Looking beyond the obvious

This is a short piece to illustrate the benefit in looking beyond the obvious in our material environments. I want to encourage a never stop exploring ‘new ways’ attitude, in carrying out bushcraft tasks.

‘New ways’ written here simply means a new approach or method for you personally, not to assume that you have literally discovered something new, which, given our ancestor’s intimate and long-established acquaintance with using natural materials, is highly unlikely!

I cannot help but notice all the potential fine fuel resources in our hedgerows at this time of year. The sheer abundance of dried cleavers and the fluffy/ fibrous tops of both rosebay and great willowherb to use in making a tinder nest is incredible and always gets me fired up.

When we talk about a tinder nest, we usually mean a nicely formed, roughly grapefruit sized bundle of very dry and fibrous material into which we can place a friction fire method produced ember or perhaps a piece of smouldering char cloth before blowing it into flames.

As your familiarity with tinder nest composition grows, your familiarity around just how to hold the material for best effect will increase. You will develop your own preferences for type of material used in the nest. You will likely start combining different materials for quicker results or a longer lasting burn for lighting your kindling etc.

Increasing the number of materials you are able to handle for an effective tinder nest is a great way to boost both your friction fire lighting and general fire lighting skills. This is the same argument used for building your knowledge of as many different combinations of bow drill woods as possible and not just sticking to your tried and tested, favourite combinations.

Following this varied practice route, by exploring more options, you will be developing your technique, increasing your awareness of resources around you and developing that skill of being able to look past the obvious and discover new techniques and possibilities.

What if then you do not have access to your typical source of tinder nest material like cleavers, dry grasses, bracken, or honeysuckle bark? Here we are looking for material that will help turn an ember or smouldering char cloth into flame and so not necessarily looking at using the amazing resources afforded by many species of fungus which help as ember-extenders by smouldering slowly.

A prolific hedgerow resource at this time of year are the dead annual flower stalks of common hogweed.

If you snap away the dead and dried umbels (target those with as few seeds as possible) it is possible to combine them into a neat little bouquet into which you can create a depression to place an ember inside.

Although these tinder nests are on the small side there is just the right combination of fibre sizes all packed together: tiny, small, medium and course. Once they are all pushed together, they make an excellent material for coaxing an ember into flame.

Once the material catches light it burns quick and hot, so having the rest of the hogweed flower stalk on hand to snap up and feed as fine kindling is a great way to help establish a hot fast fire before adding other woody material.

NB: Be certain you can confidently identify common hogweed so that you do not utilise dead hemlock (Conium maculatum) stems which are highly toxic and best avoided for burning.

Once you get success with this material see which other annual plants stalks you can use in a similar fashion, wild carrot produces perfect mini tinder nests but it’s helpful to combine several for good effect.

Enjoy the transition into the winter months and make the most of the season of plentiful tinder bundles!