I got home from Iowa Sat. night and Dave left for Chicago early Sunday morning. I spent the week grooming horses, getting the ranch in order for the winter and getting the house cleaned. Yesterday and today I had clients come up to see horses and yesterday I took them on a brief ride. Dave comes in tonight and we get to see eachother for almost the first time in months.
Very glad to be home. Glad the season is winding down and I might be able to get the ranch in order. We are hoping to bring in our hay next week and to finish up winterizing the ranch.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
The Fire Diary
A month ago, 3 days before Michal was to leave after her summer here, I got an early morning call from my Aunt saying that my cousin's husband had died of pneumonia. He was a health, 35 year old man, almost never sick. My cousin and I are close and I immediately went out there to help. (She has is fighting a serious illness and is unable to work. He was her main care-giver.)
I spent a month in Iowa, helping her to fight her way through those first weeks without her husband and start to figure out what her life would look like now. While I was gone, the ranch had all manner of adventure without me. My mother kept a running diary of those adventures and I thought you might like to read them...
THE FIRE DIARIES: by Jancie Springer (revjanicespringer@juno.com)
Monday, August 6, 2007
My nephew (my niece’s husband) died. Who ever heard of a healthy, strapping man of 35 dying of pneumonia? Everyone is stunned. Christie and I fly out the same day. David and family drive up in a couple days. Katy flies out, gets to Denver, her second flight is canceled. She does not make it in time for the funeral, but she is here afterwards for about 24 hours. My nephew Jay, Janelle’s brother, and his wife come in. I do Perry’s funeral. Janelle has a debilitating illness and Perry was her practical and emotional support and care giver. We work hard to keep her going. It is an awful week.
Tuesday, August 14
I fly home Monday, arriving in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Christie stays in Iowa to help Janelle. Paul picks me up and I sleep at their house. Katy and Paul have had an unexpected childcare problem, so I spend Tuesday with them, caring for Lucy and Ella all day. That is very healing.
On the way back to the ranch I see a wildfire from the highway. It is not far from our area. It will become known as the Black Cat fire. Today, I learn, it has burned about 600 acres. When I get back to the ranch with Dave and visiting friends Karen and Aud, their son Alex and his friend Emily, we talk about evacuation plans. There are 30 horses on the land. I put some things in the trunk of my car that I’d want to take out if we evacuated.
Wednesday, August 15
I work at church all day, stop in to see Katy and the girls, head back to the ranch about 6pm. There is a checkpoint at the bottom of our road. The man wearing the sheriff’s badge (actually a search and rescue person I think) tells me we are not in imminent danger, but he needs to tell me about evacuation procedures. He asks, “Does your family have a place to go to? If not, you can come to my house.” I get tears in my eyes at the kindness of this stranger. When I get to the ranch, I tell them all that he said. The presence of the checkpoint implies that the stakes have been raised. We talk about what to do. Christie is the mover and shaker of the horse business, and she is still in Iowa, but she offers direction through many phone calls. We finally decide we must evacuate the horses.
Christie makes calls to friends and clients; they call other people. About 9pm four horse trailers pull up, and about half a dozen folks, some of whom we don’t even know. They and the 6 of us begin rounding up horses. That means walking through large pastures in the dark trying to find the horses. It means putting rope and halter on yearlings that have not been trained or even much handled yet, and so are frightened. It means keeping the babies with their mamas. Some get on the trailers pretty easily. Some run back into the woods. One man, a rodeo rider, amazes us all by lassoing one of the difficult ones; it is just like in the old movies! Finally the 3 trailers, one with 10 horses on it, head down the mountain. The horses will stay in various places for the night. Dave drives some down to our vets. Finally, Dave and Aud and I pack up the last 3 except the stallion and take them down the far side of the mountain to the ranch of a couple from my church. Janet and Bill welcome us as though it were mid afternoon instead of 2:00 am. We get to bed about 3:00.
Thursday, August 16
After 4 hours sleep we are up. Dave, Karen and Aud, Alex and Emily head out by 8 am. Some of the horses have broken through fences and gotten loose and must be moved to better quarters. They head off with the horse trailer to do that, taking the last horse, our stallion, to board at the vets. They also go buy hay and then deliver it to the places that have our horses.
Meanwhile, I am at the ranch staffing the phone and preparing to evacuate if need be.
I go through my cabin again, making sure I have essential things for Luka and me in the trunk of my car. What hard choices! I am supposed to lead a retreat Saturday; I finish preparing for that and put that material and things I need for church Sunday in my trunk. I also call AAA, because Wednesday night in all the confusion with getting the horses out, I lock my keys in my car. Aud leaves a small sledge hammer by my car; if AAA won’t come up and we have to evacuate, I must break a window to get in so I can get my wallet and the stuff in the trunk. However, AAA does come up the mountain and fixes the problem. I talk to Christie several times and make some phone calls for her.
The others come back exhausted about 4pm. We do a few details in preparation for evacuation, but mostly we just talk about doing such things. We are all so tired. We get the information that this is a Class 1 fire (or some phrase like that)—the most dangerous, and the one they put the most resources into. Someone said the 10 worst fires in USA are all in Montana, and this is the top one. We get word that it jumped the highway.
About 9pm an official with a loud speaker drives by. “You have 1/2 hour to get off the hill,” he yells from his truck. “Evacuate!” A neighbor comes to say the Frenchtown side of the mountain (our usual way up and down) is closed; we must go out the other way.
A half hour later, we leave. Dave is driving the good truck. Two of Christie’s cats are in a cage in the truck bed. Dave is pulling the horse trailer; there are 3 goats in it. Next in the procession is Karen driving Aud’s van, Emily and Alex with her. It is full of clothes, photo albums of Christie and Dave, financial records, computers, blankets, towels, a few framed pictures, and so on. I follow in my car; I have 3 dogs with me. Aud drives the old truck; my cabin cat is in a cage in that truck bed.
We get down the mountain as quickly as we can. Another checkpoint: he warns us that he cannot let us back on the road. With tenderness, he wishes us good luck. We drive into Missoula.
Katy and Paul moved to a new house earlier this summer, but have not sold their old one. We settle there. We have water, showers, air conditioning, a fenced yard for the dogs. We have a few dog dishes and two buckets so we take water to the goats and cats and leave them in the vehicles. The dogs come in with us. We don’t have quite enough blankets, but we share around and everyone has something. We make up beds on the floor, settle dogs, shower, and get to bed about midnight. This will be home for a while.
