A porch demolished and burned

In anticipation of the digging that would be going on this week, we ripped our porch off last week. I came out to find the windows covered (for protection), one pillar off, supports up to help it fall out rather than against the house, and Don and my dad about to knock the other pillar off. We all expected that without the pillars (and most of the supporting nails between the porch and the house) that it would come down with a spectacular crash. Instead, nothing happened!

It took a big heavy chain attached to the roof of the porch being drug by a pickup truck to get the thing away from the house. Unfortunately, right about that time, my camera battery died. The good news was that it decided to die then and not in the middle of the birth.

Once it was down, they again used the chain to drag it to the front of the house to burn. We thought that would be a good spot because it will all be dug up anyway when they go to add on to the basement. This is what is left of the porch...

Don got the fire going and within what seemed like just a few minutes, the fire was raging and we had to douse it. We didn't count on the flames reaching quite so high and so fast. A tree nearby was in danger of catching fire (a tree that would need to come down for the addition, but nonetheless didn't need to be burned!), and so Don threw his buckets of water on the fire and got it back under control. Even after we thought it was completely out, though, it was not. We definitely learned why firefighters need to practically tear a place apart to ensure that a fire is completely out. I think I'll call it "fire safety lessons" for school. Anyway, after that initial flare up, we managed to keep it under control and it burned throughout the entire day. It was, in fact, still burning 12 hours later.
We put it out completely before bed and now have a huge pile of ash and metal in front of our house. The kids are going to earn a few bucks by gathering all the nails they can find. And now, on to the digging for the addition. Things are happening fast around here. All, that is, except the producing of a baby!