We have been in a drought for the last couple of months which lead to a burn ban. Last weekend someone thought it would be a wise idea to burn some trash on a windy day. Well, I'm sure you can imagine what happened. A grass fire started on the far side of the field that is across from our house that quickly spread. We were fortunate that the wind was blowing the fire away from our house but it still got a little too close for comfort.
The local fire department responded pretty quickly but because we live so far out in the county, there are no public water works, therefore no fire hydrants. The fire department has tanker trucks that would go to a nearby lake to fill up and then take that water to the fire. It may not be as efficient but it does work. There was another flair up of the fire that night around 11 PM but again, the fire department was able to get it under control. Fortunately, no homes were damaged but it showed us that we need to examine how we would handle such emergencies in the future.
All of that happened on Saturday with highs in the 70's. Just a couple of days later we were hit with the massive snow storm that was moving across the mid-west. We ended up with about 12 inches of snow and 2-3 foot snow drifts. To say the least, the kids loved it and so did the dog. I'm not sure who was having more fun. The husband wasn't too crazy about it though because he was trying to dig us out.
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| Enjoying 50 mile per hr wind gusts. |
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| Snow lovin' dog |
We discovered rather quickly that we need to invest in a good snow shovel even though we don't normally get this kind of snow. Everyone sold out of snow shovels so we ended up getting a feed shovel which works very well. We would probably still be trying to dig out if the county had not been nice enough to clear our driveway for us due to a family emergency. Now we have buckled down for another snow storm that is supposed to dump as much as the last one. Since we don't really have any livestock we only have to look out for ourselves but this experience shows us that we will need to think a little differently about how we manage things here during these types of events.
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| Snow drifting against the house. |
Now that we have settled in for another round of winter weather, I think I'll sit back and enjoy some hot chocolate and the pretty view outside.
