We've Got Power!

Saturday, I slathered on the sunscreen, got dressed, and had breakfast.  I slept in a little bit - emphasis on "little bit".  Weekday mornings can be so difficult to get up, but at the first opportunity to sleep late, I am up with the sun.

And the sun is UP!  Our days are in the nineties, and we're pretty dry.  And despite my best effort, I didn't slather good enough and missed my shoulder blade.  Sadly, it is pretty red.  After working in the cool basement in the morning, we had set up our electrical panel and flipped the main breaker to off.  Then we headed to the electrical pole and connected our lines.  There was a bit of fussing over the old lines and new lines and digging and tugging and shoving.  After connecting all the conduit and getting the wires in the box, Tom and his dad got everything squared away.  They flipped the switch, and nothing happened.  This was a good thing - no sparks, no arcs, no hiccups.

Thomas hooked up an outlet for the basement and for upstairs.  Wow - what a nice strong current can do: brighter lights and an even faster fan.  We celebrated with beers in the basement and then took a break before coming back out and hooking up some of our other lines into the electric panel. 

Sunday we had a real sabbath and didn't work.  I pulled some weeds, but not until after a couple hours rest after church.  It was nice to take a break from the heat.  I am overdue for some pictures of the house, though I'm not sure how interesting a picture of our electric panel would be.  Dad arrives in a couple days to help, so then I can get some more pictures. 

In the meantime - Tom says not to work for a man with a lighted barn.   

Burning Out...

It's hard to believe it's been a week of fire watch for us.  It's been fascinating to see it change, but probably most people are already forgetting about it.  As of yesterday it was 80% contained and beginning to burn itself out in spots.  There has generally been significantly less smoke, and we've had more humid weather and even some rain.  But I still drive by the camp back and forth each day and see the helicopters and tents and trucks, so I know they haven't gone home.  God protect our firefighters...

A week of progression...

Friday, June 14th - stopped north of Rayado to take a few pictures of the smoke and fire moving northward.  The helicopter is only a speck in this photo size.

Back home on Friday, the fire has noticeably spread.  

Another Friday shot of the plane that circled the fire all night long on Friday.  I was awake from 2 - 6 am, listening to that plane circle.

Saturday night, June 15th - the winds have changed directions.

It was a horribly smoky night in our neighborhood in the evening - battling the heat with open windows meant our eyes and throats were burning.

Sunday, June 16th - so little smoke in the morning, you might not have know it was there.  It kicked up in the afternoon with the wind. 

Monday, June 17th - that isn't a smudge on the screen, but a tuft of dark smoke above the horizon.

Wednesday, June 19th - Thomas and I drove home from a dinner out for our anniversary.  Ordinarily the mesas are visible from over 40 miles away, but we had to get home before I could make them out.  The mountains to our west, however, never came into view.  Our county had red flag (dry winds - fire danger), tornado, and thunderstorm warning throughout the afternoon and evening - the sky was filled with smoke and dust.

Today's the Day!

It is hard to believe it's only been three years since we said, "I do." 

I can't imagine my life anywhere but by Tom's side. 

Te amo, mi amor!

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!