Still Here!

It occurs to me that my last few posts have focused quite a bit on the raging fire near our house, and a lack of updating here may lead some people to fear we were swallowed by that fire.

We were not.

We had one bad night when the wind was blowing directly to us from the fire and we could see it just over the paved road a few miles to the south of us. We figured that if it jumped that road, there was nothing to stop it from running right through the (very dry) pastures to our house. That was the night I packed all the essential documents and put the bag by the door.

A. stayed up to watch, though, and around 10:30 p.m., the wind shifted just a bit, the humidity went up, and the crisis was over for us.

Also, there was a big truck with a water tank on the back that was running up and down that road for hours, soaking the ground on the south side.

Can I tell you how grateful we are for the 75 men and women who showed up to help fight this fire? SO GRATEFUL. Most of them were from volunteer fire departments all over the northern part of the state, and they had to come a looong way to help. The community donated food, water, and places for them to sleep, and the school opened up so they could shower.

It's very comforting to live in a community that can mobilize so quickly when there's an emergency.

That fire is about 90% contained right now, burning in isolated pockets of trees on unoccupied range land. It probably won't be 100% out until it rains, though, and we don't have much of that in our forecast.

Anyway. Let's hope that's the last of the fire talk for a very long time.

Over and out.