I'm planning to do a few more personal posts, so we'll start with a Monday summary of my weekend events since a few people believe I lead a bit of a crazy life. I hadn't noticed!
Some posts will certainly involve what we've done with our horses over the weekend, but some will share what I've learned from a marathon writing session (assuming the weather kept me inside,) and a few will combine both of those things. I have one planned discussing how writing is like training horses - been pondering this a while.
But today will share a weekend a little more exciting than most. A week ago last Monday, lightning struck a tree about three miles from my house. Three miles of very rugged terrain with no houses or roads in between. BLM monitored it rather than fighting because of the difficult access.
On Thursday it expanded from an acre to five acres and sent up plumes of smoke, but was still not of much concern. My husband and I drove to the strike site to get GPS coordinates to see how close it was to our house on the other side of a big ridge. Three miles. Still not much to worry about even though the wind was picking up.
Next morning we were putting shoes on a horse and halfway through, noticed a huge black cloud. Something changed. The fire jumped to 60 acres. We watched for a bit, then realized they'd never get it out by nightfall, so evacuated our six horses, two cats and one dog. We slept in our living quarter horse trailer. Just like camping out since we have some wonderful friends with room for the extra beasties.
Saturday we had nothing else to do, so we did a 13 mile ride with two horses and realized what my husband thought was a pollen allergy was really a cold. He's miserable through all this.
As I write this on Sunday afternoon, the fire is 10% contained, but the wind is picking up, and the firefighters have asked to set up an observation post on our roof since our property is the highest in our area. And one of the closest to the active spots.
Now we wait. We're glad the horses are out. We can evacuate in five minutes if it blows up. Will I have a house when this posts on Monday? I don't know. But if I have an internet connection I will post any news.
I'd love if readers can read/comment/tweet about any of my recent posts since I won't be able to keep the ball rolling on some recent cover reveals and book announcements. Thank you!
Update for Tuesday 7/1/2014 - Our evacuation has been lifted. Despite temps near 100 and gusty winds, the helicopters kept up a steady water and slurry dump routine and kept the fire from growing. We also learned that on Saturday they dumped a whole line of slurry with a DC10 between us and the fire. There are only a few hot spots left although they won't be able to claim containment because the terrain is too rough to put men on the ground for more than half of the perimeter. We're going to pick up our horses today, but we'll stay alert and ready for any changes.
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