The Four-Sided Open Fire Pit

July 21, 2010

A few years ago Kelvin and I took a course through Continuing Education at the University of Calgary entitled Landscaping Your Home. What I remember is that the architect instructing the course said that among the best items in his back yard is a small portable BBQ that their family uses nightly in the summer, roasting wieners, marshmallows, corn, potatoes or just sitting around it, telling stories before the family went to bed.

That was a good testimonial for me, and I bought a four-sided pit which has moved its way around my yard from one summer to another. I decided to put it by the zip-line this year, and started my second fire in it tonight. My first fire of the year is the one we had while waiting for the racoon to appear at night.

Tonight Duncan helped start the fire. I had read in a book that fires can be built in the shape of a tepee or in the shape of a log cabin. We gathered twigs to begin the tepee shape and then moved to the log-cabin shape. Being less than ten yards from the basement door made it possible to go back to the kitchen for many of the articles we forgot to bring on our first trip to the fire, one of them being what every campfire surrounded by 2 to 8 year olds needs – a bucket of warm soapy water and a towel, for there wasn’t one set of hands that didn’t need to be plunged into that pail more than once during the night.

Duncan consumed marshmallows and graham wafers while he was getting the roaring fire going.

Alex has decided that pressing chocolate chips right into the marshmallows and then roasting them is the gourmet’s so’ more.

Meighan wants to roast and build some mores, not eat them. David was amazed to discover that you can stick your finger to your cheek with just having too much marshmallow on it.

I had to ask Bonnie Wyora not to let any of the kids see her do her ghost gum.

I am saving that for tomorrow night.