Day 330 of 365

Pitched perfectly

I can see a new light as my year comes to an end. In 35 days I will be 50. I will have honored every day of my 49th year. I can’t help but look back and pause at each emotional intersection along the way; love, joy, triumph, pain, loss and death. I guess that is what all of these minutes, hours, days, months and years are, a massive mountain of failures and successes.

I'm ready to take a very long deep breath and sit in silence for just one day.

But not yet, I've got 35 more things to do.

For my 330th experience I got in the sticky business of harvesting pine pitch.

Why?

This is nature’s gorilla glue! Have you ever been out for a hike in the woods, leaned against an old pine tree only to find that you are stuck?

That’s what prompted this adventure and I have something wonderful in mind. You’ll have to wait to hear about it.

Early this morning I went hunting for pine pitch. It’s sap that has seeped from the tree and gone kinda funky. It looks like mold.

I cut a big chunk from a huge tree and cooked it in a little non-stick pan. It melted like butter and as it simmered it changed from funky to golden caramel brown.

This is where I got to play.

I wanted to test the ability to hold things together. This stuff is pretty wonderful. I glued wood together and then I attached fletching to a chopstick. Making flaming arrows just got fun!

The rest of the afternoon was spent rolling all of that pitch in a ball so I can keep it for the big project.

Day 330

Love & Light