar feeling as the stock pushed into my shoulder as if in slow motion. I stood for a while breathing in the smell of Black Powder, life is good, it felt right again now.
Author’s Note: I still have that hammer on my firelock and it has been 20 years since that day and my fusil has never misfired since.
I rarely have a problem entertaining myself when away from home; there is always something to do or something that needs doing. A simple wooden kettle hook is soon made with my clasp knife and then I can go foraging for tinder plants or hunting for animal sign. Even making a simple rabbit stick is satisfying in an isolated situation. If I find a suitable dead tree then I can enjoy some tomahawk throwing, practice is always worthwhile and fun. I learnt to throw the tomahawk by walking through the woods carrying my tomahawk and every time I came across a suitable dead tree I would judge the distance and throw. Hitting the target was not the challenge; I learnt to hit the target at a set distance on a proper target. The challenge here was to judge that distance without pacing it out. Now I no longer have to measure the distance.
Throwing the tomahawk taught me how to throw the rabbit stick. The rabbit stick can be a digging stick too because it has a sharpened point on each end. The length of the rabbit stick really depends on the user, but it should not be any shorter than from the point of your elbow to the knuckles of your clenched fist. The rabbit stick can also be used to hunt ducks and geese coming off the water. The Natives here use the boomerang for this purpose and if they miss their target the boomerang comes back.
The first time I had to really use a rabbit stick I was not expecting it. I had one young son in a baby carrier on my back, and another, my eldest at seven years of age stood some distance away on the other side of the grass flats. As I watched him a snake suddenly rose up beside him and struck at him. It was only a warning strike but I could not call out for fear that my son would turn toward me and the snake would strike for real. I could not run with my younger son on my back, so I strode as fast as I could toward my son and the snake searching the ground before me and around me for a suitable stick. I found one within several strides and threw it. I was at least a good 10 meters or so away, not the furthest I had ever thrown a tomahawk but the carrier on my back made the throw much harder. Since that time I have started practicing with my knapsack on my back. The stick struck the snake hard and knocked it away from my son’s leg. You just never know when a certain skill may be needed or come in useful.
This day though I was far from home and I had decided to have some target practice. This is not something I generally enjoy doing because it costs me lead and powder but on this occasion I had not used my firelock for quite a while and I needed to know I could go this length of time and still point my fusil without thinking about it. To make it a fair test I did not choose a target on the spot, I walked off through the woods carrying my fusil clubbed over my shoulder as I often do. Then when something presented itself as a target I rolled the fusil off my left shoulder turning it completely over and straight to my shoulder.
There was a “clatch” as I touched the trigger and the flint hit the hammer, but no boom! No “flash in the pan”, nothing. Well I thought philosophically it was a good job it did it now and not when I had an enraged boar bearing down on me! This is the sort of situation you learn from, I did not have a spare hammer with me, and in fact I did not have one at all. I went back to camp and got a fire going and put the kettle on for a cup of coffee.
I have this thing about taking my fusil with me wherever I go, having it with me even though I do not intend to use it, it just makes me feel right. Well I had my fusil with me but it would not work, the hammer was not sparking and I had checked the flint and it was still sharp. I sat thinking until my coffee was barely warm. Staring at the fire I suddenly had the thought that I might be able to re-harden the hammer.
I had a turnscrew (screw driver) with me so I removed the hammer (modern name is frizzen) and dropped it in the hot coals of the fire. As soon as the hammer reached cherry red I hooked it out with a couple of sticks and dropped it in my coffee. I wiped the hammer dry and fitted it back on the fusil, then I primed the pan, plugged the horn, pushed the horn to my back, closed the hammer over the pan, brought the fusil to my shoulder and squeezed the trigger. There was an instant satisfying boom and the old familiar feeling as the stock pushed into my shoulder as if in slow motion. I stood for a while breathing in the smell of Black Powder, life is good, it felt right again now.
Author’s Note: I still have that hammer on my firelock and it has been 20 years since that day and my fusil has never misfired since.
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