Speedos and FIRE!

Dark and early this morning, my hubby left home at 4 AM on his way to a triathlon relay in Loiusville, MS. He was the first leg of the relay and did the 800 meter swim. Seeing 800 meters in a course in a lake shows just how long it is much more so than knowing that it is 16 laps in a pool. He hasn’t trained for swimming since we were in Charlotte 4 years ago or competed in a triathlon in 8 years. He just called Johnny to check on the team’s finish (since we went home before the race finished in another city 30 miles away) and found out that they placed 2^nd of the relay teams. Joe finished 2^nd overall of the relay swimmers too! Hurray for my hubby! I must admit that my heart beat strangely as I watched him come out of the water after his swim. Some of the competitors were so disoriented that they could barely move. Joe was fine, but definitely tired. Advil and a nap this afternoon for him!

We got home at 8:30 this morning and still had plenty of time to do yard work before lunch. I mowed and Joe weedwacked while the boys played in the pool (they were copying their Daddy’s fast swimming). Then, we tackled a project that we’ve been chipping away at for a while. Dr. Mink (for some reason) placed old carpets along the perimeter of his garden and over the years about 6 inches of soil and crab grass grew on top of the carpets. As we are planning to increase our garden for next year (and because the carpet is right at the edge of our rapidly expanding pumpkin patch), we needed to get rid of the carpet. The largest piece we pulled up today was probably 15’ by 15’ and very heavy. How to get rid of a massive amount of heavy carpet? Why drag it to the edge of the woods and burn it!!!! Hurray!!!

We had a massive bonfire of carpet, fallen pine trees, and gasoline that is still smoking in the rain as I type. At one point just after we lit it, Joe and I frantically ran to hook up hoses and stretch them to the pile as the fire almost got out of control. Crisis averted, we’ve had our first burn and learned a lot. I love that we are learning things like this—simple living country things that have been done for centuries—gardening, burning things without setting a forest fire J, keeping a large yard, pruning, etc. Now if I could just figure out a way to keep a milk cow….