Sheep Barn--Past Tense (or Tense Passing)

I’m very fond of drama-free days.  Today was not this kind of day.  For the second time in two weeks, we had serious damage to one of our outbuildings.  This time it was the sheep barn, and the damage was from fire–not wind–not directly, at least.  It was already an old building when we moved here in 1984.  By the time we moved back here in 2013 it had aged further, and it was apparent that sheep would no longer be entirely protected from wind and rain inside it.  It still functioned as a wind break to the garden on the north side of it, however.

From the Labor Day wind storm, we lost a lot of tree branches.  Hiromi had piled them in an open area out  back, far away from any buildings or trees.  When the day dawned calm this morning and no high winds were predicted at any time of the day, he called 911 and reported that he wanted to start burning a brush pile.  Permission was granted and he started the fire, after first stringing a garden hose all the way out there and turning on the water.  The hose had a shut-off valve at the end.

He stayed next to the fire until it had burned down most of the way, and even sprayed through the smoke blowing toward the northwest where the sheep barn stood a good distance away.  When he started the fire the smoke blew southwest, but the wind shifted slightly during the morning.  After feeling assured that things were well under control, he went back to cleaning up around the demolished building.

I was working indoors and then around the back side of the house.  When I headed toward the west side of the house to clean up some buckets at the hydrant, I saw flames and smoke on the sheep barn roof.  I yelled to Hiromi, and had a hard time getting him to understand  “Fire!  Sheep barn!” Three repetitions  (which I’m sorry to say is fairly standard) finally got the message across and he sprinted toward the hose and the sheep barn, yelling back to call the fire department.  I did (I heard him just fine the first time).

Meanwhile Hiromi did all he could to keep the fire from spreading down the row of Eastern Redcedars running right past the end of the barn that was burning.  If that had happened, our entire windbreak would likely have been lost.  One thing in our favor was that the trees there had died of drought during 2012, so the volatile oils in the needles had long since dissipated, and the bare branches, while flammable, did not create nearly as explosively spreading fire as live trees would have.

Hiromi doused all the flames he could find on the south side and then brought the hose around to the north side of the building.  We heard the burned  ends of the roof purlins crash down one by one inside as they lost their moorings at the west end of the roof, but there was hardly anything flammable inside the barn, so this did not result in a great deal more damage.  There was still open flame when the first fire truck arrived.

When the first truck showed up, I guided the driver out back.  It was a tanker truck, and those big nozzles directed at the flames made short work of them.  I’m still not sure who all was here, but I suspect we had the Abbyville crew here instead of the Partridge one.  I didn’t know any of the guys except Michael N.  A pumper truck and the brush fire pickup came in the east drive and stayed there for a bit.  Then the pickup drove out back and the pumper truck drove in the field along the west side of the tree row.  I suspect that by this time they already had word from the guys that were here that the fire was largely under control.  They worked quite a while yet though to make sure that no hot spots remained.
 
Shane saw the Nickerson truck headed south past their place, siren blaring, and then, before long, it headed back north again with the siren silent.  It was about the time we were needing help, and we suspect that Partridge may have been out on anther call when ours came in, so Abbyville and Nickerson might both have been summoned.

We can still hardly believe that our innocent brush pile fire set the sheep barn ablaze.  It wasn’t close to the sheep barn and the wind wasn’t blowing strongly  at any time today.  Nothing was burned anywhere between the original fire site and the sheep barn.  Apparently, however, a live ember landed on that old wood-shingled roof.  It was obviously fine kindling material, aided by the dry sunny weather recently.

We have one more old and largely unused building on the premises.  Judging by recent events, I don’t give it very good odds for long-term survival.  Clarissa has already put in her bid for the “barn boards” from that building, unless it does what neither of the others have done–self-destruct so thoroughly that no boards are left.

Over the noon meal, I told Hiromi that I think he needs to stop resisting the hearing aid idea because it’s really ridiculous when he can’t understand what I’m saying when there’s an emergency and he’s well within normal hearing range and I’m yelling till I’m hoarse and he still can’t hear me.   “You noticed,” he said (monumental understatement).  “Find out what that Amish cure is,” he suggested then.

“You find out,” I answered.  “I listened to that  spiel on Facebook, but I still don’t know what it is,” I said.  It didn’t sound very convincing to me.  Now I’m thinking though that maybe Hiromi and I could create our own little commercial for hearing remedies.  I think it might be as believable as that mountain lion attack story in use now by that Amish hearing remedy supplier.

I can hear it now (in Hiromi’s voice):  My hearing problem almost caused us to lose one of our farm buildings and the windbreak trees that had taken 30 years to establish.  Then I tried _________ and my hearing problems disappeared.  My wife loves not having to repeat things three times, and I’m not worried about ever again missing an important emergency message.

I’m afraid I’m not a very good ad writer, but since we can’t really go back now to not having the sheep barn catch fire, writing an ad is one of the few possibilities I can think of to redeem the situation.