Before getting into today’s how-to (or how-I), I have something to say to my high-school classmates.
One month from today, the Class of ’75 will gather to mark the 50th anniversary of our graduation. I’ve been looking forward to it for years (since WuFlu fears sabotaged our 45th), and it’s been circled on my calendar since the dates were announced.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join you.
Among a number of other very practical, very adult reasons is that the final hearing for my divorce falls just a few days after the reunion. I’ve tried to figure out a way to make the 1,700-mile, six-day trip happen and still focus on matters closer to home, and I’ve come up short.
I want you to know this — you, the “kids” I grew up with, are the most important people in my life. No one can replace those who occupied the same time and place during those formative years — culture and traditions, current events and national crises, music and TV shows and fads, friends and neighbors.
Everything else, by comparison, is temporary. Our connection is forever, and it’s worth celebrating.
I’m sorry that I won’t be there celebrating with you.
I’ll be thinking about you, though, and I’ll be there in spirit. Raise a glass (or a can, or a bottle) to the Class of ’75, and rest assured that I’ll be doing the same here in Ozarkansas.
I’ve now fielded enough comments and questions about my burn barrel that I think it makes sense to pull together the particulars in one place. I’ve said most of it before, one way or another, but it’s scattered all over the blog.
What follows isn’t expertise — it’s experience, specifically my experience.
We know that fire requires three things in order to exist: fuel, heat and oxygen (air). Of this “fire triangle,” the purpose of a burn barrel (in addition to containment) is to improve and direct the third — that is, the flow of air, or draft.
The hole pattern is critical. Again, I won’t get into measurements and dimensions, but you could do a whole lot worse than to copy what I’ve done (pictured in action, below).
Drill the bottom of the barrel generously, too, both for draft and for drainage.
Get the barrel off the ground. This allows the drilled bottom to do its twofold job.
You could use rocks, of course, or a couple of standard eight-inch concrete blocks. More stable than either of those, I decided, are four-inch concrete blocks (pictured).
Use an ember screen. This is the costliest part of the burn barrel setup, but it’s incredibly important. I chose not to use a piece of chain-link or welded-wire fencing (not fine enough to block most embers), and I didn’t go with hardware cloth (neither rigid nor durable).
Instead, I use a 24×24 sheet of “expanded metal” mesh. It fills the bill perfectly, allowing ash to pass but blocking hot embers. Though it’s pricey — I think I paid $20 or $25 — it’ll outlast two or more barrels.
Other considerations:
- Create a safety perimeter. Candidly, I could do better with this. The objective is to prevent the hot barrel (or anything that falls out of it) from igniting what isn’t supposed to burn, whether by direct contact or pyrolysis. A radius of five feet feels right to me.
- Have water nearby while burning — always. This falls somewhere between the obvious and a bona fide no-brainer. A garden hose is ideal. I use a two-gallon pump sprayer, which I’ve found to be adequate.
- Stand back. Once the fire is lit and the ember screen is in place, get the hell away from it and keep watch from a distance. If you’ve never used a burn barrel, trust me, you’ll soon find out that it gets hotter than you imagined. Winds shift, too. Ten feet or more is prudent.
- Wear gloves. Bulky welding gloves (which I keep next to the woodstove in the cabin) aren’t much good for wrangling a burn barrel, but a pair of sturdy leather or deerskin work gloves will save your skin (literally) the first time you reach for something you momentarily forgot was too hot to touch.
- Get a tool and use it. I’m talkin’ ’bout the equivalent of a fireplace poker. Mine is a 30-inch length of rebar that I use to place and remove the ember screen, and to stir the fire once it dies down (for a more complete burn).
- Don’t pack your trash (or whatever you’re burning) so tight that the fire has nowhere to go. A fire needs to breathe. Give it a chance.
- Use an actual torch, not a lighter. Simply put, it’s easier and more certain. I use an ordinary Bernzomatic propane torch.
- Never use an accelerant. No gasoline. No kerosene. No diesel fuel. No lighter fluid. Learn how to start a damned fire. Any questions?
- Light the barrel at the top first, bottom next. It’s smart to put fast-catching tinder (crumpled newspaper, for example) at the bottom of the barrel, and heat definitely rises, but there’s not a lot of draft down there to start with. To give it a reason to draw inward and burn upward, get a few small flames going at the very top. (It doesn’t take much.) Right after that, light the tinder at the base.
- Dump ashes regularly. That helps keep corrosion from eating the steel barrel. (Ask me how I know.) As for what to do with the light, fluffy by-product of burning paper and cardboard, it’s not the sort of thing I’d add to compost or spread over a vegetable garden. It’s not terribly useful stuff. What little there is, I generally just dump on the ground.
That’s it (or all I can think of, anyway). If you build your own barrel, I hope you find this helpful.
And now, some stuff that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere else.
Tarantula hawks are out. I’ve seen several of these big spider-killing wasps not far from the cabin. They’re tail-draggers in flight, evil-looking creatures.
Have I mentioned that Smudge is intense? She was up on the picnic table yesterday morning, laser-focused on the woods across the road, and I was on the bench behind her. After about five minutes, I gently put my hand on her back — and she jumped like I’d poked her with a cattle prod. Intense.
Remember when I resurrected those solar stake lights last spring? I managed to get seven working. One of those just gave up, so now I’m down to six of the original 12.
I dumped the ashes from the burn barrel yesterday morning. When I went to put the screen back where it belongs, I found it occupied.
Being fascinated with these lizards, and not inclined to disturb this one, I waited for the little guy to leave on his own. It must’ve been ten minutes before he moved on.
In closing today, please permit me a moment of gratitude and pride.
Sometime on Sunday afternoon, Ubi Libertas Blog‘s page views for 2025 surpassed what they were in all of 2024. That’s more visits in 239 days than it got in 366.
That’s humbling, to say the least. Thank you, dear readers, for finding what I say interesting enough to drop in and stick around.
This blog is important to me. It has been since the outset almost five years and 1,676 posts ago, but never more so than the last six months.
I’m proud of what Ubi Libertas Blog has become, and for what it means to so many readers. And I’m grateful to you for your attention.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable