Thursday, June 4, 2009

Oh it burns, burns, burns...

On Tyler's last day of work with Rocky Mountain Wildlife Services his boss (Brett) was going to be out of town. So Brett has his crew go up to his family cabin with Brett's dad to clean up the property. Most of the work consists of burning slash piles. One of the guys Tyler is working with (Nate) has a water tank with a sprayer attached, and is working on one of the slash piles. Tyler is working on another located closer to the stream. Since there is only one water tank Tyler is using a 5 gallon bucket which he fills with water from the stream. As Tyler is walking around the slash pile he is working to keep under control, he moves to throw a bucket of water on it in order to keep the grass surrounding the pile from catching fire. Just as he goes to throw the water on the pile, a gust of wind swirls around the slash pile and re-directs the flames; directly into Tyler's face. Tyler is hit with a super hot gust of air from the fire, and pulls away thinking, "Wow. That was really hot..." As Tyler is walking down to the stream to re-fill his bucket with water, he smells burning hair. He realizes that it is probably his own, precious hair that he has been dutifully growing out on his wife's behalf for over a year now, and rushes the rest of the way to the stream and promptly submerges his head in the water. He stands up, a little concerned, turns to his co-worker and asks, "Hey Nate, did I just light my hair on fire?" Nate doubles over laughing as soon as he sees Tyler's hair. And, as you can see here, it is perfectly clear why. Luckily, Tyler didn't actually catch his head on fire. This time. He singed most of everything on his face: Hair, eyebrows, secret beard, beard, etc. We hope you get as much of a kick out of this as his crew did....

5 comments:

Kirsta 'n co. said...

I like the little curly singed edges, those are the best! Glad he still has eyebrows!

Anonymous said...

Dang Ty, you get all the great stories: "I almost burned my face off", "I scared away a mountain lion", I didn't realize you were such a thrill seeker.
Sorry about the hair. It looks edgy, I hope you keep it.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to think this was Mother Nature's little payback for all those shirts and hats you have of forest fires . . .

Glad you're unhurt. Love you!

Wendy

Schmidt Family said...

That is awesome! I want to know how you are going to even out his hair.

Anonymous said...

I just want to see how white his face is under that beard compared to his tan! That hair is totally urban modern grunge. I tried it for awhile when I was a teenager: earned meself the nickname of Smokey the Bear at girls' camp one year. It grew back...after years and years. Wish it took that long for the eyebrows!