Set the Night on Fire

I've come to realize something in life since living on the farm out here. People in agriculture are a little different from the rest of us. To anyone not from an ag (or pyromaniac background) this picture above would be quite disturbing, something you might see on the news, but not something that happens in your own backyard (or the dry field next to your backyard).



Most normal suburbia wives will never have to see their husbands walking through a 30 ft fire or standing with a shovel next to the dry waist high grasses that surround the backside of the fire, waiting to put out anything that might catch.


However, I'm no longer a normal suburbia wife, so I now get to see this scene played out at least once or twice a year, with my own family as the eager participants. Last year, about 3 weeks before I had Lias, we bounced 15 minutes into the depths of the farm to a big, huge 25 ft deep pit the guys had dug to push stumps into after clearing the fence line. There were also all sorts of household items (couches, beds, junk) from the delinquent tenants that left all their trash in the houses when they moved. John jumped into the pit, along with 2 jugs of gasoline and promptly commenced in lighting it. I almost had a hearth attack as I watched from the truck with Ava and Nathan. I saw a ball of fire shoot up and then John jump out of the pit about 2 seconds later. John swears he wasn't even close to the fire but all that ran through my mind was "how in the world would I, obesely pregnant, ever get John out of that massive pit and bump all the way back down that dirt road that already almost put me in labor to the main road, and get 30 minutes to the dinky local hospital with a burnt husband and two screaming little kids?" John still thinks I overreacted but I'd like to see how anyone else would handle that situation.





Luckily, I seem to be passing on my fear of the huge fires onto my offspring. They all thought the fire was really cool until the wind started whipping it up. Actually, I don't think they were a bit scared of it but they were really hungry and cold, even though you could feel the heat from about 40 ft away. I hope Nathan retains this healthy fear of flames until well past his teenage years. John tells me that one of the scariest situations he's ever been in has been when a field he's burning turns directions and is coming straight at you.





The fuel for this fire was all the old massive trees that have come down around here in the past few months, one dried up Christmas tree and 2 months worth of boxes and papers from our own garage.


This big stump in the fire was about 4 ft wide and 20 ft long so it burnt nicely--- for about 2 days. John kept going back later that night to check on it and make sure it hadn't gone anywhere. Next time we light one of these little campfires I'll make sure and let all you suburbia friends know so you can come on out and feel the heat of our country bonfires. They're quite the rage.