Leaves & Fire

A couple weeks ago Garth and I did a much needed cleaning of the yard. It’s embarrassing how many leaves were on the side of the house that I didn’t even take a before picture. But trust me. There were a ton of leaves. Five bags full to be exact. They all just congregated on the side of our house and they weren’t very noticeable so out of sight out of mind. But we finally decided to clean them up a couple weekends ago when it was so nice out it was a crime to be inside.

It’s funny because I always imagined raking leaves with Garth when I imagined owning a home. That was the picture of being a homebuyer to me I guess. But let me tell you, it was nothing like I imagined. With each stroke of the rake, bugs came out of the leaves. It was disgusting. I know I looked funny as I raked, screamed, ran away from bugs, and then continued to rake. And then repeat. Not glamorous at all. But we got it down. And it looks amazing.

Now we need a hose holder since you can now see the hose just laying haphazard on the ground. Anyways, so it was a nice day so we decided to burn our leaves in the fire pit at the bottom of our hill. We had never used it before and though it would be the perfect night to do it.

There were a ton of leaves in the pit. And they were really dry because it hadn’t rained in a while. Garth asked if he could use gasoline and I didn’t think that would be a good idea. I went upstairs to change and I heard the garage door. I called down to Garth and asked what he was doing and received a quick “nothing” as a response. I knew something was up. I came downstairs just in time to see Garth coming back up onto the deck and hiding something behind his back. I gave him “the look” and he sheepishly removed the gasoline from behind his back.

I could not believe he had used it! We went down to the pit and Garth lit the leaves and branches. I’m not even joking when I tell you that Garth almost burned his hair off. The flames reached about ten feet high and burned the grass surrounding the pit. I freaked out. Luckily, it simmered down and became a very enjoyable, long lasting fire. But it was touch and go there for a while. Don’t believe me? Here is the aftermath from the morning after:

Trust me when I say Garth learned his lesson about gasoline… Though maybe this was his plan all along to get out of edge trimming around the pit.