Friday, August 18
We go out for breakfast. Then we take the 3 cats to the humane society nearby. They take a record of each cat and put an id tag around their necks. Then we drive them to the fair grounds, which has been set up as a shelter for all animals that have been evacuated and need a place. More records; id on each cage. Smokey and Bandit get a bigger cage together; Belle has her own. They have food, water, a small blanket. They will be very unhappy cats, but safe. Later while some of us run an errand, the others bring the goats to the same place. Later in the day I go to work at the church to prepare for the retreat tomorrow. Most of the folks are gone when I get there, but 2 part-time staff folks are still there. They give me big hugs, say the staff has been worried about me all day as they heard that Mill Creek had been evacuated. I feel loved. Dave and company need to deal with some of the horses again.
There is a public meeting for all Frenchtown residents. Dave, Karen, Aud and I go. On the way there and back we see the flames, and the ground in places is burned right up to Highway 90 on which we’re driving. It is moving to see some 600 people gather in the school gym with this common desperate concern. I find it interesting to hear the behind the scenes stories of how fighting a fire has to happen. It has now burned about 8,000 acres. After the meeting, we talk to the sheriff who says we might be able to go back to the house Sunday morning for just a couple hours to recover more things, though he can’t promise. We can follow information about the fire on www.inciweb.org. They also give us many phone numbers for information.
Saturday, August 18
I lead an all-day retreat. It goes very well. People fuss over me about the evacuation as well as about Perry’s death. They are all lovely. And they like the retreat! I am glad to have a break from the intensity of things, and leading the retreat feels healing. Meanwhile, the rest of the family are moving horses, going to buy a ton of hay and delivering it to the horses. We make lists of what to recover if we get to return to the ranch.
Although Missoula is surrounded by mountains on all sides, the smoke is so thick that it looks like we live on the prairie: no mountains are visible.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
I go to church. Again, there is so much support and caring for me and also for Janelle.
People are moved by my sermon and how I crafted the service. I am very grateful to have a church to serve, and sad to realize that now there are only 3 Sundays left this year.
Meanwhile, the rest go to the checkpoint, but are not allowed up the mountain. The National Guard is stationed there, and knows nothing about it. We have a quiet afternoon.
Luka is one year old today. Aud and I took the 3 dogs to a newly discovered dog park for her birthday treat. Very happy dogs.
Karen, Aud and I go to the Catholic Church in Frenchtown for supper. They have offered a free spaghetti supper to anyone affected by the fire. Like a good church potluck, it offers great homemade salads and desserts. I feel such gratitude to them, and waves of love for church. A member of one of the fire teams talks to us and is very helpful. She offers to try to get the permission for us to return tomorrow to get things. She is very kind. She’s from Oklahoma or somewhere like that, typical of people arriving from all over the country to help with the Black Cat fire. Thinking of all these people, including the firefighters, working so hard for us, moves me to tears. She tells us that this is still the #1 priority fire in the whole country, and busloads of personnel are arriving daily to help fight it. The fire covers an estimated 8,000 acres and is 10% contained, which means 10% of the fire area is no longer burning. The fire continues to spread, but doesn’t seem to be going in our direction. It was burning at the bottom of our road, but some people in that area were allowed to return to their homes, though they are on one hour evacuation alert. Mill Creek Road has mile markers (the only way to find things on this logging road in the forest). The fire burned some areas up to mile marker 2. Below that are the people who are able to return to their homes, but are on alert. Above mile marker 2 it is still closed.
We live on mile marker 9.
There is no refrigerator in Katy and Paul’s old house, but Katy and Paul have one in their garage they intend to move back there. Dave and Aud go get it. We feel very excited that we can now store food.
Dave goes to a movie to relax. Karen, Aud and I play some cards. We refine the lists of what to try to bring out of the ranch. The woman from the meeting calls at 11pm. She has arranged for us to get to the ranch for a couple hours tomorrow morning. A light rain this evening helped the situation. However, a fire truck will be parked between our homes and the fire. She also tells us that the fire which had only gone up our road as far as mile marker 2 is now burning at mile marker 3 or 4. It is climbing towards the ranch.
Monday, August 20
Dave goes to work; he missed work on Friday. Since he telecommutes, he moves his “office”—a computer—to Katy and Paul’s house (the new one they live in) across town and works from there all day. His cell phone is not working; he lets his boss know he has no phone access, and they must do everything by email.
Karen and Aud, Alex and Emily and I head to the mountain with the truck pulling the horse trailer and with the van. On the way we pass “Incident Base”. It looks like a combination fair grounds and refugee camp. Many pup tents are set up; a lot of yurts: big solid tents equipped with air conditioners, hundreds of cars and buses from many states, people all over. All actual firefighters wear green pants, bright yellow shirts, bright yellow helmets. Along the road we see plumes of smoke, pockets of small flame, trees charred but not burned up. We’ve been hearing about “dozer lines”—there they are: bulldozers tear up all fire fuel (grass, trees) making lines of bare dirt so if the fire gets there, it will not be able to move beyond. The smoke smell is very strong, but that has been true all week even in Missoula.
About a mile up Saddle Mountain Road (which is the other side of our mountain; on our side it is called Mill Creek Road) we meet the National Guard with their jeep and army fatigues. Some of our neighbors arrive too. We wait, but the person who is to give permission for us to pass does not arrive and the Guards know nothing about it. Some of the neighbors get angry. One woman says if no escort/authority comes, she’s going in anyway. Others are angry at those who made the evacuation call, those who decide we can’t get back to our homes. I am angry at their anger, and challenge them. I remind them that the people orchestrating this fire have thousands of people whose needs they must consider; I remind them that the authorities are not our enemy; we are on their side; they are on our side. It is the fire that is our enemy, not the officials. But my words are ignored.
We make phone calls to Michelle, the woman who was so helpful Sunday night and who called us last night. She cuts through the confusion and gives permission for us to enter without an escort. The Guardsmen take down our names and addresses and how many people are going in. We are told to be off the hill by noon (it is after 10 am now). We drive the remaining 7 or 8 miles to the ranch.
We divide up, each with an assignment. Karen goes to my cabin with the list I made. I go in Christie and Dave’s house first alone in the hopes of catching Indigo and Magellen, the remaining 2 housecats. I get Magellen right away; a little later Emily catches Indigo.
I go into Christie’s office to collect all the files for the horse business. I take technology that Dave has given instructions about…electronic equipment that allows them to have computers and phones in their off-grid home. I gather photos and personal keepsakes for Christie. She wants her philosophy books from college. I pick up all the papers sitting on top of the desk, DVDs of her horses. In Dave’s office, Emily and Alex get phone, computers, keyboard, small tv. I find boxes of Dave’s keepsakes, his lego collection, photos of his family on his office wall. Aud loads things in the horse trailer as we find them. Karen returns with my stuff from the cabin and joins others getting some bedding, a few kitchen things, jewelry. Aud opens the big freezer and gets out all the meat we can reasonably carry. At Dave’s instruction, Karen takes pictures of every room in case it is needed for insurance.
