Clearing the Land: Day Two

When I came out to check on progress in the afternoon, Paul had already started burning the piles, which is a great time to do it, since the dozer is still there to push the wood into the fire. If you try and do this after the dozer leaves, you end up burning a little here and there forever, until, in desperation, you call in another dozer driver to sit there and push the pile together as it burns. Doing it right away while you still have the machinery handy is much cheaper. 

The boss came out with me to make sure we were doing it right. She won’t admit it, but I think Connie secretly loves the smell of dirt and diesel and can’t wait to start digging in the mud. We’ll keep that our little secret.

I love fire. Always have. There’s something about watching and hearing a voracious fire monster devour a heaping pile of tangled brush to make me feel all good inside. (But that’s another therapy session.)

With just the right amount of diesel fuel (NEVER USE GAS), Paul created a hot spot and then just kept pushing the pile together until it caught in earnest.

Oh, and the dozer caught on fire today. Apparently it’s no big deal. Happens all the time. Paul carries around three for four fire extinguishers for just such occasions. But I’m guessing this was more than the run-of-the-mill dozer fire since he steered the beast over to the pond and drove its nose into the deep—just enough to douse the flames. Then all was fine. Oh, the glamour of heavy equipment operator.

I mentioned using gas to Paul (trying to sound all manly and stuff), but he made it very clear that you should never use gas. Well, yes, I knew that. Apparently, gas fumes spread incredibly fast and far and so you can be pouring gas in one part of the pile and lighting a match in another and BOOM! Let’s just all be grown-ups about this and use diesel, not gas. [James, if you’re reading this, we never used gas on any of our brush fires. Right? That’s right, we never did.]

Here is some great fire footage (excuse the noise of the dozer in the background):

And then we came back for more in the evening when things really started crackin’.

Nothing quite like sitting on the tail gate on an early Spring evening watching the fire and listening to the tree frogs. Pretty special stuff. 

One more shot of the burn pile and then I’ve got to go to bed. Enough excitement for one day. Tomorrow (if it doesn’t rain, which is predicted), we should be done with the big dozer work, cleaning up the edges and ready to bring in some rock for the mud hole that will become the driveway. OK. One more night fire video clip: