Natural Tinders in Winter

All right, so me and Scout are at a different place that we normally go today. I'm getting bored of all the little places I go around here, so I found a little nature reserve that we don't usually come to. I think I'm going to try to find some natural tenders today. I didn't bring a backpack. The only thing I brought was my Swiss Army knife and my fire steel. So I'm going to find a little bit of natural tinder and get it on video, make a short little video. This is going to be the first natural tinder I attempt. I don't know what it is it's some kind of grass long dead grass so I'll gather a bunch of that and see how it goes I'm sure this will work wow I was pretty good one strike I didn't put it right into it either there we go little dried grasses work good as expected this small tree in front of me is gonna be another good candidate for the second natural tinder I don't know what it is it's got these thorns on it it might be a locust I really have no idea but many you know I have this theory about tree bark when it looks, it's hard to get in the video, but when it looks like it does here, when it's rolling back, kind of like birch, in my experience, all of the ones that look like that have oils in them and they will take a spark from a fire steel. So let me collect as much of this stuff as I can and find somewhere to do it and we'll try it out. All right, this is that bark from the unknown thorned tree. It's going. Just got it in the wrong spot. There There we go. We'll see how good it burns. Not too good. I didn't get too much of it granted, but it's not burning as good as the oak bark. Oh yeah, black smoke, yep. Not too bad. Cool, that's another one. I found a couple deer beds where the deers have laid overnight. Melt's all the snow underneath them and you can see deer prints there, deer tracks. There's one there, one there. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a few more, yep. One over there as well. Oh, in there, in there. Nice, pretty cool. See what Scout thinks of him. Well you could tell something was there, that's for sure. This tree is gonna be the next candidate. It's a Trembling Aspen, and its bark is flaking off like this. I really, really doubt, oh, there's ice on the back of that. That's not gonna happen. I really doubt that this one's gonna work. It just doesn't seem to have the right properties to be oily, which is, the oil is what makes it a good fire starter, or tinder. But we'll try it. piece hanging off there if it doesn't have ice on the back you know it doesn't we can try that one out like I said I don't think this is gonna be a good one it might work might not might work not just not as good as the other ones but I've never seen trembling aspen flake like that before so I don't know how common it would be it's embering up there's not flaming No I'm gonna call that one a a no-go these are gonna be next up looks like a similar thing to queen anne's lace might be cow parsnip if that's a thing i'm not sure i i've used queen anne's lace and i know they work these are a little bit more spindly than those but we'll see this is that unknown weed could be cow parsnip or whatnot it was going for a minute there we go not too bad not the best but not the worst either there's a dead aspen tree that i think i can get some punk wood off of Normally, I like to go for hardwoods for punk wood, but this Aspen looks like it would have the right properties. So we'll see. Now obviously as you guys know, this is gonna be a different kind of tinder. It's gonna be a ember extender or something that you get to ember up that you blow into flame with the tinder bundle or you can blow it into flame with a bunch more punk wood. It works too. It's going pretty good. So then obviously, like I said, you just blow that into flame with the tinder bundle or if you crush up a bunch more of that punk wood, you can actually blow that into flame as well. I learned that from the Iowa woodsman, so it's dope found a little hut little teepee style or whatever you call that That's ice breaking that you can hear everything's under water. Is there a door there you go. That's different It's cool to see people taking an interest in what we like though There's actually a little bit of moss over here I'm wondering if that'll work for a tinder only one way to find out I guess might be a little too wet It feels a little damp, but actually feels like if it were dry it would go pretty good I don't think I've ever tried this before yeah I would go better if it was dry this is uh would be a very good tinder I think it's a no-go but it would be if I dried it it's a hawk all right guys I think that's the end of the video we're on our way out now so stop recording I hope you enjoyed the video I hope you learned something if not oh well see you later