Burning brush

It is normal to have profound thoughts while staring into a fire.

The challenge is the same as with dreams, to remember them the next morning.

My target date for planting potatoes is May 1. As of 17:00 yesterday, one-third of the 2022 'tater patch was still covered with brush that had been cleared from other areas of the yard. I had do deal with that before I could till and prepare the ground for planting.

The weather-guessers predict that we will be entering another rainy cycle on Saturday so it is urgent that I get the brush burned.

My best success with burning brush is to start a "campfire" and then add some split hardwood from our horde of firewood for the house. Once I have the split firewood going, I start stacking the brush on top of the burning wood.

Most of this brush was cut a month or two ago. There is not much drying power in the sun in mid-spring in Michigan. We get a lot of rain and the brush doesn't have many cut-ends that expose the wood to the air. Bark is a good wrapper for preventing drying and it shows. Shorter pieces burn better than long whips.

Some species start out drier than others. The Carpathian walnut that I cut 10 days ago feels drier than the willow and hybrid poplar I cut two months ago. Black Locust suckers dried quickly. The prunings from fruit trees dry quickly, especially after the rabbits de-bark them.

For a long time, nothing seems to happen. With time on my hands I can be selective. I find sticks that are dryier that most in the pile of brush to be burned and drive them in like lances to get the stems over the tiny part of the pile that is actually burning.

The younger stems of the box-elder shine with moisture as the heat starts driving it out. Smoke and steam rise from the pile. Some of the dead grass starts to burn. The wind is negligible (about 4mph out of the northeast) and I beat out the flames with my shovel.

Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac died at the age of 50 while fighting a grass fire. My brother, the one who is a firefighter, told me that it is more than likely that he died of carbon monoxide inhalation. It is almost impossible to tell the difference without an autopsy. I heed my brother's admonition and take care to stay out of the smoke plume while I beat the flames in the grass.

Things start to speed up after the bed of coals grew to be about 24" across. The small stuff that had been roasting and drying lit off and burned like a blast furnace for about 10 minutes. The tiny sticks added a little bit to the bed of coals and the 6' high flames helped roast the overburden of brush that was not in its direct path.

Then the cycle of pushing brush to the center began.

Fill the center up.

Wait for the fire to incubate.

Watch it burn.

Push more to the center.

Wait.

Watch it burn.

That is when the profound thought happen.

I was watching the Babylonians, the Greeks, and then the Romans.

Each civilization building on the bed-of-coals left by the last.

And then after the Romans....darkness.

I dragged the hose out into the garden and drenched the bed of coals. I soaked her down good. I soaked it until it stopped hissing.

And in the morning, I will go out there and I will find pockets of white, columns where some burning coals were sheltered by a chunk of wood or some act-of-God where the other sticks and coals shingled the burning pocket coals.

Irish monasteries, Nicaea, Egyptian libraries and Persian universities. Tradesmen passing on trade secrets to their son and witches and herbal healers to their daughters and granddaughters.

Who could have predicted where those flickering candles of knowledge would have been? The flames that lit the Renaissance.

It has been a jolly big fire since then. Lots of fuel discovered and pushed to the center with exploration and Imperialism and technology.