Monday, April 5, 2010

Spring, snow, and smoke

A late blast of spring snow makes for an interesting weekend here. Four inches fell late in the week. It melted fast, but there are enough remnants of snow on green grass for some nice photos of wildflowers and such.

The snow also gave us a couple more weeks to burn slash piles. The ground is wet, the breeze is mild, so we dragged out the arson gear and torched 4 small piles Saturday. The wood is so wet that the fuel mixture is difficult to light, and it takes 3 or 4 tries before the pile takes off in flame. I used 1/2 gallon to 1 gallon per pile to get them started!

My favorite part of burning piles is going around late at night and tending them. Tonight is starry and cold -- barely above freezing -- but it's warm by the large piles of coals. I rake the charred stubs from the outer perimeter into the pile, heaping it as high as I can, so there will be nothing but ash in the morning.

Addendum: Early this morning I made the rounds through frost-trimmed wildflowers and snow patches. I stirred the fires, now the size of small campfires.

I saw 8 deer and a red-tailed hawk today.

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