Thursday 11 November 2010

Wild Crafting: Pine Cones

One of the ways I prep for Winter is to create my own fire starter bundles.  We have a fire place that is central to the family room and actually helps in keeping the home nice and toasty.
Going green means not using anything of the synthetic flammable starters out there, we start it the way many probably started their fire over the centuries. Light a small amount of brush (dried herbs or plants from the garden)
In this set of fires starters for this winter I went foraging on Samhain and collected these beneath the white pine needle trees. Part one equals Free!!! And they are from mother nature, Can’t beat that.

This is the “floor'” beneath the trees there is a carpet of pine needles that crunch when you walk and smell so good.
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White Pine trees are one of the few that mulch themselves for winter.
Looking at it now i see a face, what do you see? ( It looks like a rat’s face, two beady eyes and a n ose)
Here is a close up of the white pine needle tree, and all the little needles on the ground!!
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Here is the beginning of my harvest, i simply use a little rake from my gardening set and pull back the needles, look for good pine cones that haven’t started to break down and then use the rake to cover back up the spot.
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Here is my actual total haul:
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I have so many different things I’m going to be doing with these, there is more than enough to complete my projects, so i don’t think I’ll go back for more, no need to be greedy. 

Whenever I take something from nature I try to leave something in return, this day i made an offering & a prayer at my little waterfalls, before I took anything & I made sure to take what was fallen instead of from the tree (except for the very first pinecone which I regret because it was covered in gum/resin).
I will share my projects with you in the next few days so keep an eye out!!

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