My First Flint and Steel Fire.

It's all in the the char-cloth, folks.

I had many things fall into place today:  A pile of embers from a burning brush pile, a tin-box, an old tee-shirt, twine, and an old C clamp from my Pap Mays.  After making the cloth, I fashioned a "tinder-taco" out of birch-bark, twine fibers, and oak leaves.

My first attempt ended in failure for 2 reasons:  The tinder was not packed tight enough, and I skimped on the char-cloth.  After about 3 minutes of hyperventilating I had had enough.  The second try I packed the taco much tighter, and used 5 pieces of the cloth. 

After about 5 smacks on the flint, I saw small orange rings appear on the cloth.  Several lung-fulls later the whole mass of char-cloth was bright orange, and thick with smoke was billowing out.  Seconds later, a bright yellow flame popped out.  \

I did it a second time to make sure that it wasn't a fluke.

I can cross this one off my list.