“ Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and obey it.” – Luke 11:28

What an exciting day! Beautiful clear blue sky and 68 degrees. Feels like just the right kind of day to rearrange chicken coops or move a brooder box. I had always heard never to ever use hay or straw in your nesting boxes because it is hollow and bugs and chicken lice can hide in it. This is true. I had thrown some old hay in the baby brooder months before and there they were. Because of the awesome Body of Christ, 6 dead trees were neatly piled up in a HUGE heap in the side yard of the house. I put the bug infested hay near the tree heap so it could burn there safely before any bugs got on my chickens.

As I was wadding up the newspaper and strategically placing it around the small pile of pine shavings and hay, I felt/heard "do not do this". I said...

"I don't have a burn barrel so what choice do I have? I will be very careful."

There was a good foot between my pile and the huge mountain of dead trees. So I lit the fire and grabbed the water hose and stretched it out all the way to the fire, all the while feeling ridiculous and overly cautious. It was about 2pm.

I watched the fire and sprinkled water all around it continuously. When the pile did not completely burn up, I decided to drown the rest of the bugs. I soaked the half burned up pile good.

Around 5:30 I noticed a puff of smoke coming from the center of the HUGE TREE PILE. There was no fire! The fire had been out long ago. The smoke puff was getting bigger. I hosed it down and wet all the wood and put it out, and it would come right back. I could not see what was causing it, but I knew it must be deep inside of this pile of dead dry trees. I felt sick to my stomach.

I stood there with my messed up thumb trying to make that hose spray and cover all that wood. Several times it looked like it was out. I would go in the house and check on it 30 minutes later and the entire pile was covered with smoke. Still no flames. I had such a terrible feeling.

I remembered "do not do this" and I asked God to help me. Finally at 11:45pm. I called the non emergency number to the fire department. I explained what was going on and that there were no flames but I was concerned. Two young firemen came out and took the hose and in 5 minutes no more smoke could be seen anywhere. I felt a bit embarrassed.

6am this morning FLAMES! I had slept all night! I hit redial! It took all the water the Firemen had on the truck and then fire retardant to put it out! Apparently there are no fire hydrants nearby.

I kept the water hose on the smoking wood all day long, till 1:30pm when the rains came.

Today I repented! I asked God to forgive me. I want to KNOW His voice and OBEY every single time without arguing or questioning or hesitating. GOD IS GOOD! He is merciful and loving and KIND!