(written on the 19th from notes taken previously)
Zach got his wildland fires drip torch yesterday, and he was back from work today, so it was forest fire day round two. 😎
We started the burn on his property by the woodpile, planning to burn a strip from his yard, all the way through the woods to DeGraff Road as the backstop for our planned burn.
After getting the fire started, and having fairly significant trouble getting it started because of the makeup of the forest floor, we tried to get it to burn basically along the property line between where we used to live and Ramona’s house.
But then we figured that maybe we would just burn the whole eoods, so we left everything going, and I relate a section that I had already put out and then sent a message to Ramona to make sure that she was good with the burn, but then we never heard back from her, so Zach and I busted our butts to go back and put the fire out, so we would burn as little of her property as possible.
That was exhausting, and the wind kicked up just in time to blow the fire faster than we wanted, so we ended up burning a sizable portion of her woods anyway.
😬
I never did hear back from her, so I have no idea what she thinks at all. But at this point, we’re beyond the burn season, in my opinion, as the trees are already budding, so I don’t want to hurt anything from here.
At this point, the forestry work is just cutting down the dead trees and cleaning up the forest floor. I wouldn’t want to do any more trimming because the trees are now active, and I don’t want to harm them more by doing major pruning jobs while they are active, nor during bug season.
Anyway, by the time we got finished putting the fire out, I was absolutely exhausted. I needed to be keeping tabs on everything that had burned, to make sure we didn’t have any spot fires crop up from coals blowing into areas where there was still leaf litter and deadfall.
As exhausted as I was, though, I wasn’t of much use. I wasn’t quite as bad as I was that other day a couple weeks ago come or whenever it was, when I was so bad that I needed help just getting out of the field, but I was exhausted enough to not be able to do the work I needed to do the way I needed to do it.
Gratefully, neighbor Joe let me use his four wheeler. 🙏 I was nervous and uncomfortable because it’s been a while since I’d ridden the four wheeler, and I was exhausted, but that four wheeler was an absolute godsend. It allowed me to regain some energy and drive all around the property without having to walk it or get in and out of my car and drive. It was fantastic.
After putting out the fire at Ramona’s end, while I was watching for little fire outbreaks, neighbor Joe noticed that August of wind had blown a coal all the way across the road and started a fire on his side of the road, quickly burning through the ditch and up toward his RV.
😶
😬
So he raced over to grab buckets, and I raced over to try and put the fire out as quickly as I could, but it was so hot that when I jumped into action, it burned my legs in an instant, and I fell backward trying to get out of the fire as quickly as I could because of the pain.
Gratefully, it was just superficial burn and nothing major, but boy did it hurt. Fortunately, the adrenaline was pumping, so I didn’t stop to think about it too much and instead was racing around to try and put the fire out before it got to his rv.
I don’t think it actually ever would have gotten to his RV because there was a pretty good fire break between the last of the bushes on the ditch and his rv, but still, it was a race to make sure there was zero chance as opposed to a potentially greater than zero chance.
Fortunately, we were able to get it put out without too much of an issue once he had the hose over there. The main concern was just the ball of vines that was there as well as a couple of small cedar trees. Those Vines can go up in a hurry and create huge balls of fire, and the cedar trees are little tender boxes filled with flammable sap that can go up in an instant as well.
But we were able to get that one out. That all actually happened before I borrowed the four wheeler.
Anyway, with Ramona’s and basically taken care of, and no more concerns at Joe’s place, I borrowed the four-wheeler drove all over the property, round and round and round checking to make sure we were good.
Zach had left by that point because his wife was feeling sick, but he had started gone around and started the fire on his side of the woods that we hadn’t yet gotten going seriously.
So I drove around watching that fire while making sure the leaf litter didn’t catch on fire from what we had previously burned, keeping a hawk eye on rotten trees that had caught fire and were just burning and smoking and sending out sparks and whatnot.
I watched and watched the fire, and it seemed pretty tame and unlikely to cause any more issues, and then there was a huge random gust of wind. Still, I didn’t think anything of it. Didn’t see any Sparks or embers blow anywhere of concern, so I just sat there on the corner of the woods watching down both sides when all the sudden I realized the other side of the road was on fire again.
😅😬
So I raced over with a metal rake and called Zach who was back in his house getting some food to eat. I figured I could probably get it contained myself, but I didn’t want to risk it at all, so I asked Zack to come over with his water backpack, and by the time he got there, I did have it completely under control, but it was still nice to have him there as a backup.
