Burn Baby Burn

So, I promised to tell everyone what hubby did over the weekend while I was in Arizona, you know, his "surprise" for me. Well, I guess when he woke up Saturday morning, he decided it was a good day to burn off our pastures -- hardly any wind, very temperate day. He's done controlled burns many times in his life, so he usually knows what he's doing.

This is our FRONT yard in the photo above. Yes , it is burnt, and no, it wasn't meant to be burnt. Yes, that is the front porch of the HOUSE you can see to the left. He assured me he had no intention of burning the front yard (or the house).

This is one of our pastures that was successfully burned.... and the neighboring pasture that a farmer owned had the benefit of being burned also. Those are birds all over our pasture.... whatever it is that burning does, the birds love it for the next few days. Isn't it wonderful that SOMEONE is happy?!

Ah, I never knew we had prickly pear cactus here in Kansas, and I certainly didn't know it was lurking out in our pastures! How many times have I wandered through the pastures, not knowing the pain that lurked beneath my feet??! We'll need to go through each pasture and kill, kill, kill the prickly pear cacti.

What's left of our chicken coop, which resides in the BACK yard. Yes, our back yard. No, the back yard was not meant to be burnt either. Barack, our black cat, must have been inside the coop (the cats use this as their sanctuary), because he is minus his eyelashes and whiskers. Poor baby! We have not had a chicken coop discussion yet; should we fix it, or tear it down? Not sure what's going to happen with this structure.

Just for background info, these are "healthy" round hay bales. The way round hay bales are meant to look. Big, very big. These were lucky to be beyond reach of the fire. And lucky that a burning rat didn't run into them.

To the right in this photo, you'll see some very crispy round hay bales. One might assume that a burning rat could have run into them in order to set them ablaze. Not intentionally, no, I think the rat was just trying to get away from the fire. Yes, I know, they are rather hard to see. Believe it or not, that's about 15 very large round hay bales reduced to ashes. And almost three days after the fire, one of them was still smoldering today. We're still waiting for the word from our farmer neighbor -- he didn't farm the land, his brother did. So he was going to talk to his brother and let us know if he wants restitution for the hay. On average, these suckers go for $55/round bale. Times 15. I'm hoping they remember my Good Samaritan ways from last summer, when their tractor overheated and I provided them with water. I'm not sure they will think that water was worth over $800 though.....

Hubby surveying his damage domain

In the back corner of our domain

Let's see, what else happened on Saturday? Well, during all his mad dashes around the property trying to extinguish the flames, hubby twisted his ankle but good in a hole. It looks terrible, and he's hobbling around now.

At one point he decided to call 911. He felt he had it under control, but the wind picked up and he didn't want to take any chances. So the South Haven volunteers came out with the fire truck and several pick-up trucks with water tanks and helped him get it under control. Hubby said he had most of it under control by the time they arrived.

So what do you think I had to say to him??? Believe it or not, the first thing I thought of was PHOTO OPP!! I asked him to wait next time and do something like this while I'm home, so I can get some awesome photos!