9 Christmas Trees = Adrenaline and an almost burned down house.

Pictures to come

Short story: We burned Christmas trees in our backyard, started our backyard on fire, and almost had to call the fire department. And to have Daniel use a fire extinguisher and Brittany almost call 9-1-1, it made for a pretty big fire!

Long story: With Brittany elaborations

So it began all boring like and I almost didn’t even partake in the events of tonight, but we might not be here to tell the tale, so good thing I did participate (so I could hand off the fire extinguisher resulting in our livelihood not burning to ashes…) I was going to observe from the inside so as to not get smoky, but smoky, and smoke inhalation, I did get.

Why do we have 9 trees in our backyard, well Archie and Daniel went around collecting them when people were trying to get rid of them after Christmas. No, they did not go door to door asking for their used Christmas trees, but rather, picked them up off the side of the curb. Doing a service right? Haha.

Daniel convinced me it was OK to burn in our backyard, because it is within the “burn-the-compost-leaves-extra-stuff-floating-in-you-yard” month, is it really? I do not know. So none the less, we journeyed to the backyard to pile the trees and watch them burn. We did not have newspaper, so we just had to throw matches on them and hope they caught. When I say we, I really mean Daniel and Archie. SO  the trees didn’t catch on fire as quickly as we had hoped, so maybe this show would be a dud, but alas, we were in for a real treat.

Our backyard is full of weeds, dry weeds, which the trees were set on, I asked Daniel if that was ok, and I was pretty skeptical, but being the obedient wife, I just let the manly men do their thing. So of course the ground catches on fire (all while 20 foot flames are scorching to the night sky – yep the tree pile finally caught on fire!) , so I am starting to freak out, Daniel is saying it is fine don’t worry. So the circle of fire grows bigger and bigger and I am really starting to thing pretty soon I will hear fire sirens and see the fire engines roll up and so I tell Daniel I am going inside to get a bowl of water ( I hate not being productive – and just not being able to do anything – and also does he need the fire extinguisher?) Archie and Daniel are stomping out the small flames and a gust of wind comes and carries the fire to loose weeds and whammmmmm HUGE fire fence licking flames going towards the fence, the house, the trees, and only getting bigger, and you CANNNOT stomp these suckers out, no SIREE! So I am inside the house and in a slight panic and my brain not fully functioning and thinking ok where is a shovel, dirt can stop fire, ok we don’t have a shovel, ok flour or baking soda, which is it? WHICH IS IT? ONE IS FLAMMABLE ONE IS TO STOP FLAMES OH CRAP CAN’T THINK SO CAN’T GET THAT…. Then my phone rings.

It is Daniel – calmly saying – will you bring the fire extinguisher out?

Now I’m thinking, ok, Daniel, ASKING for the fire extinguisher? THIS IS GOTTA BE BAD! Should I start to think about calling 9-1-1 so they can get here in time? What the HECK do we tell them! I am sooo SCARED of authority! Oh no, SO I hapharzardly fill my measly mixing bowl with water (yea what tiny flame could I fight with that – I don’t know but I HAD to do something!) So I run out there with the bowl and the fire extinguisher (which I believe I was prompted to buy a year ago, for the very situitation, for without it, I would be without a lot!) and the fire extinguisher EXTINGUISHED the big flames before it reached the BIG patch of DRY LOOSE weeds by the trees. We took a look outside later – and the burn marks are RIGHT next to the patch a weeds that would have spelt disaster for SURE! Oh my goodness! So my heart is racing and I am freaking out and Daniel is stomping out small flames, extinguishing big flames, and Archie laughs at my bowl and says don’t you have a big 5 gallon bucket in the shed, duh! So we get that out and dowse everything, which I would say more water MORE MORE MORE, I don’t want this beastly fire starting up again!

So we managed to NOT burn our house, or our neighbors fence (but came close) or people or have the fire department come. But we came CLOSE, TOOO CLOSE, next time, not in our yard with dry grass.

So I called my mom – I have to speak to someone other than the boys that helped do the damage, and tell this outrageous story of how we outsmarted death. She is at the airport. And laughing at me. And saying yes I should go out tomorrow and buy a new extinguisher since Daniel is my husband, but he would never let me die so no worries, but next time, maybe burn the trees one by one. I tell her – it really did look cool all at once, just super scary. Yep, super scary. And then I call Betsy – she laughs at me too – and says they need to take a field trip to see our burned back yard… hopefully the landlord doesn’t go in back when he comes in a few days to deliver our new fridge. Oh boy – life is sure exciting at the Johansen household.

Moral of the story – keep a fire extinguisher at your house – or wherever you plan on burning a ton of Christmas trees.