Global Warming

After breakfast on Good Friday, the power was still down. Mild weather conditions, windless and still. Probably a good opportunity to burn some of the backlog of brushwood. Besides the pine cuttings from the past couple months, there are still heaps of dry cuttings from the 2012 fruit tree prunings and some even older scrap which was inherited from the previous owner.

Last spring Clayton and Tyler burned a considerable amount, but there still remains about half a dozen pyramids of dead branches and various thicknesses of tree members, just behind the fence on Goat Hill.

Clayton and Tyler started gathering the required equipment. A custom-made 200 litre steel drum furnace, dry kindling, matches and the health and safety stuff, such as couple of buckets of water.

(Above): Tyler surveying the progress of wood cutting. A number of huge piles remain.

(Above): Michael the G-Man Jackson, in the shade of the fence, keeps a watchful eye on the labourers to ensure that there is no slacking. It turns out that he goes mad for bread crusts! 

(Above): Beebs found a cosy spot in the sun to chew the cud while the humans started the fire and cutting the branches into appropriate lengths.

(Above): A pall of dense white smoke starts rising and floating slowly across the valley. Nothing huge, understand, in the greater scheme of fires, but we are rather conscious/ cognoscent of the environmental issues and aware that we should do unto the neighbours as we would have the neighbours do to us – so we were rather careful in controlling our contribution to global warming.

(Above): A close-up reveals the cause of the smoke – the three bags of chestnut husks burning like an inferno of little hedgehogs.

(Above): G-Man Beebs stands proudly on the newly-exposed grass where pyramid No.2 used to be. A fresh supply of hay in this brand-new dining-room for the next few days, yum. Does this pose make my bum look big? he seems to be asking nonchalantly.