Fire Pit

So this past Saturday I had my long awaited block party. All in all it was a pretty good time. You can't go wrong with cold weather, good friends, good food, and two kegs of beer. My mom came into town for the night and was gracious enough to help me get the house ready, and somehow I got everything done that I wanted to (except for mowing the lawn, but that can ALWAYS wait). My house looked very pretty and I had a lot of people that commented on my new chandelier. :) Unfortunately, after all of the trouble I went to, to make my porch look nice, I forgot to take any pictures. I didn't take any the entire night.

The one thing I was looking forward to the most was the one thing that didn't really turn out as expected. This spring when my parents moved to Destin, I inherited their fire pit. I've always wanted one and was so excited to get it. Even though I have four fireplaces in my house, the house is so old that they have all been bricked in. I'm so jealous anytime someone mentions that they built a fire.
So all year I've been preparing to use the fire pit! Everytime the wind has picked up and limbs have falled, I've gone through the yard collecting twigs and stacking them on the pit to burn later.
Well, this Saturday the time had finally come. I took all my twigs and broke them into small pieces. I placed them carefully in the pit and made a little stack of twigs next to it to burn. My mom had promised to bring some pine cones to make the fire smell nice. It was going to be great! I'd have a nice fire in the front yard for people to crowd around in the cold weather we were finally having. But it didn't work out as I had envisoned.
First of all, the damn thing wouldn't light. I tried my hardest to blow on the fire, add more twigs, burn newspaper, etc. I consider myself a pretty resourceful person, and I have watched other people and made numerous fires of my own. But the damn thing would not catch.
I kept looking to the guys around as if it was their responsibility to get this fire going. Where is Bear when you need him?

Finally, a friend of mine stepped up and had my fire roaring after a few minutes of trying.

Within twenty minutes, I was out of twigs. No more fire. After six months of saving these damn twigs, thinking about the wonderfully warm fire I would have, my "wood pile" had burnt up in twenty minutes. Everyone was laughing at me when they asked where more wood for the fire was, and I would hold up one of my twigs.

My neighbor, being the generous man that he is, brought a bag of charcoal down from his house and we ended up standing around a fire pit burning charcoal. My sweater still smells like a grill.