I am too busy to feel much. But seeing the chickens, ducks, geese, peacocks roaming around tears at my heart. They seem to me to be lost, confused: where is everyone? They are so beautiful, and if the ranch does burn……....It is painful to remove things, knowing all that remains might be lost. I relive our house fire. I also confess that I am overwhelmed at the thought of putting all this back, though of course I pray that we will have the privilege of putting it all back. But as we quickly pull out items now, contents of drawers and shelves spill; putting things back will be a major job, and will probably fall mostly to me. I am aware that my last 3 weeks here this summer will be spent dealing with the fire one way or another. I seem able to let go of the original plans I had for those weeks.
The ranch is so quiet it is eerie. Quiet and with so little movement, with most of the animals gone. At 10 to noon, we drive away.
When we come to the National Guards, they cross our name off their list. We return to Katy and Paul’s old house. In the afternoon, Aud takes the two cats to the animal shelter; the other 3 and the goats are all doing well. I run errands. We cook supper using our newly acquired (from the ranch) pan, grill, forks.
The temperature has dropped dramatically today, and there is a bit of rain. That is good news for the fire.
There is another public meeting tonight. Dave, Karen, Aud and I go. We had failed to call 2 of our closest neighbors to pass on the word that we had permission to go up the mountain this morning. They are angry at us; Dave and I feel very bad about our oversight. We try to make amends by hooking them up with Michelle, the woman who helped us. She arranges for them to go tomorrow morning. We offer Jarred our horse trailer and truck. His dogs are still up there.
At the meeting, they tell us that the fire is now 12% contained. It has burned about 11,500 acres so far. There are two active fronts that are the most concern. One is Mill Creek where we live: the fire is still in the first few miles of Mill Creek Road, and they are trying to keep it from climbing. They have been short on resources because the west is full of wildfires. It doesn’t matter what the fire is doing; if the planes and dozers and personnel are not available, they can’t do anything about it. However, this is still the #1 priority fire in the country, and more resources are at last arriving. If one of the other fires get worse, they will pull resources from us to go there. The Frenchtown sheriff tells us that his personnel have been put on an emergency work schedule: 12 hour days, 14 days on, 2 off. At each of these public meetings, we learn more about the orchestration of such an event. The fire is burning in 2 counties; that means they run into political issues of authority between the counties; who has the authority to make this decision or that one? Whose jurisdiction are we in? All surrounding towns and cities, including the city of Missoula, send some of their police and firefighters; who is in command of them? Federal, state, county and local governments are involved. There are regional Disaster Relief Team, Incident Management Team, etc. The Red Cross is here, of course.
So far, almost no homes have been lost. Seeing the view from the highway, that seem amazing to me. Charred ground covers all the areas between homes, but around the homes is a very small patch of green. I think the firefighters are amazing.
Tuesday, August 21
Dave goes to work. Jarred comes to pick up our truck and horse trailer. Aud cooks breakfast. We plan to play today…go to bookstores and so on. Karen flies home tomorrow, the others drive out a day or two later. The house, once so empty except for our piles of bedding on the floor, is now full of the boxes and piles that we removed from the ranch. While we’re out today, I plan to send this fire diary to friends and family. We have no internet access now, but using my laptop, a flash drive, and the church or an internet café, we’ll find a way to get to email. On another day, I’ll send the sequel.
Keep us, and all those impacted by the fire, and especially those yellow-shirted folks facing the flames, in your prayers.
(This ends the part I emailed first….but the saga continues.)
More rain this morning! And the first blue sky we’ve seen in many days….all we’ve seen for a long time is smoke.
Dave brings home supper. He grills the best steaks I’ve ever tasted, and brings forth an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery that says “Thank you!” on it. It is for our 4 guests who thought they were coming for a nice relaxing quiet ranch vacation. They have been an incredible help.
We get the news that the evacuation has been lifted for our area after 8pm tonight; however, returning residents must be prepared for a one hour evacuation. That means we could not take back the cats, goats or horses, or many possessions. Given that late hour and the uncertainty of things, we decide to stay in town tonight and see what tomorrow looks like.
Wednesday, August 22
Dave goes to work at Katy and Paul’s. I go to work at the church. The others go to the farm where all our mamas and babies are housed and hang out with them for a while. Then they take Karen to the airport; she has less vacation time than the others and must return home.
Dave stops at the Department of Transportation to get proof of his physical address. His driver’s license only has the PO Box on it, and the national guards are sometimes requiring an actual addressss before they let us up the mountain; they are working, bless them, to keep looters out.
We make supper and then pack, taking only what is needed for a couple days, since we are still on the one hour evac notice.
Our normal route, Mill Creek Road on the Frenchtown side, is open to us for the first time. We get through the checkpoint without trouble. The first 3 miles of the road have been burned; in fact, there are still a few flames and a number of smoke plumes rising up here and there. In some areas, the fire took both sides of the road; in other areas it was confined to the east side. We see some outbuildings burned and collapsed, but no houses lost. The ground is all burned; sometimes the trees are black too, sometimes the lower growth is burned but the treetops are still green. We pass half a dozen fire engines and many of the yellow shirted firefighters. They seem not to be busy at the moment. Sometime after the 3 mile marker, the land is normal again; the fire did not travel farther north in this area. We are thankful.
Aud sees Louie, our huge Great Pyrenees dog who roams around the mountain as he wishes, and so we could not find him when we evacuated. She picks him up. We get home and Louie is happy to see us. The other 3 dogs are so glad to be back; they run with obvious delight. Luka is allowed to run free with the grown up dogs for a while, but then she begins to chase a rooster and so loses her privilege.
Dave reconnects the phone. We bring in the bedding. Luka and I go back to our cabin.
It does not feel welcoming. Besides being cold, it is largely empty: none of the photos and pretty fabric and books that make it cozy. In the water left in my dishpan, I find a drowned mouse. I miss my cat.
Luka and I sleep very well in our own beds.
Thursday, August 23
It’s cold!
Dave goes to work in his own office. Aud mends fences. Alex and Emily help with fences, go for walks, play video games. I do housework, dishes and laundry at Dave and Christie’s house.
After supper I go to the third public meeting. I see a bear along the way. I pass the Incident Base again, and a field of about 5 helicopters. I learn that the fire is 40% contained, and that it hasn’t increased in size (number of acres burned) in 3 days. All evacuations have been lifted, but everyone is on a one hour evacuation alert, which means we do not bring back animals or possessions. Roadblocks are still in place to keep the public off the roads where there’s been fire.
