Bruce's Journal

[greybeard]

10mph is a pretty good wind but manageable if humidity is high.
If you have snow on the ground or the nasty slop that follows a snow melt, you should be fine.
How long? Depends the wood type, moisture in the wood and density.
Dense damp wood will mostly slowly ember itself to death after the initial flames die down. I've had piles slowly smolder for weeks..even after heavy rains fell on the embered logs and heavy branches. . I just kept re-piling the remains till it all burned up.

 

[Bruce]

if ya watch the pine cones they will burn different colors, too....

That will be cool. Probably won't show up well in pictures I suppose.

 

[Latestarter]

10 mph isn't too bad since everything around it will be white &/or wet. Monday should be fine and I typically don't start my fires till late afternoon or supper time. After dark, it's a lot easier to see if embers have blown/spread or the fire is escaping its area. I use a short tine garden rake as I can flip it to the flat side to push or use the tines to pull. My huge piles were down to a coal and large log bed in a couple of hours. The coals continued to finish burning for a couple of days. If you start it at 1pm, it should be down to a bed of coals before nightfall unless it's very wet/damp/rotten wood which smolders and takes longer to consume. If the latter IS the case, then you should have no fears about leaving it to smolder overnight. Once down to smoldering coals, the danger of it spreading is nil.

 

[Bruce]

Saw your post Monday after I did the burn. I bet the garden rake would have worked better for moving wood in the pile than the shovel.

Weed burner to start the fire and the liquid paraffin soaked partial TP roll with paper towel wick. It is in the small dark area to the left of the propane tank in the first picture.


Conflagration! I used the flame thrower on the TP roll and to the right. Couldn't get it to light on the left ??


After 1 hour, almost done! Only not! The last picture is after almost 3 hours. That had burned (smoldered?) to pretty much nothing by the time I got back from the dentist and grocery store at 2.


Comments:

• One gets even greater respect for firefighters when realizing you can't get 6' from this pretty small fire at the beginning when it was really flaming. I can't imagine the heat coming off a structure fire.
• The pit is 10'-12' in diameter on the inside. Too big to easily reach the stuff you want to move around to get it all burned. I had to keep moving partially burned stuff from right to left (relative to the first picture).

 

[Bruce]

Wildlife seen while burning - Crows overhead


No so wild - Alpacas. Teddy had a "snow bath", much had fallen off by the time I got the camera out. Laddie is NOT wearing a blue coat, that is smoke blowing in front of the camera.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

That smoke gives Laddie an interesting look!

Congratulations on accomplishing your burn!

 

[CntryBoy777]

Alright!!....knew ya could do it.....
The remnants can be piled up and burned with the next pile. They do put off some heat and on a hot summer day ya sure don't stand very close for very long a time. That is funny that the smoke did that.....

 

[greybeard]

I usually use a pitchfork or a long handled manure fork to sift thru and get the unburned stuff out of smaller piles.
On the big piles I had, I just put the tractor in a higher gear, ran thru the piles with my landscape rake behind and drug all the chunks out where it was cool damp grass and re-piled them and started again. (praying the whole time the tractor didn't die in the middle of the hot coals and every once in a while, drove thru some mud or standing water to cool the tires off)
ain't skeered...

 

[Latestarter]

 

[Bruce]

Haven't had much to write about, been posting little things in other's journals. But today I have 6 new chicks, picked up from the PO just after 7 AM. Rebecca was plenty happy to send them out the window since, as expected, they were peeping loudly. As she said, people think it is so cute. It is, but not for long. Got them home and in their bedroom brooder in about 15 minutes. Yep that is about as much peeping as I need too. Poor DW has to listen to that quite a bit this time of year.

Their temporary home (at least until tomorrow)


3 of them found the MHP cave before I even showed it to them. All inside, all quiet. Heat lamp users go get your ear plugs.


They came out 1/2 hour later to eat and drink. The second picture shows all 4 breeds. Lower left clockwise: Barred Rock, Welsummer (replacement for Betty 2017 chick who died 2 weeks ago), Golden Campine, Barnevelder (replacement for Trouble the accidental cockerel from last year).


Anais went broody last week, I moved her to the brooder area in the coop Sunday night at 0 dark 30. When I tried moving her last year she kept going back to the nest box. 24" off the ground in a box not big enough for food or water isn't a good place to raise chicks. She ended up in the broody buster and the chicks were "raised" with their MHP cave.

This time I put a cover over the brooder area so she is "in jail". She was up and around Monday morning whereas in the nest box she was glued to her plastic egg. I gave her some food and water which she made use of. Again something she wouldn't do in the nest box. But she screamed at me when I tried to give her scratch that evening. She didn't even look at the BOSS this morning so MAYBE she is going to be broody enough to stuff chicks under tomorrow night. If not, it is back to the buster for her and the MHP cave will move to the brooder area in the coop.

I HOPE she will stick it out, hen raised chicks learn so much from mama and she was Zorra's "helper" with the 2015 chicks. She even stuck with them a couple of weeks after Zorra kicked them to the curb so I know she has an interest.