if you play with fire...
Over the holiday weekend, I had some work to do outside. A few months ago, we had a major storm that knocked out the hydro across the region. A lot of trees came down and made a very big mess. A mess that I had to help clean up. Since the trees were no longer on the road, we were able to wait until this weekend to deal with them.
Now, I'm not the strongest guy in the world. Barbells are easy to lift. Nice metal bar with weights on the ends. Logs are not so simple. A log can be covered in pitch, mildew, moss, mushroom, and any number of other things living or dead. The bark is not always solidly stuck to the wood and can break off at any time. The timber may be rotted or eaten away, meaning that solid log will break in two. And they are not always the right shape or size to make lifting easy.
Lifting these logs into a trailer, then going to a dumpsite, and lifting them out of the trailer did not seem to be a good idea. Or a fun idea. Cutting them up would take too much time with the chainsaw, and using a handsaw was out of the question. A five inch diameter tree takes ten minutes alone. Try that with a tree that is over twelve inches in diameter. And wet on the inside. Not fun.
So, we burned them. Over a two day period, we stacked timber and burned it until it was ash. There's not much left over after two days of burning. What is left can be put in the trailer with a shovel and hauled to the dump. It's a lot lighter and won't require more than two trips.
But, as with every other fire I've had to deal with out here, there have been some negatives to go with the positives. I popped something in my left wrist, so it's not feeling all that great right now. I smelled pretty smokey afterwards. Pitch is not fun to get on your hands, or to remove from your hands. And, for the first time on a burn, I got burned. Not much, mind you, but it's like being bitten by a really nasty bug. The burns aren't large (very much like a bug bite), but the first moment the little sparks hit your skin you know it. Fortunately, there were not too many of them that hit me.
When having a fire, it is always important to have something to extinguish the fire with. We had a hose. It did its job. It's also important to have something to start the fire with. We used the leftover oil from the deep fried turkey. It was a much better use than just taking it to the dump.
There's still more to burn, and hopefully we'll finish that up next weekend.
Now, I'm not the strongest guy in the world. Barbells are easy to lift. Nice metal bar with weights on the ends. Logs are not so simple. A log can be covered in pitch, mildew, moss, mushroom, and any number of other things living or dead. The bark is not always solidly stuck to the wood and can break off at any time. The timber may be rotted or eaten away, meaning that solid log will break in two. And they are not always the right shape or size to make lifting easy.
Lifting these logs into a trailer, then going to a dumpsite, and lifting them out of the trailer did not seem to be a good idea. Or a fun idea. Cutting them up would take too much time with the chainsaw, and using a handsaw was out of the question. A five inch diameter tree takes ten minutes alone. Try that with a tree that is over twelve inches in diameter. And wet on the inside. Not fun.
So, we burned them. Over a two day period, we stacked timber and burned it until it was ash. There's not much left over after two days of burning. What is left can be put in the trailer with a shovel and hauled to the dump. It's a lot lighter and won't require more than two trips.
But, as with every other fire I've had to deal with out here, there have been some negatives to go with the positives. I popped something in my left wrist, so it's not feeling all that great right now. I smelled pretty smokey afterwards. Pitch is not fun to get on your hands, or to remove from your hands. And, for the first time on a burn, I got burned. Not much, mind you, but it's like being bitten by a really nasty bug. The burns aren't large (very much like a bug bite), but the first moment the little sparks hit your skin you know it. Fortunately, there were not too many of them that hit me.
When having a fire, it is always important to have something to extinguish the fire with. We had a hose. It did its job. It's also important to have something to start the fire with. We used the leftover oil from the deep fried turkey. It was a much better use than just taking it to the dump.
There's still more to burn, and hopefully we'll finish that up next weekend.
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