Bonfire

Fire from  Ladies' Retreat, 2012.

     One of my favorite parts of camping is the bonfire.  Camping is not camping without a bonfire.  What I don't like about camping is all the bugs.  I'm not sure if it is the woods or the water that attracts them more, but camp is always full of them.  The front yard however, not so buggy.  So of course we love to have bonfires at home for no real reason.

A fire that was accidentally started when some boxes were thrown into the fire pit a day after the fire was extinguished.  Scary, isn't it?

     When we moved here, there was already half an oil tank that was being used as a fire pit, so we kept it and are using that years later.  It is starting to warp considerably from all of the heat, but that doesn't stop the grass from growing around it.  We like to throw all of our paper trash into it to keep it out of the landfills.  We almost always throw all of the cardboard boxes and such into it to burn next time.  We were a bit surprised when The Man's uncle threw some boxes onto it on Memorial Day while we were outside and it suddenly started smoking.  The fire had been out since the night before, but before we knew it the fire was pretty large.  It's a good thing the kids were not out by themselves at the time.

The Big One sticking her mallow in May 2007.

     Some of our favorite things to do by the fire are of course to roast hot dogs and marsh mallows as well as get toasty warm, but we also have some other things we like to do.  We like to watch how something burns and how it differs from the other things we put in.  We like to see if anything makes the flames burn a different color as some things will do.  We also like to lay things over the fire and make guesses on which side collapses into the pit first (use caution with this one).

Broofy's Dad at camp, 2008.

     We have bonfires any time of year if we can.  Of course we prefer them when the ground is not covered in snow.  Are you allowed to have bonfires where you live?  How often do you have them?