I've seen little buckets of fat wood at the grocery store - high sap pine splinters. Perhaps a relative?
Though one with less of the picaresque about it.
My childhood Westie (male) would watch the crackling fire until I feared that his eyeballs would melt out of his head (I created this fear at the tender age of 9; it stayed with me until he passed away and I was 20). My Cairn terrier (female) couldn't care less about the fireplace, and this confounds my father (also male) since the former dog enjoyed the fireplace oh-so-much. My conclusion (based upon half-alert observation and absolutely no scientific testing or long-term research) is that the "dudes" are hard-wired for fire. The ladies could take it or leave it.
I do, however, say a prayer to St. Florian, just in case you do invest in a load of Fat Lightered. I'm not sure if St. Florian can prevent fires, but he is a saint, so I wouldn't put it past him.
The term fat lightered is not as common in east texas as words like halcyon. We lived in the world of pine knots. When I was a boy we picked them up from the sites where downed pines had rotted away. We didn't bother with stumps. There are now few knots or stumps about.
Shadow cat likes fires in the fireplace and will sometimes help in starting them. He hasn't a place to sit as has your young male so he climbs up on me hangs his head over my left arm and stares away.
Funny, Dad, how some things got transplanted into East Texas and some didn't -- must have depended on which piece of the South the settlers came in from.
Glad to know that the pine was indeed useful -- and I'm sort of cheered that the method y'all used didn't involve dynamite.
A lot of the South Carolina stories involve dynamite. Not sure why....
Anne-
Looking forward to seeing your entry about becoming stuck in the college hall elevator and then forcing your way out like the superwoman that we all know you are!
Jill
Anne: don't you recall the old tune
"Dyna, is there anyone finah, in the state of Carolina" wherein the singer fretted that "Dyna mite change her mind about me"? Did I stump you on that one?
In the 19th century, the pine plantations here in north Florida supplied the young nation's turpentine. (Which doesn't seem so important now, but back then naval ambitions depended on supplies of rope and turps.) Our forests still grow the species known as "fatwood", which (as legend has it) is so resinous it will light under water ... making it a boon to soggy scoutmasters and folks whose firewood is perhaps a little greener than the dealer promised.
We received a bucket of such pine from L. L. Bean one Christmas. Another source, and reputable, at that.
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