Adventures in Fire Making

Christmas morning I woke, we cuddled and then I was given a small present by Seb. I unwrapped my brown paper parcel to find a cute tin with buttons on top. First instinct was sewing kit. Opened it, peeked inside to find a lovely fire lighting kit. It comprised of a fire striker, some char-cloth and birch bark. I was pleased, very pleased.

Today I decided I would try my hand at fire starting. I packed my rucksack with a saw, a book, an inflatable cushion, a bottle of water, a microwaved baked potato, a small amount of cheese and some leftover stuffing. Oh of course not forgetting the most important item, my fire lighting kit. I took a stroll down to the woods. Selected a patch of land we had previously had a fire on and cleared it of leaves. Next it was time to collect fire wood. I rambled around the woodland in search of fire wood of all kinds of sizes. I even went a bit ambitious and used the saw the cut a few good sized chunks of dead wood.

I started my fire preparation by selecting a few small twigs for kindling and placed then plat in a row on the ground. Next I rolled up a number of dried leaves, I loved the crunching sound they made as I rolled. Anyway next I placed the small twigs in a square around the leaves, criss-crossing the twigs as a I went.

Then the fun part, I got out the fire striker, the char-cloth and the birch back. I carefully placed the char cloth on a dry leave and used the fire striker to create sparks to light the char cloth. Success. I lit the char-cloth and wrapped it in the birch bark and kept blowing to keep it ignited. Placed it in the fire and kept blowing. Fire. Whoot. Success. Whoot. Blow. Ahhh flames gone out.

Boo. Yep that's right, I blew slightly to hard and out went the flames. All of them. I repeated the process for a good hour until I'd used up all the birch bark and only had a teeny tiny amount of char cloth left and then no success followed. Despite my failings in fire starting I had a joyous time by myself in the outdoors. Before heading home I sat on my inflatable cushion, ate the cold stuffing and pondered on how despite how wintery if felt (even if the temperature was mild for this time of year) how beautiful the outdoors is, the sounds, the sights, just everything about it. We only have one planet and really should look after it the best we can.


Victoria.
x