Recently I realized that there have been a few things from my youth that I took for granted, toasting marshmallows being one of them. Growing up in an area blessed with forests and woods campfires were just one of those things you did, and often you cut a small sapling or branch, sharpened it to a point and roasted weiners and/or marshmallows. It was something I never really thought about until Travis asked the other day if we could cook marshmallows (big ones) with a stick.
I have no idea where he got the idea, but I thought "heck yeah!". I mean we would have to use a coat hanger instead of a stick, as I just don’t have enough gas in the truck to find the nearest sapling, but I’ve still lots of scrap lumber around. Even if I didn’t I had enough not-so-scrap lumber that I could sacrifice in the interest of crunchy, charcoally on the outside, chewy on the inside sugary goodness of roast marshmallows.
So I went out to a spot near the new airport construction where I knew there was sand and came back with two buckets full. And I made another stop where I loaded up some largish rocks (we may not have saplings but boy we have rocks). Out to the corner of our lot, in front of the house I put down a layer of shale, a layer of sand, and arranged the rocks into a firepit.
It took a couple of false starts (due to Travis falling asleep before we could get it together enough to start the fire) but I finally made a fire the other night. I have to admit that I was impatient and used a little northern fire starter to get the thing going (what the heck, I didn’t really need the hair on the back of my knuckles), but dammit my boy was going to have his marshmallows.
In the end it was a little anti-climatic, Travis it turns out, is afraid of the fire and I couldn’t get him anywhere within a coat hanger’s reach of the fire. And he didn’t want the roasted marshmallows, I couldn’t tempt him at all. But you know it really doesn’t matter, he ate marshmallows out of the bag while dad ate a couple burnt to a crisp, and maybe next time he’ll get a little closer to the fire. For now we have a fire pit, and I’ll add a couple of simple benches for the next time, and maybe even tempt his mother closer to the fire.
I’m not sure about his soul, but it was good for mine.
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8 responses
“I just don’t have enough gas in the truck to find the nearest sapling.”
I love that line. Great post. We take so much for granted down here: saplings…roads….
Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of the house yet! Nice stuff! I’ve lived in a one bedroom apartment since last June so you can only imagine how much I wish I had a nice big house like that. 🙂 I love the windows on the side (front?).
Lovely picture! Your post reminded me of a cadet outing last fall. I wasn’t really sure why they were bringing along a box of old coat-hangers until they mentioned they wanted to roast marshmallows. Have to admire northern ingenuity….and the coat-hangers worked like a charm.
I recently got involved with a group of folks who hold monthly bonfires at the beach. Definitely good for the soul!
I wager that Travis will become a little pyro, like so many of us were/are (c:
Beautiful picture, and the recent ones too! Your camera handles night shots very well. Very funny story! I guess it’s better to be afraid of the fire than too interested.
I’m so jealous… Watching a campfire is so much better than watching TV. As soon as we get transportation more expedient than our feet, we’re definetely having one.
Clare, this is wonderful, and I like the idea of the little fire ring just beyond the house. What about willows for crooked marshmallow sticks?
Thanks Pamela. And we have roads, but I couldn’t find any saplings at Nanisivik either.
Hi Jaime, it was nice to move in here after the last two places we lived in. There were eleven of us at Leah’s mom and dad’s when we stayed there. You can find better pictures of the house in the archives, try the construction archives for a start.
Yeah Darcy, there is a lot of ingenuity up here. We used to use coat hangers way back when.
Amy, yeah a beach, now that would be good for the soul. And I’m sure once Travis catches the bug the pit will get used a lot more.
Your probably right Nancy, at least now I don’t have to spend all my energy from keeping him from getting burned.
Jeff, maybe you need to get a video of a campfire for the TV?
And Larry, I’m pretty sure that I still wouldn’t be able to find a willow branch/trunk long enough to keep my hands from being burned, and besides there is so little biomass up here as it is.