Fire

The recent storms that rumbled through left a bunch of pines blown down around my yard. The weather has not been hospitable the last few weekends so I let them lie.
This weekend, the weather was beautiful with the no clouds in the sky and the warm sun overhead. I decided yesterday morning to fire up the old chainsaw and cut up mountains of sawed up trees, limbs and straw. I had three piles that were taller than my truck.
This morning I went to the tool shed and pulled out all the cardboard we'd been collecting for months. We could not burn because of the drought so we stored the paper, dog food bags and cardboard boxes until the rain came.
I started the fire early this morning and it burned all day long. Tending a fire is serious business, especially when the wind is blowing. I kept a hose nearby and did a controlled burn. The fire did not burn as fast, but it seems to have burned more completely. I spent the morning keeping all the ends raked into a pile.
I sat in the warm sunshine for a long while meditating as I watched the fire. My mind has a tendency to race but today I got lost in the flame and the warmth of the fire and all I thought about was crackling pine. Taylor the Blunder Dog wandered up and I scratched her ears. It felt good to be alive.