My Search For Fatwood Fire Starter Pine Stumps

Update: Snow! Power Outages!


Power still going on and off... It has been on and off over 10 times. I'll post again when the power is back on to stay. Snowing 'till Wednesday.


The power went off last night just before I could publish this post. I'm finishing this up quickly and publishing it before the power goes off again.


I took this photo this morning. What's left of the stump is under snow. It warmed up and the snow was melting. There's not much snow under the trees. We have 4 inches of snow on the railings. Snow forecast 'till Tuesday. It's raining now.

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Fatwood: Kindling wood full of pitch. The fatwood I know about is found in old Pine stumps.

Fatwood: If you click on this link to Google Images and enter the word fatwood in the search box you will see scads of photos of really great fatwood. The easiest way to get fatwood is to buy some. I like having the fun of searching around in the forest and finding my own fatwood.

Yesterday and today I spent time stomping around in the woods looking for pine stumps. Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck.

Most all of the stumps I found were oak or madrone and when I did find a pine stump they were beetle eaten and mostly sawdust.

There is a stump next to the axe and is a photo of the best one of the lot. I knocked it apart with a few blows of the axe. I think it would have come apart if I just kicked it a few times.

I lit one of the sticks over the sink to see if it was fatwood and would burn. I'm not really sure? From what I have read, fatwood should smell something like kerosine? This stuff is pretty much beatle eaten, but it does have a pitchy odor.

I left looking for fatwood too late in the year and this wood was wet, but it still burned when I lit it with a match. So, I kinda think it must be fatwood.

Anyway, the whole reason I decided to see if I could find the fatwood was because I wanted to put together some firestarter paper egg carton boxes.

I have read about putting lint in the egg cartons, melting wax, and then pouring the melted wax over the lint in each egg compartment. And then cutting apart each egg compartment and having lots of little fire starters.

I didn't want to mess around with the scary melting wax part of the project, so I thought I would just take a knife and shave some wax off a little candle onto the lint I had put in each egg compartment. I figure the wax would melt when the paper started burning.

I rolled up some of the fatwood sticks in some newspaper and put them on top of the lint and wax shavings. Then I shut the top and tore open the ends of the egg carton lid, pushed it closed and the lid closed. Neat.

The fire in the wood stove was almost out. There were some wood coals still burning red. I shoved the live coals into the middle and placed logs on either side of the coals. I put the egg carton fire starter I just made in the middle over the coals. Put some kindling on top and two small logs.

This test doesn't really count because there were live coals to help get the fire started, but I have had a lot of trouble getting a fire started with just paper and kindling when there were coals. So, I would say that this egg carton fire starter experiment worked out pretty good and was a big help getting the fire going.

I think I will make a few more of these egg carton fire starters to have handy when I need to start a fire from scratch. Usually, once it gets cold enough to fire up the wood stove we keep it going and just keep adding wood. Not much need to start a fire unless we get some warm weather and we let the wood stove fire go out.

When I use a fire starter egg carton to start a fire from scratch I'll post an update here.

November Thankful Quote

I love to to be warm by the red fireside,

I love to be wet with rain:

I love to be welcome at lamp lit doors,

And leave the doors again.

~ by Robert Louis Stevenson

I am grateful for my wood stove!

Today's riddle: No legs have I to dance. No lungs have I to breathe. No life have I to live or die. And yet I do all three. What am I.

The answer to yesterday's riddle: A volcano.

Peek at the Past

(November 19, 2009)

[1 egg today]

A cute little black Australorp

is the hen who is laying the egg.

The hens are happy out of the snow.

~:>

Smile

Stumped

I didn't take any photos today and was stumped for something to post. Then I thought about the photos I had taken awhile back of my favorite stumps here on the property. I was going to make a stump post but the photos got lost in iPhoto. Ah, but I found them and decided to post these two pics. The top photo is of the stump by the front gate. Some years it has more moss growing on it and some years I have planted myrtle in it or other flowers.

This stump is not too far away from the gate and it has a small cedar growing out of the middle. I think they call these stumps "mothers" or at least they do in the redwood forests when redwood seedlings grow up out of another tree. I have lots of photos of other stumps, but I figure a person can only look at so many stumps unless they are a stump aficionado. Don't think there are too many of those.

I fell in love with trees, stumps and nature walks when we lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I used to take the girls to Henry Cowell State Park here in Felton (photos.) We would visit the nature center, walk the trails, identify trees and plants, and visit Roaring Camp next door and feed the ducks and geese. Sometimes we would make a day of it and take a picnic. I always tried to remember to take a flashlight so we could take it inside the hollow Captain Fremont Redwood tree here (story is he camped in it) so we could see the shelves they made in the side of the tree. Every year the opening is getting smaller, so eventually the opening to the burned out center will be closed and the tree will look whole.

I do miss the redwood trees in the area and on our property (neat photos here.) There is just something so special about a huge redwood tree. It is not just the size, but the fact that it has been alive for thousands of years through so much history. When I was standing inside or next to one of those trees it made the history of the area come alive for me. I am grateful for the people who fought to save the redwoods for all of us to enjoy.

Felton here is a neat little town and reminds me a lot of the old gold towns up here where I now live. On our jaunts we used to stop in Felton at a book store and then at a little cafe in an old hotel that made the best berry pies I ever had. I used to visit Felton with a friend's family when I was in high school and never thought I would be taking my children there to enjoy the same sights.

I knew some people in Felton, who had dobermans, so I could tell dobie stories too, but not now.

[1 egg today]

Smiles

~:>