Things I learned from a fire on a midsummer night in July

I made a fire tonight to burn some boxes and the rest of the cuttings from a rose bush that had hitherto resisted the flames.

§ There is a good reason fires are more enjoyable on a cool night

§ You can feel the sweat forming and then running on your forehead

§ Smoke can be so thick that when you shine a flashlight at it you cannot see through it

§ Thick smoke has enough force to move the leaves on a tree when it billows over them

§ “Billow” is a great word for the movement of smoke

§ It is a really eerie feeling to look into darkness and see nothing, then turn on the flashlight and suddenly see things that weren’t there before! Or to put it another way, the world is not real (substantial) just because you can see it. It is there in the dark as well.

§ The sounds of summer at night in the south are really cool

The boxes were consumed, as were the remnants of the rose cuttings and I am thankfully ensconced in air conditioned splendor!