I saved the house and Mr. Foresterman saved me...

this doesnt work so good no more.

my boots from that night - Ariat makes fire fighting boots unintentionally.

 this is my growing pile of cooked rattlesnakes to bury the heads later...

so far I have had one baby bullsnake and one baby racer come visit me at the house.

I like them as they eat rattlesnakes. but they have to get a little bigger...

Dr. Randy made a feral woman cry again. This is the round bale he delivered to me the next day that was donated by Charlie Russelll...Thanks Charlie & Dr. Randy ; I love you guys!!!!!!

 This is the shed roof that blew off ...

 That covered the shed that we built when we first moved here...Eb really misses it.

this is hard.

but the good news is, I saved the house.

after I helped our neighbors who live 6 miles down the road evacuate and mr. foresterman was out fighting the first initial attack, i came home and I removed all the curtains, bamboo shades, and furniture away from the windows. 

All of it.

And piled it in the middle of each room.

EVERY room. 

As we watched from the hayfield down below, the fire blew hot on the sides of the house and made the house breathe in and out and cracked the closed windows and slip in hot ash,

but not one thing inside caught fire.

not one thing.

I had to live like this for a week until today, 

because the insurance company wouldnt send their adjuster out in a fire zone, 

and they told us to leave everything AS IS.

it made me very sad and made me face reality that not everything is like an Allstate commercial.

This is the wood ash on my piano...

That matches the cracked window and ash upstairs in my wonderful bathroom...

(i still took baths because they made me calm down so I could sleep.

so take that, insurance peoples)

That matches the cracked window and ash downstairs...

that matches the ash everywhere. 

:(

and the 8 cracked windows.

we also lost four garbage cans and numerous tubs that we had filled with water and put around the house - 

This also saved the house because after the main blow of the fire went past, we drove from the hayfield to the house to put out the trees, poles, everything that was burning all around the perimter of the house.

 there was no power and no phone and no water pressure

so mr. foresterman and I used buckets and dipped into these filled containers, at 12:30 at night, along with  two filled metal horse troughs, to put everything out.

it was tiring. but it worked. by 4:30 am we were very dirty. 

we laid down on the deck we saved and tried to sleep because the house was too smokey. 

we still didnt sleep.

even though it was a brick home, the windows and doors took the brunt of it.

my new bird feeder did too. 

I bought this one to keep the blackbirds away.

now it keeps everything away.

this is a temporary fix to our power - they said they will come back.

I hope so.

these were firewood piles for heat this year. it burned too soon.

this was our aluminum canoe.

was.

incredible heat.

incredible.

but no more river rides.

This is  the canoe my babies rode in, then steered on their own when they got bigger.

this makes me cry again. So I look at things that need to be fixed.

our propane tank needs to be replaced, along with the line to the house. 

this is something someone else will do and it makes me feel better. because i got a lot to do.

a lot.

And thank you EVERYONE for the offers of help - yes, I do not like help most of the time because Im one of those two year old toddler type of peoples who want to try to pull up their pants on their own throughout life...and basically I dont know what I need right now because the insurance adjuster just came through today. We have to make lists. and jump through hoops. We will let you know as soon as we know. The forest service donated t-posts and we have been mending fence daily as there are still very healthy cows out there who need to be kept in and kept out. The red cross did one night hand out bagged sandwiches somewhere but i was too busy throwing up - the side effects of too much smoke...And our neighbors to the far east gave us eggs for making bread (yes i know, me. the bread machine is being held at gunpoint to produce because right now Im not a feral woman to mess with) and drinking water (our tap is high sodium, so we dont drink it due to high blood pressure. which ours is now high, but not due to the water) and then the new bride and groom came and dropped off endless cleaning supplies and some small bales of hay - they will be back next weekend to help wash walls etc. And the wonderful DNRC and the fire guys have been sheepishly stopping by each day to ask what fire issues we might have, although the unspoken word here is that there is no fire danger now for us personally - unless we use gasoline and a match...so we give them a root beer, chat a bit, and they go back to the lines to wait to be called up next to fight this beast of a fire that wont die. And tonight they are predicting more dry strikes by a passing thunderstorm. I live on a hill - I can see pretty far now so we will be watching the skies again tomorrow inbetween cleaning for that first wispy narrow plume that makes you grabbed the phone to call the nearest neighbor to it to warn them...

But your prayers and good thoughts keep everything to me in perspective. 

Goodness knows, you are the ones who keep my mind sane and give me something to give thanks for. you carry me with your words.

thank you from the deepest part of my soul for your wishes...

however...

one last prayer (i know, im being needy) 

even though I could be considered one of the most strongest feral women around in all aspects, 

that or Im a curse,

as a precaution ~

I am going to the doctors a little earlier then August for my latest scan ~

wildfire does that to people.

~