Some Post-Camping Thoughts

I spent Saturday night out camping with Laura and a dozen other Girl Scouts.

We spent some time talking about making fire and then, using the information they'd learned, we built and started the fire.

Once we had a good flame going, we fed the fire and built it up and fed it the small stack of wood I'd split earlier. We also talked about how to start small and grow the size of the fuel as the size of the fire grew.

One thing I thought about afterward was the benefit in bringing an axe. Yes, this is the axe versus big chopper debate...

In my case, a practiced hand with an axe can still beat a practiced hand with a large chopper when it comes to processing wood for a fire. The wood we had stored near the fire ring was too big to split with the knife without using a baton. The axe, however, would blow it apart with well placed blows.

The mystery is why someone who knows the value of an axe and can use it for a variety of tasks through experience (me) would continue to lust after and purchase one big chopper after another...

I love the look and feel of the big choppers and actually brought one with me but the axe is still my go-to wood processor.

We cooked burgers and potatoes over the coals and were even going to attempt a dutch oven cake but the loaner ovens from the campsite were in need of seasoning so the troop leaders decided to just make the cakes inside in the oven. The burgers were delicious and the fries could have been wrapped up a little better. I must've dropped three foil envelopes in the fire during cooking. Fortunately, there was so much food that nobody noticed the missing fries. :)

Today is supposed to be for gear cleaning but Sarah has other ideas and she clearly missed her daddy while he was gone with big sister. I can't say I blame her, I'm one heck of a fun guy. :)

Thanks for reading,


B