Homechool Learnings: Carrying Fire
/“We didn’t make a fire in the rain. We just carried up the fire they had already made.”
“What do you mean - you carried up the fire?”
“We carried up the fire and started the new fire with the old fire.”
“What did you use to carry up the fire?”
“A mushroom.”
Dragon burst out laughing. “A mushroom!!”
I was grinning, “I am sorry?”
“We used a mushroom to carry up the fire.”
What kind of mushroom? Did they carry the coals on a thick piece of mushroom? I guess that would work because mushrooms are damp and would cushion the heat. “How big of a mushroom did you use to carry up the fire?”
Bean put one hand up in a fist, tight.
How in the world did they carry live coals on a piece of mushroom the size of an apple?
“How did you carry up the fire on the mushroom?” Dragon, you were captivated.
“On the mushroom.”
“Wait, Bean, I don’t understand. How could a small mushroom like that hold coals?”
“No, the fire was OOONNNN the mushroom.”
I looked at Dragon. Dragon looked at me.
“I am so confused. Can you tell us what happened again?”
“So, we got a stick that had a point on it that was a coal. We rubbed it against a mushroom - two pieces of mushroom. And that made those two pieces of mushroom coals. So every twenty seconds when you blew it would be red and it would be a little smokey. And so we carried that up to our campsite and we literally put a lot of birch bark and kindling onto the fire. And we put the mushroom pieces in the kindling. And we started to blow on it. And when we blew on it a lot, the piece I was carrying, it made a fire.”
“Are you JOKING!” Dragon exclaimed.
“Are you serious?!” I echoed.
“Seriously.”
“Where did you get all of this kindling and why did it just light? It was raining cats and dogs today.” Your father, ever practical, chimed in.
“Because it was dry.”
“How was it dry?”
“‘Cause it was in a plastic bag.”
I burst out laughing. Of course you carried coals up on a mushroom and then used plastic bags for dry kindling.
“Where did you find these mushrooms?”
“Our teacher found them.”
Her teacher from Flying Deer not only found the mushrooms, he wrote in an email to the parents to teach us about them. Chaga mushrooms, or “tinder fungus”, are both medicinal and able to transport fire. It grows on birch trees and looks like burnt charcoal.
Just in case you need to carry fire - now you know. Now we all know.
Wonderful.