We sat there watching and making sure it wasn’t going to jump our fire line again, which it didn’t. 🙏
The fire eventually burned itself out down by the mailboxes, as there just wasn’t enough leaf litter to keep it going (the part that wasn’t catching was a part that I had previously spent a massive amount of time de vining and thinning out, Stevie and Hunter having helped me out in that area as well, so it’s not surprising that there wasn’t a whole lot of leaf litter to burn in that area.
We tried again and again to get that section to catch on fire, as that was probably the section that I most wanted to see burned because it was the section that you see most often, being the triangle of Forest right next to the gate opening to the Road through the property.
Oh well.
One thing that did happen while we were down there trying to coax that section to actually catch fire… while Zach was walking around, all of a sudden we started hearing a bunch of screeching. It seemed rhythmic enough that I thought maybe it was Zach’s ringtone or notification tone on his phone, but then it stopped, and then it started again, and we realized that he was actually stepping on a baby bunny.
🥺
I picked up the poor little bunny, concerned that it may have been seriously injured by having been stepped on, but fortunately, the area where we were standing was an area where I had previously had piles and piles of wood chips dumped, so the ground was very squishy compared to normal ground, and the little bunny didn’t appear hurt at all.
It did try to get away on multiple occasions, each time darting directly toward fire that was still burning.
😬
And each time, we reached into the burning undergrowth to grab the bunny so it didn’t burn to death.
I found another little baby right there in the same area, but no mother to be found anywhere. I’m guessing the mother ran off when the fire was going and left her babies there. 🥺
Or maybe it had gone down into a hole somewhere and hadn’t had time to get the babies?
I don’t know, but there was no mother in sight, and the babies were sitting… ducks?… out there.
The bunnies were really scared at the beginning, but after a while of me holding them without causing them any harm and in fact petting them and warming them up, the two little bunnies that fit together in the palm of my hand totally calmed down and relaxed and just crouched quietly, letting me pet them occasionally.
One of the poor little bunnies had singed fur on its sides and singed whiskers, but otherwise was unhurt.
I probably held those two little critters in my hand for an hour or more, trying to decide what to do with them. I talked to Stevie about them, and he thought there was a small chance they might take them to take care of, but Risa had just a few days ago found a baby bunny that she had put back in the woods, hoping it would survive better out there.
So I headed over to neighbor Joe’s house with the two little bunnies in my hand, hoping that maybe they might want them or they might know somebody who did. Glenda, Joe’s wife, called her daughter I think it was, and sent her a picture of the bunnies. There was no immediate reply, so I headed over to Jim and Steph’s place with the bunnies, but they didn’t know anybody who would want them.
I didn’t want to leave the property unattended for very long, so Steph gave me a basket to put the bunnies in, and Elanor was willing to temporarily watch them while I went back to do my rounds around the property. 🙏
Gratefully, not too long after leaving the bunnies with eleanor, as I was going around and around the property, with my chainsaw, cutting down burning trees to reduce the possibility of the expected high winds the next day from blowing embers into leaf litter, neighbor Joe let me know that their daughter wanted the little bunnies. I guess she homeschools the kids, and having the cute little bunnies is a great opportunity for the kids to learn responsibility and whatnot.
That was a bit of a load off because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do otherwise.
I don’t remember, but I think Jim and Steph invited me over for dinner, so I think I ate dinner with them before heading back out and watching the fire. I was out there watching the fire like a hawk and cutting down questionable trees until well after dark.
When I thought I was done, I noticed a tree completely on fire from the bottom to the top up by our old house, so drove up the driveway with my lights off, so it was not to bother anyone, and found that the tree was right next to the power lines, leaning toward the power lines with the bottom completely engulfed in flames and burns to such a degree that it could fall seemingly at any time.
😶
[gulp]
I didn’t want to bother zach, but I needed to let him know what I had found. He was already in bed, so I just used his hose to put out the base of the fire from the ground up to about maybe 20 feet off the ground.
I was there for probably an hour making absolute sure that every little bit of smoldering trunk was completely out before I left. I purposely didn’t try and put out the top, hoping that the top would continue to smolder all night and eventually break off and fall to the ground, which would mean that even if the rest of it fell over, it wouldn’t be tall enough to take out the power lines.
So after spending an hour putting that out, looking up and crossing my fingers that the smoldering top would continue to smolder and not burn itself out so that it would fall apart on its own, I decided I was done for the night like I had been last week, and wanted to get a shower because I was covered in dirt and ash.
