Exciting times

Our burned meadow.

Monday morning looked nice.  Blue sky.  Slight breeze.   So Jim decided it would be a  good time to burn up some of the stuff I have been liberating from the closets.  Out he went to our old rusty burning barrel.

Did he have the hose hooked up and close? No.
Did he stay and watch it? No.
Are we in a severe drought?  Yes.

He went inside to do something.  Luckily he did keep an eye on it from the house and noticed right away that the fire had escaped the barrel.  Out he ran in his slippers to stomp out the fire.  Then just after he tore out of the house I decided to go out for some unknown reason and noticed him losing the fight.

I raced for the hose that was in the garden with the sprinkler attached.  The sprinkler wouldn't come off for the longest time and I had to stop and go slowly.  Finally it came off and I dragged it over the fence to Jim and ran inside to call 911. After a few minutes I didn't hear the Clifford siren going off so I called them again.  They said they had notified everyone but since I still didn't hear the siren I called the Brandsted's who now rent our land.

Then I thought I should try to help.  I was going to bring out an ice cream pail of water and pour it on the part of the fire that was licking towards the woods, but realized that even 5 quart ice cream pails full of water would not make much of a dent.  I remembered reading in a book how the pioneer women would fight fires with blankets soaked with water so I went to fight our fire with a bath towel in my ice cream pail of water.

Jim was still watering it and still in his slippers.

After a few minutes the little Clifford fire truck drove up with Mike Elliot in it.  Mike's son Kevin, one of our local firemen, who was vacationing in Tennessee, had been paged and he called his dad.   Since Mike was in Clifford he got the fire truck and with Kevin instructing him on the cell phone got lots more water onto our fire.

Then Joel and Ed Brandsted came up with shovels and then it was all out.

While the men were all standing around admiring their work the fire departments from Mayville, Hillsboro and Galesburg all turned up as did our other neighbors Alton and Marilyn Anderson.  What a great group of neighbors.

So we have a big burned spot in our east ‘meadow’ and Jim's hair is a little less long on the top but other than that and his slippers, being scorched, all is well.  Jim put his totally soot black slippers through a wash cycle and says they are as good as new.  (Almost)

Scorch marks on laundered slippers.

If you think you might need some fire proof slippers Jim recommends Carol Wright catalogs.  They are on sale right now!

Love,

Nancy