Camp Fire Starters

  Once a year I drag out my old single burner heating element, my scratched up electric skillet, all my empty egg cartons, and the box where I have stashed all the candles that have been given to me,   plus those candles that I have picked up at garage sales etc.  
   Once I have my working table set up, I proceed to melt down the candles one by one.   Soon the shop begins to smell of cinnamon, lilac, mint, pumpkin, or whatever odors happen to be melting away.

Carter 9 years old & Dayton 12 years old. 

   This year I happened to have two of my grandsons staying with me for a week so I was thinking that it was time to pass this art of making campfire starters on to another generation.
 
 It is kind of a fun thing to do, but you always have to be careful that you don't get any of the hot wax on your skin.   (I had to give some thought about blogging this project for fear that if the parents take time to read this writing they may never leave their children with us old people again.)

    The recipe is a mix of saw dust or saw shavings (which I always have plenty of) and melted candle wax (which surprisingly I always have plenty of those items too.)   Even Carter had to point out that it was kind of neat to watch the old Santa candle melt away in the electric skillet.  (Hopefully I did not create a situation where this will be one of those traumatic experiences that affects the mannerism in a child as he grows up.)

    This coming weekend we will be having our annual family camp out.    For eleven years now we have picked out a campground somewhere in Iowa or Minnesota and all the gang (Our kids and their kids) come together and we rough it by living in tents for two days.  
We always pray that it won't rain during this time, but to be honest, it has rained nine of the prior ten times that we have done this.    
   There used to be nine of us when we first started, but now there is going to be a total of sixteen this year.  
   Regardless of the weather - come rain or shine we will be able to get a campfire started with my famous starters.  (If we can find a dry match!)

   
    When we got to the end, the boys had packed twenty eight egg cartons with waxed wood shavings and saw dust.    In the past, I have always used wood shavings that came off the planer for my fire starters.  This year we did use some of those same shavings, but the difference is that on half of the egg cartons we used saw dust that is collected from under the table saw.   It is a lot finer.   It will be interesting to see if it works as well - or if it works better.  

  At the end we took each of those egg cartons and sawed them into thirds.   That means we ended up with 84 campfire starters.  (It also means that Pam and I have eaten at least 336 eggs this past year.  Hmmm...   Does the term cholesterol come to mind?)
   I asked the boys if they wanted to take a few home with them.   Nope they said.   When we have a campfire, dad just throws some lighter fluid on the wood and strikes a match.   (Well,  so much for my passing on the secret recipe.)