The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Memory essay, something that I remember happening to me.

It was a glorious summer day for a prairie burn. The prairie was a sparkling mass of gold with the forest’s green hues surrounding it. The air was crisp and fresh as I stepped out of Storm’s car. The sun shining on my back was warm and comforting.

“When are we going to start?” I asked Storm. She’s my best friend and the little farm we were at was hers, and her families. They used to live there but moved to Iowa City over a decade ago. I’m not sure why. They still own the property, which consists of two trailers. One is dilapidated and has no indoor plumbing. The other is in much better condition. Storm’s Grandmother and Aunt live there. There is also an old, falling down barn. There are also a couple of ancient sheds that are barely holding together.

What’s nice is the little pond behind the barn. It doesn’t really have good fish in it. But we’ll go fishing anyway. We’ll grab our fishing poles, tromp through the prairie behind the barn, step carefully over the old wire fence and make our way to the ponds edge. There we’ll set up chairs and just goof off, not really expecting to catch anything. If we happen to catch a fish, we’ll unhook it with pliers because the fish have little teeth, and then feed it to the farm cats. None of us want to eat anything we catch in that pond; they’re all bottom feeders anyway.

“Not until tomorrow when my Dad gets here.” She responds, turning her face into the breeze and taking a deep breath. “Woo-who!” She yelled, obviously glad to be out of town and into the wild.

“Not that I don’t enjoy playing with fire, but why are we doing this again?” I ask, never having helped with a prairie burn before.

“It’s to help the prairie grow. We have a lot of endangered types of prairie flowers. So we burn every other year or so, it gets rid of the tall grass and allows other things to grow in. The heat also helps to remove the hard seed shells in the dirt that would normally take longer to grow with the shell intact, usually years.” She explains, grabbing her luggage.

We unpack and move into the older trailer. We like the privacy, and it’s still livable, just rustic. There is a bathroom; we have to haul buckets of water in from the well to flush it. It takes a little getting used to.

Storm and I move through the trailer opening windows, and check on its general state. Everything seems to be as we left it. Plus one dead mouse in a trap. I take that outside and throw it into the tall grass surrounding the trailers. Then we settle down for the night, playing games and using the gas stove to cook dinner. We stay up late just goofing off, glad that we’re out in the wild, or the closest thing to it.

The next day we would have taken our time to get up slowly. But Storm’s father showed up and made a lot of racket, waking us up. Storm immediately starts to complain, she is not a morning person. Caution! Stay ten feet from an early morning Storm. She will attack.

Once we’re awake and fed, we head out into the prairie with our burning supplies. John (Storm’s father) has already mowed fire breaks in the field. So we drag the buckets of soapy water, the broom, and a couple of air pressured water containers with us. We pump the pressure in the containers up, and then use a hose to spray water at the fire.

When we get to the spot we’re going to burn, we sit down with everything and rest; it was quite a little hike. We finish our snacks and beverages, talking and having fun. Then we get up and look around.

“Feels like the wind picked up.” John commented, arranging the supplies so that they will be ready when we need them. Storm and I each have a pressure sprayer.

John leaned down, taking a lighter from his pocket and flicking it on. He lights a small area and, WHOOSH, the prairie is burning at an alarming rate.

After that Storm and I are frantically trying to keep up with the flames as the burn starts to lose control, due to the wind. I skirt the edges of the fire, following it and spraying water on the burned sections. I remember yelling a few times, “Shouldn’t we call the fire department?” But John says no, we can get it under control.

Storm loses her cool. She screams, and cries, and waves her hands around, unable to think of what to do. I start a mantra, “put the fire out”. I don’t really understand why Storm reacted the way she did, but eventually she followed my lead. But somewhere along the way she had lost her water sprayer. We found it later, burned to a crisp. Storm’s father was on the other side of the prairie fire, controlling it from that direction.

About an hour and a half later the fire was finally put out and we could slow down and breathe. It was exhausting. We were sweating; our faces were red from the heat and exertion. There was a large log that was still smoking, after some discussion Storm and her father picked it up and carried it into the woods, dumping it into a small pond; more like a large puddle.

We looked back over the black prairie, noticing the burned water sprayer. John said someone should go get the camera, but we were all too tired to take the hike out and then back in. I was still a little concerned the fire would restart; some of the grass was still smoking. But when I looked up, I realized there was a storm blowing in. It would put the rest of it out, if it needed it.

We all took a deep breath and started walking back to the trailers, needing a good solid drink while Storm commented, “Next time someone says that the wind picked up, why don't we delay the prairie burn?” We all laughed, agreeing and glad to be safe.