Burn Baby Burn

When we started the shop last year we had a row of willows taken out as well as some other ditch trees and all was placed in a large pile. Art's intention has always been to burn it but I was hesitant as I was a bit nervous of the possibly burning down the barn. Art told me last night that he wanted to burn the pile this week before they planted corn/beans in the adjacent field (apparently the heat from the fire could cook the seeds in the ground. Or at least burn the plants down.) and I told him to be sure and take pictures if I wasn't home. He called me this morning to say he was burning the pile. I asked him, "Are you taking pictures?" and he replied "No because we don't have any batteries for the camera!". We have an older digital camera that has become Art's 'shop' camera. We hate it because it takes AA batteries and is constantly going dead. We got a new camera for Christmas, one that has a lithium battery- why he didn't just use that one, I'll never know. He said the flame was quite impressive (he did have to go over to the adjacent field with a five gallon bucket of water and put a few small flames out) and it was quite hot.

Unfortunately, all I got was a picture of smolding pile. So here is the before picture:

And here is the after:

It's been raining all afternoon and I hear it will continue to rain through tomorrow, so my fears of our personal property catching on fire have abated.