Raquel (my wife) & I used to work alongside Patrick Kenyon in the old Tracker Office Trailer on the old Tracker Farm in Asbury, NJ from about 1997-2005... Anyway, Patrick just messaged me that he has a place in GILBERT, PA and he has a field of large MULLEIN (Verbascum Thapsus) that he has to mow down and asked if I would want to try to harvest them before he mows. I said YES! I asked if Sunday was OK and he said Yes. So, we're doing a field trip driving out to Gilbert, PA. Harvesting MULLEIN and seeing if there is anything else of educational importance for PhyreKeeping and then we will do lunch somewhere and then we will drive back stopping many, many times along the way when I spot (HD) Hand Drill plants for us to look at. So, we'll leave 10AM SHARP because its about a 45 min drive out to Gilbert, PA from my house. We may not have time for actual practice by the time we get back, but the experience of seeing up close and personal a majority of (HD) Hand Drill plants out in the wild all at one time is definitely worth it. Simply said, - No Materials, No PhyreKeeping...

If the weather is nice... For the 1st half of the workshop, I would like for us to go on a field trip to go find and see up close many of the plant spindle examples growing out now in the wild. I pretty much have every type of (HD) Hand Drill plant spindle example, but I want you to know and see and EXPERIENCE finding these plants. (WE WILL NOT BE HARVESTING ANYTHING UNLESS IT IS ALREADY DEAD.) The second half after lunch will be the (HD) Hand Drill training practice.

Led by Alex Malecek (BTW, TODAY IS HIS BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BDAY ALEX!) It took a while to get this video edited. I'm beginning to dislike Adobe more. It never used to be this long, difficult and hard to do. Anyway, enjoy the (MD) Mouth Drill, (MTD) Mouth Toggle Drill & (MBD) Mouth Bow Drill!

In practicing the Scientific Method, one comes up with a hypothesis that can be proven false. Proper scientific study happens when one starts with the perspective that your hypothesis is wrong and you test to see if your hypothesis could be correct. Introducing the "Q'Apla Drill" Method. This method was designed to see if one can get a wood Phyction PhyreKeeping coal if one does HALF TURNS ONLY, BACK AND FORTH. The Q'APLA DRILL was invented in 2013 and proven to be successful. Coals were made using only half, back and forth turns. The "Q'APLA DRILL"'s name comes from Star Trek lore about a fiction Klingon Battle Sword Weapon, of which a replica is used here to turn the spindle with the half turns. If you think everything that has been done and said with wood Friction FireMaking, PhyreDojo begs to differ... Gambarimasho Yo! Let's Keep Going!

Cautionary tale: if you store harvested yucca stems like I do, be sure to store them in a garage or shed, but not inside your house. A moth type insect can hatch out of it at any time, and here I have pictures of the recent occurrence. Luckily it was in my garage. Thank you to Joe Lau for this cautionary lesson… I used to have these stems inside the house. Joe, does Sotol do something similar? I have that in the garage too.