Having a Fire Night
I’m not a fan of cold weather, but one silver lining about Texas winter is that it makes for great firepit weather. There’s nothing like sitting around a crackling blaze in the backyard, under a crisp clear sky surrounded by your kids.
And I do mean surrounded. The second that fire is lit, they come swarming in like moths to a flame. Supervising one or two boys by a fire is challenging enough but with six there have to be some ground rules.
Rule number one: don’t fall into the fire. I can’t stress enough that this is rule number one.
Second, don’t put anything in the fire without permission. It started innocently enough with fire poking sticks (more on that in a minute) but quickly the threshold of what can acceptably be thrown into the fire was tested. Leaves and bark make it smoky, plastic food wrappers make it stink and surely can’t be good to breathe in, and Snap Pops startle the daylights out of Dad if they’re secretly tossed into the fire to not-so-secretly explode. Do not throw Snap Pops into a fire.
Like I said, all the things that have been outlawed as fodder, were prompted by the one object that was approved: sticks.
Having a “fire poking stick” is an important part of sitting around a fire for the boys. In fact, very few of them even know the great pleasure of simply sitting and enjoying the fire instead of prodding at it with a stick that slowly burns down.
They do a good job of not pushing the logs down (a quick way to destroy your flow path and smother your fire) and they do a semi-good job of not accidentally waving the burning tip of the stick in my face.
There are a couple of rules with the sticks too but mainly they amount to not flinging coals out of the fire and making sure the burning end stays inside the fire ring.
Fire safety is an important part of every fire night too. At least one (but usually three) of the boys are on “coal patrol.” Being on coal patrol means watching for embers or any sparks that make their way outside of the fire ring. The coal patrol puts out any errant embers by immediately spraying them with water from their water cannons (aka, 64oz plastic apple juice bottles filled with water, with a small hole in the cap so a stream can be squeezed out).
We also have a hose nearby and the 3-year-old giving regular demonstrations of stopping, dropping, and rolling. Although that has nothing to do with the fire.
The two biggest thrills about the fire are getting to eat dinner around it and getting to put it out. The boys have a whole list of foods they consider “good fire meals” which used to be anything you could eat without utensils and now is simply anything you can eat.
I don’t know if the draw to putting out the fire is getting to play fireman for a night or if they just really like seeing the plume of smoke go up after spraying down the fire. Whatever the reason it’s a big deal to, “be the one who gets to put out the fire.”
Which reminds me of the final rule of fire night that has to be said when you have six boys around the fire. No, you can’t try peeing on the fire.