Bonfire 2013

We have a 'burn pile' in our pasture.  This is another one of those things that Homeowner's Associations in suburbs and cities frown upon.  Every time we have limbs or sticks fall out of our trees, we drag them to the burn pile and keep building on it until we have a huge stack.

We'll generally light it up for a special event like someone's birthday or New Year's Eve.  The last time we lit it up was on Russ' birthday back in December 2011!  Our pile was reaching epic proportions.  It was high time we burned it.  Laura Lee was in from college last weekend and it was the last little cool spell, so we got ready.  Now the last time we burned it, the flames leapt skyward and some passerby evidently thought our barn was on fire and called 911.  The fire department showed up at the house and we had to go apologize and tell them everything was okay.  Following that event, we positioned the burn pile a little bit farther away from the barn AND we made sure we had a long water hose for sake of safety since Smokey Bear says, "Only can prevent forest fires."

We captured play by play of the Sonnier Bonfire 2013:


Pre - Burn.  Notice the chickens bidding farewell to their secret laying spot where we'd find eggs.

We moved the electric fence back so that Maggie and Stryker would be out of harm's way.

And then we struck the match on a burn pile that was over a year old - dried, stacked and packed.

Almost immediately the small flame became a roaring inferno.


Burn baby burn!

We all watched with amazement as the flames were climbing easily 20 feet into the sky.

The heat that the bonfire was generating kept causing us to move our benches back to where we could stand the heat.  Notice Russ running around the fire.  At this point the fire was at its zenith.  After this point, the heat and flames were on the decline.

Look at the fire reaching up to the sky!

In no time, the fire consumed most of the limbs on the pile.  Russ and I grabbed shovels and began trying to push the sticks on the outside toward the middle where they would burn down to nothing.  It was so hot, though.  We decided to wait until it burned down some more.

The pile burning down

There's something mesmerizing about looking into a fire and watching it burn.

As the sun drifted downward, the coals began to glow.  It was time to get out the wieners and roast them for hot dogs!


Hot Dogs roasting on an open flame...

The chickens and cows became very curious at this point.  I guess they like staring into a fire as well.

The coals were perfect and in no time our hot dogs were ready!



Yum!

As nightfall came, we ate our hot dogs around the glowing coals. We enjoyed warmth generated both by great family time as well as the fire.  It was a star-filled beautiful night and one we'll remember for a long time. 

The next morning we went out to check the fire and it was still burning.  In fact the coals smoldered for four days!  I thought it was funny how the chickens were sitting on the bench and Daisy was around the fire.  It was sort of like they took our place around the campfire when we went in for the evening.


Animals like campfires too!

So we'll start stacking up branches and build a new pile and plan our next bonfire.  Hopefully we won't wait a year to burn this one.