Smoking grass

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

- Plutarch -

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I took this image last week, on the cattle farm I shoot on. It's all rolling hills, creeks and some occasional flat parts, not a typical flat-land cattle farm. The cattle, beef cattle, roam free chomping on lush grasses and sipping on lovely spring water that bubbles up out of the ground, which forms the creeks, and basically live a life of relaxation. Eventually they'll be slaughtered and processed for their meat, but up until then, life is pretty good I'd say.

These grasses you see above were between knee and [almost] waist height to me so quite long. It makes it a little hectic considering the Eastern Brown snake is quite prevalent, this deadly snake can grow up to around seven feet and in this sort of territory will thrive - getting tagged will ruin one's day. The key is to make some noise as one walks along, noise in the grass, not with one's mouth, and the snakey bastards generally bugger off long before I get to where they were. The downside to noise-making is that I'm often on the stalk so silence is best, otherwise the targets bugger off also. It's a conundrum, but sense wins out.

Now we're in summer the grass will die, but it'll stay the hight it was when it died, and the whole area will be crispy, dry as a tinder box, and that presents a problem. Above is an image of the grasses after they die off although, even in this image they are not totally crispy, there's still some green parts; eventually it is all golden and dead. I took this as a storm rolled in, the sun was shining behind me and the storm ahead - It was a cool moment.

Bushfires, or wildfires, as they are sometimes called, tend to get out of control easily in Australia; you may recall the devastating fires that ravaged the country for months back in late 2019-2020. They are often started by arsonists but a bottle discarded from a car window can start them also...imagine a 45°C day (113°F) and the sun beating down on the bottle...the magnifying effect of the glass can easily start fires. Lightning starts them too, as does carelessness and it's that last that is often on my mind.

When I fire my rifles flames spit out of the muzzle. I have them all muzzle-braked to help manage recoil so the flame shoots out forwards and to either side. It looks rather spectacular at night, someday I'll do a slow motion video of it and a post, but in long crispy grass that muzzle flash is extremely problematic.

A spark from my rifle into that dry grass could ignite into a fire in an instant and if there happened to be a breeze, and even without, the result could be an out of control fire and a lone person would have zero chance of dealing with it. I don't want to be responsible for that and so common sense and responsibility needs to occur.

There's areas on the property I can shoot from which minimises the risk but, in truth, to shoot out there when it gets so dry is quite risky.

I remember my grandmother telling me once that, where there's smoke, there's fire. I was fascinated with fire as a kid and was trying to coax one into being that was starting too slowly for my liking. It was a warning. I'd suggested throwing petrol on it you see, never a good idea, but at the age of seven what did I know? Well, those words stuck and whilst I'm still fascinated by fire, I'm pretty responsible when it comes to it.

At the moment it's safe, all except for those snakey bastards, but soon I'll not be able to shoot on most of the farm because of the dry grasses.

I'll still go and shoot from those vantage points I mentioned above, those that minimise the risk of starting a fire, although from that point I'll have to make longer shots, five hundred metres and more. I have the skills, I'm a long range shooter and five hundred metres is more of a close-to-mid distance, but considering I have to make head shots when I cull kangaroos...it's a fair distance on such a small target. Better than than starting a fire though right?