The Christensen Family: My First Time Burning Weeds

We've been fighting the weeds in our "yard" for awhile. We spend over $100.00 on weed killers and I personally would take a shovel to clear them away, but there were too many of them and too few of me. My neighbor felt bad for me because she could see how much I hated them. After the weeds in our front yard died off, I told the neighbor boys to ride their 4-wheeler all they wanted over the dead brush- they took that one step further and tied a metal grate to the back of the 4 wheeler and dragged my front yard until it was clear. Bless them.

The backyard was another story. The weeds drank that weed-poisen like it was kool-aid and settled in deeper. We lost that battle when we left for a few weeks in the summer. Other than the small path I had cleared to and around our little garden, all you could see was weeds (and who knows what the heck could be hiding in brush that thick? I wasn't going to be the one to find out!).

Then came Fall. That's right, the fall of the weed-empire. Their thick green stems turned crispy brown and I took courage. One coolish day in November, I took my rake and shovel and headed for the back yard. The weeds pulled out of the ground easily. So, I began to make piles of dead weeds, with the intention of putting the pile into my garbage can. The neighbor boys saw I was up to something, and came over to whack at some weeds too. Well, the pile grew until it was in no way manageable and I was stuck. I semi-hoped the wind would blow like crazy at night and take the weeds into the empty lots next to us. No such luck. And I was tired.

Then my neighbor tells me that we should burn our weeds (my gigantor piles and her measly sprigs). Of course I loved the idea. I called the county and they told me I'd have to get approval to burn from the fire marshall. I called the fire marshall and he was out of town for a week. I told my neighbor the bad news. The next day I hear Amara say, "There's a fire out there." I look and there's my neighbor burning weeds. I grabbed my rake and ran to help her. She told me that her coworkers said that it's okay to burn and they just did it a few days ago without permission. I figured that's good enough for me, and I began adding weeds to her pile. Soon we were in the weed burning business. We burned from 1-4, then Steve got home and we finished the fires from 4-5:30. That fire consumed those weeds so fast! I had a great time watching those manacing-money-eaters burn!