You Just Never Know

You get up in the morning with some sense of the day; then things happen and all of a sudden you are on traveling in a direction you didn't see coming. That describes our day yesterday. I mentioned the fire in an earlier post, but that was long before things got serious.

We could see and smell the smoke (can still smell it today outside and inside the house) from our back window; then the smoke turned ominously black. That was a house burning to the ground. The tankers came in from the air to drop fire retardant. Then the helicopters arrived to get water out of our neighbors pond and drop it on yet another house fire. It was eerie to watch all the burning while the wind whipped around. One minute it was from the east, the next from the northwest.

Our neighbor from across the street Richard arrived to check on us. His son, Buster, was right behind him. Once Richard had ascertained that we were okay he went back to his car and brought in a bottle of wonderful chardonnay. So we proceeded to drink the wine and snack. Buster went back to Richard's house for another bottle...sauvignon blanc this time. Meanwhile Richard was command central for his family who were outside the area and could not get home because the roads were blocked and his friend Bill who was at work at Home Depot but whose house narrowly escaped the fire.

Turtle Doug was arriving from Burning Man but couldn't get through. So we all decided to rendezvous at Richard's friends house in downtown Lincoln. Laurie put on a smashing dinner complete with wonderful appetizers and homemade cookies.

It was Harleen's first party. She did very well. Even met the neighborhood cat; she held her ground against the cat.

Today Turtle Doug, Harleen, Kate and I took a drive to see the devastation. The fire trucks and fire fighters were still very visible as they looked for hot spots. There is a property about a half mile down the road that has always looked pretty disheveled; single wide mobile home, lots of old trucks on the ten acres, etc. Well the mobile home burned to the ground. The bizarre thing is that the owners vegetable garden was not touched by the fire. Another house down the road was colored pink on one side from the fire retardant.

I have to say that we were really lucky. I tried to consider what I would take if we had to leave. After you get all the animals in the car, then what. Well I decided my hard drive, my sewing machine and as many of my quilts as I could carry.

I'm hoping the rest of the week will be very boring...but you never know.