Saturday was a most magical day, full of community, plants, good food, demonstrations, sharing and learning. So many people came out, we estimated over 100! I however did not have a chance to stop and take one single picture all day. Lucky for me two of my friends are professional photogs and they volunteered to come out and capture the event on film er photos. As soon as they get them to me I will be posting the event but already we have decided that opening our homestead to the benefit of others is a good thing and are planning to do it again next year.
The day before, Friday, was spent getting things ready. Signs needed to be made, grass needed to be cut, tents put up and baked goods made. We also had a huge pile of wood that needed to be burned and would be a hazard to have with the farm open to the public. The days before had been much too windy to light a fire but this day seemed calm and the first day that was not too cold to work outside all day. Since we would be outside to keep an eye on the fire, we lit the match. Everything began to burn down and after a few minutes of admiration for the flames, we got back to other outside chores. All of sudden, the winds changed direction and began to blow hard. With the absence of rain around here the grass is pretty dry and also brown from winter freezes. Before we knew what happened, a large area of grass was on fire.
The burn pit is quite a ways from the house though in the picture it seems much closer than it really is. The big boys jumped into action with Eddie running for the hose which was hopelessly tangled and Nick grabbing a pail and scooping up water from the fish pond running back and forth to the fire putting it out as we all cheered and screamed. In the 6 years we have been carefully lighting fires here, this is the first time we have had to spring into action against the flames.
The grass is pretty charred but will grow back and we will always remember our small fight against, the earth, wind and fire.
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