Burning Boxes

 

In the future, before I burn boxes,  I will check to see if there is a burn ban in this county, which there is.  It occurred to me after the fact.  

There were a lot of boxes, and I didn't want to burn boxes, but I just couldn't take having them in the way anymore.  And so I began to take them out to my special burn spot in the driveway.  It works pretty well because the traffic on the driveway keeps the vegetation down and there aren't many plants near there.  It did occur to me that we were in a drought, and I would rather burn boxes on a rainy day.  However, I had a hose in the event of trouble, so I went ahead with the project.  

I'm kind of disturbed about the way this burn went.   The grass had recently been mowed, so there were dried clippings all over the place.  But would it be better if the grass were two feet tall?   I noticed the fire taking off for the front yard, and went to spray it with the hose.  But the wind blew so much smoke at me that I couldn't quite get to the area.   I saw that the fire had moved over a much larger section of the yard, and decided to use a five gallon bucket to douse it.  But time seemed to go by so slowly while I retrieved the bucket and filled it with water, except for the time it took the fire to get to the far side of the yard.  Several bushes were on fire and the flames were now four feet high.  I wondered if should call the fire department, but they couldn't get here in time.  And so I ran around as fast as I could filling the bucket and putting out the fire.  I had just managed to get things back in hand except for a few lingering areas of smoldering,  when I was buzzed by a small plane just above the trees, right on top of me.  I suppose they were trying to decide if there was a wildfire.  I think they felt the fire was under control and the excitement was over.  

I sat on my little bench in what was left of the yard for around half an hour to make sure the fire was out.  Wow.  I had burned down the front yard.   It actually looks neater because it had gotten overgrown.  

Have I learned my lesson?  Well, next time I need to burn boxes there is precious little left of the yard to burn.   No more burns in a drought.  

I decided to take a bath, and go lie down and drink a Coke.