Burn Day

11/22/22 ~ by Griz (aka Steve Stovner) ~
This Summer while Allie (granddaughter #3), Ouasha and Iko (11 & 6 yr.-old great granddaughters) were here for several days, they spent some time working on my gardens and blackberries. They did a great job. Its really uplifting to see young kids work hard then stand back and feel proud of what they accomplished. I showered them with praise (and cash) in return. Anyway, that got me inspired to put my programming venture on hold, hire two 20+ old "kids" and tackle a long list of projects around the place (gardens, manlift, Sale barn, etc.) including falling 4 large (26 to 42") trees. The tree limbs + blackberries + rotten pallets +++ ended up over 10,000 cubic ft of burnable. Today we burned it. Started at 7:00 am (still dark), by 8:00 we were in full swing.

While I was sitting on the tractor waiting to dump the next load on the fire, I scanned the view (which I had seen many times before). But this time I really looked at the shop and surroundings. I see the thousands of hours it took to create that view; I remember working till 10 each night (after Boeing work) in the cold, rain and snow. I feel pride well up in me. With lots of moral and other support from Trish, I did that, I cleared 2+ acres of 15-20 foot-high blackberries and 50+ alder trees, I designed it, collected materials, lifted every board in place and screwed it home with my hands alone. Wow. ---I also filled it up with Tools. Fitting for Mr. Tools-n-Gizmos.

By 3:00pm the piles are gone, we have a massive pile of ashes and almost done.

At 4:00 guys started hosing it down, after an hour using 2 hoses they deemed it out and went home. Was it out?

Next morning, heading to the shop, I saw smoke curling from the burn pile. Using tractor forks, I dig into the ash pile and turned up live embers that burst into flame on exposure. I hosed and turned for 3 hours and still had smoke. I set up sprinkler for complete coverage of the pile. 22 hours later, there were still 2 spots emitting smoke. I dug those up, drenched them till no smoke and pronounced Fire Out.