Always wear shoes when playing with fire.

OK, enough of the barefoot West Virginia chick jokes — I’ve already heard them all, anyway.  But BJ and I decided to (a) roast some weenies, and (b) clean up the dead branches in our yard.  It seemed like the perfect pair of ideas.

We have one of those outdoor fireplace things; it kinda looks like a space ship.  So we hauled it out of the garage, set it on the little stone launch pad we built just for that purpose, and started the fire.

The hot dogs were yummy good, but the branches weren’t quite all gone yet, so after we ate, we went back to lawn maintenence.  Everything was going along just fine until we tried to burn one large stick.  It was hanging over both sides of the fire pit and was burning in the middle!  Even with the garden hose stretched out and at the ready, I saw the potential for not a lot of good here, so, in a moment of brilliance, I pulled the burning stick from the fire and beat it on the ground to break it in two.

The good news:  the stick broke just as I had hoped, and the two halves fit nicely inside the firepit.  The bad news:  really hot embers are completely capable of hiding in the grass  where they’re not easily seen.  Yep, I stepped on one.  Now I have an ow-ee foot.

Lesson learned, but in all honesty,  it probably won’t be heeded.  There’s just something too therapeutic about walking in the grass in my bare feet.  Oh, well.  Maybe I’ll have another hot dog….