McMahon Woods & Fen Saturday December 2
The common theme on this weekend was reluctant fire-starting. Saturday was the better of the two days; a brisk wind and no active rainfall during work hours both were beneficial. Still, all the fuel, including big, downed trees that were cut and stacked into Joe's favored log piles, was damp from recent rainfall.
On a good day these big stacks would produce roaring fires. On this day we never saw the big, dancing licks of flame that we'd normally expect. Still, good effort by the volunteers got a mass of fuel loaded, and if Joe has to spend the afternoon babysitting the fires, that's what he's going to do. Count on it all being burned by day's end.
McClaughrey Springs Sunday December 3
Sunday was worse, as noted above. The wind was barely at our minimum five mph with frequent drizzle and 94% humidity. What we lacked was dry wood for kindling, and were were totally reliant on newspaper to get things going. This was epic! Every brief flicker of flame quickly faded, over and over, as we couldn't get enough of the wet fuel dried to make a sustained fire.
Four new volunteers, thank you Jason, Owen, Caleb, and Adelyn, joined us and witnessed our abysmal struggle with the fire. Embarrassing because they're all Scouts. We commandeered a "Volunteers in Action" sign to fan the fire and eventually used most of the available newspaper, all to very incremental effect.
Still, they persisted. Joy, Charlie, and Diana stayed well past scheduled quitting time and eventually managed to get everything burned.
The common theme on this weekend was reluctant fire-starting. Saturday was the better of the two days; a brisk wind and no active rainfall during work hours both were beneficial. Still, all the fuel, including big, downed trees that were cut and stacked into Joe's favored log piles, was damp from recent rainfall.
On a good day these big stacks would produce roaring fires. On this day we never saw the big, dancing licks of flame that we'd normally expect. Still, good effort by the volunteers got a mass of fuel loaded, and if Joe has to spend the afternoon babysitting the fires, that's what he's going to do. Count on it all being burned by day's end.
McClaughrey Springs Sunday December 3
Sunday was worse, as noted above. The wind was barely at our minimum five mph with frequent drizzle and 94% humidity. What we lacked was dry wood for kindling, and were were totally reliant on newspaper to get things going. This was epic! Every brief flicker of flame quickly faded, over and over, as we couldn't get enough of the wet fuel dried to make a sustained fire.
Four new volunteers, thank you Jason, Owen, Caleb, and Adelyn, joined us and witnessed our abysmal struggle with the fire. Embarrassing because they're all Scouts. We commandeered a "Volunteers in Action" sign to fan the fire and eventually used most of the available newspaper, all to very incremental effect.
Still, they persisted. Joy, Charlie, and Diana stayed well past scheduled quitting time and eventually managed to get everything burned.
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