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lizard brain
Jul. 21st, 2010 06:22 pmI have heard that the sense of smell is most closely tied to the primitive parts of the brain. I don't know if that's true or not, but sometimes smell can provoke vivid memory.
A couple of weekends ago we had a fire out back in the fire ring to burn up some of the bamboo and brush that has accumulated from our attempt to make a garden. We burned a lot of wood of varying qualities, creating a lot of ash and coals. Usually, with campfires, I just let them burn down leaving as little ash as possible, but since we were going back in the house and the fire regulations say it has to be completely out, I ended up letting it burn as much as I could then repeatedly hosing down what was left, producing massive clouds of steam and smoke.
The next morning I came out to clean out the fire pit. As soon as I dug into the coals, I was seven again.
The smell of the burnt timbers, the melted snow, the distinct stench of a fire that has been driven down by water, fighting to the last. It was a cold mountain January when our barn burned. My mother was home. Upon seeing the smoke coming out of the barn, she broke a window, climbed through it, and released all the animals out into the field, and ran in the house to call the fire department. Only later did she notice the gash on her arm from the glass.
The fire department couldn't save the structure, but they battled hard to keep the front end from burning because there was a gas tank sitting in front of it and they didn't want that to go. They set up a pool like structure to pump out of, sent one truck down the road 3/4 of a mile to get water from the pond, then back to dump it in the pool, while others pumped the water onto the fire. When I got off the bus from school to start my walk up the road I notice how funny the pond looked with a hole in it and the ice sitting on what looked like nothing. I didn't think of it at the time, but it was like the water was the victim of an alien abduction. It might be a primitive way to fight a fire, but that's what you do when the nearest hydrant is 10 miles away.
The chickens with icicles stuck to their feathers ended up in the basement, where despite all the tales of stress stopping laying, they produced eggs the next morning. The cows took up residence in the garage. The rest of the animals took a ride into town where they were then boarded. Hay had to be bought and brought in by the pickup truck load.
That smell lingered in the air.
Still, it wasn't as bad as the last fire on the same site. The story was that fire started in the barn, back in the times when bucket brigades where the only way to fight fires and a dug well was no match for a hay barn on fire. They stood in the shed and watched the barn burn. Then they stood in house and watched the shed burn. Then they stood outside and watched the house burn. The only thing that remained was the stone well, which still was cool and full of water and snakes in my time.
A couple of weekends ago we had a fire out back in the fire ring to burn up some of the bamboo and brush that has accumulated from our attempt to make a garden. We burned a lot of wood of varying qualities, creating a lot of ash and coals. Usually, with campfires, I just let them burn down leaving as little ash as possible, but since we were going back in the house and the fire regulations say it has to be completely out, I ended up letting it burn as much as I could then repeatedly hosing down what was left, producing massive clouds of steam and smoke.
The next morning I came out to clean out the fire pit. As soon as I dug into the coals, I was seven again.
The smell of the burnt timbers, the melted snow, the distinct stench of a fire that has been driven down by water, fighting to the last. It was a cold mountain January when our barn burned. My mother was home. Upon seeing the smoke coming out of the barn, she broke a window, climbed through it, and released all the animals out into the field, and ran in the house to call the fire department. Only later did she notice the gash on her arm from the glass.
The fire department couldn't save the structure, but they battled hard to keep the front end from burning because there was a gas tank sitting in front of it and they didn't want that to go. They set up a pool like structure to pump out of, sent one truck down the road 3/4 of a mile to get water from the pond, then back to dump it in the pool, while others pumped the water onto the fire. When I got off the bus from school to start my walk up the road I notice how funny the pond looked with a hole in it and the ice sitting on what looked like nothing. I didn't think of it at the time, but it was like the water was the victim of an alien abduction. It might be a primitive way to fight a fire, but that's what you do when the nearest hydrant is 10 miles away.
The chickens with icicles stuck to their feathers ended up in the basement, where despite all the tales of stress stopping laying, they produced eggs the next morning. The cows took up residence in the garage. The rest of the animals took a ride into town where they were then boarded. Hay had to be bought and brought in by the pickup truck load.
That smell lingered in the air.
Still, it wasn't as bad as the last fire on the same site. The story was that fire started in the barn, back in the times when bucket brigades where the only way to fight fires and a dug well was no match for a hay barn on fire. They stood in the shed and watched the barn burn. Then they stood in house and watched the shed burn. Then they stood outside and watched the house burn. The only thing that remained was the stone well, which still was cool and full of water and snakes in my time.