The fire is burning extensively on Charity Peak. There is plenty of fuel for it…trees, thick undergrowth and so on. They do not even try to put out the fire. They set fire to 400 acres around Charity Peak to remove the fuel so it will soon, the hope is, burn itself out. Two crews from Canada, experts in setting fires for this purpose, are here. I learn a lot about wildfires. All week we have seen helicopters flying low over the highway with a bag hanging below the belly of the plane; it is full of water that gets dumped on the fire. Still, water and retardant are only a small part of the effort to put out a wildfire. Most of the energy goes into removing fuel (creating back burns, building dozer lines) so the fire doesn’t spread or so it burns itself out.
I stay at Katy and Paul’s old house again, because I’m taking care of granddaughters first thing in the morning. Aud, Alex and Emily stay there too so they can get an early start for home.
Friday, August 24
The BlackCat fire has been moved off the front page of the newspaper for the first time in 9 or 10 days.
Aud, Alex and Emily leave to return to Michigan.
I take care of Lucy and Ella much of the day, run errands in the afternoon, hang out with the family and do some housecleaning for them in the evening. I stay in town tonight. I hear nothing about the fire. It seems like another life.
Saturday, August 25
I spend the day with Katy and family again.
A phone call brings a new development: Christie’s dog Rajah is quite sick. Dave brings him to the emergency vet. I feel punched in the stomach. Rajah is a special dog, and has twice saved Christie’s life. He is getting old, and we are all ready to let him go when the time comes, but not like this. Not with Christie gone. Not with Rajah, who has been waiting for her almost 3 weeks, the longest he’s ever been separated from her, thinking she is gone and giving up.
When Dave brought Rajah to town, because of the one hour evacuation alert he had to bring with him whatever he had taken back to the ranch: his computer, a few clothes, and Maya, their other dog. Even a trip to the grocery store would require taking everything with us because if evacuation orders came while we were gone, we couldn’t go back.
The paper says the fire is 50% contained.
Sunday, August 26
Rajah is not worse, but not really better. Christie plans to come home at the end of the week; she is trying to decide if she should come earlier. I feel the pain that I haven’t had time to feel since Perry died 3 weeks ago.
I go to church. Every one there continues to be very supportive of the chaos in our lives.
We are still on 1 hour evacuation alert, but I pack up a few things and plan to head up the mountain. However, I learn that Dave must stay in town with Rajah who is still at the emergency vet and must tomorrow be moved to the regular vet. I don’t want to be at the ranch alone under these fire conditions, and I couldn’t safely stay in my own cabin, since there is no phone. I will leave my stuff in Katy and Paul’s old house, and return to their current house to sleep tonight. My spirits are low today. In all these thrown-together boxes of stuff, I can hardly find clothes, or the resources I need for church work this week. Life is chaotic and inefficient. I feel guilty for not being in better spirits, since we haven’t after all lost the ranch to fire.
I go to the church in the early evening, the only place I have easy access to email and a phone. Luke comes with me, sleeps at my feet as I type and talk. I call Dave, but he has no further word on Rajah. I learn that Christie is flying home tomorrow. I return to Katy and Paul’s to sleep.
Monday, August 27
Three weeks since Perry’s death. Christie arrives home today. Rajah is still quite ill, but shows improvement.
The fire remains about the same: 50% contained, just slightly bigger at 11,715 acres. The firefighters are dealing with spot fires: embers that float and land a distance from the fire and start another fire. Even so, danger to our populated areas seems past, and as of 6am this morning, all evacuation restrictions are lifted. We, and our possessions and our 3 dogs and 3 goats and 5 cats and 30 horses, can go home.
Dave and I switch places. He chose to stay in the old house to sleep, and this morning he comes to Katy and Paul’s current house to work. I slept last night in their current house, and this morning I go to the old house to do some church work and sermon prep.
I need to mail some things and make a CD of some church work. There are no supplies here. Even though I have all of this at the cabin, I msut go buy packaging tape, Sharpie marker, CDs, mailing envelopes. Living this way is getting old.
We can go home…but we don’t. Christie and Dave stay in town to be near Rajah; I stay because I must be at church in the morning.
Tuesday, August 28
Christie is very tired and has a cold, but she is hanging in there. She checks on some of the horses. Dave works. This evening they pick up Rajah, who has the vets ok to go home with them and see how it goes, and go back to the mountain.
Life is very confusing. At Katy and Paul’s, I do some church work on my computer. I need my printer, so I drive across town to the old house to find it. I find the printer, but the printer cable got separated; it is in some other box; which one? I can’t find it. I take my computer to Kinko’s to print what I need.
The weather has turned cold. I only brought a couple of warm weather outfits to Katy and Paul’s. I drive across town to the old house to find more appropriate clothes. I go back to Katy and Paul’s to iron them, since they were just stuffed in a box. I’m tired of this.
I prepare to visit someone from church who is very ill. She has asked me to bring communion to her. I go to the old house and hunt through boxes for my communion kit; I don’t know if it got packed or is still at the cabin. I am very tired of this.
I must be at the church again tomorrow, so I stay in town again tonight.
We are overwhelmed at the task of hauling back all the stuff, cleaning the old house in which, for awhile, 6 people and 3 dogs lived, unpacking and putting Christie and Dave’s house back together, putting things back in my cabin, and collecting all the farmed out animals.
Wednesday, August 29
I work at church all day. Then I load as much as will fit in my little Toyota—poor Luka loses most of her back seat.
Christie picks up the 3 goats and the 5 cats. I meet her at the ranch where 6 mama horses and 5 babies (one mama is still pregnant) have been, and I help her get 3 mamas and babies into the horse trailer…easy until one youngster felt independent enough not to care about sticking close to mama. He is a challenge to catch.
We go back up the hill, unload horses. Christie and I head back down to get the remaining mamas and babies. We load them without problem. The moon, big and low and brilliant orange, leads us home. Back at the ranch unloading them is a challenge. We try to get mamas and babies through a gate; other mamas and babies get out of the gate. One baby runs off in the dark to explore the world; his mama, inside the gate, gets frantic. Eventually we get them all where they belong; the full moon is high in the sky before we finish. We go to bed.
Thursday, August 30
I spend much of the day unpacking and putting my cabin back in order. The mice have obviously enjoyed my hospitality in the days the cat has been away. I clean out the unpleasant contents of my cooler which hasn’t been touched in two weeks.
Rajah is still sick, but the vet is hopeful, thinks he will probably recover. She gives him stronger medicine.
Though people and dogs were evacuated for the fire, coyotes weren’t. We realize we have lost about half of our chickens and ducks.
Friday, August 31
There is still stuff to be brought back to Christie and Dave’s house and put away. And many horses are back, but about 10 are still farmed out and need to be retrieved soon.
On my way down the mountain this morning I see a moose! A rare privilege. Has one moved into our neighborhood because of the fires?
