The Art Of Survival

Pine cones are seeds, or seed pods. They are the way pine trees propagate. They are also more importantly, according to Al Gore's Internet, fuel for craft projects. They can be turkeys or bird feeders or elves or even miniature versions of the trees they aspire to be. When they grow up. If they grow up.
Because, like so many seeds, they don't always get the chance to grow strong and tall. In many places around the globe, they are the litter of the forest world. This was very apparent on my visit to my mother's house in Colorado. She lives on a suburban cul de sac with a Homeowner's Association. Part of her daily routine is to scour her driveway for errant pine droppings since the HA frowns on such things. I learned while I was there to pick up the morning paper and all the pine cones I could see and bring them inside for dissemination. The paper, after it was read, would find its way to the recycling bin and the pine cones were dropped into the compost.
But that wasn't always the way. When I was a kid, and our family lived in the mountains above Boulder every summer, part of our chores each day was to bring back a paper bag full of pine cones. Not for compost. Not for craft projects. For kindling. For making a fire. Each morning, in our cabin in the woods, a fire needed to be made. To take the chill off. To heat the water. To cook dinner. When you put a bed of newspaper and then a layer of pine cones, lighting the paper ignites the cones which burn quickly and hot. They will set the logs on top of that ablaze and then there's a fire in the stove that won't go out until after everyone has gone to bed for the night. The next morning my little brother and I would get up and after breakfast we would take our paper bags and fan out. Over the hillsides and down to the meadow. Picking up what would be the beginnings of the next day's fire.
And it all started with pine cones. Not litter. Not compost. Fire bombs. Energy. Fuel to last through the summer. And some of those that we left on the ground outside fulfilled their natural purpose and became trees that grew up straight and tall. And dropped pine cones on the ground for years to come. I can't possibly pick them all up. Not for fire. Not for compost.
Not my job.
Not anymore.