As someone else said, I’m about as un-outdoorsy a girl as you can get (unless it’s work related, but then I’m weird :)), and I still love bonfires (the outside kind, I think the inside variety is what they call “fully involved” :D).
It’s fun, but dangerous if you’re not too sure what you’re doing. The secret is to work out your routine and practice with unlit stuff before you even start thinking of setting light to anything.
These are my current favourite toys although mine are much dirtier than that!
I really consider it a form of nirvana to be a little stoned, cigar in one hand, beer in the other staring at a bonfire. They’re perfect socially. . .you can sit around a bonfire with 10 people having no conversation at all and its a great vibe. Or, you can all be whooping it up and it’s a great vibe.
I’m learning fans now, after many years of (single wick) poi. I don’t have a picture, but I just made teeny-tiny practice poi (no fire, of course!) for my 2 year old. They’re only about 9 inches long, because she’s very small for her age. They’re so cute! She loves them. I’ll try to get some pics of her playing with them soon.
Fans are great, I have a friend who bought some on a recent trip to India and showed us what he’d learned when he got back. They have some lovely ones at Firetoys on the Pyro Pixie page. I guess that’ll be me raiding the piggy bank again!
As opposed to those gigantic Western wildfires every year that sometimes cover states. Woods are meant to have frequent forest and brush fires to stay healthy. Humans prevent too much of it.
Razorette works in the Student Affairs/Housing office of the local college, and because she’s the only administrator who lives in the country, we frequently host the resident assistants and residence hall directors for their monthly social get-togethers. Those kids will stand around a bonfire when its near zero outside. We don’t have any special pit or anything, just half of an old oil drum set on cinder blocks (the house is new and we plan to built a fire pit into the back yard when we landscape it) but the kids love it. There’s something primal about standing around a fire, something so comforting about feeling the heat on your face. Personally, I always feel a strange discomfort, verging on panic, when the fire starts to go out at the end of the evening – I have an almost irresistable urge to bank it, keep it smoldering through the night.
waits for featherlou, Northern Piper, Gorsnak, Speaker for the Dead, PastAllReason
No one loves bonfires more than a Saskatchewanian! Seriously, I’m not quite sure how pyrophobics live around here.
Also, permits schermits. My parents apparently got them, but I’ve never seen anyone check for them or anything. Grass burn every spring (‘go make sure Dad hasn’t burned himself to death yet!’), the annual Boxing Day old wood burn, the perpetual bonfires from May long weekend till September long…ah, I love this place.
Cool trick with smaller fires, take a 12" copper pipe, drill a half dozen 1/4 " holes in it, cut a length of garden hose to fit inside. Throw on coals. Beautiful vibrant colors, lasts about 45 minutes. No odor, no mess, and you can reuse the pipe.