crafts and fuel

crafts?

In my young years folks used to cut gorse, tie a stone on the end of a rope and tie a bunch of gorse above the stone. This was then taken onto a roof and down the chimney, up and down to clean the chimneys.

Ash from burned Gorse is quite alkaline and dissolves well in water, turning it into a lye, This lye is an excellent base for creating soap with animal fat, tallow or lard, or even better with oil, rape or olive oil.

Without making into the soap this lye is good for scrubbing and cleaning stone floors and both metal and clay ovens

The more ornamental uses of Gorse are to tie bunches and hang above outside doors for protection. Some brides also include gorse with Ivy in the bouquet they carry or included with Ivy beside church aisles or entrance to an after wedding reception.

fuel?

There's a lot of quite flammable oil in Gorse so it is popular for lighting fires and used as a cooking fuel with open fire cooking and barbecues. Many people still prefer gorse to charcoal. It can be a bit smokey for indoor fire use, plus Gorse sparks quite a lot.

Then when the fire dies down to ash, the ash has plenty of potential use as I mentioned in "crafts".

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