Sunday 17 April 2016

burning on a beautiful spring day

Yesterday and today, I was out ripping, cracking, and cutting off dead perennials tops that I hadn't cleaned up in the fall. I gathered three wheel barrows yesterday, and two more wheel barrows today, as well as some fallen branches and pine cones. I created a pile in my vegetable garden which is currently bare, except for strawberries growing on one side. I was planning on having a burn which is a good way to get rid of excess dry plant material, and quite frankly, was a shorter distance than carting it down to the big burn pile at the edge of our property.

So, all was going well. It was a small enough pile that once the initial flare up occurred , it was a nice little fire that wasn't going anywhere. I was standing guard with my trusty rake and a garden hose was within distance if necessary. (This is a whole different mentality than my husband who burns on a much larger scale and is of the opinion that "everything burns").

So, I was a little scared when I heard the sirens. They firehall is opposite the main road. I can see it from my house. It is, however, the fire hall for the neighbouring municipality, not the one I live in. I am sure that if fires are big and bad enough that fire departments come from any number of municipalities, regardless of where the fire is. Still, I thought, "Oh, good lord, someone overreacted to seeing my flames and called it in!" Even worse, instead of zooming down the main road, the trucks turned in my direction. I was starting to plan what I would say, rake in hand. But thankfully, the trucks continued on their way (well, not that thankful for whoever was involved in the actual incident, but at least it wasn't a false alarm caused by me).

After breathing a bit of a sigh of relief, I continued to rake bits of material that hadn't burned on the edges toward the middle, and grabbed at a few dead tomato stems in the garden. In this process, I must have unearthed a toad. It was the colour of the soil and I almost didn't see him. I'm glad he moved and "announced" his presence. I've been surprised by many toads over the years. I like them. They are good to have in my gardens. I just don't fancy picking them up. This particular toad seemed determined to hop towards my fire. Even the ground around it must have been hot and I kept trying to deter him by putting my shoe in the way, or the rake. Silly, confused toad. Once the pile was just a smoldering tiny heap, I left it to start supper. What the toad decides to do is now up to him.

Did anyone else spend the weekend raking and bending and burning?


7 comments:

  1. It's such a good feeling to get this job done, isn't it? My husband was burning a huge pile last week, and I had some fears that the fire company would be called too! But thankfully, the pile burned quickly and no one panicked!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's that time of year! Lots of gardening chores waiting to be tackled. We didn't do any of that this weekend but hopefully the one coming up. The weather has been fabulous lately.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We did raking and bending. But we can not burn anything here. No, no, no. Years ago, everyone had a barrel in the way back of their yard. And we burned our garbage. But this has not been allowed, for some time.

    But we still have so much more spring yard cleaning to do. -sigh-

    Now if the weather will just cooperate.

    Tessa
    (Upper NE of the US)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wish I did! We did not spend nearly enough time outside. Tonight we have a freeze warning. ugh. Have a great week!

    ReplyDelete
  5. We had a fire on Monday. We keep a hose and rake handy too. Our theory with the fire department is that it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.
    So far, it's worked!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yup! Sure did! Lots of everything! That's what we do at the cottage!
    Cheers!
    Linda :o)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I too did some raking this weekend and rather then finding a toad, I found a snake! The dont bother me though and I was quite happy to see him, as I saw him before he could startle me. a couple of my grandpies were over so they got to see him and then I gave him a little push to be on his way. Much more yard work ahead for this weekend. Its just nice to get outside and putter! Have a great weekend!
    xoxo
    vivian

    ReplyDelete