Choose Real Food

How to set a fire

HOW TO SET A FIRE  

I know setting the fire is not something everyone does these days, many people never set one during their whole lifetime. But when my grandmother, Eva, was born in 1888 everyone cooked over a wood fire, baked their bread, boiled water, heated their house, bathed children, dried hair and clothes before an open fire.  During her lifetime (until 1966) she used wood and coal fire stoves, oil, gas and eventually electricity.  She actually preferred a gas stove but mastered them all.

My Dad taught me how to set a fire when I was very young. Later on that knowledge was refreshed by instructions in a cowboy movie and though I survived over 40 years not having to set a fire, when the time came again it was like falling off a bike – sadly I’ve never been very good a riding bikes, I'm much better at fire setting.

The science of setting a fire is to get the flames under the wood. If you throw in a log with a few bits of newspaper on top you won’t get a good fire.

The instructions below explain how I set a fire in a steel firebox but would work in almost any fireplace.

You will need;

TINDER – dry fire starting material like newspaper, old phone books, dry grass/hay, dead leaves, dry tree bark, and twigs.

KINDLING – sticks, smaller than your thumb and some cardboard or heavy paper.

WOOD – sticks bigger than your thumb or larger pieces split open.

LOGS – dry wood from bigger than you thumb up to the any size you can fit into your fire space.

TOOLS – a small shovel, brush and tin bucket to clean out ash, a poker to move burning wood if necessary, heavy gloves for handling splintery or burning wood, a fire lighter or matches.

SAFETY – make sure the chimney is cleaned at the beginning of winter.  

Check your firebox for cracks, rust and crumbling fire bricks.  

Make sure other wood and extra paper is in a container at least a metre from the fire site, you don’t need two fires.  

Keep clothing or damp washing and towels ‘a metre from the heater' – as recommended by our fire service officers.

1 – Open the flue.

2 – Clean the glass door, if you are using a firebox.  Clean out the old ash. A new fire will burn onthe fire in a pan.  If lighting a fire outside you could dig a shallow hole, as a pan, and surround it with rocks, in an open fireplace a single line of bricks across the front holds the fire and in a steel fire box, like we have in our house, there is usually a shallow pan shape formed by fireproof bricks inside.
top of old ash, and a shallow layer is good, but I like to have

3 – Lay a base of cardboard or thick paper (not glossy) or thin bark.   Save cardboard boxes from cereal, crackers etc. A cereal box flattened makes a good base as do cardboard egg cartons, non-glossy magazines, old bank statements, bills, advertising brochures and other junk mail.  Paper will do if nothing else but cardboard, or heavy paper, burns slower.  Junk mail and envelopes inside a large used envelope or paper bag makes a good base for a fire, but not too thick.

4 – Put kindling on top of the base - scrunched up newspaper and parcels of dry leaves, very small sticks and twigs wrapped in newspaper.  Use twisted newspaper to make a ‘wick’ from front to back of the fire box, so that when you light it later it will burn into the middle of the space.

5 – Lay small sticks across the top of the kindling in a criss-cross pattern to allow air movement between the pieces.  Air is fuel for the fire.  The fire box should be about half full.

6 – Now we are up to the real wood. Select some sticks bigger than your thumb but not as big around as your arm.  Lay two or three of these bigger sticks across the top of the pile of the smaller sticks and stand about 8 or 10 more in front of the fire, leaning back on top of the kindling pile i making sure your newspaper ‘wicks’ poke through to the front. Ir this was a camp fire the standing sticks would be in tepee form around the kindling.

So now the fire is ‘set’ and ready to go. 

Light the fire by touching your lighter to the four wicks and stand back, or close the door if you have a glass door firebox.  You should see the fire burning through the paper underneath the bigger wood.

As the kindling burns the pile will collapse and you can add more of the larger sticks and finally the logs. From here on you need some intuition as every fire is different.

If you get a lot of black smoke try opening the door a little.  A little cool air going into the fire box helps to draw the smoke up the chimney.

Close the flue half way when the fire is burning well.

When the large sticks are glowing you can add bigger and bigger logs. The fire will eventually become glowing logs with a few flames and you will feel the heat radiating from the firebox.

