Hi fellow Outdoorsmen,
Today I'm here with some fun times for the wintertime, cleaning up the dead and fallen limbs for a fire pit!
Deadfall Cleaning Up
With the onset of deep winter here, that means that a lot of trees are dropping their dead limbs as part of the natural cycle of growth and death. This makes it pretty good and fun for the little man and I, we go around the neighborhood cleaning up the deadfall and piling it up near the firepit so that we can keep it constantly burning when we are there. It's been pretty good!
Our neighbors probably think we are weird, since we are constantly walking around dragging sticks and trees behind us after finding them lol but I don't care, it's a pretty good service I think to the ecosystem! I know burning wood for fire isn't the best as far as air debris but the quantity we are doing I think isn't too bad, we aren't creating massive hundred foot bonfires and burning all kinds of trash and shit lol. Our small fire pit here is a good scale for this!
The little man has been a little stir crazy in the house, not having things to build or clean up like we do in the summertime when we would go to the lake and clean up the beach and stuff so I decided to take advantage of a recent storm that we had that dropped all kinds of tree limbs all over the place!
It worked out because the quantity was a lot more than I expected it to be so we had enough stuff to drag about for 3 solid nights before we were finished with it all so that was nice! There was also a tree that fell over in one of the wind storms and a tree company came and chopped it all up but they left the giant logs around but cut up so we snatched a bunch of them! They were the right size to not be too big that I couldn't pick them up but also they fit in the fire pit, I know some of them won't fit too well.
With the deadfall all over the place, we ended up finding a couple great ones! A few of the trees had knocked their large limbs down and it makes for a whole lot of firewood but it's also a good opportunity to show the little man a good way we can use to cut them up with a foldable hand saw. He has been begging me to use the saw but I wanted to collect a bunch of it first and then cut it up all at once since that will take a few hours and burn a lot of his energy all at once lol.
One of the big trees broke too and I ended up hauling the body of the tree about half a mile from where it fell to the fire pit! That was great exercise for me that's for sure lol.
We did have a few smaller fires since we started collecting it though which was nice. I didn't want to have it be all work but no fun! The little man has done a lot of climbing all around the branch pile which I'm not thrilled about since that's where the little bastard ticks will be hiding out but I can't fight him too much on that, I know that I was doing similar things when I was a bit older than him lol so I can't complain too much.
It feels good to be able to take all of the junk here and recycle it into some entertainment which turns into a whole lot of ashes. I am trying to find a place to take the ashes so that it helps the land around it instead of the weeds that I don't want it to. I think I'll sprinkle it on the various planted bushes and stuff that we've got throughout the layout of the place so that we can give them a little bit of nutrients.
What I am also enjoying and looking forward to is the fact that the days are getting more daylight in them. It's tough when I get out of work at 5 and it's already completely dark. Now that we're a month and some days out from the solstice, it means that we are slowly creeping up getting towards daylight into the evening! I know it's not a big thing for many but for me it's important, I'm a creature of daylight hours for sure lol so I am a lot happier when I get to enjoy the daylight outside of my working hours. The fires aren't as cool when it's dusk as when it's pitch black but that's okay, more time spent hanging out at the fire pit for us!
-CmplXty. Real human written content, never AI.
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There is definitely something awesome about a middle of winter fire in the back yard. It's often a good time for a beer, too, as odd as that sounds.
I will occasionally get some large branches fall in my yard. I've been known to slice them up and make coasters out of them. I've even tried to teach myself how to carve wood and attempted carving the pieces for a chess set.
Ya I love a fire with a beer or two! Very relaxing and may have even fallen asleep in the patio chairs once or twice in my day lol.
I love picking up deadfall like that and making things out of it. Coasters and saucers are really cool to come up with and I’ve whittled many a stick in my day! I only kept one of them for a while but that eventually broke. I would love to whittle a nice hiking stick but we don’t have anywhere to put them so I don’t get to do that just yet lol. It’s a lot of fun though!
Your neighbor might think you crazy, but still, you might done a lot better things to yourself and the environment than them : ).
I also used to collect dead branches when I was a kid, not for firepit, but to be used by my mother when she cooks. : ) we didn't use cooking gas back then.
Yeah my neighbors are a real pain in the ass let me tell you lol. Since writing this post, those little assholes tried to get us in trouble with the ruling agency of the area we live in by trying to put some bullshit lie that we were starting "brush fires". It's absurd and they obviously don't know a damn thing about what they are talking about but we are keeping a low profile, waiting to see if they make any additional mistakes we can capitalize on. Sadly some people have no damn lives besides to complain about a dad and his son enjoying the outdoors!
That's good to collect and use the sticks for cooking! We've used them before to cook some meats, though small things like hot dogs but it's nice to be able to not only burn the things but use them to cook something too!
That is surely one crazy neighbor. Stay safe, and always be vigilant. I will let one of my kids go out with your little man, go out in the wild and learn physical stuff rather than complaining about it.
But now more people are turning into gas stove for efficiency, not every household now have a dirty kitchen anymore.
Looks like a lot of fun for your little man. Bonfires and fire pits, when you are a kid, are so exciting. So while the sunny days are coming, it seems to me that you have found a great outdoor activity and the neighbors should be more than grateful for you picking up all those dry branches.
Yeah they are! I've always liked having a fire pit and lighting a nice fire, we had a small one at my parents house and nothing as formal as this one is but it was a lot of fun.
The neighbors situation has taken a turn for the worse since writing this post! Lol. They tried to get us in trouble with some bullshit saying we are starting "brush fires" but as you can see, that's not at all the case and they are just miserable old coots. We are going to challenge them on it and make them eat their words! There is nothing wrong with a controlled fire like this, and it helps far more than it hurts. It just annoys me that people can't leave a kid and his dad enjoying some nice outdoor father-son time alone, especially since we aren't doing anything dangerous or harmful.
Too bad what is going on with the neighbors. People are sometimes so bad-intentioned. I hope you don't have any problems.
Happy Sunday!
Thanks man!