I babysit Lucy and Ella today, and bring Lucy home with me for a sleep-over in the cabin. It is delightful.
Late evening, I hear the rain. It rains and rains and rains some more. It is the first significant rain in at least 3 months. It is a wonderful sound.
New report: The BlackCat fire is 95% contained. 11,758 acres burned. The internet site says it is expected to be “completely wrapped up very soon.”
Thanks be to God.
Janice Springer
revjanicespringer@juno.com
I spent a month in Iowa, helping her to fight her way through those first weeks without her husband and start to figure out what her life would look like now. While I was gone, the ranch had all manner of adventure without me. My mother kept a running diary of those adventures and I thought you might like to read them...
THE FIRE DIARIES: by Jancie Springer (revjanicespringer@juno.com)
Monday, August 6, 2007
My nephew (my niece’s husband) died. Who ever heard of a healthy, strapping man of 35 dying of pneumonia? Everyone is stunned. Christie and I fly out the same day. David and family drive up in a couple days. Katy flies out, gets to Denver, her second flight is canceled. She does not make it in time for the funeral, but she is here afterwards for about 24 hours. My nephew Jay, Janelle’s brother, and his wife come in. I do Perry’s funeral. Janelle has a debilitating illness and Perry was her practical and emotional support and care giver. We work hard to keep her going. It is an awful week.
Tuesday, August 14
I fly home Monday, arriving in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Christie stays in Iowa to help Janelle. Paul picks me up and I sleep at their house. Katy and Paul have had an unexpected childcare problem, so I spend Tuesday with them, caring for Lucy and Ella all day. That is very healing.
On the way back to the ranch I see a wildfire from the highway. It is not far from our area. It will become known as the Black Cat fire. Today, I learn, it has burned about 600 acres. When I get back to the ranch with Dave and visiting friends Karen and Aud, their son Alex and his friend Emily, we talk about evacuation plans. There are 30 horses on the land. I put some things in the trunk of my car that I’d want to take out if we evacuated.
Wednesday, August 15
I work at church all day, stop in to see Katy and the girls, head back to the ranch about 6pm. There is a checkpoint at the bottom of our road. The man wearing the sheriff’s badge (actually a search and rescue person I think) tells me we are not in imminent danger, but he needs to tell me about evacuation procedures. He asks, “Does your family have a place to go to? If not, you can come to my house.” I get tears in my eyes at the kindness of this stranger. When I get to the ranch, I tell them all that he said. The presence of the checkpoint implies that the stakes have been raised. We talk about what to do. Christie is the mover and shaker of the horse business, and she is still in Iowa, but she offers direction through many phone calls. We finally decide we must evacuate the horses.
Christie makes calls to friends and clients; they call other people. About 9pm four horse trailers pull up, and about half a dozen folks, some of whom we don’t even know. They and the 6 of us begin rounding up horses. That means walking through large pastures in the dark trying to find the horses. It means putting rope and halter on yearlings that have not been trained or even much handled yet, and so are frightened. It means keeping the babies with their mamas. Some get on the trailers pretty easily. Some run back into the woods. One man, a rodeo rider, amazes us all by lassoing one of the difficult ones; it is just like in the old movies! Finally the 3 trailers, one with 10 horses on it, head down the mountain. The horses will stay in various places for the night. Dave drives some down to our vets. Finally, Dave and Aud and I pack up the last 3 except the stallion and take them down the far side of the mountain to the ranch of a couple from my church. Janet and Bill welcome us as though it were mid afternoon instead of 2:00 am. We get to bed about 3:00.
Thursday, August 16
After 4 hours sleep we are up. Dave, Karen and Aud, Alex and Emily head out by 8 am. Some of the horses have broken through fences and gotten loose and must be moved to better quarters. They head off with the horse trailer to do that, taking the last horse, our stallion, to board at the vets. They also go buy hay and then deliver it to the places that have our horses.
Meanwhile, I am at the ranch staffing the phone and preparing to evacuate if need be.
I go through my cabin again, making sure I have essential things for Luka and me in the trunk of my car. What hard choices! I am supposed to lead a retreat Saturday; I finish preparing for that and put that material and things I need for church Sunday in my trunk. I also call AAA, because Wednesday night in all the confusion with getting the horses out, I lock my keys in my car. Aud leaves a small sledge hammer by my car; if AAA won’t come up and we have to evacuate, I must break a window to get in so I can get my wallet and the stuff in the trunk. However, AAA does come up the mountain and fixes the problem. I talk to Christie several times and make some phone calls for her.
The others come back exhausted about 4pm. We do a few details in preparation for evacuation, but mostly we just talk about doing such things. We are all so tired. We get the information that this is a Class 1 fire (or some phrase like that)—the most dangerous, and the one they put the most resources into. Someone said the 10 worst fires in USA are all in Montana, and this is the top one. We get word that it jumped the highway.
About 9pm an official with a loud speaker drives by. “You have 1/2 hour to get off the hill,” he yells from his truck. “Evacuate!” A neighbor comes to say the Frenchtown side of the mountain (our usual way up and down) is closed; we must go out the other way.
A half hour later, we leave. Dave is driving the good truck. Two of Christie’s cats are in a cage in the truck bed. Dave is pulling the horse trailer; there are 3 goats in it. Next in the procession is Karen driving Aud’s van, Emily and Alex with her. It is full of clothes, photo albums of Christie and Dave, financial records, computers, blankets, towels, a few framed pictures, and so on. I follow in my car; I have 3 dogs with me. Aud drives the old truck; my cabin cat is in a cage in that truck bed.
We get down the mountain as quickly as we can. Another checkpoint: he warns us that he cannot let us back on the road. With tenderness, he wishes us good luck. We drive into Missoula.
Katy and Paul moved to a new house earlier this summer, but have not sold their old one. We settle there. We have water, showers, air conditioning, a fenced yard for the dogs. We have a few dog dishes and two buckets so we take water to the goats and cats and leave them in the vehicles. The dogs come in with us. We don’t have quite enough blankets, but we share around and everyone has something. We make up beds on the floor, settle dogs, shower, and get to bed about midnight. This will be home for a while.
Friday, August 18
We go out for breakfast. Then we take the 3 cats to the humane society nearby. They take a record of each cat and put an id tag around their necks. Then we drive them to the fair grounds, which has been set up as a shelter for all animals that have been evacuated and need a place. More records; id on each cage. Smokey and Bandit get a bigger cage together; Belle has her own. They have food, water, a small blanket. They will be very unhappy cats, but safe. Later while some of us run an errand, the others bring the goats to the same place. Later in the day I go to work at the church to prepare for the retreat tomorrow. Most of the folks are gone when I get there, but 2 part-time staff folks are still there. They give me big hugs, say the staff has been worried about me all day as they heard that Mill Creek had been evacuated. I feel loved. Dave and company need to deal with some of the horses again.
