This is my triple crown blackberry bush and this is in its 2nd year and now I have berries starting!

triple crown blackberry bush

Tomato plant

my pretty little flowers!

Beautiful plant when its full

This is the "weedy" part of my yard and I keep it like this for the "wild" life that comes to visit!

My beautiful rose

only one rose! what happened?!

egg carton,lint from the dryer, old school crayons

school crayons ready to melted in a sort of make shift double boiler!

egg carton filled with the dryer lint

dryer lint from dog's beds ...ewwwww!

melted crayons turned wax being poured over dryer lint in egg carton

left over melted crayon wax will be saved and re-melted for next time!

The finished product! These little guys will help me start my fire in my fire pit tonight!

petroleum jelly and cotton balls

cotton balls covered in petroleum jelly...these work well too!

My last blog was about  "fire starters" and I wanted to post some pictures of the ideas I got from other people. I tried these and they do work really well! I really like the egg carton filled with lint and covered with wax because not only do they work really well and provide a nice steady flame for the tinder to catch but they are easy to carry too! The cotton balls are covered in petroleum jelly and once lit, they too provide a nice steady flame but you do need to put these in some sort of container (being they are greasy!) and they are also easy to carry!
This is a fun project (except the part where you peel the paper off the old crayons!) and even my kids like helping me prepare these. I also use melted candle wax from old candles although you could buy paraffin wax just as easily.
I learned these ideas from others and love to experiment with ideas for such things and come up with my own conclusions about each one! Anyway, I hope some of you can use these ideas to make life a little easier in some way!

I have been organizing and sorting through my camping gear and came across a box of matches that were left out in the yard next to our grill (which was covered) but unfortunately the box of matches were not and were now stowed away inside a soggy box. Needless to say the matches were useless and were thrown into the fire pit amongst all the other bits of tinder. That is the problem with matches...when they get wet they are no longer any good to use and when you need to light a fire you need something that will light no matter if it's wet or dry and that is where the good ol' fire starter comes in!  There are alot of these things out there on the market and I guess it's up to the buyer to decide which one works best for them. I have a fire starter but I want to compare some of the other ones out there on the market so I ordered a few and have decided to test them and see which one I prefer!
No matter what fire starter you use, I found that having a little help from other types of  "firestarters" such as, cotton balls really makes a difference! I have some tips that I have learned from others on how to make these "firestarters" and will share them with you in my next blog.

I am just starting an online journal writing about things in everyday life. I am a mother of 8 beautiful children and we have 4 dogs ( a rottweiler/mix, a shih tzu, a rat terrier, and a terripoo), We also have a cat (who adopted us!) and a bird (conure). I love gardening and have started a small garden mostly in pots because ...1. The dirt in my yard is mostly sand :(  and 2. I have moles in the yard who love to tunnel and make a mess of things! And no I am not going to put any kind of traps or poisons out for them.....After all, they are just trying to survive themselves!
I like camping and have been getting gear ready for the summer and have been testing new items and ideas to see what works for us and what does not! It's been alot of fun so far! As I continue my blogging, I will post pictures and instructions and what have you!