Remember that nice bon fire I had going all day Wednesday? Well the next day this was what I found- tons of ashes! I gathered my buckets and shovel to collect all that goodness with relish.
By the way, this is a story of what NOT to do.
First of all, I was a bad bad girl and let the fire die on its own accord. It was just some coals when I went to bed and the next day and with all the dampness in mind I felt that nothing could go wrong. I should have smothered it with a bucket of water, but I didn't.
As I approached the ash pile I remember thinking, 'Mmm nice and warm', as in there was still heat radiating from the former throne of fire. As I began shoveling the ash in the buckets I exposed some of the inner core which began to blaze on its own. It was pretty neat actually thinking that this fire had been 'dead' for almost 24 hours by now. It made me reflect on how our ancient ancestors may have kept coals going non stop in order to have fires in the evening without starting from scratch (imagine no matches!). I didn't even try and the fire started *snaps fingers* like that!
While I was busy meditating on these deep thoughts something caught my attention... mainly that the buckets that I had just scooped ashes into were starting to ... bubble? Have I mentioned yet that I put the ashes in plastic buckets?
Ahhh!
I kicked them over to quickly dump out the contents, but even a few small charcoals in one bucket completely melted out the bottom... then... then caught it on fire!! The whole blazing plastic five gallon bucket may seem a bit scary, and if I didn't have photographic proof anyone might think I was making this up, but none the less it was quickly put out by a blunt kick. I felt pretty idiotic after the whole ordeal. It was my own fault. How could the heat from the pile not be an indicator that things were still too hot to be handling? Why didn't I douse the coals the night before like I usually do? Lesson learned. Snow wasn't the only thing melting on this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment