Burning up down here...

It's been hot and dry, but I am talking about burning burning, like wildfire burning.  Maybe that's burning down, not up; I don't know.  Yesterday Thomas called to say that our volunteer department was on standby for a fire near White's Peak.  This is roughly due west of our home about 16 miles, I think.  Lightning started it late morning, and by the time Thomas got back to Miami from work, it was already turned over to the state as a type III fire. 

To fight a type III, the state employs fire fighters who are red-carded, or certified for the incident.  Our department is not red-carded, so we would only be called up for tanker support or other ground support not directly involved in building fire lines, etc.  There is a relief in knowing we wouldn't get sent into the hills, but also a strong desire to want to protect our community.  Sitting at home and watching from afar left us wondering a lot about what is happening and how things progressed.

The view from our house in the early evening - air tankers could be heard flying in to drop water and retardant.  The winds were blowing our way, leaving everyone in Miami hungry for mesquite BBQ, if not also worried about it advancing towards us.

Initially it was moving east, though I think it progressed more in a northerly direction.  The terrain is very rugged, making it difficult to fight, as well as difficult to anticipate where the wind might blow it  The Philmont Scout Ranch evacuated its southern camps and moved them further north as a precautionary measure.  I am sure it was as much to protect them from the smoke blowing their way, as to move them out of harm's way should the fire advance more quickly.

The same shot from the house, just zoomed back out for a better perspective on how far away it is.

Though I fear being called a cat person, I can't help but post a cute animal picture.  With the big zoom lens, I was able to catch the cats from across the yard.  Spooky and two of her three kittens.  I think the one on the left has the markings of a little tiger, and the one on the right has a cute striped tail. 

It was hard to think about much else all evening.  Gratefully, the wind died down.  I kept peeking, and when the sun went down, the plumes of smoke reflected back the illumination of the fire.  The crews on the fire had a long night, as the wind picked up again around 10:30 pm.  I slept well, despite my fear of turning my back on the fire.

Dry lightning rippled through the night sky all evening.  This shot turned out better with the illumination of the lightning in the clouds - taken about 9:15 pm.

This morning the report was that the fire had expanded to just under 1,000 acres.  Ground crews are working on a defensible containment line north of the fire, while air support dropped more retardant and water.  We did have a bit of rain late in the morning in Cimarron, though I don't know if it reached as far south as the fire.

We pray for the fire fighters protecting our community and for all those fighting wildfires across the nation.  And we implore God for rain to quench the fires.

the loudness of quiet...

Profound, huh?  The loudness of quiet?  It is amazing how loud a quiet house can be.  Tom and I intentionally live in the middle of this beautiful, vast open country.  We rarely hear sirens, and when we do, we're usually the ones in the fire truck turning them on (for testing).  These days the motorcycles make a bit more noise on the highway, but there is still such little traffic.  There is the occasional braying of a donkey, barking of a dog, or the laughter/fighting of children at the neighbors.  The sounds of our "city" are pretty quiet when compared to our days in Denver.  The sounds of our home are pretty noisy: clock ticking, refrigerator and freezer running, maybe a dishwasher or load of laundry in the dryer, the whirring of the ceiling fan, and the humming of the swamp cooler.  Those little white noises that we can't hear until they are silenced.   Of course, the wind is usually the noisiest of all.

I got home Monday about 5 pm.  I did this and that.  About 5:25pm the power went out.  The phone made its clicking noises until the spare battery died.  The smoke alarms made a pitiful show of beeping intermittently and then slowly wheezing off over a series of whimpering beeps.  The clock in the TV room still ticked, but there was a hush that was stifling.  It should have been the perfect condition to read, but I wanted music.  I don't know how long I sat there with the magazine in my lap, but eventually I gave up and thought I needed to get outside where I couldn't sense the uselessness of the power lines overhead.

