packbat | My B-Day!

Back from Scout Camp, and it's my birthday today!

nanakikun bought me a year of Paid Account status, my sister got me DVDs of Lake Placid (Quote: "They hide information like that in books.") and Surviving Christmas!

Also, I kept a journal at Goshen this year. I'm thinking of typing it all in and putting it online over the next few [days/weeks/months]; here's an atypical sample:

8:22 am, Day 5 (Wednesday June 28) [from the middle]

Starting fires with wet wood is a herculean task – sometimes downright Sisyphean. You get an absurd amount of tinder (the old rule is 'enough to fill your hat' – the new rule is five times that), and by dint of either firestarters or many, many matches, you get a little flame started. You cheer. You applaud. You start yelling at your fellow campers: Bring more wood! More wood!

But a strange thing happens. The kindling – the bits of wood just slightly too large to ignite with a match – sit [sic] on your tinder, steaming. You stare. You blow on the tinder – it flares, briefly, but the kindling does not light. You snatch a camp plate and fan at [the] fire, shaking it like the San Andreas Fault. The tinder burns – and finishes burning and starts to die down. Desperately, you shove handfuls of more tinder – More tinder, people! – more tinder, waving [your plate] with frantic energy. You pull the kindling off, pile on more tinder, and fan it, always fan it, in a desperate hope that somehow overwhelming amounts of oxygen will keep the sparks alive. If you're experienced, perhaps you will succeed. Perhaps not.

Actually, if you are truly experienced, you'll split some 2-3 inch (5-8 cm) sticks, to get at the dry stuff inside. With luck, the patrols will do that this evening.

I haven't done much yet – I'm about to check my friends page, then perhaps take up my parents on that free dinner.

Packbat ... out!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Glad to see you made it back - our turn is later this month.

Do they not allow dryer lint aa a firestarter? A film canister full (tightly packed, then pulled apart when used) works frighteningly well.

Thanks!

Glad to see you made it back - our turn is later this month.

You're headed down to Goshen, or just camping?

Do they not allow dryer lint aa a firestarter? A film canister full (tightly packed, then pulled apart when used) works frighteningly well.

And yes, I assume they allow dryer lint (in fact, the firestarters sold at the trading post in camp were quite popular), but the problem in this case was more that building the fire required drying all the wood first, and you need wood to dry that wood, and so on in infinite regress. Thus, the difficult part was turning the burning twigs into burning logs.

(Incidentally, I've frequently been able to start a fire straight with the sticks ... if they're dry. ^_^ That said, dryer lint, or a bit of unraveled twine, or even paper (though I think that stuff blocks too much air) are all good tools.)

You're headed down to Goshen, or just camping?
Same activity, different council. Fearless Den Leader, Himself, and I will be in charge of the Den of Doom during Webelos Resident Camp. Muahahaha.
but the problem in this case was more that building the fire required drying all the wood first, and you need wood to dry that wood, and so on in infinite regress.
The only thing we could do when Hurricaine Dennis was an unregistered camper (we're far enough inland that we just got soaked) was to stash firewood under a tarp the first day we were there. By midweek, we were able to burn it. I think your solution of splitting the logs would work as well, but we didn't have the toold available last year.

Ah, yes. My troop brings a couple axes to camp, so we would have been able to, had any of the patrols remembered. Of course, none of them did.

May you have less rain this year! And don't worry – Scouts are great at having fun even when that kind of thing happens. As a matter of fact, I joined Scouting because of my brother's cool stories about pitching his tent facing uphill, with only a towel to dam the flood and save his life. :D

My B-Day!

Happy Birthday!

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