Fire

I would be the worst caveman ever. I would die from hunger or disease, or (most probable) from exposure, unable to make a fire.

This weekend I went for a quick jaunt into the forest, to try out my new khukris. Also with me was one of those magnesium fire sticks, and a bottle of water. The idea was to flail about with the khukri, and then prove my manliness and crazy survival skills by burning the resulting kindling.






Well, the first part went very well. The khukri is absolutely awesome, and many a tree fell befor my wrath. Then I prepared a nice pile of dry wood-shavings, a pile of dry sticks, and got a water bottle to put out the inevitable blaze. I whipped out my brand new fire-stick, and started shaving off sparks. This part worked rather well, and soon I was nearly blind from the contrast of the gloomy forest and the bright sparks.










Unfortunately there seems to be a trick to making fire that nobody told me about. It took me about one hour - then I got bored and left. (This is where in a cave-man situation death would set in, I imagine.)




In retrospective, I think the reason behind my dismal failure was that my kindling was much too coarse - you'd probably need some wood dust. Maybe next weekend I will try again, and this time start off with hunting for some spunk or birch-bark.