HOT - HOT - HOT!

Here's the evidence of what happens after a whole summer of taking all our yard and garden debris to the bottom of the pasture. You have to wait until the huge pile consisting of a cut down pine tree, limbs from pruned trees in the yard (pickup loads), all the fallen leaves--more pickup loads, and all the garden and yard debris. You have to let the pile totally dried out and that takes a while because all summer and fall we are always adding to the pile. (I don't know what we'd do with all our yard debris if we didn't make a pile in the bottom of the pasture. I suppose we'd be making weekly trips to the landfill.)

Next thing you do is wait for a clear day with just a little breeze. It can't be too windy--'cause then you might have problems with the flames spreading and getting away from you. But a little breeze is perfect to keep the fire going. We tried to wait have our bonfire when some of the family was around to appreciate it, but that didn't work out. It really was a good fire--and soooo hot!

If you're lucky, you might have access to a propane burner so you can really get the fire going and keep it going.

And then you just stand and tend the fire to make sure it stays where you want it.

And finally, after several hours, this is all that's left of the huge pile. The hot coals at this point would have been perfect to cook something in, but by then we were tired and ready to be done with the job and ready for a hot shower.

I'm sure not everyone might appreciate what a good fire is, but when you collect such a huge pile of debris all growning season, it sure feels good to get it all cleaned up. And a good fire (that's kept until control) really does clean things up. It leaves nothing but a small pile of ashes--and then we're ready to start another pile in the spring when the yard work starts all over again.