Spring Burn 2010 Last summer we did the paperwork and got the permissions for a burn. We had hoped for a fall burn but it didn't work out. A week ago the young man from Blue Heron Ministries came and mowed and raked the area between our little piece of prairie and the woods. Then this morning Nate called and said they were on their way over to burn. It was done quickly. Perhaps a bit too quickly. I had my camera all ready to take lots of pictures but then I got busy talking to a neighbor who had come over to watch and when I looked back at the yard they were just about done. Two men: one with a canister that squirted fire (that's a technical description courtesy of the Grand Poo-Bah) the other beating the burned area with what looked like a truck mud flap (minus the silhouette of the sexy lady) attached to a broom handle and a large container of water on the back of an Arctic Cat. Within an hour they were done and the sky clouded up and the cold rain started. Now the sun is out again and the burned area is covered with birds; a half dozen cardinals, robins, a couple of bluebirds, some wrens and, of course, pigeons (which folks in the country call "mourning doves" but us city people know a pigeon when we see one). I am surprised at how much vegetation survived the fire, little stalks of yellow sticking up in the middle of the black areas. We are looking forward to what will come up this summer. With the burn as stimulation, we should see plants we haven't seen for a while.