Our prescription for an easy fire is this: just toss a couple of cones under the kindling. Then, if you must, use a match. But if you have time, wait for the resin to ignite from last night’s coals.
It has been a good year for the pines on Goose Creek. Not only have they produced a copious supply of cones (and the released seeds our chickens forage for under them) but good for us–the woody “leaves” of the cone this year are heavy with highly-flammable resin.
We have, next to the kindling basket beside the big woodstove in the front room, another, heaped high with cones arranged in a towering spiral, a cone itself, ready for all the fires to come.
Winter is soon upon us in full force. We are ready.
And I’ll be there to enjoy all of it, the beauty, the warmth and the smell of wood burning! YEA!!
I bet that basket of pine cones is pretty too! This is a great suggestion, Fred!
I didn’t know this about pine cones. What handy little items to have on hand!