Fires and Sprinklers

Our weekend started out a little crazy. About 2 in the afternoon on Friday I got a call from my Gramma Pat that there was a fire in the area, she didn't know how big or close for sure but wanted me to pack up Carter and get out. Well, Carter was with my mom in town, so just in case I packed my computer up (yep, pretty much the only thing I'd pack if I had to abandon ship...depending on how much time I was given and how much help), turned the sprinklers on the house and drove up to the top of the hill to see what was going on. Sure enough, there was a lot of scary black smoke, right behind one of my neighbors' house--about 2 miles down the road. The wind was blowing the smoke in the opposite direction as my house, so I wasn't real worried (although this meant it was blowing directly at my Aunty Linda's house which was just up the road a short ways from the fire...not good.) I meant to go back down to my house to get my camera so I could take a few pictures, but my brother had just went tearing down to our house to get the fire truck we have stored next to the shop and I figured I didn't want to get flattened when he came roaring back up. So I met up with Corinne and little Everett we just figured we go down to my mom's house and wait it out, along with my sister Christy and her kids. You just never know with fires when the wind is blowing and we figured at any rate, we'd be out of the way. I called my office down in Colorado to let them know what was going on, I'm sure they really wonder about my life up here sometimes. On the way down to my mom's house we passed what looked like enough vehicles and fire trucks to completely circle the fire several times over. Gotta love rural fire fighters...everyone just shows up whenever they see smoke. It almost felt like we were going the wrong direction. We all had a nice afternoon at mom's though and then went home when we got the all clear a couple hours later. They think it was an electrical short that started the fire, and most of the smoke was caused by the tire pile behind Equal's house that burned up. Other than the tires and a small shed, not much else burned, so whew! Later that night, Robert got called out for another fire on the Interstate. The sparks from a flat tire on a boat trailer started this one. He didn't get home till early the next morning and was pretty tired. I'll be glad when the fire season is over. So far, knock on wood, there haven't been too many fires this year, although really even one is too many. Everything is so dry here!

Yesterday, I made a quick trip to town, then worked on cleaning up the house. Carter simply can make messes way faster than I can clean them up. I found a couple piles of dirt hidden behind some chairs in the living room, (what the heck?) lotion smeared on the carpet from when I went to bed early and Robert was supposed to be watching her, paper clippings from her 'cutting coupons', what appeared like ashes all over the dinning room, grasshoppers everywhere, along with the normal toys, books, clothing scattered helter skelter. Sigh. Definitely need to work more on the 'cleaning up when done playing with stuff' with Carter. That and what you play with in the house versus outside!

It was pretty hot yesterday so we figured we better run through the sprinklers while Robert was trying to take a nap. (We needed Dad in a good mood so he would finally have some time to fix my poor car...it needed some serious love: the tires all needed to be replaced, the driver window won't roll up (grrr!) and the air conditioning fan is making nasty squeaky noises.) Carter had found her frog eye goggles and wanted to test them out on the sprinklers to see if they really would keep her eyes from getting water in them. We also had the sprinkler turned down so low that she really would have had to work pretty hard to get water above her waist, but she loved it. It was hot enough, mom even joined her! The cold water felt so good!

Last night, just before bed, Carter came roaring in the house with her 'favorite' grasshopper (basically the latest one she had caught that was still alive) and it really needed to go to bed with her. (Yep, a grasshopper) So we put it in a plasic sandwich bag and sent her happily off to bed. Surprisingly enough, the poor thing (as if there is such a thing with grasshoppers) was still alive this morning. Sigh.