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I made an oil lamp. It burned for about 40 minutes before it ran out of fuel.

I used a clam shell as the lamp (I use clam shells to melt pine pitch in) I took a piece of cedar bark and processed it into cordage. I used the cordage as a wick and leftover grease from the kitchen .

The clam shell remained cool enough that I could handle it, although, with much caution as to not spill it on myself.

cedar bark

Processed

Made into a braided wick

Clam shell and wick

After about 15 minutes of waiting for the wick to absorb oil I lit it.

This is the lantern after 35 minutes and the rendered fat has melted

Even at the very end, the clam shell remained very cool on the far end so that I could move it when needed. It burned for a total of 40 minutes before it was just about out of oil and I blew it out.

The cord is made from dogbane and cattail attached to a piece of leather. The cord is about 2 feet long on each side made by using a reverse wrap cordage technique.

Another advantage of the Dakota Fire Pit is that it is easy to cook on and if the pot is big enough, can be set directly over the fire. If not, this can be remedied with some cross beams quickly fashioned with a few sticks braced across it.

How the fire pit works is depicted in the diagram below. It helps to build the “O2 Feeder” hole in the direction of prevailing winds. The fire heats up, drawing in air, the 02 Feeder Hole is sloped to the base of the fire so that it will draft oxygen in, causing a warmer and more efficient flame.

First you dig a hole about a foot deep and approximately a foot in diameter.

Then there is the oxygen feeder hole to build. I dig it at an angle, going directly to the base of the fuel/flame.

As you can see, the hole goes straight through and you can see the flame on the other side. I built up the walls on the hole and created a bit more of a slope in the earth around the “feeder hole” in hopes that it would force more air in when the wind blew.
flame seen through O2 feeder hole.

finished product

the fire I made was mostly so I could take the picture of the O2 feeder hole. I did not want to waste much fuel to pass on information.

After they have had time to warm up and get rid of any remaining moisture. They are moved into the coals and a new fire is built on top of them to cover them in ash and protect them from the environment. From there we keep the fire going. The goal is to get them to glow orange. That’s when they are done. Finished pinch pot is seen at the end.

Here is the method used to harvest and then process natural clay and fire it to make pots.
Dry method of processing clay.

Harvest clay from ground. Crush clay (rock on rock) break it itno small pieces, about the size of a BB and then you can begin to grind it into powder.

Slowly and very carefully begin to rehydrate it. After rehydrating the clay, let it sit for a few hours before molding.

Wet Method (these were wet method clay pots)
If clay is found in creek bed or lake (as often is the case) it may be sloppy and full of debris.

Take a 1-5 gallon bucket (depending on how much clay you have but it doesn’t much matter if you have more than you need)

Place clay in the bucket/container with water and mix the clay and debris up. Mash it and mix it until it gets to a “milk shake” consistency. You want no solid chunks of clay floating around.

After no more clay chunks are floating around, you should let it settle for about 24 hours. The layers will separate with the sand and rocks going to the bottom, the layer of clay on top of that, water, and then organic material will float to the top.

After about a day of it settling, skim off the organic material on the top. SLOWLY SLOWLY SLOWLY pour off a little bit of the water. Let it settle. Pour off a little more water, let it settle, continue until you’re down to the clay layer.

Scoop out the clay (Carefully!) missing the bottom (which is sand and dirt). Let it dry on rock or large piece of wood for a day. That, or you can hang it in a sack, t-shirt, pillow case, burlap sack, etc, and let it hang dry in the sun.

Next, after your day of drying the clay, is to test its plasticity or in other words, “how well it works”. Work the clay for a minute or two and turn it into a coil/ring/or pretzel. It should not crack. If you can make a coil you have OK clay. If you can make a pretzel without it breaking/cracking, you probably have some good working clay. Make a small pinch pot to see how well it responds and works.

Next, is a big part of guess and check. Tempering one’s clay. Angular pieces of sand is good for adding to clay, very fine gravel, ground bone, ash, they all work for tempering.
Take a 3 small balls from your clay source (pinch pot sized), flatten them to a pancake, slap in one side to your sand (5% temper), flip it over and slap into tempering material again (10% temper) then roll and mix the clay.

Take second test pinch pot ball of clay. Make clay into pancake, make it 10% temper and then mix it up, flatten to pancake, add another 5%-10% temper by slapping it into the tempering material on both sides once again.

Make a 30% temper pot as well. It will help to have a no temper pot as well.

With these pinch pots, put them in the shade for 24 hours where sun and wind can’t get to them. What you’re doing is looking for cracks and such. It will help to fire these later on to see how well they hold up.

You want them to be “bone dry” before they are fired. A week, 2 weeks, to a month before firing them. It is very possible, that if you wake up early in the morning, you could temper and fire pots all in the same day. The thing with waiting after you have your pinch pots is that it will have less and less water in them giving them a better chance when firing.

Wedging is next!
After the clay has the correct temper, smack and roll clay to get air pockets out of the clay; taking special care to NOT fold the clay. The goal is to get all the air pockets out. You can and will probably need to add a little water to allow pliability.

Molding:
after the clay is wedged, you may begin to mold the clay. Having wet hands is a good idea to prevent cracking. Adding water when needed to keep the clay moist.

Using the pad of your thumb, work a hole into the pot. If you see a crack form, smooth it over. the back of ones’ fingernail seems to work well.

Be careful not to over hydrate your clay. If it is too wet, when left to dry, it will lack integrity and slouch, allowing for cracks to form.

After thumb gets to the bottom of the pot, begin opening it up. Get the pot as thing as safely possible, making sure to not leave the bottom too thick. The thinner the pot, the less likely it is to crack when you fire it.

Drying can be done in a day to a year or more. It’s all how long you want to let it dry and how careful you are when firing it. These pots were dried for 3 weeks.

Firing:

Make Tipi fire with pots surrounding it. This is the beginning of getting the pots warmed up and slowly getting rid of any water that could be left in them. You want all water to be out of them by the time it heats up to 212 degrees F. This is why they will slowly be moved closer and closer to the fire.

After about 15-20 minutes of moving the pots closer every so often, move them onto the coals.

Next, is to cover the pots with sticks, in the tipi fire and continue heating them. This FIRST layer is to cover the pots with ash to help protect them from the environment.

After that initial layer of ash, it’s time to beef up the fire and maintain the heat for about 1.5-2 hours. Sustain the heat.

It’s better to fire at night because the goal of this is to get the pots heated up until they are glowing orange. You can let the pots cool over night, letting them cool slowly so they do not crack.

When I first came across Winter Cress I thought it was field mustard. The flowers look very very similar. The way they branches are stemmed are wider spread. The best and true way to identify this plant is by its leafs. You will notice how the leaves are differently shaped and more lobed than wild mustard. The leaves will be a dark green and waxy. It grows in moist waste areas and flowers in April-August.

You can use the green leafs in salads, as cooked greens or vegetables.

According to Peterson Field Guide “Edible Wild Plants Easter/Central North America” by Lee Allen Peterson:

“The young leaves form dense rosettes during warm spells in late winter; picked while the nights are still frosty, they are excellent added to salads or cooked like spinach. As the weather warms up the leaves become too bitter, they should be boiled in 2 or 3 changes of water. The tight clusters of flowerbuds that appear after the leaves become too bitter to use can be boiled for 5 min. in 2 changes of water and served like broccoli”

The season most appropriate to pick this wild tasty green is for the leaves being in winter to early spring and for the flower buds being spring.

The plant will stay alive through the winter and is a great way to get vegetation into your diet after everything has turned brown.