It was somewhere around 11ish by that point.
So I started driving into Rogers to head to the gym to get a shower, having debated about just jumping in the creek and deciding I wanted a hot shower and light to be able to make sure I was washing off all the dirt and Ash. On the way there, I started trying to help my mom find good plane ticket prices for her trip to Utah and arizona. With my brother getting married, she needed to adjust her flights.
Between her internet loading super slowly and other issues with the website being ridiculously convoluted just to buy plane tickets, it was easier for me to drive over to her to help than the try and help over the phone, so I drove from the gym up to Pea Ridge to help my mom. By the time I got there, she basically had it all figured out, so she was able to get the tickets and be good to go.
I once again debated going back to the property to just take a bath in the creek instead of driving all the way back to Rogers to the gym, as I hadn’t taken a shower before heading over to my mom’s place because I wanted to get there before it hit midnight, which sometimes means that the deals that were there just a few minutes ago are no longer available.
I ended up deciding to go back to the gym because I wasn’t really in the mood for taking a bath in the dark, knowing that I was absolutely filthy but not being able to see myself to clean myself. 🙃
It was nice to get a shower at the gym. 😊
It’s an expensive shower, driving there and back probably costs $6 or $7… Or maybe $10. 🙃 But it was nice to get the shower.
When I got back, I did a driving circuit around the property to make sure everything was still good.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find everything was fine. One of the trees that was right on the leaf litter line that was rotten and had been smoldering earlier that I had thought I had taken care of was still smoldering, and now much higher up, and much more actively shedding coals/cinders.
Joy.
Zack was asleep, so I couldn’t get his forest fire water backpack to put it out, so I drove down to the lower field, field two empty 5 gallon gas cans with Creek water, filled some empty 2 l soda bottles with water, grabbed my ax, a shovel, and my chainsaw, and headed back up to figure out how to put the fire on the tree out before it caught the rest of the forest on fire when the winds kicked up the next day.
We were expecting sustained winds of 20 miles an hour with gusts up to 50 miles an hour the next day, so it was… important to get figured out before going to bed.
There was another tree I was also concerned about, two more, in fact, so at like 1:00 in the morning, I was out there with my electric chainsaw cutting down trees well hoping to not wake anyone up. 😅
The big one that was smoldering was far too large to cut down and be safe about it. I didn’t have much battery left available in my Milwaukee batteries, so cutting it down wasn’t going to work anyway.
So I ended up going to the tree with my ax and shaving off all of the rotten exterior that was smoldering down to the point where the rottenness was no longer smoldering. I spent probably an hour shaving and shaving and shaving the exterior of the trunk of the tree up to a height of probably 9 ft before I was able to shave off all of the smoldering rottenness.
Eventually, though, I was able to get it all off, the tree no longer smoking at all, after using the 2 l bottles full of Creek water to put out the last little bits of potential smolderiness.
Wasn’t what I was hoping to do after taking a shower, but gratefully, I didn’t get too dirty in the process.
By the time I finished, I think it was after 2:00, and I crawled into bed quite tired from a long day, and disappointingly, with far fewer than the 25,000 steps that I had taken the last time we did the forest burn. I think today it was something like 12,000?
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful that I noticed the trees that were still significantly smoldering that were of serious concern so that I can get them taken care of. Crossing my fingers that the one doesn’t fall over and take out the power lines during the night. But I got it completely out, so I’m guessing it’ll be okay.
- I’m grateful to have so much flexibility to do these kinds of things without having to be anywhere, though tomorrow is the BYU game, so I’m only going to get maybe 4 hours of sleep. 😅
- I’m grateful to have tools and resources at my disposal to do the things that I want to do.
- I’m grateful that Rover just keeps going.
- I’m grateful that all it really took was an ax to put out the fire on that tree that I was so concerned about that was right on the leaf litter line. I thought it was going to take an absolute mountain of water to get that thing put out, but it just needed patience and a lot of ax work.
Success:
- I chose to walk the forest and take responsibility for our actions of burning the forest which came with the consequences of having to watch to make sure there were no further fires starting.
Improvement:
- I found myself being frustrated with someone who was critical of all my efforts. I didn’t react with the person specifically, but I am a champion at the angry mental role plays later on. 😅 I don’t want to get angry or play those mental scenarios in my mind that serve only to exacerbate the anger.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 