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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Fields Recordings From The Sea
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morfe
morfe
2992 posts

ideal fires
Apr 22, 2004, 11:53
"As Tombo says a big camp fire will burn a lot of wood in one evening."


Without wanting to get embroiled too deeply in a guesstimating competition, I'm nonetheless interested in the idea of necessary/usable energy expenditure, and how our ideas today reflect our own lifestyles, in that we can impose those upon our ancestors.

We now have Big Camp Fires, recreational fires, the 'white man's fire' which gives us enough blistering heat and blinding light to drive back the demons in our mind and make the forest 'retreat' a good 30 feet or more.

A 'good' fire is a small smouldering heat used principally for cooking or to heat an opening so that the chill is taken off the air. We have adapted to central heating (I say 'we' I'm sure there's plenty of you like me who can't stand the excoriating moisture-sucking abomination) and likewise have a hard time imagining people in Northern Britain not needing a big fire all night long.

Gathering:

Children love gathering firewood, and myself as a Woodcraft leader witnessed a gaggle of 10 year olds bringing back more wood in three hours than we would have sensibly burned in three days. I can happily gather wood for hours, and never feel cheated, one always learns something new about the woodland, or own abilities, when gathering wood. To me it's the perfect kind of meditative state, gathering wood.
In reply to:
Re: time, tide & the domestic idyll (FourWinds)		 Replies:
Re: ideal fires (fitzcoraldo)
Re: ideal fires (TomBo)
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