Blast furnace

Today was warm, about +15 with a 40 kmph wind howling, so we decided to burn the brush pile across the lane from our house; the accumulation of tree removal, pruning and what have you. We piled cardboard from our care boxes against the windward side of the pile, soaked everything with three litres of kerosine and threw a match. Did it burn!!! Like a blast furnace.

Tanya had a garden fork she was using to keep the pile together so it would all burn. The fire was so hot she burned her face red. Went in the house and rubbed lotion or something on it . By night the redness had died down but it scared us. She finally let me use the fork and it was fast work to move the branches onto the flaming coals and get out before my pant legs caught fire.

Tonight there was nothing left but a few grey ashes.

The brush pile in the back garden was still too green to burn, even with wind and kerosine so we'll leave it for fall. We started digging the edge of the garden close to the vacant lot and picking quack grass roots so they would not creep farther into the garden. Now I know why everyone uses a fork instead of a spade to dig their gardens here. The spade just chops up quackgrass roots and makes many more baby quackgrasses. I want a litre of Roundup!

We collected Masha after Kindergarten at 4:00 pm and she spent the rest of the evening playing with Maxim who was visiting his Baba Lucia next door. The kids went over to Lucia's to play and Maxim was not going to let us take Masha home at 8:00. He was going to keep her.

It started raining on the way home. Tomorrow I continue my task of doing nothing.