Month: March 2019

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s day!

I don’t know about you but mums are the bread and butter of the household! As Mothering Sunday is a couple of days away. We figured it’d be great to marvel at the mothers in the animal kingdom.

Elephants

They carry their calves for 22 months and give birth to the largest animal baby on earth weighing 200 pounds and standing almost 3 feet tall.
Other female elephants babysit for the other elephants, they’re called ‘allomothers’

monkey Orangutan

The bond between the mother and her young is the strongest in nature. The first two years of life the young rely entirely on their mother staying together for 6/7 years. Female Orangutans are known to visit their mothers until they reach the age of 15/16.

Meerkats

One dominating couple produces new pups and the whole clan raises them.
They live together in large groups of about 20, that’s a lot of baby sitters!

Koalas

Perhaps the grossest fact but shows a mothers testament of love to her child. Koalas eat eucalyptus which is highly poisonous, but an adult’s bowels are lined with bacteria that assists digestion of the leaves. Her child doesn’t have the lining yet so she will eat her own faeces and feed it to her child. Yeah told you it was gross!

Alligators

Having laid dozens of eggs, once hatched they will carry their babies around in their jaws to the water for protection until they can defend themselves. Instinct stops the mother from closing her jaw so the babies are quite safe.

Polar Bear

The mother raises her cubs alone, she’ll dig a den and hibernate throughout winter and give birth. Once they are old enough they leave the den where the mother will eat for the first time in eight months!

octopus Octopus

The female octopus will lay over 50,000 eggs at a time and the hatching takes around 40 days. She’ll stay close to the eggs and protect them from predators. She would rather starve herself than leave her young and even going as far as eating one of her own limbs.

Whales

Humpback whales stay close to their calves as they grow, they don’t stop nursing their young until they’re a year old. The bond is strong the mothers often will carry their calves even if they have died.

Cheetahs

They are born without survival instincts so the mother has to teach them everything to survive.

Emperor Penguins

After laying the egg the mother will leave it with the father who protects the egg. The mother travels up to 50 miles to catch fish. she then returns to a hatched chick and regurgitates the food for the newly born chick.

 

 

It’s safe to say that all of us wouldn’t be here without our mothers and neither would many animals.

For more animal facts click HERE!

If you need a last minute gift why not get a summer pack, especially if she likes summer evenings in the garden!

How To clean Your Fire!

After many cold winter months, spring has finally sprung! Now might be the perfect time to clean your stove you’ve been burning ruthlessly throughout winter. To get you started here are some helpful spring cleaning tips!

shovel poker and brush Tools

  • Make sure you have the right tools for the job.
  • Say NO to plastic, only use metal tools.
  • Use a metal shovel and brush but only sweep when the ash is cold!
  • Take care and wear thick gloves and use a metal bucket for ash.



Top tip; if you burn wood, it burns better with a little bit of ash left in the bottom so you don’t need to throw it all away.  Here are some more useful tips for what to do with leftover ash!

 

keeping the glass clean

  • Use damp newspaper or a paper towel and dip it in wood ash. This will help clean the glass of your stove. Another way is to burn a few high-temperature fires before cleaning, make sure you are burning well dried well-seasoned wood.
  • warm glass is easier to clean but make sure the glass is cool enough to touch!
  • Cleaning the glass regularly will help with build up.
  • Don’t spray water on to hot stove glass, as this could cause the glass to shatter or break.
Make sure you get your chimney and flue swept around once a year! Using Firemizer will help prevent lots of build up of creosote in your chimney or flue.

 

Air pollution

We can’t talk about cleaning without mentioning air pollution. Did you know that if you use Firemizer in your stove it reduces particulates and emissions by 72% and it works with Fire pits so you don’t need to stop enjoying the fire in this spring weather!

Safety

  • This is a good time to check your fire and carbon monoxide alarms.
  • Make sure you have a suitable fire extinguisher
  • Always be careful when dealing with fire!

With all these cleaning tips you’ll have a lovely clean stove in no time!

