making fires

There is this huge-ish candle that me and my sister rescued from the rubbish bin a few months ago. I've just come back in from making a fire in our garden with it. I love making fires. I love making them because I like challenges and making a fire is a challenge; it goes out easily, so you have to do everything just right to get it going. Once it is going then your first reward is satisfaction. Your second is getting to roast sweets or fruit on it and your third is warmth and charcoal for next time's fire. Another fun thing about making fires is  putting wax on them. The wax melts and provides fuel and the flames leap even higher. It also makes a lovely crackling sound.
 I'd say the hardest part about making a fire is getting enough oxygen to the flames. If too much reaches them, they get blown out. If too little reaches them, they get smothered.


While I was out in the garden making the fire, I thought of this book I read called "The Kin". In it there are these people who burn out the inside of a log. They then store the embers of the last fire they made inside the log and then stuff leaves in on both ends to keep the embers in. With the log, they travel on to where-ever they are going to sleep and when they want to make a new fire, they just empty out the embers and with that heat, they make another fire. They then take the new embers from that fire when it burns out and stuff them, with some leaves, into the log and then carry the log on to make another fire, etcetera.


I need to finish doing some homework now, but after that, I'm into the garden to make another fire.

Fire!