Bone Dry & Frightening

While I type this (just yesterday afternoon) there is a steady drizzle.  As I publish this (this morning) there is a steady downpour.  You do not know how happy this steady drizzle and downpour makes us.  We've heard rumors of little rain showers across town these last couple weeks, but we have seen none of that.  In fact, we haven't had rain for well over a month.  This is the second super-dry spell this summer.  We haven't mowed our dust lawn in weeks and weeks.  What's the point?  There is no live grass to grow to cut.

We feel badly for our chickens who have been spending a lot of time in the hen house (by choice) because they isn't anything green or juicy to eat left in the yard except ants.

Here they are in the chicken run gathering for scraps.

We've only been watering our young fruit trees, bell peppers, fall lettuce and spinach and have been using our well water to do so since our rain water collection tanks have been empty for a month- at least.

 If not for our thick layer of straw, everything would be brown.

This past Saturday started out a lovely, peaceful day.  We took our time getting up and around in the morning and after breakfast, headed to a harvest festival across town.  We spent the morning there, bobbing for apples, watching molasses be made, going for a horse-drawn wagon ride, listening to story tellers in a one room school house and watching blacksmiths hammer rods into chains.  Oh, and we sat in the shade and ate some homemade ice cream which made the hot, dry day seem cool and tolerable.

On the way home, we passed a farmer in a field close to our house harvesting corn on his combine.  The fields around here look barren and parched.  The cows wander, looking for green and finding none eat the hay they are used to getting in the winter months.

We got home, ate lunch and as I was clearing the table, I looked out our dining room window and saw smoke.  It was close enough that we were concerned it could be a neighbor's house, so Jamey headed off down the road to see.  This is what I saw in a matter of minutes.

The fire began moving away and then circling up a hill and around toward our direction.  It was obviously moving, so I knew it must be a brush/field fire.  The wind was whipping on Saturday and while the sounds of dozens of fire engines and emergency vehicles could be heard, I worried that this fire would close in on homes- it was moving fast.

Thankfully, the fire started (when the farmer we saw nicked a rock with his combine, throwing a spark) a half mile from our house crossed our road south of us and circled up around was put out about a half mile from our house in a different direction.  Only one structure (an old hay barn) caught on fire.  No homes were damaged and no one (person or animal) was injured.

Scorched fields

Once I knew we were safe, all I could think of was this dear farmer who must be so relieved that it was over with no major harm done.  There were a lot of people thanking God this weekend and I imagine he was one of them.

Our beautiful, smoke-free sky line

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