For the Burn Pile
Dead ash trees and hops of love
Where I’m at with my outdoor life right now is I really want to burn the second burn pile down.
The first burn pile went up spectacularly. Hold on one sec & I’ll get pics for you…
Oh yes.
That tells the story, or part of it anyway. The pile of brush in the middle of a meadow at the edge of the forest, with my precious wattle in the background, nearby.
What is the stuff that’s burning, you may wonder. Excellent question. That’s a combination of scrap wood left over from a dead ash tree my neighbor cut down for me, plus some dead vines that had been growing up into that dead tree and other scrub and brush.
That’s a lot. Let’s break it down! The dead ash tree, for example. There are so many of them. Emerald ash borers are a kind of beetle that theory has it came to North America from Asia in packing material a couple of decades ago and promptly began decimating North American ash trees. Asian ash trees can defend themselves against emerald ash borers, but North American ash trees don’t know what’s happening until they’re dead.
It is a sad, sad thing. Tens of millions of ash trees dead and the emerald ash borers won’t stop ‘til they devour a billion. I have had some interactions with foresters, living as I do in the middle of a forest, and I can tell you how foresters feel about the devastation of ash trees in North America.
Sad.
But it’s not like they just curl up in bed and refuse to get up and go about their business. Nope. Foresters have lots of other trees to take care of and this they do with knowledge and care.
This is sort of what I was doing the day my neighbor stopped by and ended up chainsawing the dead ash tree. I was preparing to plant hops to grow up the dead vines hanging down from the dead tree. I had a combination of thought and feeling about this, which felt very strong and true. It went like this: “Life in death.”
You might wonder, “Why hops?”
My fondness for hops comes from something Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
I love that quote so much, I had already planted two thriving hop gardens. I am iffy on the Existence of God but very strong on happiness. I am a strong believer in people being happy, especially people whose circumstances offer the raw materials of happiness, the way scrap wood and dry meadow debris make for a fully engulfed bonfire.
I certainly feel that I am one of those people with the great good fortune to feel happy if I want to, and that I have a responsibility to indeed Be Happy, for the most part, not all the time because who can be happy all the time, that would be monotonous. But most of the time as in 90 percent or more. Anything less feels like ingratitude.
So hops represent happiness. Back when I was an English teacher I took pride in never explaining symbols to my students, but now that I’m a retired Engish teacher I feel like I can do whatever I want. So there I was planting hops to grow up into the dead vines hanging down from the dead ash tree, when my neighbor stopped by and asked what I was doing.
I ran all of this by him. He nodded, heard me out, and finally said, “I wouldn’t do that.”
At first I thought, “Who is this guy to tell me what to do?”
But then I thought, “Why not try it his way?” I had already planted hops in two other locations. So we did it his way, with him doing most of the work with his chainsaw, tractor and brush hog. My job was to gather burdock and pile it on the burn pile.
Burdock is an amazing plant with leaves the size of elephant ears. It grows a big stalk and produces burrs that stick on your clothes and will not let go. I admire burdock but not enough to let it take over the entire meadow.
That first burn pile went up in beautiful, mesmerizing, all-destroying flames. I did not set fire to the forest or my house. Everything went the way it was supposed to. I got a permit from the town clerk, I sprayed what my neighbor calls “liquid boy scout” and you and I call charcoal starter on the pile, it went whoosh when I lit a match and I watched it responsibly for hours, with buckets of water and a long hose nearby.
Watching that first pile burn down for hours gave me plenty of time to contemplate things burning down, the end of things, the last lingering embers refusal to die out, and so forth. I felt proud and accomplished about burning down that first pile because I really did fear I was going to do damage, but nope.
This second pile, however, is a different story. The second pile did not burn. I doused it with lighter fluid and it basically said hah. I have a new plan and high hopes for burning down the second pile, and telling you about it in another letter soon.
Love,
Mark
Burn, baby. Burn.