Spring and early summer seemed to start out a bit on the dry side. This made for a nice laid back mowing and trimming schedule early on. Then the rains came, then the grass and oh how the weeds flourished.
These last couple of weeks have been spent cleaning up these weeds, trimming the fence rows, mowing the fields and the yard. There has also been a lot of time spent on burning brush from all the trees and demolition debris from the old roof and termite damaged wall. I have managed to get most of all the deconstruction wood burned and I am now tackling the roof debris and wood. Since the shingles were wood most all of this can be burned. Me doing the cleanup saved us a lot of money. Money we didn’t have to spend on cleanup.
So, with some time, a lot of beer, maybe a few mushrooms and just a little LSD I will get this mess cleaned up.* I am glad to see the wet and rainy weather this time of year. It puts my mind at ease when I burn brush and makes evening bonfires that much more enjoyable. You are reasonably sure you won’t set your farm on fire. Or the neighbors.
That brings back memories. Memories from when I was a kid growing up on this very farm. One of my jobs was to burn the trash each week. We didn’t have a trash service that picked up the trash back in the 1970’s. We burned it, all of it.
I enjoyed this chore of burning trash, I truly did. It was cool to watch the plastics melt and the toxic plumes of smoke make patterns in the air. Watch the paper change colors as it burned off the cans. I could poke the fire and cause sparks to fly all through the sky. It was also one of my responsibilities to tend to the fire the entire time and make sure it never got out of hand. Well one dry summer day it did just that.
I remember some of the embers took flight and landed in the fields between the house and the river. For those of you familiar with trash burning you know that floating embers are quite common in fires with paper products. The embers tend to take flight. Usually this is not a problem. It however turned into one on this day.
I saw the field come to life with dancing flames. I took to dancing too. Ran to the flames and danced all over and around them trying to get them out. I don’t remember how I got the rest of the family and neighbors out to help but I remember lots of dancing. Some of us dancing on the flames with our feet and some of us dancing with blankets to smother the fire.
We got it put out with little loss of pasture, no injuries and no fire departments involved. Even after that day I still loved that chore back then and I enjoy burning ‘trash’ today. Of course I try to make sure no plastics or strange combustibles go in to the pile these days. Mostly just old wood and brush. No tires I promise. I still find myself keeping a close watch on the flying embers.
So I will continue. Continue to burn the rest of this old roofing debris and the various piles of brush that seem to keep multiplying every time I turn around. If there were such a thing as a brush farmer I would be the envy of Bald Knob.
Keenan and I managed to mow and trim a good portion of the fields and fence rows and this sure does make one feel good. When you look out and can see the fences (and the cows) it just makes it feel alright. Thanks brother.
So with the bit of rain we had out there today and the chance of it this evening I will be burning debris for a few more days I imagine. I will be watching embers. I really don’t plan on doing any dancing.
Cheers.
* No mushrooms were consumed nor was there any use of LSD during this process.