Opportunity knocks

When opportunity knocks it's silly not to take it. Many bush-craft skills are reasonably easy to perform with practice, though as is the nature of practice, practice is usually done under the right conditions with all the resources prepared to hand. The thing is, nature's not really like that,  the conditions can vary wildly and resources may require sourcing and preparing. That's why I believe it's always worthwhile practicing in less favourable conditions. It took about 15 minutes to gather the resources I required; a good handful of last seasons bracken, dried off in my trouser pocket, a handful of papery Silver Birch bark, a handful of dry needles and a bundle of dead Silver Birch twigs graded into three groups. I found a sheltered spot in a closely planted juvenile conifer plantation on the edge of Burley Old, and through proper preparation and execution in under 5 minutes from putting my bag down the birch bark had caught a spark and I had a fire going. I was pleased, as the last couple of fires I'd tried were slow and laborious to get going due to complacency on my part, slack perpetration and general stupidity. It was nice to sit out in the snowy forest and get a little fire on the go. I have to say, it's a lot easier raising a fire snowy conditions than it is when it's wet, most of the materials are still quite dry.