Aside from brushing elbows with the famous, I was able to meet many new festival visitors and demonstrated various ways to make fire using friction, percussion, and solar methods. For lunch I prepared fish for baking by covering it with mustard green leaves then covering that bundle with clay and placing it on coals. It normally takes about 45 minutes to bake with abundant coals but with the modest amount that I had generated the time had to be extended a bit. The results were great. I handed out chop-sticks to the adventurous folk who eagerly waited to pull off a piece of tender fish.

One of the fun aspects of this event is that I get to erect my Cheyenne style teepee and my 5 foot long fish “pillow” on a tripod. Both of these displays draw lots of interest for “photo ops”. I try to let the photographers get in their family photos too and occasionally become the photographer for them. Of course it is an honor to be a subject of their photos and I would like to thank all of the folks who share them with me as I get so involved that I forget to take me own photos of the event.

The Brushy Mountain Apple Festival is held the first Saturday each October. Perhaps I’ll see you next year?!?

This year I brought a friend who assisted with transporting my gear and contributed to the content of the class by sharing his experiences from his past service in the United States Air Force branch of the Special Forces called Pararescue as well as from his recent time spent on the Appalachian Trail.

The boys this year were particularly attentive and we were able to cover a lot of material over each of the two and a half hour classes. The weather was spotty with frequent rain with only occasional sunshine which unfortunately didn’t lend itself to solar fire methods. However, everyone was able to ignite steel wool with a battery. We also discussed various fire methods within “Ken’s Five Fire Categories“. The other topics that we covered were “Rules Of three”, survival priorities, shelter, signals, edibles, cooking and more. I cooked an egg using hand sanitizer as fuel as illustrated in my video “Bottle Cap Burner“. We concluded each class by making charcloth.

I was quite impressed with the staff and counselors who do such a great job directing, feeding and teaching the boys at this camp that offers such a unique and valuable learning experience.