There is a public meeting for all Frenchtown residents. Dave, Karen, Aud and I go. On the way there and back we see the flames, and the ground in places is burned right up to Highway 90 on which we’re driving. It is moving to see some 600 people gather in the school gym with this common desperate concern. I find it interesting to hear the behind the scenes stories of how fighting a fire has to happen. It has now burned about 8,000 acres. After the meeting, we talk to the sheriff who says we might be able to go back to the house Sunday morning for just a couple hours to recover more things, though he can’t promise. We can follow information about the fire on www.inciweb.org. They also give us many phone numbers for information.
Saturday, August 18
I lead an all-day retreat. It goes very well. People fuss over me about the evacuation as well as about Perry’s death. They are all lovely. And they like the retreat! I am glad to have a break from the intensity of things, and leading the retreat feels healing. Meanwhile, the rest of the family are moving horses, going to buy a ton of hay and delivering it to the horses. We make lists of what to recover if we get to return to the ranch.
Although Missoula is surrounded by mountains on all sides, the smoke is so thick that it looks like we live on the prairie: no mountains are visible.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
I go to church. Again, there is so much support and caring for me and also for Janelle.
People are moved by my sermon and how I crafted the service. I am very grateful to have a church to serve, and sad to realize that now there are only 3 Sundays left this year.
Meanwhile, the rest go to the checkpoint, but are not allowed up the mountain. The National Guard is stationed there, and knows nothing about it. We have a quiet afternoon.
Luka is one year old today. Aud and I took the 3 dogs to a newly discovered dog park for her birthday treat. Very happy dogs.
Karen, Aud and I go to the Catholic Church in Frenchtown for supper. They have offered a free spaghetti supper to anyone affected by the fire. Like a good church potluck, it offers great homemade salads and desserts. I feel such gratitude to them, and waves of love for church. A member of one of the fire teams talks to us and is very helpful. She offers to try to get the permission for us to return tomorrow to get things. She is very kind. She’s from Oklahoma or somewhere like that, typical of people arriving from all over the country to help with the Black Cat fire. Thinking of all these people, including the firefighters, working so hard for us, moves me to tears. She tells us that this is still the #1 priority fire in the whole country, and busloads of personnel are arriving daily to help fight it. The fire covers an estimated 8,000 acres and is 10% contained, which means 10% of the fire area is no longer burning. The fire continues to spread, but doesn’t seem to be going in our direction. It was burning at the bottom of our road, but some people in that area were allowed to return to their homes, though they are on one hour evacuation alert. Mill Creek Road has mile markers (the only way to find things on this logging road in the forest). The fire burned some areas up to mile marker 2. Below that are the people who are able to return to their homes, but are on alert. Above mile marker 2 it is still closed.
We live on mile marker 9.
There is no refrigerator in Katy and Paul’s old house, but Katy and Paul have one in their garage they intend to move back there. Dave and Aud go get it. We feel very excited that we can now store food.
Dave goes to a movie to relax. Karen, Aud and I play some cards. We refine the lists of what to try to bring out of the ranch. The woman from the meeting calls at 11pm. She has arranged for us to get to the ranch for a couple hours tomorrow morning. A light rain this evening helped the situation. However, a fire truck will be parked between our homes and the fire. She also tells us that the fire which had only gone up our road as far as mile marker 2 is now burning at mile marker 3 or 4. It is climbing towards the ranch.
Monday, August 20
Dave goes to work; he missed work on Friday. Since he telecommutes, he moves his “office”—a computer—to Katy and Paul’s house (the new one they live in) across town and works from there all day. His cell phone is not working; he lets his boss know he has no phone access, and they must do everything by email.
Karen and Aud, Alex and Emily and I head to the mountain with the truck pulling the horse trailer and with the van. On the way we pass “Incident Base”. It looks like a combination fair grounds and refugee camp. Many pup tents are set up; a lot of yurts: big solid tents equipped with air conditioners, hundreds of cars and buses from many states, people all over. All actual firefighters wear green pants, bright yellow shirts, bright yellow helmets. Along the road we see plumes of smoke, pockets of small flame, trees charred but not burned up. We’ve been hearing about “dozer lines”—there they are: bulldozers tear up all fire fuel (grass, trees) making lines of bare dirt so if the fire gets there, it will not be able to move beyond. The smoke smell is very strong, but that has been true all week even in Missoula.
About a mile up Saddle Mountain Road (which is the other side of our mountain; on our side it is called Mill Creek Road) we meet the National Guard with their jeep and army fatigues. Some of our neighbors arrive too. We wait, but the person who is to give permission for us to pass does not arrive and the Guards know nothing about it. Some of the neighbors get angry. One woman says if no escort/authority comes, she’s going in anyway. Others are angry at those who made the evacuation call, those who decide we can’t get back to our homes. I am angry at their anger, and challenge them. I remind them that the people orchestrating this fire have thousands of people whose needs they must consider; I remind them that the authorities are not our enemy; we are on their side; they are on our side. It is the fire that is our enemy, not the officials. But my words are ignored.
We make phone calls to Michelle, the woman who was so helpful Sunday night and who called us last night. She cuts through the confusion and gives permission for us to enter without an escort. The Guardsmen take down our names and addresses and how many people are going in. We are told to be off the hill by noon (it is after 10 am now). We drive the remaining 7 or 8 miles to the ranch.
We divide up, each with an assignment. Karen goes to my cabin with the list I made. I go in Christie and Dave’s house first alone in the hopes of catching Indigo and Magellen, the remaining 2 housecats. I get Magellen right away; a little later Emily catches Indigo.
I go into Christie’s office to collect all the files for the horse business. I take technology that Dave has given instructions about…electronic equipment that allows them to have computers and phones in their off-grid home. I gather photos and personal keepsakes for Christie. She wants her philosophy books from college. I pick up all the papers sitting on top of the desk, DVDs of her horses. In Dave’s office, Emily and Alex get phone, computers, keyboard, small tv. I find boxes of Dave’s keepsakes, his lego collection, photos of his family on his office wall. Aud loads things in the horse trailer as we find them. Karen returns with my stuff from the cabin and joins others getting some bedding, a few kitchen things, jewelry. Aud opens the big freezer and gets out all the meat we can reasonably carry. At Dave’s instruction, Karen takes pictures of every room in case it is needed for insurance.
I am too busy to feel much. But seeing the chickens, ducks, geese, peacocks roaming around tears at my heart. They seem to me to be lost, confused: where is everyone? They are so beautiful, and if the ranch does burn……....It is painful to remove things, knowing all that remains might be lost. I relive our house fire. I also confess that I am overwhelmed at the thought of putting all this back, though of course I pray that we will have the privilege of putting it all back. But as we quickly pull out items now, contents of drawers and shelves spill; putting things back will be a major job, and will probably fall mostly to me. I am aware that my last 3 weeks here this summer will be spent dealing with the fire one way or another. I seem able to let go of the original plans I had for those weeks.
