Drama to Spare

On Saturday, we got a taste of what happens when wildfires threaten.  You should know that during wheat harvest, for those involved, the possibility of fire always lurks somewhere in their consciousness.  One year, my dad pulled into a field with his car, and when the hot muffler contacted the dry straw, a fire erupted and destroyed his vehicle and burned off part of the field.  I also heard this year about a fire that began when a combine pulled into a new field, and some malfunction during the road trip to the field caused overheating.  An on-board fire extinguisher quickly took care of that problem.  Our typical low humidity and occasionally high winds can quickly exacerbate fire problems.

Saturday my sister Linda and my niece Christy were helping sort through the boxes on our patio when we saw billows of black and white smoke rising somewhere north of Partridge.  A phone call to Lois, who lives in Partridge, told us that the fire was directly north of town, being carried toward town by north winds.  Our view to the west was more obstructed, but we later saw that something similar was happening west of us.  The two blazes were approximately four miles apart and we were roughly halfway between them.  The four-mile stretch was bordered by Partridge Road on the east and Sego Road (old K14) on the west.  US50 formed the border on the north.  Partridge is one mile south of US50 via Partridge Road.

To someone who asked on Facebook what started the fire, I wrote the following:

A pickup was pulling a camper along US50, and the camper caught fire. They didn't realize it, and sparks from it ignited dead grass in the ditch, which then spread to the adjoining wheat fields where it quickly swept through because of the wind. Fortunately, not the entire four-mile stretch between the start and finish of the fires had ignited because there was enough short, green vegetation in the ditch in some places to limit the spread. In the places where it quickly got into the wheat, it soon engulfed the entire square mile except around residences where firefighters stopped it. Our house is about midway along the 4-mile stretch where there were fires at each end, and one mile south (downwind from US50). We never felt directly threatened, but were very concerned for all our family and friends who live in Partridge. It came within a few yards of the railroad that borders Partridge on the north. Just on the downwind side of the railroad is a grain elevator. With an ignition source, grain dust can explode like a bomb, and the fire was in the middle of wheat harvest, with a lot of trucks unloading at the elevator. Five residences in Partridge are inhabited by members of my immediate family--children, parents, and siblings. Arlyn Nisly, one of our ministers, lived in one of the homes that was surrounded on three sides by blackened fields. Thanks to prayers and many hardworking firefighters, no homes were lost, and no one was injured.

Here's a brief video clip of some of the fire.  It was taken my sister Lois.

**********************

One of my biggest frustrations as a blogger is having lots of wonderful blogging material inside my head, where it must stay.  In other words, I can't write about these things for one reason or another.  They involve my family, but other people also.  It's mostly for the sake of those "other people" that I can't write about them.  No shame would come to anyone if I shared them, but danger and other loss might come to them if I did.  I'll share discretely with anyone who wants to know more, if you ask me about them in other contacts--if I already know and trust you.

**********************

I can share with you that our family is, on average, on a schedule of adding one family member per year.  Dorcas was first, when she married Shane in 2008.  In 2009 Hilda married Joel.  2010 was the only missed year since the trend began.  In 2011  we made up for it by adding Clarissa in August and Tristan in October.  In 2012, Arwen was born, and in Aug. of 2013, Tristan is expecting a little brother.  In January 2014, Grant and Clarissa are expecting a baby.  Yay!!!! Four grandbabies by January, if all goes well.

Arwen is leaving with her parents in less than 2 weeks, moving very far away for a very long time.  She's a perfectly charming little girl, and we'll miss all of them dreadfully.  If they were moving for wrong or selfish reasons, it would be much harder, of course.  This way, we offer them our blessing, in spite of how we will miss them.

**********************

Quote for the Day

Shane (viewing my give-away pile):  No one will want this stuff.

Me:  You can't know that for sure.  Not everyone thinks like me, but not everyone thinks like you either.  It might be exactly what someone else needs.  For most of these things, there was a time in my life when I would have been grateful for them.

***********************

I can admire a desire to live simply by not accumulating too many things, but I also think that turning up your nose at  what used to belong to someone else can be a form of snobbery born of always having "nice" things readily available.  That I don't admire.

Also, having such limited flexibility that I can't use anything that isn't exactly what I've been visualizing can violate principles of stewardship that I want to uphold--as can an unwillingness to go to the effort of finding a good use for something rather than doing the simple thing:  throwing it away.  Case in point following--

***********************

Me, to Hiromi:  Here are two yukata (light-weight robe-like men's casual Japanese garments) I'd like you decide what to do with.

Hiromi, after examining them:  This one has holes under the arm and this one is too small.  Throw them both away.

Me (sorry I worded the request that way):  Those two problems have two different solutions.  Throwing it away might be right for the one with holes, but not for the one that's too small.