I walked towards Tom, in no particular hurry to get anywhere, but distracted by what looked like billowing smoke the color of dust north of us.  It looked like it was coming from behind a hill, so I couldn't see if there really was a fire.  As I continued in the direction of the firehouse, I knew we hadn't gotten paged, but wondered all the same.  Within a few minutes I could see that it was just a dust storm, and a few minutes after that, my ride showed up.  I rode home with Tom and told him about the outage.

Neither of us were hungry, though we could cook whatever we want with a gas stove.  I finished the magazine and went back outside.  The little garden is missing a few more bindweed, but everything felt like waiting.  When I heard the phone ring, I went back in, but it was just Tom's cell.  Finally, the lights flickered, the fan started back on its endless cycle, the appliances hummed.  Two hours and ten minutes.  Long enough for a movie.  Somehow with the power back on, we were ready to eat and get back to living again. 

Welcome new nephew!

Baby season has begun!  Tom and I took a lunch break Sunday and listened to a message on voicemail announcing Miki and Marty were heading to the hospital.  Ollie was hanging with Poppa and Naucka (Grandma) with peanut butter on his nose telling me he went to church.  Then the news came that evening that Theodore Matthew arrived in the afternoon!  How exciting - Teddy makes number four grandson.

Check out the pictures...

Friend Gabby should be this week, too.  Then sister-in-law Michelle is a month away, as is friend Andrea.  Thanks, God, for babies!  And I can't wait to visit them....

More progress...

May has been anything but typical.  Tom spent the first week in Las Cruces for a training and the second to last week in Soccoro for another training.  I snuck off to Denver for a whirlwind of visits, too, and also wrapped up all the evening stuff for work.  Now it is "summer" because the kids are out of school. 

We got a lot done on the house - Pop, with the occasional help of Andres, has been our ditcher par excellence!  We laid the service cable and the water line.  Last day of the month - Pop announced there is running water to the house, which I joked better not be running until there is also a septic line buried.  With the help of friends, we made great progress on the siding over Memorial Day weekend.  And this past week, Thomas and I have been talking a lot about appliances and kitchen layout and flooring, etc.  We've also been working on estimates for insulation and drywall.

This past weekend - officially June work - Tom and I got up nearly all the siding on the north side.  We definitely missed our friends who helped us make such short work of the other side.  Pop worked the tractor and buried the water line (and his cell phone?).  Our plans to finish the north side and do the east one, too, were foiled by strong winds on Sunday.  We gave in and worked inside.  Much of the electrical wiring has been run through the upstairs; the ones into the ceiling for lights can wait a little longer.  And the kitchen layout needs to be solid before we run wires all over the kitchen.  In part to do this, we cleaned out a lot of scrap wood and other materials, removed the rest of the tarp that was installed over the decking almost a year ago when my parents were here.  The interior looks so nice and clean and open.  It's all coming together!

Date Night

Tom and I don't get too many date nights - we spend most of our nights just the two of us anyway.  And our meals can be pretty fancy, followed by a movie, accompanied by a beer or wine - all at home, of course.  These could arguably be considered date nights, but for the sake of something or other...

Saturday it got warm, so we took a break.  The break turned into a permanent hiatus for the day.  We cleaned up the tools and what not from siding, cleaned up ourselves, and dusted off the Harley.  The little "test drive" a few weeks ago of about a mile had been my first time on the bike since our days in Denver.  And I wouldn't call it a ride.  Our first ride was Saturday night.  Tom took me into Cimarron for dinner at the St. James.  Those first 22 miles were good.  I was trying to move with Tom and the bike on all those turns, and there are a lot of turns.  I had my helmet on, which makes me feel a little like a bobblehead, but safety first, right?  After dinner we backtracked to Philmont for Saturday evening mass, only to find out, after walking around for half an hour, that there would be no Saturday evening masses until next Saturday.  (We drove back in the wind on Sunday evening.)  The ride home was just as exhilarating, though more windy.  I was wondering what a motorcyclist does when coming upon deer in the road and found out.  They didn't scare particularly easy by those loud pipes, which surprised me.

