My goal was to practice bow drill one time a week. It seems pretty easy but I still missed it a couple of times. I almost got a coal at least once, unfortunately
I didn't get one.
I kept up trying to get a porcupine quill off a live porcupine just for fun, but I didn't succede. I did find where a porcupine lives, near my place. It's really cool, I see the
porcupine at least once a week.
I feel that even through this goal seems pretty simple it wasn't for me. First of all I was really busy doing school things. Also at one point my friend lost my
good bow and I had to use my bad one until I made a new one. But when I did get the new one I worked really hard and almost got a coal. I will still try to work with my bow drill more often.
I hope you had a good christmas and I look forward to seeing you soon.
First Coal
South camp used to be our main camp at white pine. Now we are working on a Mandan lodge on the other side of the swamp but we still go to south camp periodically.
South camp is a great camp. It's on an eastern facing slope and the slope goes down to the swamp. There are lots of beeches in the area and a few hemlocks. In the camp
there is a fIre pit and a stone oven. There are logs all around the fire to sit on. The fire pit has rocks that go all around the outside and then flatter rocks that go down
to the center underneath the fire. The stone oven is made from flat rocks that go on three sides and the top, basically a box shape. That's all held together with survival
cement. Then there's a flat rock used as a door.
It was sometime mid summer. I was on a five day campout with white pine at wood frog hallow. Jonas, Evan, Cam, Andrew and Will were there. Jonas and Cam both do home
schooling white pine with me. I knew Andrew and Will ftom the past but I hadn't seen them for a while. Evan is the son of Saskia who was one of the instructors. The
instructors were Elliot, from California, Saul, from Vermont Wilderness School, Saskia, from Martha's Vineyard and then Dan Gardoqui and Caren from white pine.
The week had been fun so far and more was still to come. We had made debris shelters, we went fishing and swimming in Welch's pond, we learned about pooping in the
woods and I can't forget the occasional lighting of farts by Cam.
On Wednesday we were all practicing Bow drill. That night we were planning to sleep in our debris shelters. I was practicing my bow drill when Will asked me if l wanted
to do doubles and so we did. The way we did it, Will held the hand hold and I had my foot on the fire board. We were both pulling the bow back and forth. You see how this
is much easier. But it's still painful. My arms were aching, my hands burned and my chest was in pain. I wanted to stop but I knew we wouldn't get a coal if l did so I kept
at it. The smoke eventually came. More and more and then finally we knew it, there had to be a coal. There it was blazing hot orange in the center with midnight black dust
all around it, like looking down from way up in the sky at a volcano. We let that miniature volcano sit in the notch of the fire board for a minute. I moved the fire board
away and picked up the coal on the piece of birch bark that we made it on. I tipped the coal into the waiting tinder bundle and tapped the remaining dust on top of it.
Then I pushed the tinder together and I started blowing. The smoke started up, I could feel the warmth on my hands, the smoke got to the point were it was hard to breath
and then all of a sudden the tinder burst into the most beautiful and brilliant orange and yellow flames.
