July 10, 2006

hanks again to all those who have been worried about us. We have had MUCH cooler temperatures, the difference being that it is still warm, but I feel cold, so I am wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants and wrapped in blankets at night when I was working on the computer until 2 am this morning.

Each day for the last couple days it has been raining, which has cooled things down and raised the humidity. One fire has slowed and actually turned back into itself so they can get a handle on it now. There are conflicting reports of how many firefighters there are out there.. somewhere between 80-500.. better than the NONE we had for a week.

It is supposed to rain all week. The fires are still there, but not any interface ones (ones that interfere with people) and the evacuation zones have been lifted and roads reopened. I am going to kick the horses back into the back 40. The land which has been burnt is about 60,000 acres and animals are still pushing through our property, setting the dogs off every 30-60 minutes all day and all night long. We can no longer smell the smoke nor see it. When the Teenager got home from working in the next town for a week, he wanted to know why his bedroom smelled like smoked jerky.. he was amazed when he was told it was from the fires.

More thunderstorms are in the works this week, but at least we do not have the 90-100F temperatures which we had had for a week or more prior.

Thankfully, it sounds like not a single building was burnt and we have not heard of any injuries. The firefighters that Linda (?) reported on being killed, I have not heard about.. it may have been a different district.

All in all, it was a good experience to go through, like a test run.. so in case it ever happens again (and I am sure it will, just due to where we live), we have a better idea of what do do for the 'practice'.