That pile of ash and charcoal is all that’s left of a huge pile of dead branches, windfall and prunings that I’ve been collecting all winter.
I know it doesn’t look like much now, but that pile was becoming a real danger so, it had to go. And what better time to burn it off than when everything’s nice and wet!
“But isn’t it too wet to burn?” you ask.
Nope. It rained quite heavily early this morning and at 7:00 am, everything was quite wet, including the outer layer of the pile. Inside, however, that pile was dry and ready to burn. I crumpled up a few sheets of scrap paper and shoved them underneath the pile. Then I put a couple of firelighters on top of the paper and set it alight. In an hour, the original pile and huge armfuls of very wet windfall were all gone.
I suspect most of you know where I’m going with this; branch and leaf litter burn extraordinarily well, so if you live in and around Warrandyte, clean up your property now, before everything dries out and the whole area turns into a tinderbox.
Okay, now I’m going to collapse and not move for a while. 🙂
cheers
Meeks
Authors' favourite books
NANO 2012
November 5th, 2017 at 8:47 pm
Morning! you probably aren’t interested, but in case you are, here’s a link to the only thing I can find that has a bit of history to the allotments in Exeter and the principle behind the concept of city allotments in general (Page 30)
When we took on our plot, one of the old boys who lived in Hamlin Lane, said he had inherited the tenancy of his plot from his father, and that his dad had worked it from the site’s creation, which Brian told us was when he was at school. Brian was in his 80s when he died in 2015. Most of the houses you can see around the north and the east of the site 9the opposite sides to the park) are modern, built in the 1980s. The original rules don’t have any restrictions around burning, but they were reviewed in 1980 and then they develop these restrictions. The livestock restrictions remain the same though!
Info:
Current regs:
We keep our chickens and bunnies (tow of each) in our garden, because the allotments are little too far from our home to nip to twice a day. Plus we like to give them the run of our little garden.
Have a good week, x
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November 6th, 2017 at 8:47 am
Wow…I’m ashamed to say you’ve shown me a humungous hole in my knowledge, not just about your city but about my own.
After reading your links I decided to see if we had anything similar here in Melbourne…and we do. I just didn’t know about it. 😦
If you’re interested, this is the article I found:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2014/mar/06/community-gardens-melbourne
It needs some context though. Australian cities are basically composed of a smallish inner city hub and then garden suburbs for literally miles. Housing is becoming more dense in the inner suburbs, but most of us still live in houses with gardens. But that is obviously changing and I love what I’ve read about my own city! So thank you. 😀
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November 6th, 2017 at 9:48 am
Lol, that’s great – I shall read this in the morning, thank you. I’ve really only visited Perth, and that was before we had a lotty, so it’s not something that came up when I was talking with the locals. I was usually too busy trying not to to be shocked (in many cases) at their lack of environmental or race awareness and consideration. I either became less intolerant (or more accustomed!) , or their attitudes changed in the visits we made between 1999 and 2010 which was when we last visited. Thanks for sharing. X
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November 6th, 2017 at 7:56 pm
lol – I’ve never been to Perth, but periodically they threaten to secede from the rest of the country. Next time, try to come to the east coast, namely Melbourne!
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October 30th, 2017 at 8:02 pm
Guess what we’ll be doing tomorrow?! (between Sept and March only Tuesday afternoons, and the first Saturday in the month are permitted allotment fire-up days in Exeter) WE have some woodwormy fencing to get shot of, plus the blightly tomato plants.
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October 31st, 2017 at 9:11 am
OMG…that’s so restrictive. Is that some kind of pollution control or something???
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November 2nd, 2017 at 9:34 pm
it’s because our plots are within the city, and people in the surrounding residential areas will want to hang their washing out. There are over 150 plots on the site, so without the restriction, there’d probly be some burning ongoing all the time!
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Hamlin+Lane+Playing+Fields/@50.728668,-3.499805,538m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x486da3f505cd9107:0x4593334ddd74344c!8m2!3d50.728668!4d-3.497611?hl=en
This is the google maps link to the park and allotments next to it. The photo that comes up is one of our plot, and if you zoom in, our plots (68+69 full plots) are at the right hand end of the centre batch, just to the right of the white an parked on one. You can see a whole load of vehicles parked in the bottom right corner, just move to the left of that and you’ll see a plot with very lush looking green paths (they obviously needed a mow!). LovelySue is to our left, with her white van parked on the bottom of hers, and we have both the full length plots to the right of that. A few sheds and two green houses, one at either end. You can see there are lots of houses close by. If I knew how to take a screen shot on my laptop, I would!! x
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November 2nd, 2017 at 10:23 pm
Oh! I see, sort of. So very green. So very different to Australia. lol
To be honest, though, I’m still a bit puzzled about the concept of the allotment coz I can see gardens in most of the houses nearby. Why don’t they grow stuff at home?
That said, I can understand about the washing. We neighbours have a kind of unspoken agreement that we’ll warn each other if there’s going to be a lot of smoke with washing on the line.
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October 30th, 2017 at 10:59 am
Where I live, we’re not allowed to burn. The city picks up the leaf litter, or you can compost it. Still, great tips to do so safely!
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October 31st, 2017 at 9:15 am
Ah, fair enough. We’re on the city fringe where suburbs meet the country and the blocks are big so burning off is kind of a necessity.
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October 28th, 2017 at 11:34 pm
The drought inspired fires on the West Coast of the U.S. are tragic. I think you’re ahead of the curve in prevention.
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October 29th, 2017 at 10:01 am
Yeah, I know there are a lot of eucalypts on your West Coast too and I wonder if that explains the increased severity of fire there as well. 😦
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October 28th, 2017 at 12:21 pm
Well done, perfectly timed it seems and minimum mess.
xxx Huge Hugs xxx
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October 28th, 2017 at 9:27 pm
Thank you. -hugs back- Just wasted gallons of water getting rid of the smoked Meeka smell. Gods it’s nice to be clean!
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October 28th, 2017 at 11:54 am
Do you have to get a burn permit where you live. Every where I have lived we have to get a permit to have an outside burn like that, and you have to be aware of the drought index because if it reaches a certain level you cant use your permit. Hugs
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October 28th, 2017 at 9:33 pm
No, things are a little different here. We can burn off until they declare fire season, which is usually some time in November. After that we can’t burn off at all. You’re right about the drought etc. Plus wind. Eucalypts burn even when they’re wet so I’m very careful never to burn off when there’s wind. That’s one reason I did it so early this morning. Usually no wind for a few hours at that time.
Luckily this was my very last pile. I’m all done. Now I just have to mow the grass that the alpacas don’t like…
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