Burning Dirt

New meaning to "dead wood"

It looked like dirt.  As I gather up fuel for the fire--wood that had been cut at least ten years ago--it suddenly struck me. This decomposing wood was now closer to being soil than it was to the tree it had once been. But will dirt burn in the fireplace?

Over the holidays relatives came for a visit.  Memorable, remarkable, wonderful times in the making.  And I wanted to use the fireplace, have a cozy fire or a roaring blaze for a good part of that time.  Our weather has been brisk and often raw over the last couple of  weeks.  A fire seemed like a sensible as well as sensuous solution.  And the practical part of me wanted to clean up a nuisance ten-year-old wood pile that was past its prime, was collecting bugs and had started to rot.

I asked my husband to "chop" the chunks that were too big.  The resulting "wood" pile looked more like rubble from an earthquake and dirt.  That was what was available, so that is what we would use.  Experimenting with fire and "dead" wood blazed through the Things I get to do today, as I tended the hearth all day.

We sat by it, snuggled up to it, gazed into it and enjoyed it.  The coaxing and inviting warmth drew us in, closer to it and closer to each other.  Truly, under the right conditions, dirt wood burns.

Tree ghosts ignited together, warming our family gathering