Buckthorn Busting

Went to help RBG staff remove buckthorn from its property near McMaster University on Sunday. Crossing the 403 on the way there.

Buckthorn is an introduced plant in North America, that is classified as an invasive species. It out-competes native plants for nutrients, light, and moisture, partly because the leaves and roots emit a substance that is poisonous to the roots of other plants. Similar to black walnuts and sunflowers which also have this allelopathic feature - severely reducing the plant population growing beneath them. It contributes to erosion by shading out other plants that grow on the forest floor. It lacks “natural controls” like insects or disease that would curb its growth, and serves as host to other pests, such as crown rust fungus and soybean aphid.

It’s easily identifiable in fall because while most other trees have already shed their leaves, its egg shaped green leaves remain on, the leaves appear opposite one another, like outstretched arms and also its pea sized black berries.

I brought along some tools. They provided some tree pulling tools called Extractigators, some devices to girdle a tree to big to pull, some shovels (a bunch of native vegetation was planted), a couple of crappy hatchets. I brought along my kukri. Have I mentioned that I love my kukri? I do. As much as I love it though, I don’t get nearly as many chances as I would like to use it. Walking down the street with it strapped to my belt during my day to day affairs would likely mean frequent conversations with police officers. I can move very deftly through very rough terrain, so it isn’t like I would use it then to hack and slash at vegetation. I try to be very low impact on my camping trips, and if I do use my BushBuddy, a few handfuls of gathered dry twigs suffice.

So when knowledgeable biologists grant me permission to exterminate specified trees with gleeful abandon - hot diggety! Any buckthorns under an inch or two in diameter could be pulled from the ground, roots and all. Anything much bigger than that, was girdled, in order to kill it. I used my kukri to hack a circle all around it.

Chips flew. Razor sharp and hefty, and with strong, controlled swings, if I had wanted to take the whole tree down and not just remove an area of bark, it would have been quite easy.

Several times I saw people futilely flailing away with one of the axe shaped lumps of steel with a handle on it, trying to remove stubborn roots. I went over and with one swing severed the offending root. 

After doing that a few times, I realized I could use it as a spokeshave, and easily and quickly sliced off foot long strips of bark and cambium. Did dozens of trees that way. 

I also brought along my Leatherman Vista which I used in this instance, but the kukri was more fun.

Had lunch around a campfire. We roasted weenies, but putting my hands near the heat wasn’t fun so I grabbed some split logs (bottom left) and put the stick in between two of them and let them do the holding. Fun bunch of people, gorgeous weather, nice location, some exercise, good cause. Perfect day.

The spot where we removed buckthorn.

Afterwards I sauntered home at a leisurely pace through the gorgeous fall landscape. Too nice a day not to.

Modified Kukri Sheath

My Cold Steel LTC kukri is an awesome tool. It functions as a very serviceable blend between a machete and a hatchet. (They don’t make that particular model anymore, but they do make the Gurkha Kukri. Wouldn’t mind getting one of those, but would probably prefer a real deal from Himalyan-Imports more.)

But, the sheath left a lot to be desired. Surprise, surprise.

I thought of making one out of Kydex, but opted to use what was there already. Of course, I neglected to take a picture before I tore into it. Whoops.

The front. The knife was held in the scabbard by a strap that was attached at the back and came over the slit in the side and closed with a snap.

I took a hacksaw to the snap to remove it from the surface. Crude, but it was going to be covered, so, so what.

The back. The sheath had a leather loop to attach it to a belt. That got the hacksaw treatment as well.

Then I marked out spots along the outer edge, and drilled holes.

Closeup of the Dremel inflicted punctures.

Holes along the scabbard opening. I ran a round bit through here, in an effort to create a groove for the eventual cord to lie in. With a razor sharp knife running right near them as it’s being resheathed, I wanted to make sure that I did everything I could to protect it. Of course a Dremel runs at such an insane speed, it didn’t look so perfect in the end. Oh well. It still worked out in the end.

With a bit of finagling, I marked and cut two pieces of Cordura to perfectly fit the two sides. Each had about a 1⁄4 inch seam allowance. This got stitched down first. Then came the PALS webbing.

Back side.

Some close-ups. I sewed this portion of it hanging out with my mom in the hospital, and while traveling up there to see her.

The two sides.

When that was done, I smeared 3M marine adhesive sealant (likely among the strongest adhesive available – it’s used to glue windows into sail boats – the guy at Jenco said “if this stuff won’t hold it, nothing will.” All right then.) on both sides of the sheath and carefully positioned the material in place.

This was then taped, clamped and weighted down for a week.

After that I used a Stewart Stitcher to add lock stitches through the pre drilled holes. (Earlier, after drilling the holes, I had marked them with a white dash to indicate where they were along the edge of the sheath. Made it much easier.) While the marine cement should theoretically be strong enough to hold it, the edges are of course the area that would likely work loose, just due to wear and tear. This one two punch should hold everything together perfectly. And after three years, it’s doing fine.

Created my own camo pattern: Multifleckcadmarcampatoflage©®™

I had intended to paint the whitish lock stitches with OD modelling paint to make them less obvious. Having the bin with spray paint and modelling paint open was too much of a temptation. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had camouflaged the whole thing.

I had these squarish cord locks, and they were perfect for the purposes of a closure mechanism.

I put a D-ring on the bottom, so that if I ever want to wear it on a belt (unlikely), I can attach a piece of cord to tie it to my leg so that it doesn’t flap around. (After wearing it on my belt for a summer of bushwhacking, the memory of the bruises on my rib cage from having the handle jammed into my ribs as I clambered over fallen trees, is enough to dissuade me from ever doing that again.)

A closer look at the cord lock closure. Very simple and very effective. Squeeze, pull the tabs and that either opens or closes it. Even with gloves on, I have no trouble manipulating it. The great thing about using this for a closure is that I can cinch it down tight (much more securely than the snap it replaces), and yet if I have to pull it out and resheath it frequently, I can leave it loose, and still remain confident that it’ll stay put. Once the snap was undone, there was nothing to prevent it falling out, if I was bent forward for instance. A two pound, foot long, razor sharp blade is not something you want to have fall out. Even at its loosest setting, the cord holds it in place.

Some close-ups of the cord in the groove I carved. I put it in three sections of lock stitched cord. Two separate ones along each side of the opening, and one along the closed section of the scabbard. If I ever need to replace an area, it’s easier if it isn’t all one long piece.

With this modification, I can now mount it on a belt, underneath my arm on a rig, or mounted on the side of a pack. High, low, right, left, horizontal, vertical. Whatever works best. With the belt loop of the stock sheath, I had one option: wear it on my belt on the left side, hanging down low. An option I wasn’t so fond of.

And just for fun, some closeups of the blade.

I’ve chopped a lot of wood with this thing over the last dozen years. Still going strong.

Playing around with some different approaches on how to carry it, I tried a Kifaru shoulder strap, one repair side release buckle through a PALS channel on one side and one through a PALS channel on another side. Works well.