You can’t start a fire on wet wood

Rest now to prepare for 2025

Marshmallows roasting on the bonfire. You read that right. Photo by Sarah Ross.

Dear Reader - I don’t want your money, just your time. (Just kidding! I’ll always take your money!) Seriously though, please take a minute to share Postcards on your social or by email. Sharing is caring, after all! Have a safe and restful holiday season. We’ll see you in the New Year. Thank you again for reading.

A solstice bonfire has burned for more than a year at Draco Hill, in my mind at least. It was going to be SO big that I’d need my firefighter neighbor’s advice, notify the sheriff just in case and mow around it to protect the surrounding prairie.

People’s faces would glow in the light of 20-foot flames as they stared up in awe at the flames against the black sky. They would be humbled and thankful that the days would now get shorter. A large crowd would pass around beer and marshmallows. Maybe someone would start up a song. We’d make memories.

It would be something out of Hallmark, if Hallmark did pagan.

It would be positively unreal. And that’s exactly how it turned out.

I learned early that activism is a combination of hard work and good timing. We build community and cause, inviting people to engage in what seems like drudgery – distributing leaflets, donating money, hosting meetings, calling legislators, marching in rallies.

We are building our bonfire so that when the time is right and the spark strikes – a George Floyd, Occupy or Me Too – our years of stacking the sticks and dragging brush can fuel that fire.

And maybe we’d light the place up and see real change.

Pyromania

I wasn’t always this way about fire. My education in land management began 15 years ago.

Sometimes, the advice was safe and sensical.

“Plant prairie on hills and the roots will hold soil.”

Other times it was shocking and radical.

“This place could use a good fire.”

“FIRE? Are you nuts?”

Our former pasture was chock full of brambles, garlic mustard, honey locust and box elder trees, the criminal element of the ecological world. Paul and I had learned, to that point, that mowing and poison would curtail their spread.

Fire could do that so much faster, the Nature Conservancy staffer said.

Eventually I learned more about Native American use of fire in farming, about buffalo trampling the ground, about natural succession and about timber stands a guy could drive a horse and wagon through.

If we want to maintain a robust, diverse ecology, we can’t just plant the prairie or stack the wood. We have to set fires too.

Planning

I checked the weather obsessively the week of the solstice. Snow and rain fell. Fog set in. We had more water on the ground and in the air than we’ve had for months. Perfect. The fire would burn the wood but not the grass. (In hindsight, why would anyone think this?)

I pushed the pile together with my tractor, filled the drip torch with a gas and diesel mix and filled two backpack sprayers with water (once they thawed out). I did ask my neighbor for advice and notify the sheriff. Then I grabbed a pack of matches.

A half hour before people were to arrive, I lit the drip torch and set fire in a line to create a black buffer zone around the bonfire. Drip fire, walk, drip fire, walk, drip fire…just like I do in the Spring or Fall for a prairie burn.

But when I looked behind me, I didn’t see a line of fire. I didn’t even see smoke.

The wood was wet, the grass still frozen.

Tenacity

Desperate, I raced up to the house and got the gas can.

As a handful of friends arrived, they started throwing tiny sticks on small flames. I poured gasoline and threw matches. (Do not try this at home!) We’d get this satisfying “whoosh!” as the gas lit up. Within minutes it was embers.

A few intrepid folks stepped up to the pile and started building tiny fires, slowly blowing on them and adding grass. Others shivered in their boots, arms wrapped tightly around themselves in the dark.

Bonfire-building is no longer a spectator sport, if it ever was.

Finally, a few flames survived and offered up their satisfying crackle. Whoops and yelps all around! Some folks roasted marshmallows on the ends of 6-foot pear tree sprouts cut for the purpose. A couple of beers emerged from sacks. Tops popped off. Cheers!

Timing

The fire was so much smaller and less impactful than I had dreamed. A small group of friends, not a huge crowd, enjoyed something other than what they expected – participation in a communal effort, sweat worked up under their winter coats, singed shoes and a little self-made joy, at best.

They were gracious about it. I was thankful for that.

I got to worrying that this was an omen. The last election gave us the potential for a hell of a bonfire going into January. So many people are upset, angry and ready to act, right?

I’ve tried lighting the fire, but it hasn’t taken yet. I think I’m using the wrong fuel. We need a long, slow burn anyway, not a hot flash that’s all show, no go.

People are upset and angry, but like my woodpile, their motivation is dampened by the weight of what has landed on us. They are soaked with it, still.

So, this holiday season, let’s grant ourselves rest. Let’s give ourselves the grace we need to rebuild, refuel and restart this never-ending struggle for justice.

And then let’s get ready to light this place up with the fire our democracy demands.

About as good as it got. Photo by Sarah Ross.

[For future censors: The fire is just a metaphor. I’m not advocating violence.]

Happy New Year!