Earth Connection is a school of primitive skills and wilderness survival located in Northern Virginia and North Carolina (Raleigh/Durham area) that has been in existence for over a decade. Our hands-on classes are reasonably priced because we don't believe in big price tags for primitive skills. That's just not natural!

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones

One of our class favorites is the two day Primitive Tools, 2-3 June. Here we learn how to make stuff to make more stuff all using what is available from mother nature. Lots of skills come to play in this class... from working stone, wood, bone and antler. Cordage and natural glues were also taught.

Percussion and pressure flaking fundamentals took us into the world of flintknapping where we produced a variety of stone tools for a variety of uses. Scrapers, knives, arrowheads, and in many cases, making larger stones into ever smaller ones. Stone tool making tends to be the class focus, but plenty of time is spent on all the other tools we can make.

Tool-man Tim, Hue and Jamey worked hard to make sure everyone had some time with all the tool making skills. Our weekend was split between a perfect weather day on Saturday and a raining day on Sunday... experience in both weather conditions provided a unique experience demonstrating the finesse needed in the skills.

Jen brought the growing MacWelch family down for a visit and were a welcomed break from bashing and cutting up our fingers. No major injuries occurred over this weekend--thank you--even though the risk is high when you are whacking rocks against rocks.

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