Burning the ditch

It's that time once again.  Time to burn the grass in the ditch next to the ranch.  Instead of going for a bicycle ride this afternoon I realized it was a perfect time to burn the ditch.  Very light wind.  Warm temperatures.   And rain is predicted off-and-on this week starting Monday.

I started at the SE corner of the hayfield as I wanted to also burn the grass along my fence between the hayfield and the house to the south.  Then I would burn the ditch.  But by the time I reached the ditch, the wind was annoying.  The direction changed; and would off-and-on change.  And the wind would pick up slightly.   Years ago, when burning I had a few fires suddenly grow exponentially, and I had to really move fast to put the fire out before I would lose control.  Since then I am very careful when burning.  When I reached the ditch, the direction I would burn would change, and I didn't trust things.  So I put the fire out.

I have a rake to put the fire out.  I would also step on the fire at times to put it out.  Suddenly the back of my ankle on my right leg felt really warm.  I looked down and the back of my pants was on fire at the very bottom.  It was a clean pair of pants, but in the past I got grease on the pants leg from my bicycle chain.  I guess the grease wasn't 100% removed when washing the pants.

My "new" pants

After I put the fire out the wind quit.  Oh... I guess I could burn the ditch safely.  But I had used my last match to start the initial fire.  I went home and got more matches.   This time I decided to start burning the ditch from the north side starting at the driveway, and not from the south side.  The wind started back up lightly.  This way and that again.  But everything was fine.  And eventually I burned the ditch all the way to the south.

The wind quit by the time I got back to the driveway.  Well... I still had time left.  Might as well burn the ditch from the driveway to the north end of the property.   The very north end has tall evergreen trees with long needles.  The needles had fallen a lot and this make the burn more intense.  So I don't like wind when I burn this small section.

Everything went well and all the ditch is now burnt.   So this project is done for the year.

Since I didn't mow the grass in the fruit tree area, I let it burn a little of that grass while I burned the ditch.

The north end of the ditch.

As an aside, see the fence on the right side?  See the gap in the fence?   Earlier this week a truck driving on the road at 10 am went off the road and then over to the fence and through the fence.  The driver was able mostly avoid the tree on the other side of the fence and just rubbed it.  The driver continued turning right and went into a creek.  The property/fence owner said the driver blamed the accident on the truck's rear tires.  Hmmmm....   Once a tow truck pulled the truck out of the creek, the truck driver was able to drive back up onto the road.   Rear tires, eh?   Ya, right.