Burning the yard

Monday was cloudy and wet.  Tuesday was another dry sunny day.  I burnt more grass.

I finished burning the NE pasture and the ditch that is along this pasture.  My neighbor north of this pasture hadn't mowed his yard all the way next to my fence.  Snowberry bushes had grown in this strip of tall grass that is about a yard wide.  He was outside Tuesday and I talked him into burning half of his tall grass strip.  He has an old camper near to the grass strip on the west side and a topper and odds and ends of stuff on the east side so we didn't burn those sections.   We also burned the ditch along the corner of his property that abuts mine.

The breeze was variable.  A light breeze then a strong breeze then back to light.  Over and over.   The wind speed at times made me nervous, especially with tall grass.  But we had a garden hose out and there really wasn't anywhere the fire could go beyond where we wanted it to burn.  Still I started the burning at the back side of the grass so the fire had to burn into the wind.  Once I felt comfortable at how the fire acted I switched to dragging the starter fire on the upside of the grass so the fire would burn into the grass.  It was a much faster way to burn.

On the very NE corner of the NE pasture are a half dozen very tall long needle pine trees.  Underneath the trees were lots of dead pine needles which burn hot.  I hadn't burned this area for a couple years now so the needles were thick.  But everything burned fine and the fire didn't get crazy.

After I finished the NE pasture and ditch I was at the front yard and for kicks I put some burning grass on the yard.  I hadn't mowed the yard a final time last Fall so the grass was not short.  As the Spring has been cool the green grass has not started growing much and therefore the yard burned well.

Why mow when you can burn?

Tammy was working on her schoolwork and didn't want to come out and help me burn so I had to burn slow and careful.

After burning along the fence between the yard and hayfield,

and a little in the hayfield,

I moved back to the north pasture.  By now it was late afternoon / early evening and the wind was dieing down.  Even though I have the river as a boundary I wanted burn a fire break on the west side to eliminate any chance of the fire escaping into the very NW corner of the property and onto my neighbor's property along the river where he has tall dry grass.

Before the wind died and the temperature cooled I was able to burn a fire break along much of the west side.  This will make it easier to safely burn another day when a decent breeze is blowing.  I just have to get past the forecast which has rain each day for the next week.