Fairly Wordy Wednesday - The Burn Pile

We have a small clearing well back from the house and open fields where we pile all of the scrap wood that is generated over a year of trimming trees, carpenting, making lumber and firewood, etc. Then, in one of the three months (December to February) when the Township Bylaws allow unrestricted burning, we set fire to it and have a glorious bonfire. This year, trying to prevent it from being too wet to burn, JG layered two broken doors into the pile, the thinking being that the stuff underneath would stay dry.
We did not count on as much snow as we got.

On Sunday we decided to try to burn it anyway and I took my camera and hiked back to the burn clearing. This is what the woods looked like along the way.Here is JG trying to get a burn going beside the doors in the hope that the fire would spread back into the dry stuff behind and underneath. He is using lumber scraps we collected in the barn to get it going. Where he is standing, he's about two feet above ground level.Now it is blazing merrily and you can see the side of one of the doors on the left of the flames. You can also see that there is a snow layer at least two feet thick on top of the wood on top of the doors. What you cannot see is that snow starting to melt and running merrily down the wood onto the fire.A horrible hissing sound. In spite of our best efforts, where there is this much smoke there is no fire.However, the quantity of smoke did allow me to take this shot. I love the way the sun is playing with the shadow of the branches.
JG is now contemplating using the claw on the tractor to lift sections of the pile and shake the snow off.