The flame thrower - a successful adaptation of a military weapon to farming

We had some incredible rain and flooding this year, some locals said the amount we had was a "100 year" occurrence. Time will tell. Our farm had some severe and costly fence damage. In fact the boys and I did some more repair Saturday that I hope is the last of fixing flood damaged fences for awhile. We also got rid of the last visages of the flood - lots of drift wood and debris on and under fence lines.

K8 enjoyed using a flame thrower to torch all this stuff. Certainly beats the tedious job of gathering it by hand into burn piles.

I threw this pic in so you could see the side of my truck. The big dent that K7 put behind the door and in front of the tire is GONE! Spent a week in the Body Shop and looks great, not to mention no more rusting.

Two things about this pic: first, K8 does not like being photographed, so I hollered his name to get him to look. Obviously not happy about being tricked. Secondly, I like the reflection of flames off the truck's new, shiny paint job.

We strapped the propane tank to the back of truck, and I drove slowly along the fence while K8 torched the debris. Got the job done much easier and quicker than if we had done it by hand. We will pick up the few remaining big chunks of charred wood Monday and add them to our big brush piles which we plan to burn before rain arrives this week. Our pastures are now clean again, so we can safely mow and hay them in the Spring without damaging equipment, not to mention eliminating hiding places for copperhead snakes.