This was a fairly modest burn pile, only 6-8' in diameter and about 3' high. We got through all the accumulated dead wood and brush in only three hours, compared to our last burn which was an all-day affair.
Since we don't have water piped out to the flood plain, we damped down the fire with cactus pads ...
and having finished so quickly, we've already started piling up more brush for the the next time.
one of my all time favourites: wood smoke
ReplyDeleteAnd I realize yet again how much I love the gentle colors of the land ...
DeleteYes...i went back up just now to look again at the beautiful small wall of rocks and "disappeared" my comment...this is such a Satisfying Post....i can FEEL it...you have a lot of land. And
ReplyDeletedid you and Don come up with using the Pads or is that commonly done there?
I think you said before, but i don't remember...
Thank you for this glimpse into your day of Taking/Giving Care to your Place.....
We're very fortunate to have five acres ... an amazingly large amount of land for a kid raised in the Long Island suburbs where a 100' lot was a lot (ha). The fire pit walled in with rocks is one of my ongoing projects ... not as artful as Don's constructions (more on that soon), but functional.
DeleteAs for the cactus pads, I'm sure we're not the first ones to use them as fire suppression "devices" but we did come up with the idea on our own as an alternative to hauling buckets of water 100 yards from the house.
I do feel badly that we burn so much good wood without using it to heat our home, but it's necessary to eliminate "ladder fuel" under the trees in case of wildfire (a real possibility with the extended drought in our area). Burn bans are frequent, and it's rare to get the right combination of just rained, not too much wind, and more rain in the forecast that enables us to burn safely. Yesterday was a perfect day ...
yes. the ladder fuel. maybe you could also think of the wood in terms of
DeleteHugelkultur? for squash and melons?
Hugelkultur?!?! Who knew? Not me, but I love the concept. Will have to ponder how best to deploy as we have many critters that like to come to our place for dinner (deer, turkeys, raccoons, armadillos, skunks ... and the occasional buzzard when the aforementioned come to an untimely end) ... which is to say that plantings have to be unpalatable natives or they get eaten
Deleteahh. yes. well....hmmmm. Maybe then, Not for vegetables, but maybe native
Deleteplants. The idea is to hold moisture. I am working away slowly at breaking up
that big pile here...making a rim around the Oasis in the Front. Having 5 acres
makes almost Everything possible
What I especially like about this idea of hugelkultur is two-fold ... the sticks would keep plant roots from getting their feet wet in the heavy clay soil and the sticks would add height to planting beds.
DeleteOH! and i love that you have included PLACE on your sidebar of bloggers....this is just GREAT
ReplyDeleteIt just wows me that there are kindred spirits all around the world ... makes me shake my head realizing this community simply would not have been possible in the not-so-distant past
Deletethe VERY not so distant past. and yes. it's hard to really take the Reality of it in.
DeleteIn my immediate world, there is No One interested in the cloth work. I would feel
so isolated. But then, without all the years with Spirit Cloth, i wouldn't even have
imagined it as a possibility. Which makes it all the more amazing to me. I had
always loved cloth just for cloth...old worn cloth...but i could never get anything
going with regular quilting. But as collage...well....it's become my world.
My sentiments exactly ... although I dare say Don is appreciative of cloth and stitch and is keeping pace with my recent dyeing discoveries ... but having a wider circle of cloth-mates is wondrous
Delete