Looking at a forecast, I decided that tonight was the night I needed to burn the brush pile next to the garden. Calm and cool, and following yesterday’s little bit of rain, the night was good for burning.

By Thursday, the Weather Service expects fire danger to be high, and we are verging on a burn ban, so I felt this might be my last chance for a while.

As always, making a fire summons instincts deep within me, and watching it and tending it is a meditative time. All that is right and wrong with the world is reduced to smoke and embers and ashes.