Saturday, January 31, 2015

Paying attention

It's been dry and windy here. Not bad if you like warmer weather in winter, but it's not ideal for burning. But, the forecast tomorrow calls for rain.

We live in a rural area of Alabama and we don't have recycling here. I still recycle old batteries, plastic bags, and newspapers, but cardboard is troublesome.  It would harm the environment more by driving the 30 miles to the nearest cardboard recycling center, that to burn the boxes in my back yard. Whenever there's doubt, I err on the side of the environment.

So when the wind died this evening, I headed out to make the cardboard disappear into a small smokey shaft that rose into the heavens.

I managed the tiny fire with a rake until it was a heap of orange embers winking into ash.

Leaning on the rake handle, the mumbling fire radiated warmth outward, which felt good to my gnarly knees. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of the embers. I do this all the time and I'm not sure why.

Maybe I do it to document that I was here, at this point in time, paying attention.






6 comments:


  1. I've used cardboard boxes to kill weeds along the hedge and the garden. As long as there're no sun reaching the soil, the weeds just die off and the cardboard decomposes.

    I sometimes also use 7 to 9 layers of newspaper to chock weeds by wetting the newspaper and putting some new soil on top and plant.

    I have lots of weeds on my lawn and I wish I could cover it with cardboard to chock the creeping charlie and chickweeds. I would need a mountain of cardboard.

    The picture reminds me of a blue poppy.

    Have a great week.
    JB

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  2. Rick, I would like warmer and dryer weather for the Winter... however; I love Halifax and I will have to put up with the cold Winters... ;)

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  3. Great picture...love the colors! We have cold, wind, and snow here...I would take warmer weather right about now.

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  4. I recycle most things and thankfully most of them time I can just toss the stuff into our recycle bin which gets collected once a fortnight and the bigger things get collected when we have a curbside collection which happens twice a year

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  5. I love a fire, and yes fire and wind can be BAD. I leaned that when my dad pastored a country church and I accidently set fire to 5 acres of broom straw. SCary to a 5 year old. (Also not comfortable once the fire is out!)

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  6. It is amazing the colors that you captured. I like watching a nice fire too.

    ReplyDelete

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