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Archiver > MDGARRET > 2004-01 > 1073529694


From: "Phillip & Isabelle White" <>
Subject: Re: [MDGARRET] OLD Camper's COMMENTS
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 21:41:34 -0500
References: <20040106053609.13390.qmail@web13206.mail.yahoo.com>


Yeah Art! Good story! I'm an ex-Boy Scout Master and I appreciate a good
camping story. Phil White

----- Original Message -----
From: "Art Grady" <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 12:36 AM
Subject: Re: [MDGARRET] OLD Camper's COMMENTS


> Pat's info on bark burning quick and hot for cooking, and Walt's
information on the tanning bark wagon is just awesome to read even if not
about our various ancestors. You can tell when I've been up a little late
and I pop in a silly message, and this is a warning, this is one of those!
>
> I am reminded of scores of camping trips I have been on and how on many a
wet day in my youth it was just miserable to get a fire started, I thought
as I read about bark. Then I thought about how my brother in law showed me
his prize backyard possession, a charcoal chimney, you probably have seen
these where you stuff in two sheets of newspaper in the bottom and fill the
top up w charcoal, light the bottom and wait, a little later you have a nice
bunch of lit coal with no gassy charcoal lighter taste.... I got one of
those too at a garage sale and always use it at home. (Never take charcoal
camping) But another time I found a bargain I couldn't resist at another
garage sale. As a camper, I have for years kept a couple packs of those
flushable paper toilet seat sanitary covers in the glove compartment of my
tow vehicle, and some in a storage cabinet in my wee pop up trailer (too wee
to have a lou (or whatever that slang term for commode is). Bear with me as
you may not see!
> how this
> relates to cooking or tanning with bark! So one fine summer day the
whole little village next to ours has a community garage sale and I find
this totally irresistable bargain. This man had been in the vending
business. He had 4 or 5 like new vending machines that for a nickle sold you
a little cardboard box containing 4 of those very same flushable paper
toilet seat sanitary covers. I didn't see any need for the vending machine
for $45, but... he had cases of boxes of 500 of those little 4 paper seat
boxes, and struck in awe with the prospect of never again having to buy
another overpriced 10 pack at a sporting goods store I bought (hard to
remember which) one or two cases. Several years later I reached the
conclusion that not in my concievable lifetime would I and or my other 5
family members along with my brother and brother in law and their families
who we frequently camp with....would we all even if we quadrupled the amount
we camp use up 4000 flushable sanitary paper!
> toilet
> seats. Then it hit me. When I am at home and I light up my charcoal
chimney with the 2 sheets of newspaper I brought from the house and it goes
out without getting the coals started, I go in the garage and get a little 4
pack of toilet seat covers, open and crumple them, and by jingy that has
never failed to get the barbeque going.
>
> Better yet if we are camping, I just spurn the twig gathering completely,
and get out a 4 pack of seat covers, and have my campfire going and cooking
pizza on the reflector oven faster than you can read and old Sears catalog!
>
> Art
>
> Walt Warnick <> wrote:
> The cover of "The Casselman Chronicle," Volume XXXIII, Nos. 3 and 4,
> 1993 is a magnificent old photo by prominent photographer Leo Beachy of
> a "Bark Wagon." The wagon, which is hooked up to a team of two horses,
> appears to be about 12 feet long and is stacked up to a height of about
> 10 feet with large, tightly packed slabs of bark. The caption on the
> inside cover says, "Bark wagons, such as this, were a common sight in
> the days of clearing and settlement of our forested mountains. An
> important commodity for use in tanning leather, sale of hemlock bark
> alone on occasion brought enough income to pay for purchase of a tract
> of mountain land."
>
> Another Leo Beachy photo on page 20 of this same issue of "The Casselman
> Chronicle" shows a 7-man timbering crew posing beside a huge felled
> tree. The caption reads, "Bark has already been harvested from the
> great tree."
>
> Walt Warnick
> -------------------------
>
> Pat Thompson wrote:
>
> > 14th - Clear and warm. Finished putting rods through
> >today. Hauled
> >another load of bark.
> >-----------------------------------------
> >Connie, Just another FYI, I was showing Scoop your entries
> >from Hilary's diary and he said the bark wood was probably
> >used for cooking because it would get hot quick. It wouldn't
> >last long so you would need more of it if you were cooking
> >in a fireplace. Bark wood would even be different from
> >'slab' wood or cord wood. Also, if trees had been downed in
> >the area, the dried bark wood would be gathered for cooking.
> >Just a thought that will maybe help you understand Hilary"s
> >life. The diary must be fascinating.
> >Pat
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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