Heart attack

My mother sent me this picture of the moon in February during the massive fires that swept Australia. The problem was that she lives in New Zealand - so the red smoky moon really highlighted how terrible those fires were. Fast forward a month or so and with those memories still fresh in my mind I was more than a little shocked as I turned the corner to our house the other day and discovered that the river in front of our house was literally on fire. The flames were jumping up and almost reaching our trees. Everything was pretty dry and there was a stiff wind blowing. The washing was hanging outside (in the smoke). It took me a few minutes to discover that my father in law was also amongst the smoke - with his gas burner thingy helping to fuel the flames! For some reason he had decided to set all the vegetation in the river on fire. Heart attack averted.
Fast forward another couple of hours when after swimming lessons we turned the corner and it looked like the back of our house was on fire.... another heart attack until I discovered that my mother in law had taken it upon herself to clean up all the wood shavings etc. from the wood cutting and felt the need to burn them rather than use them on the paths to keep the weeds away (what I had planned!). The photos don't do the fires justice.... I just don't understand the need to burn everything here.... especially when the washing is hanging outside!