fire

friday firesmith – Hell of a fire. Best in a long time.

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On the 12th of April, 2023, the rain began around midnight. The sound was amazingly loud. Sleep had to be abandoned, so I got up, checked the radar, and a deep red splotch of clouds hovered directly over my area and nowhere else. The rain came down in a roar.

The next morning the pond had overflowed, and the Live Oak in the backyard that had a serious lean was creaking. It fell before I could get my phone, and in the next couple of months, I was able to get most of the larger limbs cut.

The next two years brought hurricanes, more rain, more flooding, and eventually, trees died from their roots being submerged for too long.

About six months ago, the water began to recede. I was able to get the fence back up, my compost pile has emerged from the ocean, and I’ve been able to assess how bad things are.

I also had two dead trees close to the house taken down. One very close to the house, a gum tree, was still alive, but it had a growth near the top that caused the top to break off. Considering the size of the tree and its proximity to the house, I had it taken down, too.

I have spent the last couple of days moving logs over to the Live Oak that fell, and setting things on fire. I’m usually a let nature take Her course, but I’ve got a lot, and I do mean a lot, of dead trees. Dozens of them have died, some have fallen, but at the time of this writing I’ve got four piles of dead stuff that if they catch on fire, it’s going to get weird. Two are so close together their blaze will be visible from the moon.

The Live Oak blocks the path from the house to the woods, and it is large. I would like to leave some of it to return to the earth as all thing should, but I have to reduce it. I have made good progress in this endeavor.

I began the process of moving parts of the Gum Tree to help burn the Live Oak. I used rollers, levers, and manual labor to get this done. If you know Physics, you can take an eight foot long log that is two feet in diameter, and move it one hundred yards without breaking a sweat. Push, move a roller, push, move a roller, push, move a roller, push, use a roller as a pivot, reset rollers, push, pivot, burn.

All the wonders of the ancient world were built by people who knew how to apply force in a manner consistent with the laws of physics. It’s not difficult once you understand how. Aliens were not needed and are not needed to build, to move, to create an environment where humans can get things done without machines.

I’m alone in the woods and can move logs some machines might struggle with. I used pieces of trees to move trees.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – Fire!

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I always wondered why that Live Oak tree was still standing. The lean was pronounced, to say the least. But it stood for over two hundred years, and twenty since I’ve been here. Eleven inches of water in six hours brought the water level up higher than anyone had ever seen or imagined. I went out in my wading boots and could hear the Oak’s roots groaning and popping. By the time I got back inside and got the cell phone the tree fell with a splash.

That was 12 April 2023.

A likely young man who had no small amount of skill with a chainsaw helped me get the branches off the tree, we waded in waist deep water to get a lot of it into the woods, and at the end of two weeks, we had all but the main trunk hauled away.

The water level receded enough for me to burn the top branches, some of them thicker than my waist. Then the rain came back and forced me away.

A week or so ago I started burning again and this time the weather held and I’m making good progress. But a Live Oak that has been dead for two years is still not giving up the ghost that easily. Live Oak is a dense wood, and I started a fire on a Monday, and it burned until Saturday, in some form or another. I’m averaging about a foot off the tip of the tree per burn.

It takes a lot of fuel to do this, and I’m not willing to use gasoline or anything like that. I also don’t want a giant fire that can be seen from the space station. I have time. There’s no reason to make a mistake with this fire.

As odd as it may sound, the fire can still escape. Yes, it’s a foot away from a pond formed by the flooding. Yes, I have three outdoor faucets within range, and yes, keeping the fire burning hot enough for the Live Oak wood to burn has been an issue. But fire is a willful and hungry demon who calls no man her friend. I will neither turn my back on her nor will I allow weariness to pull me into some sense of security when the fire burns bright and hot.

I sit now, and wait until the wood dries from yesterday’s rain, and the mud isn’t as slick. I’m getting down to the trunk of the tree, thick and heavy. I’m thinking about drilling large holes in the trunk, some down and some sideways, and see what this brings when the fire digs deep. This is a time for experimentation as well as heat, as all things should be.

Take Care,

Mike