A Quiet Friday

 Thank you for all of your very kind comments lately. I don't know what's going on but I stayed up late Thursday night and replied back to all of them individually and then I had a long influx of emails telling me they were undeliverable. 😩

Technology and I do not compute. I was tired and frustrated. Many of your comments come through as anonymous so even if you sign your name at the bottom, I don't know if my replies get back to you. Anonymous comments are fine; I just feel badly about not being able to reciprocate - especially when questions are asked.

I apologize. I so appreciate that you take the time to pop in for a visit and I like to reply back.

 The shower I posted about yesterday didn't last long. It barely measured 0.10 here but we are grateful for every drop and the evening fire report mentioned that it helped subdue the flames in higher elevations where they received a little more.

Friday morning I was still out of sorts. They have cleared the fire perimeter and have begun to back-burn which means lots and lots of smoke. I feel for the people and critters having to be out in that and I felt guilty that I had the luxury of being indoors after tending to chores. The chickens started out their morning with a little hen session. Probably complaining that it was time for a good coop cleaning.

 My FIL sent this photo from his home. They are 40 miles from us although as the crow flies, they are maybe 30. We live on the other side of that mountain range.

They reported 19,088 acres Friday evening from 17, 116 that morning. There was a lot of air traffic throughout Thursday and into Friday. I took this from the deck. I counted 9 aircraft in 20 minutes. They dumped 150,000 gallons  of water on the fire on Thursday.

DH had left at 5 a.m. on Thursday to pick up cattle guards in east Texas. On the way, he stopped in Portales, NM to pick up 6 gates. We are building a new fence around the property and the gates will allow him easy access when he is horseback or if we need to take equipment or the can-am through. We had put this one in a few weeks ago

He then stopped in Texas and had lunch with his brother and his wife and then drove on to Oklahoma and spent the night with our girl. She was returning from a business trip that evening and DH left out early Friday morning so sadly, they were only able to spend about 45 minutes visiting.

Then DH moved on to pick up cattle guards and after another 3 hour drive, he picked up more bees. He pulled back in at 9:30 p.m. 1250 miles in 40 hours. I know he is tired, but he admits that it is self-inflicted. He has gone hard all his life and the transition after leaving ranch management has not changed that. We were up at 5 this morning to unload the trailer

With all the smoke on Friday, I cleaned my floors and then spent time in my sewing room. It's been a couple of weeks since I sat down to sew. I began to relax as soon as I walked in. I cut out a baby quilt and actually sewed all the blocks in one day. 

That never happens. And this seasoned fabric that has been in my stash for years was perfect for sashing. I had just enough.

Then I trimmed up 4 quilts I picked up from my longarmer. The 'to be bound' pile is getting unruly.

An entire day to sew. That's a rare treat!

A Praise Post

 After I posted on Thursday morning, I made a little circle to fill water troughs, feed the bees, and water the orchard. As I was in the orchard, I heard thunder and watched this dark cloud drift into view. 

Thank you! Because I KNOW it was your prayers that sent it. And then it began to sprinkle

Not a ton, but enough to know...

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Fire Watch : Day 5 -7 Update

 Yes, we are all safe. I'm sorry I haven't posted the last few days - we just haven't had much free time. If we weren't working on roads or trimming and hauling grubbed trees

we were both fielding SO many phone calls! Plus, we're still juggling cattle business and needing to brand calves. I needed to get the rest of the garden planted and add mulch.

On the fire front, it moved a lot throughout Monday. Monday morning they reported that 8,971 had burned and Tuesday morning it was sitting at 15,857 acres. 

Not a lot of activity on our property on Monday. The boys worked on clearing more trees 

and the next day DH pushed a road out to give us a second option should our main entrance ever be compromised. The skidsteer track came off, but we just stuck wood pieces in specific spots between the teeth and  we were soon back in business

They brought a water truck out

And set up a portable water storage (they called it a pumpkin). It holds 3,000 gallons.

He only had enough water to fill it half-way so we filled it with water from the spring and let them move on.

It took about 6 hours to fill it

As dusk settled in, we could see that the fire had crawled up Capitan Mountain

In this shot, that's the mountain on the right.

High winds were forecast again on Monday afternoon and through the night, but with the exception of a few gusts, it was mostly calm. Proof of your prayers at work! Thank you! As we closed out the day and crawled into bed, I felt guilty knowing that hundreds of first responders were not going to be sleeping, but working through the night and into the coming days and weeks until the area is blessed with rain. Lord, please place a hedge of protection around each and every one. Presently, there are 834 first responders and support personel crawling through these mountains. Currently, 32 crews, 36 engines, 6 helicopers, 30 water tenders, and 6 dozers are on site.

Tuesday night it looked like this, but that's quite dramatic so I turned off my night mode

This is a more accurate depiction of what we saw. That's about 2 miles from us.

This was our view from the deck the next night

The road to town is still closed, but they will let those of us who live here pass through. I put in a grocery pick-up order and ran in for that as well some horse feed, hay and mulch on Wednesday, but first I needed to unload the things I had loaded in case we needed to evacuate. I hadn't been to town in 12 days so I came back with a load

We are still under a level 3 evacuation order, but we are fine. In fact we had 90% humidity this morning. No rain, but a heavy misty, fog covered the mountain and that's a huge blessing.

I am impressed with the amount of information the incident command center shares 2 or 3 times a day via the inci-web and Watch Duty apps. 

As of this morning, the fire sits at 16,703 acres burned. The majority of the activity has moved west, away from us, so although this is still a long way from being out, we are grateful for a bit of a reprieve, but our prayers continue for those working the fire and for those in it's path.

Fire Watch : Day 4 Update

 Another wild day. At night we can see a few flames

The fire increased from 2645 acres to 6390 overnight according to the Sunday morning report. By Sunday evening it had grown to 8971 acres with 0% containment and 245 crew members on site. 

Multiple aircraft were providing air support, but the increasing winds grounded them.

It's still a few miles from us, but we have to rely on phone alerts and neighboring ranching friends as it's impossible to gage what's taking place from our place. The canyons twist and turn and what the wind's doing here at the house is the complete opposite of how it's behaving in say, Copeland Canyon.

DH has been living on the skidsteer since we moved here. He's been trimming and cutting and grubbing trees and brush since day 1 and we did quite a bit more on Sunday. DH cut

and I hauled and stacked

And DH would scoop and dump

We were clearing a wider perimeter around the house.

I hated to lose so many trees, but it can't be helped when you live in the mountains and fire encroaches, you have to be practical.

Later, I soaked the wood supports and pillars on the deck. The rock is fine and the main part of the deck is composite.

Our son drove out about 9. The road between us and any town is closed so we didn't figure they'd let him through, but they did and we were very grateful for his help.

My knee was grateful too. I still hauled and stacked, but he moved twice as fast as I did. 

The other thing we're very grateful for is everyone's prayers...especially for the first responders on the front line. So thank you. The winds were not as wild as we were expecting, surprisingly we still have electricity, DH was able to get the horses out, and everyone is safe.

Today, higher winds are forecast, and we expect the fire to expand closer, but calmer weather is on the horizon. As tired as we are, I can't imagine how exhausted the folks on the front line are. They are all on the North end of the fire so I'm praying that means we're out of the woods for the moment, but we know it can change quickly.

The folks who have lived in this area all their lives and have experienced multiple fires say that the only thing that can put these fires out is rain and they will often burn for 30 days or more so here it is more about fire management than it is fire fighting. 

We'll continue to monitor the situation and are ready to pull out if conditions warrant we do so.

When I walked out on the deck first thing.in the morning, it certainly didn't look like fire was headed our way.