and it burns burns burns..

I belive that puts me up to date.

Today was an interesting one to say the least. I got up for chores and got back into the swing of things that way. Afterward we rounded up teh ponies and saddled up. They have been pulling bulls while I was off galavanting in Iowa. Everythings is pulled from the east side of the road but we still have a few pastures left. Today the goal was to get 5 at Hisle Dam and the 2 left a Chief Bears. And that we did...

We headed out to Hisle Dam first and let Ross off to start riding while we loaded up panels. We went up on top of the hill and pikced up all the panels we sat down back when we loaded up fall calves. We moved them down to Hisle dam an set them down again. Merle told me not to lift the panels if I wasn't supposed to but no one said not to and we had to get something done today- so I did it anyway.

Then, Dean and I road out to Ross and found that he had found all five bulls. Adrienne took off o n the four wheeler in the other direction. From there it wasn't easy. We had trouble with keeping them all there together and one stupid cow kept leadin thema ll over. But, after the battle, we got lucky and shoved them into our corrals backwards of the way we had planned...but whatever works. You have to be flexible to do this sort of stuff! We got them loaded up and Adrienne and Merle tooke them down to the bull pasture at Dick's to drop them off. Meanwhile we rounded up the two yearling bulls from Chief Bears and got them back to the corrals with virtaully no problems. We locked them in and then tore down all the corral panels and loaded them back on the panel trailer. By that time, they showed back up and we loaded out the last two bulls and went home for dinner.

AFter some tasty minutes steaks, Merel headed out to meet some guys about the hailed out wheat and Adrienne and I loaded the bulls back up and took them to Dicks. Rylee was a great source of entertainment for us on the way with all her faical expressions and such. She makes the trip much more interesting! We got the bulls down there with no problem. As we were headed out Scott was headed in to round up his bulls and get his cows off of his alfalfa..I was glad to leave the premesis. When we got back i watched and played with Rylee for a few minutes so Adrienne could acomplish somtihing. Then, Merle came back in and we were just headed out to take on the afternoon when he came flying out of the house and said that there was a fire east of town. I quick dropped him off at the shed for his fire clothes and thr truck and then ran home to get my fire pants on. We met at the end of the driveway and took off. When we got there we were the first truck. Now, you know it's bad when we can make it to the fire from 20 miles away before teh ppl at the fire department in town that were only like6 mile away! I guess they had a bunch of rookies that aren't allowed to drive and not driver...but they eventually got people.

So anyway, without going into great detail, we fought it alone until another truck came behind us. That was Johnny, who happened to come from just about as far as we did. The Vetel department came as well beacuse we had to call them right when we realized no one else was there. Merle drove and I ran the hose along with Mark Novotany on the other hose. It was quite the deal. I think we ended up filling the truck 3 times or so... The fire stared with a busted hydraulic hose on a combine and went into the stubble. They were able to save the comibine but not the stubble or the grass hay and bales, or the wheat beyond that. What saved our butts is the spring wheat that it was up against. It was just green enough and stopped it pretty much from spreading that way the wind was pushing it. When it was all said and done we had spent 4 hours there and had about 50 acres of burnt prarie and about 30 bales still on fire. The bales had no where to burn and we put all the rest of the ones close to the fire line out. We ended up with six or so fire trucks, two loaders to stirng out bales wiht, and a copule of disks that made a good fire line aroudn the whole deal. Since Merle was driving the whole time adn I was runnign the hose we would try to communicate...but appreantl he couldn't hear me one time. The smoke was bad so he couldn't see and despite me yelling, he ran through the fence. We were abel to fix the tire tonight- but jeez of all things. lol- you never know with us

So now everyone is blaming the fire on me because they were just having little fires while i was gone, now that I'm back, we have a 50 are one with bales still burning I'm sure. But, I got my fire in! AFterward we stopped at teh fire hall quick, then heaed home. We finished getting the wire out of the truck tire, and then went our separate ways home. The fire was obviously not a good deal in the first palce- but the family just lost the grandfather/father of a lot of the people that were out fighting the fire jsut recently. It was their land and they all had to go to the vigil at 7. It stinks for them, but it just goes to show how the world won't stop turning. I hope they all got to where they needed to be and no one sucked in too much smoke! Actually, I know that someone did because we were looking for someone the ambulance came and checked out for half the fire. When they finally did find him on a four wheeler, he refused service...darn stubborn ranchers!

Today was cool, because I got to hold, feed, and play with Rylee a lot AND I got to fight fire! Hooray. Who knows what tomorrow might bring but it's certainly fast approaching. Me and my ridiculously sore back are going to go to bed.

Sara: FENCE!!! FENCE!!! FENCE!!!
Merle: ......................
Sara: YOU JUST HIT THE FENCE
Merle: What?! Shit!!!