Challenge completed!
It rained. Not enough to lift the burn ban in my county but enough to make things wet enough to start a small fire safely.
Since my wife was gone, it was the perfect opportunity to do this, so I grabbed my stuff and went outside to re-start where I left off. The wood, tinder and kindling were wet, but I still tried for about 30 minutes without success. I split some wood to get some dried pieces. Then I decided to gather some more pine needles and crush them with my feet, and when I tried to ignite it, my fellow firesteel broke (it was an old one and it was worn out). I removed it from the piece of wood where I had attached it, and place it vertically above the crushed pine needles pressing down with my boot to keep it vertical. After several attempts, it finally ignited.
I dropped a couple of small pieces of pine sap to keep the fire going while put things into place. After that it was easy. Water boiled relatively quick, about 15 to 20 minutes after the fire ignited.
From start to finish it took 1hr :28min. When I was done, I used the water to make some instant coffee, which tasted like S#!T.
I used my bk2 for this and learned that when you have to split wood one handed, the forward balance of this blade is key to breaking off pieces of wood to use for kindling.
Thanks for the challenge and the opportunity! This was a great learning experience.
PS. How long do you think it'll be before my arm grows again?
