Burning

Last Tuesday I burnt my ditches and along some of my fence lines. The weather was good with sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s F. I hadn't burned the ditches for a few years now and the dead material begins to accumulate. Come August with the typical dry conditions I worry about someone tossing a cigarette butt out their car window as they drive along the road.

I called the air quality hotline and it was ok for burning on Tuesday and Wednesday. They were encouraging people to wait until Wednesday for burning as it was suppose to be a little breezy Tuesday afternoon. I am glad I didn't wait until Wednesday as that day was seriously windy - too windy for safe burning.

I burnt along my hayfield fences, half of the west side and all of the north side. The east side was taken care of when I burned the ditch. I didn't burn the south side as my neighbor had tall dry grass on his side both on his lawn and in his pasture. Even though the wind was mostly favorable for me, the wind also can be variable and I didn't want to chance the fire escaping into his property.

Of the ditches I first burnt the ditch north of the driveway. In the very corner of the property is a pine tree with long needles and lots of pine cones. It doesn't take much for these dry needles to burn and when they do, they burn very hot.

The wind was light but it tended to want to push the fire into the pasture so I severely controlled the size of the fire and first burned along the fence as a firebreak and then burned the ditch. In addition to the breeze vehicles passing by would whip the breeze up adding to the unpredictability of the wind direction and strength.

But I had no problems with the fire. After burning this ditch, and as I was walking to the south ditch, a sheriff's SUV drove by. He didn't stop. I later heard on the news that a number of volunteer fire departments around the valley were busy by the yahoos who let their fire get too big and get away.

The south ditch had no pine needles and it was easier to burn. Still I burned in a manner where the fire had to burn into the breeze. It takes longer to burn but is easier to control.

I also let the fire burn my front yard. Eliminated the need to get the lawn mower out. Between the cattle and burning I seem to seldom mow my yard.


Here is an example of where I burnt along the fence lines. The second photo is an example of where the old dry posts caught fire and smoldered. I had a pail of water and after burning I walked along the fence and put out the posts that smoldered. Yesterday I noticed where I had missed one of these posts as all that is left of the post is about a foot and a half where it is attached to the top two strands of my barb wire fence.