Wilderness Quilter

Almost 7 weeks since my last post!  How did that happen?  It’s been a busy several months around here, that’s for sure.  Our fire is gone – finally – full containment earlier this week.  Quilting has been completely on hold (4 months now) while I deal with family issues but resolution is in sight.  The fruit is falling from the trees and the tomatoes are finally getting ripe now that the sun isn’t blocked by all the smoke.  So fall in the wilderness is nearly upon us once again.  And life is good.

It’s temporary, I know – but the smoke is gone!  Woke up to clear skies and not a hint of smoke anywhere -so the house is open and airing.  The fires are still burning all around – as of last night, 13 of the 27 fires within a 15 mile radius of us are still active – so I don’t know where all that smoke is going but it’s lifted from this canyon for a short while.

The sky is visible but the smoke smell is stronger than ever.  How did that happen?  Looked out and saw the sky and clouds so opened the window to air and cool the house.  Big mistake!  Thankfully we have a few more days of temperatures only in the 90s.  Starting Mon, we’ll hit 100+.  Hopefully we’ll have clear enough air outside by then to run the swamp cooler and open the house at night.  I’m not counting on it, though.

The fires are still burning on 3 sides of us but not close at all.  The smoke is our constant reminder that they are out there, however.  Can’t hang clothes outside, can’t open the widows, can’t run the swamp cooler – fortunately we’ve been blessed with temperatures only in the 90s.  Things are supposed to heat up around here in a few days so we need to get our most strenuous prep work completed by then or we’ll be really miserable.  Been at it a week and may take today off – everyone is really tired.  Then we can hopefully finish up the most grueling part in the 3 days of cooler weather we have left and save the fire line closer to home for when the temps hit 100+.  The good news is once this is all done, we won’t have to do it again and we’ll be set for fires in years to come with just a little maintenance.  Living surrounded by wilderness, it’s not a matter of if we’ll get another fire threatening our home, but only of when it will happen.

Continual smoke but no new fires that we know of – seems they’ve all died down a little with the higher humidity.  Didn’t get the expected thunder and lightning here yet but may today.  Work will continue toward readying for a fire.

After being snowed in for so long earlier in the year, now we’re fired in.  Good thing we always have enough supplies to get us through for a while!  We’ve had a week of continual smoke since the fires all started last weekend.  The fires are not close to us (about 6 miles away) at this point but more lightening is expected today and tomorrow so that could change in an instant.  Although the highway is closed and everyone in the area is under evacuation orders, we’re far enough north that the order doesn’t seem to apply to us.  We’re busily preparing to defend our place just like we did the last time.