Building a Bushcraft Survival Shelter by hand with Debris and Leaves

Hey guys, welcome to Tea Outdoors. Today I'm building myself a camp in the woods in a different area and I'm starting off with this kind of lean-to debris style shelter. I've cracked on, I've done a couple of hours already, I've just finished the lattice work, the kind of weaving in and out of the green sticks, the rest is pretty much dead, buried some y-shaped sticks in the ground, ash beam for the ridge, like the ridge, centre ridge, and yeah it's now pretty much solid. So the reason I've done all this lattice work is it enables me to use a lot of smaller, lightweight, dead, kind of fragile sticks to just lean up against there. I don't have to cut any more green trees or sticks at all, I can just pick up dead wood from the floor and that lattice work has bound it all really tight and now I can just lean lots of dead sticks against here and then pile on the leaves and that's why I've gone for a debris shelter because there's so many leaves here. I thought I'd make the most of it, it's a beech woodland, every autumn tons and tons of leaves come down and yeah, why not make the most of it? We will expand on this shelter as well. The more sticks, the less leaves needed. the roof with leaves, just dead leaves, there's lots of them around, and I'm going to start at the base and then work my way up to the top. So to begin with, I'm just going to sweep what's nearby and it has to be quite a thick layer at the bottom and it can get slightly thinner as it goes up but the bottom bit needs to be thick so that when it slumps down, it won't, it's got something to, some area here for it to squish down. All these green bits of hazel, these are also ideal because they've still got the leaves on and they've got all the tangly twigs that's going to help catch all the dead leaves. These will obviously die as well these leaves. I'll put these on first and then some more dead leaves on the other side. There's also lots of leaves that fall through the gap so I'm just going to use the switch, the broom, to get those leaves and put them back on the top. little break, breather, and then crack on again. But it's taking a lot of time, these leaves take a long time to collect, especially by hand, just sweeping them into the pile, chucking them on by hand, it takes a very long time. But it is quite therapeutic. So although it does need quite a bit more leaves on the top here, underneath there is no light coming through which is ideal. It probably needs another six inches of leaves but each time I come here I'm just going to keep topping it up with leaves and then I'm going to put some heavy sticks on the top to weigh it all down. Got to build a raised bed, some walls and maybe extend around the side. It's the next day and I've just finished a small outer ring basically, rectangle for a fire pit. I think that's a nice enough place at the moment to have it. In the winter I'd probably have it closer to the shelter but for now in the summer the wind tends to come this way, I don't want to smoke myself out too much. Got that built, going to get a fire going and then get to work on finishing the shelter and maybe expanding it a bit. But I'm quite hungry as well. I've got some nice food to cook up. Some of you might be wondering what about the other camp that I was building? Well that was the one, if you follow my channel, which was by the big 100 year old ash tree with the pizza oven and things like that. That's more of a winter camp. At the moment all the bluebells are coming up, there's ferns and everything and I kind of let that grow around the camp in the spring and the summer, there's also birds that nest there. Whereas here where these really big dense beech trees are you can see there's tons of shade, there's nothing that grows on the ground other than the odd brambles and some holly. So it makes sense to have a kind of all-year-round bushcraft camp here and then my winter bushcraft camp over the other. So I'm thinking of adding some cool things to this like a deer skin rack, like a rack to tan some deer hides, probably a better fire pit down the line. The smoking rack I might bring over from the other camp, have it over here. Maybe even a little forge setup, like a really basic blacksmith forge setup out here. So this is going to be from now going forwards where the main camp is going to be, which is why I'm going to expand this shelter a little bit round the sides, get a raised bed in there and who knows what else. You guys know me, once I start to get going there'll be a hunting tower at some point or something like that. Anyway, I digress, let's get this fire lit. Okay so I've cleared off the fine kind of duff and leaf litter that was on the surface here so that I've gone down to the cold damp, you can see it's damp, I can feel it's damp. Once I have more fires on this and I've got a layer of ash it should be a lot safer. I'm still repping this, it's called a stealth fire steel, I'll link it in the description, but this thing is like a cheat code. It is ridiculously good, gets so many lights out of it, so many kind of flames. I'm on the same wick, this is waxed jute or it's dipped in like a wax and it's just awesome. It is such a cool piece of kit, hence why I've been using it and I'm still using it, but you just throw a spark or two like that and you can just cheat, you don't need any tinder, just hold it underneath a load of twigs, let those twigs ignite, don't starve it of oxygen obviously, and if your twigs are thin enough and dry enough, lift them a bit off the ground to begin with, it shouldn't take them too long to light, especially here where I've got drier conditions, but it's just a wicked, really great design and I think it's great for beginners, experienced people, anyone who likes bushcraft, I'll link it in