fire

Um… That’s Weird…

Tchad

After we got done clearing out the old garden and hauling tires into Kiel, WI for disposal, we took all of our scrap dry wood and tree branches and made a nice burning pile.
I stacked it so that it wouldn’t get out of hand and because it was so close to the garage and house, we had two water sources to keep it down if things got too crazy.

So we finished up this HARD day of work with three pitchers of Sangria and a big-ass fire.  You really can’t do too much better than that.

THAT would be Cyndi saluting our work after our first glass of sangria!

So we drank a second pitcher and thought it seemed like a really, really good idea to start scavenging the barn and farm for more dry lumber that wasn’t firewood she would need this winter.  We found an old door in the second storey of the barn extension.  I was hesitant, but when I saw that it had been cut down a couple of times and wasn’t restorable, in it went… along with some old rotten 2x4s and more than a couple of split pieces of real firewood that we decided to sacrifice.

It is always neat to watch structural things burn – things that have panels and edges.  The fire consumes them at the weirdest points and in some of the thinner spots they burn from the middle out.  In the case of the door, it caught fire first where the panels join the frame.
We just watched it from there…

As we watched it burn down we decided to open a third bottle of wine and make a third pitcher of fortified sangria.  This too seemed like a good idea.

We began to drink it and talked about how we may be burning some kind of a portal door.

So then the party came to an end, as these things often do, by a little kick and over pitcher #3 goes…  So sad.  We thought (briefly) about pulling out the whiskey, but then decided that would be too much and got ready for bed after digging out and muting the fire a bit.  It had started to drizzle a little and we felt safe that everything was under control.

Fast forward to the next morning and I am uploading images from the camera to the Mac.  Everything is clipping along until I get this series:

And so there you go.  We shouldn’t have burnt the ghostly monster portal door.  THAT, my friends, is what too much sangria fortified with vodka will do.

 

 

I’ve… Been Working On The Railroad…

Tchad

Pretty soon the website for Rural Pursuits will be up and running, but in the meantime, I am helping my friend’s sister around her place.

Getaway farms is a great place that Greg’s sister runs by herself.  Try managing 15 acres, 7 horses, a huge barn and a track and see how far behind you get.

One of the jobs we tackled yesterday was getting old railroad ties up and out of the ground in a corner of the yard that used to be garden and grading it back into lawn.

Hauling Railroad Ties

There were 15 of these damn things!

Here is the thing:  When you tell me there is work to be done, I turn into a Real German®.  Not the happy lederhosen wearing beer drinking German that you see at the Bierstube, but a hardcore task master that stays on task and WILL complete the job.
We were laughing together as we dug out chinese elms and maple trees.  There was a little whining halfway through, but we powered through.  At one point, she was ready to give up and go eat.  I said: “Let’s finish this and then we can eat.  Let’s power through.  We get no comfort until the work is DONE!”  To which she replied: “OK! OK!  I know what happens to us Poles when we get under the thumb of a German!”

So the day went well – we worked in really humid windless conditions, changing clothes 2x because we couldn’t stay cool or dry, but we. got. it. done.

Needless to say, I don’t normally look like this after a day of work:

After pulling railroad ties for 7 hours.

Done.