Less is more......

 ....easier to carry. I have several types of fire making kits such as flint and steel, ferro rod, good old BIC, fire bow & drill and this one. It depends on what mood I'm in or where I'm going to choose the type I take.  This is my sparking wheel fire kit I sometimes carry when out and about. As you can see there isn't a lot of stuff that makes up this kit. In the first picture is a Micro Sparkwheel Fire Starter from UST (Ultimate Survival Technologies) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultimate-Survival-Technologies-UST-Micro-Spark-Wheel-Weatherproof-20-02032-02/323795978453?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 and I paid all of $13 for two of them on eBay. One for my kit and one for the wife's. This is a great little piece of equipment for anyone to own and its very easy to master. There are several YouTube videos showing it, however I personally don't recommend running the wheel on a rock. Using your thumb is plenty good enough. These are about 1 1/2 inches long and come in a handy little tube with instructions and 3 extra flints. I put a spare spring from a defunct Bic lighter which I cut to size in the tube with everything else. I was shown one of these when they first came out and I was impressed by the amount of sparks and the bomb proof construction. Next is a pack of spare flints by Ronson. I recently bought a bulk lot of Zippo flints on eBay, 12 packs of 6 for a total of 72 flints. $10 for all, free shipping. What a deal! These should last for a very long time. I took the holders out of the bubble packs and put them in an empty vitamin bottle with a couple of moisture absorbers. Ronson and Zippo flints are made in Austria and are top quality as well as capable of throwing lots of hot sparks. I think the flints that come with the Micro are made in China but I'll use them up none the less. Here's the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Zippo-Replacement-12-Flint-Value-Packs-for-All-Zippo-Lighter/261508751771?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 The brass tube with the kerosene lamp wick is a fire tube. I made a similar one years ago using a longer piece of brass and some 100% cotton rope. Link: https://ronsprimitiveskills.blogspot.com/2009/09/fire.html This one is made with 3/4 inch wide 100% cotton lantern or lamp wick. Again, I bought two 6 1/2 foot rolls of this for around $6 on Amazon. Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MXXVXW2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1  The tube is made from a fired .38 shell. This is much smaller than the one that uses the rope and you simply roll up the lamp wick, insert and you're just about ready. You need to char the end and to extinguish carefully pull the end of the smoldering wick halfway down the tube and put your thumb over the tube. Simple. The next time you need it just give it a dose of sparks and blow gently on the smoking tip.

Next is a nickel plated brass pill bottle. These are sold at most drug stores and I'm sure they can be found cheaper at Amazon, eBay, etc. This one has a screw top lid with a rubber gasket. Its full of my favorite fire starters - Coghlans. These are getting a little hard to find but in my opinion they are the best. Treat them like petroleum jelly cotton balls and you will get fire at first strike. I don't know the formula but they are cotton with petroleum jelly and some kind of wax. They are pink when brand new. These are over 15 years old and take off like I bought them yesterday.

The small canvas case, about 4 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches, contains this fire kit and a few minor essentials such as a piece of fat wood, some safety pins, a very handy multi use large finger nail clipper, a scalpel blade in its package and my little Brunton key chain compass. I threw in about 5 or 6 pieces of bicycle inner tube maybe 1/4 inch wide. They are great for wet weather fire starting. I keep an eye on the weather and if it even looks like rain I have a small zip lock snack bag full of very dry tinder stuffed in my pocket along with this kit. Just a guess but the whole thing probably weighs less than 5 ounces.

Camping trip

We did an overnight camp out this past weekend and tested out some new gear. We go to the Sequoia National Forest which is about an hour east of us. This first photo shows one of the sequoia trees.


Here's a photo of me standing at the base of the tree. Its at least 40 feet in circumference at head level.

This is a shot of our camp. Those are sequoia stumps. The car is about three feet away from the stump on the right. They're huge!

Here's a shot of one of our new Zebra pots we bought from Bens Backwoods store. We were very pleased with them.

This is a shot of the Zebra pot bowl inserts in use. Those are sequoia cones next to the coffee cup. They're smaller than one would imagine considering they come from the largest tree in the world.

Here's a bowl of black berries we picked on the way home. Yummy!

This is a shot of hazel nuts. These usually don't make it to the ripe stage as the squirrels clean them up. There was a family of hawks in the area and they were teaching the young ones to hunt. We saw no squirrels on this trip.

Here's a close up shot of hazel nuts.

Here's a shot of some black raspberries.

These are spiny gooseberries.

Here's a cluster of elderberry flowers. The elderberries at valley floor level are already ripe. Our camp is at 6200 feet elevation.

The next three shots are of the woods we hiked through. Beautiful! Mostly sequoia, white fir, western red cedar and lodge pole pines. The wet areas have a lot of ferns and some good edible species such as chickweed, twisted stalk, sweet cicely, berries, cleavers, cow parsnip and miners lettuce.


Hope you enjoyed the show.