Eighty Years (or so) To The Big Zero

I started the land cleanup a little later than expected yesterday.

And after one day of clearing and burning it now looks like this.

Just goes to show you what can be done with a little elbow grease, sweat and off-road diesel. 8^)

Oh yeah, and while I was out there and the fire was just starting to make me become very nervous and I was debating how long it woul take for the Fire Department to arrive a big yellow elephant came by and helped out. But not too much. Just an hour or so. Really I could have done it all on my own but he seemed so eager to help out I just let him.

See all those roots and stumps in the pile?Those are the massive pine tree stumps that have been in the ground for over a year. (See first image in this post.) I kid you not, the big digger nearly tipped over trying to pull one of the largest stumps out of the ground. He had to dig all around the stump and snap the root systems. When he finally pulled it up the root stem was at least six feet long. It was nearly as big around as the stump itself. You can’t see it but it’s inside the core of that fire.

Here’s what the fire sounded like twenty minutes after they left.
Flash movie of Stump Fire

This Land