More bonfires

Continuing the bonfire theme, I'm also lighting fires under the big cypress in the top south corner. A big chunk of it, a couple of heavy trunks' worth, has keeled over without any help from me but from Root Rot, sometimes known as Root Fomes (Heterobasidion annosum), which is also attacking the old rowan up there.

Root Rot fungus

I've felt tempted a few times to just light a fire under some of the low branches where detritus has fallen and collected over a number of years as you can see here. But I thought such a fire might quickly get huge and out of control and anyway part of the job is sort of about rescuing some half smothered rowan trees. The light-coloured branch on the ground is a rowan trunk, believe it or not. Most of the tree emerges on the field side of the fence.

birch, rowan, dying cypress from the field

There is another rowan trunk in among these rooting cypress branches.

So instead of setting a tree on fire, I'm lopping off small bits at a time and keeping the fire, more or less, within the confines of the fire basket that's visible in the first photo.

In moments between feeding the fire I've been enjoying small details: the redness of the cypress under bark, small fans of feather moss, and baby ferns growing in bark depressions.

Just in case someone happening to wander up the hill (likelihood close to zero, actually) to where the fire is (another close to zero likelihood) without noticing the smoke, I have my warning sign – a beachcombed part of a "Warning! forest operations" sign.

Actually, I use it as a bellows for the fire.

At some point I suppose I might get someone with a chainsaw to chop up the big branches but there's a lot of bonfiring fun to have before that.