Fire! (and a little lame info for anybody who cares)

[Kali]

We started doing New Years out here maybe 20 years ago, for a couple of reasons - laziness being a major one, of course. Also to keep our drunken selves and friends off the streets. One year we had the chance to clear some brush with a tractor. It was disturbing to me to watch the machine tear living bushes down, even thought they were a mess. Anyway, there were a couple of these nice big piles a year later and let a few drunks see something like that sitting around in a non-city location, well of course we had to set them on fire! It became a tradition. Easy to do as we have been in a drought most of that time and the old cottonwoods around the headquarters lose even more big branches than normal and they are branch shedding suckers in the best of times.

So all during the year we work on the pile and then usually in December the kids start getting creative with the stacking - one year we had some long stuff piled at least 15 feet high. This year's had some big chunks of cottonwood from major branches - one of which fell and ruined our trampoline and two old masonry walls a couple years ago. (search archives for an old post with amazing pix)

We get some benefits from this. One, of course, it is a blast to do a huge fire! Another fairly obvious one is cleaning up brush - something that is good to do around buildings and so forth. Helps keep rats and other undesirables from taking over, reduces fire risk (ha), and opens op the scenery. Also helps give moronic fake Texans something useful to do but that is another story. The interesting benefit for us raising cattle, though, is that wood ashes are a great natural lice treatment. And the fire being done in the winter is the perfect timing because winter fur is the most attractive for those itchy parasites to explode. Also there must be some good mineral nutrition in there because the cattle eat that stuff up! But they play around in it and paw and kick it all over themselves too. Fun to watch. I will try to get some pix in the next day or two if I catch them.

Anyway here are a few pix from last night and this morning:







about finished for the night


this morning's aftermath


a couple big logs still going


cleaning up a few missed small branches

[Biker13]

1. Cool!!

We have our share of cottonwood out here (Idaho) too. The stuff certainly can be a hazard!

Thanks for the pics! Not lame at all!

[Kali]

6. burns good, though

:evilgrin:

[greenbriar]

2. what a neat tradition

thank you for sharing.

Happy New Years to you and yours

[Kali]

7. you're sure welcome

good luck getting back to work, take it easy on yourself

[S n o w b a l l]

3. I love hearing and seeing pics of your life...

I think I would love it, except for the snakes.

Looks like a lot of fun. Those first few look like they're from Bohemian Grove. :)

Happy New Year, Kali!

[Kali]

8. of course you only see the unusual stuff

there is a lot of mundane in between

and cussing. lots of cussing. and baling wire.

[MiddleFingerMom]

4. I woulda brought the only thing you were missin'

Cool pic. Cooler story.
At least, I'm sure at LEAST a cooler full of something was involved.
.

[Kali]

9. dang, forgot about marshmallows!

I even have some, believe it or not. Have I mentioned my oven sucks? Before x-mas I needed some kind of "baked sweet" so I made rice krispy treats (no oven needed) and I think there are some stashed in the kitchen somewhere. Unless THEY found them.


No cooler needed around here lately it been freezing almost every night. Pipes frozen 4 times in December already. Usually its only 2 or 3 times all winter.

Oh, and welcome to DU, noob.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I love fire

Great pics!

[Kali]

10. fire and blowing up stuff - hard to beat recreational destruction, eh?

:rofl:

[amerikat]

11. There is nothing so hypnotic as fire. Controlled fire has a way of relaxing

Everyone that witnesses one. I think it is in our genes.

We have them often to burn fallen pine branches and even whole pine trees
that come down in storms.

nice pics.