Such Treasures

On Saturday, we rose early to get working. Jeff was hoping to do tractor work to finish up our digging project (it is so close). He started doing that. Watching through the window, I saw him get off the tractor and stand around, looking and contemplating the situation. I opened up the window and asked, “What are you doing?” He said, “Well… I’m praising God and wondering what He wants me to do now, since I can’t do this!” The ground was just too wet. We have red clay that is dense and does not drain well. The rains of the previous week were still sogging up the ground.

I suggested that perhaps God wanted him to start burning the brush piles. The burning ban was lifted last week, at the end of fire season. The day was cool and clear. He started burning piles at 11 am. We have 30 piles, each one of them containing up to 5 tons of brush. The first pile burned just right. He started another. It burned perfectly also.

This was the 2nd pile he burned on Saturday, on the hillside above the barn (you can see it through the smoke behind the pile).

Our three treasures, hanging out by our “campfire” — which was too hot to get that close! So much for roasting anything yummy to eat (we didn’t have anything good for roasting in the house anyway)…

About dinner time, friends came over. The father of this family is a city fire fighter. He helped Jeff finish up Saturday’s burning, and they came back to help on Sunday after church, bringing their torch, which sped up the process considerably. Sunday, Jeff and he lit up 7 more brush piles, one after another. They salvaged big logs out of the piles, which we will use to line our trails. They look awesome — charred and at the beginning stages of breaking down. When Jeff got home from work last night (Monday), he burned one more pile. Some of the piles are too close to live trees, so we’ll either have to move them or leave them alone. It feels good to have accomplished so much — 1/3 of the piles burned. We have one whole area of the hillside that is clear now, without brush piles obstructing the view.

Some of the salvaged logs.


Here’s Jeff using the torch to start a fire deep in the pile.


Yesterday afternoon (Monday), all the piles from both Saturday and Sunday were still smoking from hot spots, but this pile was still in flames. What you can see on top is the root system of 3 trees that were uprooted during a winter snow storm.


Our friends brought their lab, Daisy, and their new kitty, Oreo. Haniya and Naomi fell in love. That kitty never got to scamper around and play because she was always being held. Naomi sat on one of the branches of the Big Tree with the kitty, Oreo. Poor Naomi is now suffering from an outbreak of Poison Oak. We burned some of it in the piles, accepting the risk that the poisonous oils would then be in the smoke when the piles burned. She most likely got the oil in her eyes from the smoke and it is spreading systemically now. She’s a tropper, though, and already improving. Her eyes and cheeks were swollen and itchy yesterday, but by the end of day, after repeated washings with Poison Oak Soap, the swelling and redness had gone down.

Our friends called me out to the back porch to see the surprise they’d brought me. She’d made an arrangement with gourds, pumpkins and cornstalks from their garden. I was really touched — it is such a sweet gift!

So we had a weekend full of — celebrating Mikah’s birthday; burning brush piles; exposing our beautiful hillside; and fellowship with dear friends. We are blessed!