Winter Update

Wow, it's been a long time. We've just been so busy this winter with the holidays, Doug's work, and my work in Kerrville a few days a week. It's amazing how fast this house can look like a tornado hit it when I'm gone multiple days in the week. I just can't keep up.

So, before Christmas, Darcy spent a lot of time with Gran since I was working a lot in town. And on other days, she stayed with her Dad, and they ended up doing things like this:



You know, things that are just plain fun.

We made our Christmas trip to Bellville and multi-tasked by taking Doug's mule deer in to the taxidermist in Bryan. And of course we couldn't be in that great area without a drive down University and a stop at Northgate. After a while in the bookstore looking for Darcy a t-shirt...

We had lunch at Freebirds, oh what memories! And we couldn't be next door to the Chicken without going in. And you can't go in without having a beer. So we sat and reminisced for a while, making sure we didn't run over our meter in the parking lot out back. Yes, those dang things are still there. Meanwhile that night we had a good Christmas with Doug's family, with Darcy having the biggest pile of presents of course. She had lots of fun, needless to say.

And of course, she had to deal with the occasional uncle that wanted to play with her new dolls more than she did. Hehe...

We had Christmas at our house on Christmas Day with my family, and had a great time then too. Although somehow, I can't find any pictures of it, just video. And I'm not savvy enough to put video on here.

A prescribed burn the weekend after Christmas (Doug and I love to set things on fire!), and some shopping the week after in San Antonio capped off our holiday season. We did watch some pretty good fireworks and New Year's Day night (it was too windy n.y. eve) at the neighbor's place.

Now, we're back to working in town a few days a week, with Darcy in tow, and Doug back to work also. Hopefully we'll be uneventful for a few weeks, as I've had my share of happenings, and would like to catch up on office work, housework, and sleep. I'm too used to my boring ranch life.

Until next time....

Close Call

First, please see my previous post about fires to view my opinions on that. Then, let me just say again that I very strongly dislike idiots. Friday around noon, an idiot was working on a gate by himself with a welder and a saw. The sparks caused a fire, that before he could do anything since he was by himself, jumped the highway and headed west. This happened 2 miles north where we live. Then the wind changed and it started coming south too. At least 7 fire departments, the forestry service, with helicopters and planes, and two other states forestry dept., Kentucky and Georgia, with dozers battled this fire for 33 hours. Many of those guys only went home a few hours Friday night before getting called back because the fire flared back up. Some stayed the whole time. The fire got within feet of our property. The caliche road that we drive down ended up being the place they used to stop the fire in some places. We were VERY lucky that sparks did not fly over the road and ignite. These guys did a great job keeping it from jumping that road. If it had, it would have taken over several more ranches before it could be stopped. As it was, our neighbor, who we were working for, had at least half of his place burned, some of it so bad it will take years to recover fully. The firefighters saved their house and outbuildings and like I said, did a great job of keeping it from crossing the only road they really had to work off of. We can't thank them enough or appreciate them more. Rough estimates that we're hearing from the fire chief are that it encompassed around 4500 acres.

Folks, lets take a minute and think about this. If there have been fires all around lately, no rain for months, and announcement on all local radio and tv stations saying no outdoor burning or sparks because of the extreme conditions, maybe you should take heed. They are not saying all this to hear their own voices. There are reasons. And if you HAVE to do something outside, have someone as a spotter in case of a fire, with water on hand to deal with something quickly. We have been watching this guy work on this gate and fence for a month now and never have seen anyone with him, or him have any kind of water sprayer with him. At first I admired him for working so hard. Then after about a week, we started to doubt his intelligence and started waiting for something to happen. Our fire chief even said he was just waiting for something to happen with that guy out there by himself.

While they may not be able to do too much to him criminally besides give him a small fine, the neighbors that had their place burned are all lawyers, so maybe we will see some type of punishment or retribution for not using his head.

Again, please use your head! This could have been disastrous if there had been more houses in the area, but we were all very lucky in this case!

Fires in Kerr Co.

Since this is a place to post your thoughts and comments, I think I will take a minute to say something about the fires that ravaged northwest Kerr Co. today. The large fire that shut down I-10 and burned down a home was about a mile away from where we own property and have our cows. When we first heard of the fire, all I could think of was those poor animals and how we would find them burned to a crisp like the ones that suffered the same fate in the panhandle a few years back. Thankfully, the fire was put out before it reached our property, but continues west even as I type this. Now, I know some fires are truly accidents, sparks from machinery, or freak accidents, but there are a surprising amount of fires that are started by idiots that don't know any better, and some that do. For instance, last weekend a fire was started from some yahoo driving down the highway shooting roman candles out the window of their truck. I'm sorry, but if this fire was started by someone they are just an idiot. And I have little to no tolerance for idiots. They are the ones that give fire a bad name. For those of us who try to use fire in a prescribed manner to help manage habitat these idiots are the bane of our existence. So let me just say once more (and for those that know me, you already know this)...

No tolerance for idiots!... Use a little commen sense out there or stay in the house!