Thursday

Well, here I sit. It's 9:15, Thursday night, and it hasn't been an overly eventful day. I split the rest of the tree I hauled to camp yesterday. Didn't even bother to stack it. It'll give Steve something to do when he gets here, or I'll stack it tomorrow morning. We'll see. I finished the book I started yesterday. Did dishes, twice. Had coffee. First thing I did was raise the flags. Then I started the fire. I was really hoping for a good bed of coals from the night before. I dug through the ashes, and found one coal, about the size of a brazil nut. I put it between two half burned logs, and piled some really small twigs around it. Upon trying to coax it into fire by blowing on it, it made nothing but smoke. I figured it just didn't feel like being fire yet, so I piled more twigs and sticks around it, blew on it one more time, with the same result. Fine. I piled more twigs and sticks, then larger sticks, then small logs, and finally some split firewood. Nice little fire, ready to burn. I just went inside, and let it decide to burn by itself. I then cleaned up breakfast dishes, poured another cup of coffee, and stepped outside to see flames licking around the logs. It took about 15 minutes, and became fire. That fire is now a very large bed of hot coals, with a couple big pieces of wood laying on top to insulate it from the cold and oxygen. Tomorrow it should be a little easier to coax it to life. For dinner tonight, I opened a jar of the gumbo I canned, to discover that the fantastic flavor cooked right out of it. I think the canning process actually grossly overcooked it. Talk about disappointment. Oh well, it's food. Tomorrow I'll warm up the rest of it and make some cornbread to go with it. I think waffles will be breakfast, maybe cooked over the fire. Who knows. Sounds awful good, though. Hopefully there is still some syrup around here....