The ranch is so quiet it is eerie. Quiet and with so little movement, with most of the animals gone. At 10 to noon, we drive away.
When we come to the National Guards, they cross our name off their list. We return to Katy and Paul’s old house. In the afternoon, Aud takes the two cats to the animal shelter; the other 3 and the goats are all doing well. I run errands. We cook supper using our newly acquired (from the ranch) pan, grill, forks.
The temperature has dropped dramatically today, and there is a bit of rain. That is good news for the fire.
There is another public meeting tonight. Dave, Karen, Aud and I go. We had failed to call 2 of our closest neighbors to pass on the word that we had permission to go up the mountain this morning. They are angry at us; Dave and I feel very bad about our oversight. We try to make amends by hooking them up with Michelle, the woman who helped us. She arranges for them to go tomorrow morning. We offer Jarred our horse trailer and truck. His dogs are still up there.
At the meeting, they tell us that the fire is now 12% contained. It has burned about 11,500 acres so far. There are two active fronts that are the most concern. One is Mill Creek where we live: the fire is still in the first few miles of Mill Creek Road, and they are trying to keep it from climbing. They have been short on resources because the west is full of wildfires. It doesn’t matter what the fire is doing; if the planes and dozers and personnel are not available, they can’t do anything about it. However, this is still the #1 priority fire in the country, and more resources are at last arriving. If one of the other fires get worse, they will pull resources from us to go there. The Frenchtown sheriff tells us that his personnel have been put on an emergency work schedule: 12 hour days, 14 days on, 2 off. At each of these public meetings, we learn more about the orchestration of such an event. The fire is burning in 2 counties; that means they run into political issues of authority between the counties; who has the authority to make this decision or that one? Whose jurisdiction are we in? All surrounding towns and cities, including the city of Missoula, send some of their police and firefighters; who is in command of them? Federal, state, county and local governments are involved. There are regional Disaster Relief Team, Incident Management Team, etc. The Red Cross is here, of course.
So far, almost no homes have been lost. Seeing the view from the highway, that seem amazing to me. Charred ground covers all the areas between homes, but around the homes is a very small patch of green. I think the firefighters are amazing.
Tuesday, August 21
Dave goes to work. Jarred comes to pick up our truck and horse trailer. Aud cooks breakfast. We plan to play today…go to bookstores and so on. Karen flies home tomorrow, the others drive out a day or two later. The house, once so empty except for our piles of bedding on the floor, is now full of the boxes and piles that we removed from the ranch. While we’re out today, I plan to send this fire diary to friends and family. We have no internet access now, but using my laptop, a flash drive, and the church or an internet café, we’ll find a way to get to email. On another day, I’ll send the sequel.
Keep us, and all those impacted by the fire, and especially those yellow-shirted folks facing the flames, in your prayers.
(This ends the part I emailed first….but the saga continues.)
More rain this morning! And the first blue sky we’ve seen in many days….all we’ve seen for a long time is smoke.
Dave brings home supper. He grills the best steaks I’ve ever tasted, and brings forth an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery that says “Thank you!” on it. It is for our 4 guests who thought they were coming for a nice relaxing quiet ranch vacation. They have been an incredible help.
We get the news that the evacuation has been lifted for our area after 8pm tonight; however, returning residents must be prepared for a one hour evacuation. That means we could not take back the cats, goats or horses, or many possessions. Given that late hour and the uncertainty of things, we decide to stay in town tonight and see what tomorrow looks like.
Wednesday, August 22
Dave goes to work at Katy and Paul’s. I go to work at the church. The others go to the farm where all our mamas and babies are housed and hang out with them for a while. Then they take Karen to the airport; she has less vacation time than the others and must return home.
Dave stops at the Department of Transportation to get proof of his physical address. His driver’s license only has the PO Box on it, and the national guards are sometimes requiring an actual addressss before they let us up the mountain; they are working, bless them, to keep looters out.
We make supper and then pack, taking only what is needed for a couple days, since we are still on the one hour evac notice.
Our normal route, Mill Creek Road on the Frenchtown side, is open to us for the first time. We get through the checkpoint without trouble. The first 3 miles of the road have been burned; in fact, there are still a few flames and a number of smoke plumes rising up here and there. In some areas, the fire took both sides of the road; in other areas it was confined to the east side. We see some outbuildings burned and collapsed, but no houses lost. The ground is all burned; sometimes the trees are black too, sometimes the lower growth is burned but the treetops are still green. We pass half a dozen fire engines and many of the yellow shirted firefighters. They seem not to be busy at the moment. Sometime after the 3 mile marker, the land is normal again; the fire did not travel farther north in this area. We are thankful.
Aud sees Louie, our huge Great Pyrenees dog who roams around the mountain as he wishes, and so we could not find him when we evacuated. She picks him up. We get home and Louie is happy to see us. The other 3 dogs are so glad to be back; they run with obvious delight. Luka is allowed to run free with the grown up dogs for a while, but then she begins to chase a rooster and so loses her privilege.
Dave reconnects the phone. We bring in the bedding. Luka and I go back to our cabin.
It does not feel welcoming. Besides being cold, it is largely empty: none of the photos and pretty fabric and books that make it cozy. In the water left in my dishpan, I find a drowned mouse. I miss my cat.
Luka and I sleep very well in our own beds.
Thursday, August 23
It’s cold!
Dave goes to work in his own office. Aud mends fences. Alex and Emily help with fences, go for walks, play video games. I do housework, dishes and laundry at Dave and Christie’s house.
After supper I go to the third public meeting. I see a bear along the way. I pass the Incident Base again, and a field of about 5 helicopters. I learn that the fire is 40% contained, and that it hasn’t increased in size (number of acres burned) in 3 days. All evacuations have been lifted, but everyone is on a one hour evacuation alert, which means we do not bring back animals or possessions. Roadblocks are still in place to keep the public off the roads where there’s been fire.
The fire is burning extensively on Charity Peak. There is plenty of fuel for it…trees, thick undergrowth and so on. They do not even try to put out the fire. They set fire to 400 acres around Charity Peak to remove the fuel so it will soon, the hope is, burn itself out. Two crews from Canada, experts in setting fires for this purpose, are here. I learn a lot about wildfires. All week we have seen helicopters flying low over the highway with a bag hanging below the belly of the plane; it is full of water that gets dumped on the fire. Still, water and retardant are only a small part of the effort to put out a wildfire. Most of the energy goes into removing fuel (creating back burns, building dozer lines) so the fire doesn’t spread or so it burns itself out.
