Posts Tagged ‘burning brush pile’
Disappearing Act
It is that time of year again when piles of brush get burned into oblivion. This pile was on the top of the hill on the north side of our driveway. There was a moderate collection of fair-sized branches that had been there since before we arrived. A couple of days ago, I tossed on some cuttings I recently cleared that were leftover from when I mowed this area last fall.
That created a collection that was half-fresh-cut and half-long-dead. I wasn’t sure how it would burn, because the old wood was damp from the recent rain, and there was a gusty wind that could help, or it could possibly drive it out of control.
I started daintily, pulling a small amount of debris off the pile to create a moderate fire, although, up wind of the rest of the fuel. I started on that side to take advantage of the wind, because I felt I needed it to cause the green wood to burn.
Progress was ideal and I enjoyed a fine afternoon by the fire. Cyndie made the trek all the way out on her crutches, and kept an eye on things while I took a break to walk the horses, one-at-a-time, off that damn muddy paddock and out where they could graze for a spell on the grass. After that last storm and its additional inch of rain, the little spot of grazing I fenced off for them is too soft for their weight and they will tear it to shreds if we let them on it.
When I got back to the fire, I found Cyndie had outdone herself with the cutest little burn pile ever, all clean around the edges, safely pulled away from the main one, making me think I may have over-stated my concern that she do it my way. She was sitting on a chair, weaving a basket out of the vines that were growing all over the ground up there. Being forced to use crutches does little to stop her ambitions, it just redirects her energy toward more creative pursuits.
It had turned into an absolutely gorgeous evening for a bonfire, so we decided I should head to the house to feed dog and cat, and then bring back a picnic dinner. That meant washing the manure and mud off of Delilah, before letting her inside.
That done, I picked up my bag of food and headed for the door. Before I even opened it, I could see the flames through the glass. The entire pile was ablaze something fierce. I know the feeling of standing next to that. Elysa and I were present last year when one of our burn piles went rogue and roared alive with incredibly dramatic energy. I pictured Cyndie in that chair, hobbled by the healing hip, and my heart jumped a bit.
Luckily, this pile wasn’t quite that large, and although dramatic, it was not a catastrophic event. I arrived with the bag of food and prepared to make a joke about her little clean pile burning safely on the side. She asked if she could tell me something funny.
She was sitting there as the fire appeared to be burning itself out, and was fretting over having let it burn out while I was gone, by not adding enough new fuel to the side fire. Knowing I could just re-kindle the burn, she decided to stay seated. Without doing a thing, the core of the pile ignited!
Fire is not to be trifled with. Kids, don’t try this at home.
We dined by the warm fire on a chilly evening at sunset, lingering until after dark, when our shadows eventually appeared in the moonlight. A spectacularly magnificent experience for us once again at Wintervale. Cyndie used my camera to take a few more pictures after dinner…
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After Burn
I think there was finally a perceptible shift in the drying of things around here. The holes that were drilled for the hay shed are still full of water, but there are other areas that are showing signs of being dry for the first time all spring. Portions of the sand that was brought in for our new driveway loop are drying up and getting very hard. Some of the clay that got knocked off the drill bit of the skid loader has dried, and seems like a chunk from a broken ceramic pot.
The most vivid example was in the behavior of the burning brush pile. Elysa was helping me to drag dead and dried branches out of the woods, and down to fuel the burn of the pile. Each time we tossed more wood on the fire, we tried to move the primary target of burn further into the pile. I had worked all morning, and she arrived to help me haul multiple loads in the afternoon, and the progress was meager, gaining ground on a relatively small percentage of green branches remaining in the pile.
I had hoped to see the bulk of the branches knocked down by the end of the weekend, but it was looking less likely, as we began to run out of steam for hauling. While we stood watching the last load we had added begin to ignite, it was as if someone 
flipped a switch. Maybe it was the two days of wind, and all that sunshine on Sunday, and things finally dried to a point of combustion. Without a hint of what was about to happen, the fire picked up momentum and proceeded to light up the whole of the remaining center of the pile.
It happened so fast, I didn’t get around to pulling out my camera. It was a dramatic spectacle, and thoroughly entertaining, bordering on scary. It was definitely beyond our control for a while there. That fire was going to do whatever it wanted to, and we wouldn’t have been able to stop it. Luckily, there was nothing around the pile but open pasture, and the bulk of fire energy was rising straight up, with little in the way of ash.
And, most of the area is still pretty wet. It is dry enough to burn brush piles, but not dry enough to dig post holes.
By the time we finished, that pile looked more like a little volcano than a brush pile. Now they need to turn over some of that dirt with their skid loader and reshape things, knocking out the roots from the soil. We made great progress, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a bunch of wood that will need to be burned. I don’t know how long conditions will continue to be acceptable for burning, but I think I will be striving to make it more of a controlled burn when we get around to working on the remainder of what’s there.
Project Interrupted
Happy Mother’s Day, all you moms out there! 
Yesterday, the crew showed up to begin the process of framing the hay shed. They didn’t get very far. Guess what. It’s too wet. Imagine that. At least they accomplished the first critical step of stringing up the exact square dimension of the future structure. After that, they drilled one hole with the skid loader, and quickly discovered they would not be able to set the posts yet.
The dirt that came out of the hole was a sloppy muck that plopped to the ground like a wet cow pie. Then the hole filled with about 2-feet of water,
the sides of the hole collapsing, as water ran in. If you look closely at the second image, you will see the muck in mid-air, dropping from the drill on the skid loader.
Progress is stalled, once again. But, not for lack of trying. At this point, all we can do is wait for nature to take its course. Luckily, it was a windy day, which does wonders for drying things.
Too bad it was offset by a May 11 snow shower. We need wind and sun, not wind and snow.
I busied myself with getting a fire started in the brush pile nearest the barn. We haven’t been giving this pile as much attention as the other one, partly because it has so much dirt on the pile. It also has a much larger collection of branches, most of them still too green to burn easily.
To get them to ignite, we have to feed a lot of dry wood to the pile, so I made multiple trips up the hill toward the house, to pull out dead branches that are stacked throughout the woods across from the house and shop garage.
It isn’t the type of walking exercise that I am supposed to be doing, especially when I am trying to lift too heavy a batch of branches, but I hope it counts for something, because it totally exhausted me. I decided to end my work before something gave out on my body and forced me to be done.
We’ll see if I quit in time to save energy for today. Over half of that brush pile remains, and I have plenty of trips to make if I’m going to reduce it a noticeable amount by the end of the day.
Relative Something 