Fire! Smoke! Science! In the backyard!

Yesterday we actually had normal, warm, beautiful, bright and lovely SUNSHINE.  Normally, this time of year in Sonoma County, we're already complaining about the heat and the sun, sunburns, pool time, etc.  We are also planning and going to countless BBQ's and having birthday parties at the local pools.

Well, folks, this is an El Nino year (no relation to me, I'm just 'Nino') and it's horribly rainy, gray, heavy and bleak out there.  I feel as if I'm in SF or Bodega Bay, which I love, but not this freaking long.  Normally, this time of year, I'm fleeing to SF or Bodega Bay to take a breaky poo from the heat and sun and bathe in the coolness of the fog and colder climates.  Now, I'm living in it 2-4-7 and it's pretty bleak.  I'm going to have to start comparing it to London if it gets any worse and pull out my Dickens novels (those are my Winter books, by the way).

However, Sunday was different.  Glorious.  Pretty, balmy and just what I needed.  Feeling chilly and a bit allergy infested all week, it was nice to sit outside in the sun on our second patio with the garden area and taken in the sun at it's peak (noonish) and do nothing.

Nothing was wonderful until I smelled the smoke.

Alarmed, I opened my eyes and scanned that little patio.  Nothing.  I knew there was nothing ON in the house, so I looked towards the sky for smoke.  The sky smiled back at me, pure and blue, not a cloud in the sky. 

I tried to close my eyes and take in more sun but I really truly was disturbed by that smoke smell.  It smelled, plastic-y almost.

Sitting up at attention, I was determined to find the source of this smell.  Looking over at my garden, I smelled mixer, which is a nice word for wormshell and manure dirt.  I looked at my bike in the corner.  Nothing.  I asked my son inside on the couch if he smelled it.  Nope.

Then I saw it.  On the little green plastic table in front of me that I've had forever, I had placed a very nice oversized martini glass (for decoration only) that a good friend of ours gave us a few weeks ago.  It was then filled a little ways with really pretty silver rocks, some water and a floating candle.  It looked cute and I liked the candle glowing from the back porch when it wasn't in the midst of a monsoon, as it has been this year.

Today there was sun.  Strong, bright sun.  This sun was pointed directly through the glass and water and made a lovely magnifying glass that was burning into the green plastic table top.  There was the smoke - toxic plastic smoke arose from where the beam of light was hitting.  Then I noticed that this wasn't the first time this happened.  A curved burn pattern had set itself along the table for a few days now - even through the rain!

Upon moving the glass to a less, um, hazardous location away from anything it could burn, I thought this would be a good learning opportunity for my son.  I called him outside to see this wonderful burn pattern and to ask him how it got there, etc.  I was going to show my son some science!  Wow, what a great mother I am!

He comes out to the porch, a bit blinded by the sunlight we've been missing around here and I explain my discovery to him, show him how cool the sun is and ask him what he thinks.  He crosses his arms in front of me and says "You just figured that out, Mom?  That thing's been smoking for days."

"But, JP, this is really cool, look, it shows you the actual curvature of the earth by the..."

"Uh, Mom, are you done?  I had to pause my Wii game for this."

"Sure, I'm done, I just thought it was kinda cool."

"Yes, it is but we already did this at school.  Just don't burn anything else."  And with that he turned away, back to his Wii game.

I decided not to tell my husband of my discovery and science and fire in the backyard for fear that he's be this interested AND freak out that I left all of that stuff out in the sun for that long.

So, note to self - no glass objects of any type with or without water in them shall ever be in the backyard.  I'd better Google see through plastic to ensure that's not a problem too.  I don't want to fry any innocent birds coming to feed at our see through plastic bird feeder in the same yard, although those damn birds have been pretty LOUD as of late out there...