Weather this weekend has been legedary... and Spring and Fall in Virginia typically are stunning.
54 outside, 80% chance of rain just during the 2 hour period of my commute and 30% chance later when I need to go home so I will NOT ride the Harley and OF COURSE it will NOT rain on me...
I had a bonfire for my buddies Friday night and we have burn restrictions, I can only burn 4pm to Midnight.
I had two burn piles, one was about 7-8' tall and 15' long lovingly crafted that I had carefully stacked (tee-pee style) like a campfire with nice dry pine and other logs that I lit with a couple mall carboard boxes filled with pine straw. The other was a partially burned pine stump, a couple pine logs at the bottom and all the green twigs and small branches from the cherry and crepe myrtle I cut down on Tuesday, I also lit this with some pine straw in a paper 50lb bag that the cracked corn came in.
I tried to light the "green" fire first, and the pine straw lit, I goosed it with the leaf blower (it glows like hot plasma) and it was not much of a fire, smoked and sputtered. I said, fine no big deal, this fire it a LONG way from water (but I had lots of the dirt/mulch I had raked up nearby to smother it when time came. I was POSITIVE it would go out...
The nice bonfire lit up like a volcano with 30' plus tall flames and was so hot the weeds nearby were starting to burn! I had to get the hose from the horse water and put out the perimeter! all that beautiful stacked wood was almost consumed in the first 45 minutes! By the time my buddies arrived I had been gathering fresh scrap from nearby to keep it burning! I even made my buddies help me gather scrap! We put it out at 11:30 with the hose and no big deal.
The green fire erupted suddenly into flames about 9pm and I went over with the tractor and smothered it. It seemed out. It kept relighting, I kept firing up the tractor and smothering it. The dirt/mulch stuff kept smoldering into flames. To cut the story short... I ended up filling a 55 gallon drum and carting water out in 5 gallon buckets. I dumped 6-8 buckets friday night at 1am, and another 6 buckets at 5am, then again at noon Saturday I turned the non buring smoldering material into the burning and dumped another 8 buckets of water into strategic spots to extinguish the hot spots. It seemed finally to have stopped smoking. Sunday morning I was late to Church because I had to stay behind and put out 2 small hot spots (I just shoveled and raked by hand to smother them). AFTER Church I dumped 8 more buckets of water onto those two hot spots, and last night they were still out.
Anyone wat to bet if it is burining again this morning?
Be well all,
David
Never got above 60 here, clouds lasted until almost 2PM. Well, I guess there's always tomorrow. Supposed to hit mid-60s; I'll believe it when I see it.
