Hand Drill_Fig Tree & Petai Belalang wood

Hand drill... The most primitive, the most primal, and it’s probably the most difficult of all the friction-based fire making methods.

I’ve tried to play with different woods of different hardness from different plants. Seems like the common fig tree (for hearth board) and Petai Belalang wood (for drill) makes a great “anti-blister” combination so far.

 

Bowdrill Fun_Saga Wood

Friction fire (Bowdrill) using materials from around the neighborhood...

It was a cloudy, damp and windy day. So it was a little tricky to get an ember, and making sure the smoking dust didn't blow away.Nevertheless, we did get a fire going, and had a great time just being outside, playing with sticks and grass.

 

Family hiking, seaside, fire and wild foods (October 2014)

It's been awhile since I've posted here as I have been posting through Kawanbike Penang Facebook. Now I'm looking at a backlog of blog posts in my draft folder and I thought I should start posting...


Penang island is truly blessed with many natural attractions. Regardless of where you are living within Penang, nature is just a stone's throw away. 

I've been introducing my children to the natural world since their early years and I'm glad I did. I love to see them running around, exploring, getting dirty, discovering seashells, and sampling wild edibles...  

 

As usual, gathering as we hike...  Fishtail Palms are abundant along the trails. The core is edible and the fibrous bark on the tree makes extremely good tinder for fire starting.

 

Children are natural foragers... 

They enjoy wandering in nature, collecting and gathering. They are so good and 

took no time at all gathering up these wonderful shellfish from the sea as I was 

busy building a fire.

The ultimate wild finger food...  

Foraged shellfish cooked in the embers of a fire at the beach itself. Simply natural!

 Sea Almond... 

One of my favourite wild foods. The nut is very delicious, tasting almost like almond. 

Most people don't realize it's edible, but I've had this since I was a child.

Sea Almonds are often quite easily gathered in large numbers with very minimal effort. 

They are often found littering the ground beneath the tree.