Filed under: Farm, Minnesota, spring, Trees | Tags: branches, cleanup, eyebrows and beard, farm, fire, Minnesota, spring, trees
We have a really great day here in Minnesota, temperature is in the upper 50′s with sunshine, and I have been putting it to use. Since our ice storm of a few weeks back we have had a large number of branches down in the yard. This afternoon my sweetie and I went to work on them.
Now no branch of any size comes down with out it being sized up for addition to the wood pile. I had a few that I trimmed up and added the larger parts to the stack, but not all was stackable, hence a fire was needed. Living out here on the farm I have had a lot of fires as tree branches needed to be reduced. I let the pile get nice and big and I lit it.
If your wood pile is dry branches you can start with a small pile, but wet wood needs heat to consume it, and this was wet with sap, spring time wood. I started with a pile of dry stuff on the bottom and got the wet wood heated up so it would burn, then you keep adding branches as the pile burns down. Now wet wood needs lots of encouragement to keep it gong, so you end up with lots of branches around the edges of the fire that need to be pushed into the hottest part to get them burned. It was while I was reaching down to push some sticks into the center that it happened. I got singed!
Yep, the eyebrows and beard got a little hot. Now with the eyebrows tucked under the brim of my cap I thought they would have been protected, but they really got clipped. I’m going to be living with that scorched hair smell for a bit. Oh well, that’s what you get for working on Sunday.
Michael
