Sometimes the best thing a woodsman can do is quit walkin', plant his boots, and just look a spell.
There's a quiet that settles over the hollers when you're standin' up on a ridge like this — green layered on green, fold after fold, clean out to where the ridges go soft and blue. No hurry. No chatter. Just the land doin' what it's always done.
A man who can't sit still with a view like that ain't learned yet what he come out here for.
— The Practical Woodsman
Getting knocked around by the Ol' Shawnee Appalachy River. Taken from 'Braving the Ol' Shawnee Appalachy - Pt 2, available now.
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Ol' pup's a-settin' sentry over camp like he's drawin' wages for it.
"I'm really surprised that any woodsman would be willing to go deep into the backcountry without this most important tool, which is a creature who can smell what you can't smell, hear what you can't hear, see what you can't see. Early warning system. It's just amazing.
They'll look off into the dark. You can't hear a sound. But they've heard something or they've picked up on something, and something is out there."
— The Practical Woodsman
Folks'll brush right past a vine on a tree trunk and never give it a second thought — till their hands are a-burnin' and their arms are a-swellin' up like dough left on the hearth.
Look here close: one's got leaves o' five, climbin' with them little sticky feet — that's yer Virginia creeper, harmless as a barn cat. Right beside it, leaves o' three, shiny and mean — that's poison ivy, and she'll remember you long after you've forgot her.
Learn the difference once, and you'll thank yourself every time you put a hand to a tree.
— The Practical Woodsman