Best Wood For your Stove!

Ever wondered what the best wood for your stove is? Sit back as we’re about to find out!

As the majority of people use seasoned logs, kiln-dried logs or free wood from their garden/ local area or friends. Here are some things you need to know about using wood on your stove.

Unlike coal and smokeless fuels wood is the most environmentally friendly choice for your stove as it is carbon neutral. It will take in more carbon dioxide in its lifetime than it will take to burn.

To make burning wood more efficient the moisture content should be as 20% or less as the energy won’t be wasted having to burn off the water first.

Wood fuel and moisture content
  • Free wood that has been collected could have as much as 90% moisture in it
  • Seasoned logs – ones that you or the manufacturer have partially dried out contain around 25% to 40% moisture.
  • Kiln-dried logs, which are dried out in a kiln before being sold, contain less than 20% moisture.
  • Briquettes – fuel created from crushing recycled wood or paper – have a low moisture content. It can be as little as 10% or less

Look out for the ready to burn logo as this means the wood contains less than 20% moisture and only wood from reputable manufacturers can display this logo.

Multi-fuel stoves can burn coal and wood. But not all multi-fuel stoves burn wood as efficiently as a log burner would. This is because, to burn at its best, wood needs to sit on a bed of ash (or with Firemizer) with air coming from above.

Hardwood or softwood?

Hardwoods are any broad-leafed tree such as beech, elm, and ash. whereas Softwoods are conifers, for instance, cedar and fir.

Hardwoods are better for burning in your stove as it burns slower and softwoods burn twice as fast as the density is half that of hardwood, meaning you’ll need twice as much. However, softwood makes the better kindling for your fire.

Best woods for your stove!

Oak – This is the nicest firewood although it takes longer to dry it burns slowly and generates a lot of heat. It can be difficult to light however using Firebuilder can help you there!

Birch – This wood ignites quickly and generates lots of heat however you’ll use much more fuel but you can mix with other logs to slow the burn time or use Firemizer, that can reduce your fuel consumption by 38%

Maple –  Is a slower burn than oak and the fire won’t as hot as the types of wood above but it is a good choice for firewood.

Choosing the right wood for your fire means you can stay toasty in the colder months and enjoy a relaxing fire!

How do I light a Fire Without Matches?

These days it’s easy to get fire but how would you light one without matches, you may need to know how one day!

Using flint to start a fire has it’s advantages as it doesn’t matter if it gets wet as it won’t be ruined. 

fire, axe and matches What you’ll need!

Flint

A pocket knife [if your flint doesn’t have a scraping tool]

Kindling [ paper, cardboard, dry grass and small twigs] all work well

Sticks and larger logs once the fire gets going

Prepare the tinder nest

You want a nest of dry tinder the tiniest spark can be used to create flames. Use a knife to scrape thin wood shavings or alternatively gather dried grass, leaves or bark for a loose nest.

If you use dry grass you want to make a little bed for the flint shavings to go on. Put the bed on some smaller twigs and have other pieces ready to put on the fire.

Get in the zone

Take the flint and pocket knife, scrape some of the flints off one side, if you see sparks flip it over as you’re using the wrong side. You want to create some small flint shavings to go onto the bed of dry grass. A pile the size of a 5p is all you’ll need but you can add more if necessary. 

Relight the fire!

This time you’ll need to use the other side of the flint to create a spark. Hold it down next the bed at an angle so sparks will fall onto it. Take the scraper or pocket knife and scrape down the flint towards the bed. You should start to see sparks and if they don’t catch just keep scraping. Once you have a small flame going start to add some smaller twigs and continue to feed the fire. Don’t add too much too fast. The fire might go out!

Having problems

Is your kindling dry enough?

Is there’s too much wind getting to the embers?

Do you have enough flint shavings

If the fire starts but doesn’t keep going start blowing gently on the glowing pieces. 

Firebuilder can help your fires get going, a kindling and fire starter in one! No odour,  mess or chemicals!

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