I stay at Katy and Paul’s old house again, because I’m taking care of granddaughters first thing in the morning. Aud, Alex and Emily stay there too so they can get an early start for home.
Friday, August 24
The BlackCat fire has been moved off the front page of the newspaper for the first time in 9 or 10 days.
Aud, Alex and Emily leave to return to Michigan.
I take care of Lucy and Ella much of the day, run errands in the afternoon, hang out with the family and do some housecleaning for them in the evening. I stay in town tonight. I hear nothing about the fire. It seems like another life.
Saturday, August 25
I spend the day with Katy and family again.
A phone call brings a new development: Christie’s dog Rajah is quite sick. Dave brings him to the emergency vet. I feel punched in the stomach. Rajah is a special dog, and has twice saved Christie’s life. He is getting old, and we are all ready to let him go when the time comes, but not like this. Not with Christie gone. Not with Rajah, who has been waiting for her almost 3 weeks, the longest he’s ever been separated from her, thinking she is gone and giving up.
When Dave brought Rajah to town, because of the one hour evacuation alert he had to bring with him whatever he had taken back to the ranch: his computer, a few clothes, and Maya, their other dog. Even a trip to the grocery store would require taking everything with us because if evacuation orders came while we were gone, we couldn’t go back.
The paper says the fire is 50% contained.
Sunday, August 26
Rajah is not worse, but not really better. Christie plans to come home at the end of the week; she is trying to decide if she should come earlier. I feel the pain that I haven’t had time to feel since Perry died 3 weeks ago.
I go to church. Every one there continues to be very supportive of the chaos in our lives.
We are still on 1 hour evacuation alert, but I pack up a few things and plan to head up the mountain. However, I learn that Dave must stay in town with Rajah who is still at the emergency vet and must tomorrow be moved to the regular vet. I don’t want to be at the ranch alone under these fire conditions, and I couldn’t safely stay in my own cabin, since there is no phone. I will leave my stuff in Katy and Paul’s old house, and return to their current house to sleep tonight. My spirits are low today. In all these thrown-together boxes of stuff, I can hardly find clothes, or the resources I need for church work this week. Life is chaotic and inefficient. I feel guilty for not being in better spirits, since we haven’t after all lost the ranch to fire.
I go to the church in the early evening, the only place I have easy access to email and a phone. Luke comes with me, sleeps at my feet as I type and talk. I call Dave, but he has no further word on Rajah. I learn that Christie is flying home tomorrow. I return to Katy and Paul’s to sleep.
Monday, August 27
Three weeks since Perry’s death. Christie arrives home today. Rajah is still quite ill, but shows improvement.
The fire remains about the same: 50% contained, just slightly bigger at 11,715 acres. The firefighters are dealing with spot fires: embers that float and land a distance from the fire and start another fire. Even so, danger to our populated areas seems past, and as of 6am this morning, all evacuation restrictions are lifted. We, and our possessions and our 3 dogs and 3 goats and 5 cats and 30 horses, can go home.
Dave and I switch places. He chose to stay in the old house to sleep, and this morning he comes to Katy and Paul’s current house to work. I slept last night in their current house, and this morning I go to the old house to do some church work and sermon prep.
I need to mail some things and make a CD of some church work. There are no supplies here. Even though I have all of this at the cabin, I msut go buy packaging tape, Sharpie marker, CDs, mailing envelopes. Living this way is getting old.
We can go home…but we don’t. Christie and Dave stay in town to be near Rajah; I stay because I must be at church in the morning.
Tuesday, August 28
Christie is very tired and has a cold, but she is hanging in there. She checks on some of the horses. Dave works. This evening they pick up Rajah, who has the vets ok to go home with them and see how it goes, and go back to the mountain.
Life is very confusing. At Katy and Paul’s, I do some church work on my computer. I need my printer, so I drive across town to the old house to find it. I find the printer, but the printer cable got separated; it is in some other box; which one? I can’t find it. I take my computer to Kinko’s to print what I need.
The weather has turned cold. I only brought a couple of warm weather outfits to Katy and Paul’s. I drive across town to the old house to find more appropriate clothes. I go back to Katy and Paul’s to iron them, since they were just stuffed in a box. I’m tired of this.
I prepare to visit someone from church who is very ill. She has asked me to bring communion to her. I go to the old house and hunt through boxes for my communion kit; I don’t know if it got packed or is still at the cabin. I am very tired of this.
I must be at the church again tomorrow, so I stay in town again tonight.
We are overwhelmed at the task of hauling back all the stuff, cleaning the old house in which, for awhile, 6 people and 3 dogs lived, unpacking and putting Christie and Dave’s house back together, putting things back in my cabin, and collecting all the farmed out animals.
Wednesday, August 29
I work at church all day. Then I load as much as will fit in my little Toyota—poor Luka loses most of her back seat.
Christie picks up the 3 goats and the 5 cats. I meet her at the ranch where 6 mama horses and 5 babies (one mama is still pregnant) have been, and I help her get 3 mamas and babies into the horse trailer…easy until one youngster felt independent enough not to care about sticking close to mama. He is a challenge to catch.
We go back up the hill, unload horses. Christie and I head back down to get the remaining mamas and babies. We load them without problem. The moon, big and low and brilliant orange, leads us home. Back at the ranch unloading them is a challenge. We try to get mamas and babies through a gate; other mamas and babies get out of the gate. One baby runs off in the dark to explore the world; his mama, inside the gate, gets frantic. Eventually we get them all where they belong; the full moon is high in the sky before we finish. We go to bed.
Thursday, August 30
I spend much of the day unpacking and putting my cabin back in order. The mice have obviously enjoyed my hospitality in the days the cat has been away. I clean out the unpleasant contents of my cooler which hasn’t been touched in two weeks.
Rajah is still sick, but the vet is hopeful, thinks he will probably recover. She gives him stronger medicine.
Though people and dogs were evacuated for the fire, coyotes weren’t. We realize we have lost about half of our chickens and ducks.
Friday, August 31
There is still stuff to be brought back to Christie and Dave’s house and put away. And many horses are back, but about 10 are still farmed out and need to be retrieved soon.
On my way down the mountain this morning I see a moose! A rare privilege. Has one moved into our neighborhood because of the fires?
I babysit Lucy and Ella today, and bring Lucy home with me for a sleep-over in the cabin. It is delightful.
Late evening, I hear the rain. It rains and rains and rains some more. It is the first significant rain in at least 3 months. It is a wonderful sound.
New report: The BlackCat fire is 95% contained. 11,758 acres burned. The internet site says it is expected to be “completely wrapped up very soon.”
Thanks be to God.
Janice Springer
revjanicespringer@juno.com
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