The day the lawn was on fire
April 23, 2007 7 Comments
Ok, I have been taken to task for not elaborating in more detail my off-handed remark about the lawn being on fire yesterday.
Details, details.
So, it finally stopped raining here, and we walked two doors down to the firehouse Saturday to get a burn permit. The permit allows us to have an open fire between the hours of 10am-4pm up til May 1. You have to call the fire dept on any day you are burning (I don’t get why – I could just shout down to them “HEY! WE’RE HAVING A FIRE!”
So we burned on Saturday, gathering up yard debris and torching it. At 4:05pm, we’re dousing it as a firefighter wandered over to make sure. The joys of living near the firehouse.
Sunday, we called and burned again. Did you know an old Christmas tree burns like it’s filled with turpentine? Oh wait, I guess it is! 
We put the fire out (or so we thought) on the dot of four, and at 6pm, we left to go to the grocery store. We returned at seven, and as I put the grocery bags on the kitchen counter, I noticed the fire, which was supposed to be OUT, was burning merrily again. Open flames. Jeez louise.
Meanwhile, the girl heard us come in, and is doing her very best to get my attention in the way that is guaranteed to raise my hackles – yelling from upstairs: “Ma! …. Ma! …. MA!” She comes downstairs with her cell phone in hand, yelling “MAAA!!!” At that point, I respond in the only way I can… I screech “WHAAAAAAAAAAT!!”
“Ian wants to talk to you.”
“I can’t talk to him right now. The lawn is on fire. See? Open flames. Danger, Will Robinson.”
I go out and douse the fire. Again. I spray hundreds of gallons of water on the stubborn fire. I think it’s out.
An hour later, there are flames again.
It was a magic fire, apparently.
What kind of flames were they?
Remember this trick next Chanukah!
Thanks for the explanation. Over the years, I thought we’d had every lawn problem imaginable, so I was curious how a lawn could simply catch fire (the closest we’d ever gotten to that having been that summer a few years back when the local J.D.’s decided it would be fun to try to set the woods out behind our house on fire – a task they undertook with remarkable tenacity, trying it repeatedly until the local constabulary took them aside and suggested why they might want to stop doing that).
Update: There are no open flames today.
OK, Kelly. I’m convinced. You are about to have your RSS feed added to my Bloglines.
Wow, Stephen, thanks!
Oh God, the pressure….
What? No photos?
OPEN FLAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!