Some times I am a little mentally slow.

To reduce the number of matches I use to start a fire and encourage some wood that may have been recently rained on, I have been using the starter stuff that is molded with parafin, or at least I think thats what it is. Given that it clogs up the chimney faster, it finally dawned on my that my yard is a great source. Well, duh!

This may not work for all of you who are in the cold, snowy season, but here in Northern California I am blessed with a lot of lavender, rosemary, oregano and sage. It is drought tolerant and tolerates a lot of neglect and grows fast. Illness has kept me pretty well housebound this fall when I would normally be into heavy pruning.

Last week I used some dried lavender as a fire starter. It worked great and smelled nice too. So today I cut back two bushes and made myself some fire starter bundles of dried lavender stalks tied with a fresh one.

Its a little extra busy work, but I now have several grocery bags full of dried/drying cuttings. Larger branches have been lopped off and are drying to do their part too. Threw the unusuable stuff into the compost bin.

Couldn't hurt.

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), December 12, 1999

Answers

Excellent, and the smoke is probably therapeutic in a real sense. Around the turn of the century, a French chemist discvoered that lavender oil is an extraordinary medicament for treating burns. The other herbs in your garden are equally useful --

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-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), December 12, 1999.

Here in the south we use "fat lighter" to start our fires. This is the very resinous parts of dead pine trees. The core stump and roots are full of resin/turpintine and burn like they have been soaked in gasoline.

Two pieces about the size of your hand will start a wood fire very quickly. A small piece of newspapar under the fat lighter will do the trick.

I have a large stump out back I have been cutting slivers off for three years now.

Go find what God put there for you.....

-- Firebug (start@burning.now), December 12, 1999.

Light a match, light a candle

-- Pard (t5ranch@hotmail.com), December 12, 1999.

Do you have a paper shredder? I use a crosscut shredder and it makes a GREAT fire starter. Tiny snips of paper that burn very well.

-- Gary S. (garys_2k@yahoo.com), December 12, 1999.

Old cedar shingles (we reshingled this summer). When backpacking in wet weather we used cedar bark, birch bark and even pocket lint. Lavender and rosemary won't overwinter here (alas!) but we do have an abundance of tumbleweeds and corn stalks and they burn very nicely.

-- Sam Mcgee (weissacre@gwtc.net), December 12, 1999.

Get a hand axe. Learn to split your firewood into kindling. Use a match. Avoid candles, lighter fluid, lard, pine pitch, paper, kerosene, etc. Split the wood very thin, light, add larger and larger kindling. Takes some practice, but it's kinda fun once you get the hang of it.

ALK

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), December 16, 1999.

For those without shrub trimmings or unable to swing an axe, find a business that uses lots of rolls of copy paper. The rolls have a sturdy cardboard core which can be stuffed with two crumpled sheets of newspaper to make firestarters. Fabric shops also have cardboard cores from bolts of fabric.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), December 16, 1999.