All in all, a great dinner date and walk, a fantastic ride, and a wonderful husband!

Fun in the Sun (and the Wind)

The intermittent rain of early May dried up this past weekend.  In its place the wind has figures prominently.  Saturday morning I got to work caulking - a good solitary work project that didn't put me in danger of falling off the roof, nailing my hand to the house, or anything else like that.  I gave Pop a hand with some of the work on the water line trench, which he finished trenching today.  And of course there was laundry and more housecleaning before the girls arrived.

Tom arrived home!!!  Hooray - I was very happy to see him.  And about two and a half hours later, Mary & Jennifer arrived!  More hoorays!!!  It was terrific to have a full house (and clean), and the laughter and stories really made it an awesome weekend.  The girls spoiled us with produce and treats not typically found around here - delicious.  Tom also treated us to a recent favorite of ours - pupu platter night...

crystal rolls, seaweed rolls, seared tuna, and potstickers...

And while eating and drinking consumed part of our time, these two came down and worked!  They helped so much, and we really appreciated it.  I love working by Tom's side, but another pair of hands made it go even faster.  And there was more laughing and joking (not at my expense, either).

Jennifer guarding the pile of lumber that continues to diminish as the walls go up.

After all the work on the siding during the day Sunday, the wind picked up, and it was time to move inside.  Thomas approved my drawing for the basement wall that separates the east corner room, aka the crafting corner, from the TV room.  Then he watched Mary, Jennifer, and I build it.  It was fun working with the girls cutting the boards and putting it all together.  Gratefully, we had a nail gun for what I think of as the hard part.  And Thomas gave up his supervisory position to help us secure it in place.



Girl power!!

Sunday we "finished" this side of the siding

(we'll wait to do the last couple rows when we have the soffets in, I think)

We'd already started on this side Sunday, but "finished" it on Monday.



Guess who was tired?!?!  All of us - and definitely the good kind of tired that means we've worked hard and had fun!  Monday the girls headed home in the early afternoon, but we didn't toss in the towel yet.  Pop delivered a truck bed of manure for the garden, which I scooped with him.  Tom worked on a new control panel for the pump on an old wildland truck at the firehouse.  Phew - tired doesn't even begin to describe it.  We've got to rest up this week because there is always more work next week!

Hazardous to My Health

Talking to my girlfriends last night, I laughed.  I laughed for many reasons, but universally I laughed when they asked, "How are you?"  Everyone has had the conversation at some point about what that question even means, right?  (Has it become synonymous with "hello" or do people really want to know - you know that conversation about it?)  I laughed because I am falling apart.

Just yesterday morning an older woman in the dentist's waiting room struck up a conversation about the aches and pains of getting older.  So what's my excuse?  I decided I might be hazardous to my health - particularly the version of me that doesn't have Thomas around.  In the first four days of his absence, I dealt with

- my big toe was sore.  Unbeknownst to me, I had a sliver in the end of my big toe.  I thought it was a bruise from dropping a piece of conduit on it.  Not being flexible enough to get up close and personal, I mess with it, finding not only the sliver, but a bit of an infection.  I'll live.

- Wednesday I get home from work just before 9 o'clock and am hungry.  I fry an egg with some focaccia and wolf it down.  A chunk of bread goes the wrong way, and I can't breathe.  As I try to get my wits about me, my body volunteers the right response, and the air in my belly forcibly exhales the bread in an arc out of my gaping mouth.  Phew!  I'll live, but I'm going to finish my dinner more slowly.

- Thursday I kick/catch my middle toe on a piece of wall board leaning in the hall (formerly my puzzle board).  I mutter, "That's gonna hurt," and hobble to the couch.  It's already discoloring and swelling.  Maybe it's a sprain, maybe it's broken.  Same difference to me - buddy tape it.  I'll live (in sandals).  I painted my toes, since my feet will be naked for a while.

Crazy one thing after the next!  Hopefully the last of the vacuuming and housecleaning won't be my demise before Tom gets home.