I've probably burned over a thousand slash piles since living in Pend Oreille County. This is one of the downsides of timber harvesting-the endless, will it ever be over, clean up. Burning slash, which always seems to drag on for years after the last logging truck has hit the road, is something I've gotten very good at. Really.

So for your viewing pleasure, here we are after 18 hours of burning wood. Left to Right-Kevin, Timbo, and Timmy.

In all the years of cleaning up blow down, beetle kill trees, and slash, I've never had an experience like Timmy and I shared a few weeks back. Hearing a sound like a kitten down along the river, I thought to myself, "That's strange. Why would a kitten be down here?"

It was long after dark. Timmy was back in the woods, 100 yds behind me, loading up the next load of slash. I was dumping brush on the raging fire we had going. Nothing out of the ordinary right?

'Cept for that kitten sound.

About five minutes after hearing the kitty-kitty sound, we heard this half human half beast-like scream that came from the cliff above us. Timmy started yelling really loudly for me to beat feat it back to where he was standing and although the hair was standing up on the back of my neck, and I admit the big protective fire seemed pretty dang nice...Yet despite that, I turned into the dark and began running toward the sound of Timmy's voice.

Brave huh?

Or stupid.

Or both.

Yep, I guess I figured Tim squared would be no match for that cougar and loyal dofus that I am, I ran bravely and blindly back into the woods to try to see if Timmy was still standing. I had no desire to tell Timmy's wife that he'd been devoured by a cat. Anyway to keep this story short, about 20 feet of shy of reaching Timmy, he said I'd better stop because he could see a four foot cat was right above us. Once again the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and being night blind anyway, I waited for the teeth to sink into the back of my neck.

And what did Timmy say that was really really funny at that very scary moment?

"Hold me."

So as scared as I was, I busted up because it was very wrong. Even though nothing was all that humor like about the Cat Salivating Over My Hat.

At that point Timmy and Timbo decided that the fire really didn't need any more fuel and we made lots of banging sounds on the wheel barrow and sang "Hi-ho hi-ho, it's out of the woods we go."

Like yesterday.

The moral of this story?

The Cat in the Hat is So Not Up For That
When Timmy and Timbo
Burn in the Woods
In the Dark, Without any Light
When the Kitty Meows
The best option

Is flight.

The end.