Close the flue all the way and add logs as needed.

Choosing to collect.

I love collections.

I know people who collect frog things, owl things, cat things, odd coffee mugs, souvenir spoons, buttons, cook books, stamps, patches, garden gnomes - almost everything you can think of. And this is not just a female thing - men will collect everything from beer mats to cars.  People enjoy their collections, which satisfy personal needs and help with bonding to family and friends. If you are a collector of post cards you are more likely to receive one from Aunty Val when she goes to Fiji, because she sees them in the gift shop and immediately thinks of you. She might also buy an owl figurine and a snow globe for the cousins who collect those.

I think to be a collector you must have a streak of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).  I have a touch  of that - if symptoms are matching the pegs colours on the washing line, unease that books in a series can't be shelved by height AND author and resorting my button box annually ... size or colour or shape is the big question.  It's just one box.

The experts say people collect for emotional value, not financial. Collecting can provide us with a sense of security, help us cope with anxiety or connect with a person or time that is important to us.  Savage collecting can be a hunt, a quest - a never ending pursuit.  This does not include people who collect to resell for profit, that is business, or hoarders, which I am often called. Hoarders will hang onto anything, empty cat food tins, newspapers, string (well string is good to keep), but not items to treasure or display - and so not really a collection.

And collections do not include stashes for hobbies - piles of fabric, boxes of thread and ribbon or stacks of wood and containers of nails and fixings needed by quilters, wood carvers, toy makers, crafters and artists.  So, my fabric stash is not a collection.

I was given a stamp album when I was about 10 years old. Even in those days I didn't get many letters and had to buy stamps to put in the book until the great aunties cottoned on and started sending me envelopes of their used stamps, but so many were the same and then I found you really should research the different countries and mount the stamps by issue date ... and it just wasn't my thing, at that age. I still find it hard to throw a stamp away, so I cut it carefully from the envelope and slip it into a box to keep, until I find a charity that uses them. That leaves me free to resort the button box.

I started a collection of small dolls when I was about 12 and by my late 30's I had 70 dolls from all over the world - representing over 50 countries. I didn't travel, but other people did and it gave them the idea of bringing home a doll for me and some of the dolls I had dressed myself.

When I reached the point of packing a house and three children to move interstate, I had to shed some things. The dolls represented a carton to carry and my daughter was not a doll person so ...  

I presented my collection to the library of the Primary School my children had attended. The librarian ...ummed and ...arred and obviously didn't want them - how could she not want them, they were lovely and all came from different parts of the world.  I just left the dolls and walked away and tried not to wonder what became of them.

The world is full of beautiful things I would like to collect including, but not limited to, children's books, modern art, period costumes, chairs, tote bags, small decorative containers, rag dolls, and pottery.  Collecting is time consuming and expensive. I had to make a decision to avoid collecting. 

Years after the big move, and a few smaller moves and children growing up and away, I found the Matryoshka doll my mother bought back from Germany in 1974.  It was the one small doll I kept from the box donated to the library.  I've always loved these Russian nesting dolls and really wished I knew more about them. So, I'd found something I could collect and research and treasure and display - something people could identify with me or have in common with me.   

Google brought a whole cyber world of information and history and on-line Matryoshka shops to browse and Babushka kitsch to buy. Some Matryoshkas are signed by the artists who painted them, some are made with stick on faces. The prices vary from about $10 up to $100s for dolls that are works of art.  I now have a collection of doll sets that I love, dolls I've bought on special occasions, some imported from Russian, some bought by family and friends travelling overseas and one special set made by a lovely friend.

Beside the dolls is another collection of related items that are not dolls, including salt and pepper shakers, measuring cups, egg poachers, drinking glasses, coffee mugs, storage boxes, canisters, nail files, scissors, wrapping paper, gift bags, tea towels, fabric pieces, sew on patches, soft toys, key rings, lip gloss holders and more  - the world has gone mad over Russian Matryoshka, aka Babushka, nesting doll stuff - and I am happy about that - because I collect them.

  

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And, this is another Russian Doll,
for anyone who remembers  ........

JOY