After a bowl of oatmeal laced with cinnamon, honey, blueberries and a peach I donned the clothes I wear for burning which is long britches and an old shirt. I loaded up the golf cart which a bucket of litter knot(old fossilized pine that burns like kerosene), shovel, ax, chain saw and headed for the backwoods yard. I had decided to try and burn out two of the stumps since blowing them out with explosives didn't work, plus by burning them out I wouldn't have to contend with the stump themselves. They would just become ashes and I could then fill in the hole with dirt and sow grass seed.
Well what I thought would be the easiest ones to burn took most of the day and nearly all four piles of debris as well as several loads of heavy wood to keep the stumps burning; but I succeeded and managed to cover one of the holes up with dirt. That is a hot job with lots of smoke in the eyes and heat on the face. Eventually I donned my rather large straw hat which helped to shield the face when working in close next to the fire. Finally I got a great fire with lots of hot coals which over about 8 hours burned up the stumps. The next two stumps are going to require some extra digging to get some air movements under the stumps so the fire can get into the wood and cause some draft plus a lot more wood as these two are almost twice the size as the last two, oh well I will work on them one at a time as one is at the top of the yard and the other is down the hill.
Nancy made some great chocolate chip cookies for a mid afternoon snack and while I usually pass on sweets I needed some for a pick me up. Our "mountain mom" Helen came over for some as well and then Nancy took a plate of them down to Gerald and Gabe. Wow did they ever taste good for change. I worked out in the backwoods yard until we got a nice lite rain shower for about an hour. It was great to sit on the back porch in a rocker and smell the earth after a rain shower. The gardens and flower beds loved this event. I did transplant some okra just before the shower that needed thinning out.
I grilled a couple bone-in pork chops slathered in rosemary for supper and along with the last two ears of sweet corn and sautéed zucchini and yellow squash we ate mighty fine. I picked the bones clean. After the cleanup we wondered around in the yards and gardens before we decided to take the hike to the top of the mountain. It had cooled down after the rain into the high 60's and was just perfect for a good hike just before the sun set. We visited with the Browning's and Dean Todd was there as well giving us the update on Norman's condition. He isn't in good shape but is hanging on despite his severe medical conditions.
Well Joe gave me a spool of yellow plastic tape which says "do not enter" so we strung that around the yard in hopes it will distract the deer from entering the yard and eating our veggies and flowers. We will see. The yards look like a crime scene with this yellow tape. We will take it down during the day and replace it during the evening hours. Hopefully this will work but the deer have been very naughty this year eating most of Nancy's cone flowers buds before they bloom, oh well. It wasn't long after O'Reilly and Megyn's show on the Fox News channel that I headed for the shower and then some horizontal lab, LATER Here are a few pics of the stump burning and the variety of flowers the deer haven't eaten yet.