the description, it's just a great piece of kit. Designed here in the UK too and then when you want to put it out, you just pull it back through the tube, it extinguishes it and then you wrap it all up, ready to light another day, very, very cool and now my fire's going, just need to build it up, bird noise is awesome today, so the wind's going to kick in in a minute and help this get a bit better. First up, a bit of chicken, mango, chilli and lime, chicken comes off for a minute, on goes potatoes, while the potatoes are cooking, let's get an onion cut, I'm also going to dice up an apple, random I know, but it tastes really good, pop the chicken back on as well, just to heat up. So despite the burnt spots, I can pick my way through those, just got a bit of coriander as well, I do love me coriander, it's going to have a pretty kick and punchy flavour that with mango, it's got mango and chilli and lime chicken, potato, onion, apple and coriander, a mixture of flavours, bon appetit, sorry about the aeroplane going over, pretty hungry, can't wait, it's one of my favourite dishes this type, I just change up the meat, sometimes I'll add egg, sometimes I'll finished, I don't really need to add any more leaves, each time I come and I see them around on the floor, I'll just sweep them up, chuck them back on and it's just a case of doing that regularly each time, because obviously leaves do blow in the wind. I need to get some heavier sticks, slightly heavier big sticks and lay them on the back of the shelter, which I'm going to do in a minute, just to keep that weight of the leaves on there and stop them blowing through, and then I need to do a raised bed, and then I'm thinking, you guys let me know what you think, but I'm thinking of coming around this side with a second shelter or just carrying it on a bit, just to enclose it a little bit more and to give me a bit more storage space, rather than have the walls up the side like I tend to do with the lean-to, I'm thinking of coming around and extending the shelter that way. These shelters take a long time to build by the way, that took the best part of six hours, seven hours, with camera filming and cooking and everything, it's quite a long job and I think one of the longest parts is actually finding the resources. Anyway, I might have a look for some sticks and see if I can get something basic together to move around the edge. The sun's gone in now, which isn't such a bad thing because it makes filming a little bit easier. I'm thinking guys, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking of going back to my roots a little bit more, shelters, it's what I kind of grew my channel on, if you're interested in that type of thing, bushcraft shelters, let me know, I'm thinking of going back into it, I miss it, I used to do a lot of it with the Viking house, Saxon house, roundhouse, all cool building techniques and old school crafts and things, I'm thinking of doing more of that, just let me know your thoughts, because I've got quite a few more survival kits as well that I want to use, but this is my passion, this is where I really, really am in my element, I love this sort of stuff. Anyway, let me know folks, just making a backup, if there's one thing I've learned with bushcraft shelters, it's to always have a backup option with your frames, especially the main part of the frame, because over time it's going to decay, wobble, rot, so obviously everything's resting on these two forks at the moment, the two y-shaped sticks, so what I've done is just put a vertical upright of ash underneath the ridge beam, which is pretty solid, but it's just to keep it, if these forks break or decay or get weaker or slump, then this vertical upright is going to take the rest of the weight, I've just secured it with a bit of, literally a bit of twine, doesn't need to be a big good knot, just needs to hold it in place so that when that sags over time, it will rest on that, and my shelter can last a lot longer, I need to do the same to the other side. Quite a few of you have been asking about my dog Jax, where is he, he's not in the videos, well he actually had a seizure recently, it's the second seizure he's had in six months, which is, it's not uncommon for dogs to, it's not uncommon for dogs to have a seizure, it's when they start having them closer together that there's a bit more of a concern, so he's been to the vets, he's had a kind of check-up, good decent check-up and blood's done and stuff and nothing untowards as of yet, it could be anything, but I've just not brought him out in the woods just yet because he gets quite excited and hyped up and he'll be off chasing the rabbits and the deer and all sorts, so he's been at home with my wife just getting plenty of attention, but I will bring him back out here again soon, I'm just gonna ease him back into it rather than just bring him straight out here, he gets, you know, I take him on walks every day, it's just I'm trying to introduce him back into the woods a bit slowly because he loves it and I don't want him to, it's hard to be racing and then him to have another seizure, but he is doing okay, but that is the reason why he's not been in the videos lately. Well that's it for this episode I think, thanks so much for watching, if you enjoyed it feel free to hit the subscribe button and if you like this type of video, shelters, then be sure to check out my bushcraft shelter building playlist in the description below, hopefully next time I come here we will be expanding, I ran out of time to find the extra bits of wood today, but hopefully we'll be expanding and getting the raised bed built and then we can spend a night or two in it, underneath the stars and cook up some good food and have a good time, but thank you for watching, I appreciate it and I'll see you guys in the next episode.