With the spring cleanup of the landscape underway, I’ve realized that there is an abundance of good fire starting tinder all around.
The river birch out front drops a lot of small twigs all winter (actually year round). It also provides an amble supply of loose birch bark which I can save for months worth of fires.
In the back, the white pine’s sappy pine cones, which dropped in the fall, are now open and dry. In addition, there is an ample supply of small dry branches that were never pruned out. While I’ll leave most of these in place to serve as an animal safe habitat, I can use some for kindling. Some of the large twigs will work well for featherstick practice.
Thanks to the winter winds, there were strips of white birch bark scattered about the landscape. While I wouldn’t remove any of the loose bark from these young trees, anything they naturally donate is much appreciated.
I’ve also saved the fluffy tops from the ornamental grasses I cut down a few weeks ago. These wil provide a nice experiment to see how well they take a spark.
This past winter we lost one of our white pines. I’m hoping that, since it died during the winter, most of the resin dropped to the stump. If this is the case, there might be an opportunity to make some resin sticks from the stump. The diameter of this tree is only between four or five inches, so I’m not sure if it’s big enough, but it’s worth a try.
However things work out with white pine, I should have plenty of tinder material to practice my fire starting and bushcraft skills this spring and summer. Fun times to come, right in my own backyard.
