I have always had this love hate thing going with fire. When I was an early teen we used to burn our papers outside which was very normal for country living way back then (ahem). One day it got away from me and I had to run over to the mill to get Dave to help me out. My father’s business partner Dave was a fireman so I was sure he would know what to do. I spent the next hour with a shovel digging a fire break. Never again!
In the spring of my sophomore year in high school there was a bad fire in our house. All of my electronics I got for Christmas where melted flat (including my AM/FM cassette player, hot item back then). The entire house had to be gutted and renovated. If not for the fact that Dave was over at the mill that day, the entire house probably would have been lost.
There was another fire in the steam jenny building over at the mill. We used the steam jenny to wash dirt off the logs to prevent the saw teeth from getting dull. There was a heat lamp in there that apparently set the small shed on fire and it went up in a blaze of glory with us standing by to make sure the mill did not catch on fire.
With all this bad history with fire you can imagine I never found much enjoyment with it; until now.
It started this past summer with camping when I discovered how much fun it is to cook on an open fire. It is almost romantic thing to me kind of like an old western sleeping under the stars and heating water on the fire for coffee in the morning.
I wanted to go camping this past weekend but the cooler/iffy weather and dancing commitments would have made that pretty tough. So what is the next best thing? Well, how about a little bit of camping at home!
Friday afternoon found me looking up my old buddy Grant who owns a gravel bed nearby. A little chat about old times, a shake of the hands and I found myself all set to come back later and pick up some stones for making a fire pit.
A buddy of mine came over to lend a hand (the master fire pit builder I must say) and about an hour later my fire pit was born. I cooked on it last night and it worked better than expected, far exceeding my expectation. I can now do a little camping at home. Just in time for the cooler weather.
