Monday, December 13, 2004

burning leaves rant

My DH has been obsessed with fire this fall.

We have lots of trees and therefore lots of leaves to be cleaned up. Usually, DH bags the leaves and carts them to a disposal area. This year, he was sick of carting them. So he decided to burn them all.

Before he started, the neighbors burned some leaves, and I told him this made me feel sick. The smoke and ash odors make me nauseous, and they come into the house and are very hard to clear out.

But DH, being a guy, and this being fire, pursued the leaf burning anyway. He burned batches the last two weekends in the garden plot, planning to turn the ashes under for fertilizer or mulch or something!

This week, he decided to burn leaves in the driveway. It had rained, and the leaves were damp, and the ashes are noxious. He burned them right behind my car! I couldn't go anywhere yesterday. Today, I needed to drive out, so I took the snow shovel and shoved them into HIS parking area. The ashes rose up and I've been nauseous ever since.

I told him today he wasn't allowed to burn any more leaves! The children were outside while he was burning them and now their hair smells smoky, so I can't snuggle my babies! I'm off to go drink more Maalox and try to settle my stomach.

What is it with Y chromosomes and fire, anyway?

2 comments:

MamaBear said...

ps: the reason i'm so very sensitive to smoke is partially because we had two fires in my yard before i was 6. since then, i've always noticed smoky odors before anyone around me. even tried smoking myself for a year at 20, but it didn't help with secondhand exposure. since my family has many respiratory complaints, grandma died of lung cancer complications, emphysema in grandpa, asthma in many, i'm awfully glad i quit.

Anonymous said...

Guys just like fire. It's neat. Your boys probably have had some interest in it by now, haven't they?
I'm glad you quit, too.
dch