Burning Hot

ughhhh...I'm ready for bed.

Another very interesting day. This morning I woke up and was making my pop tart breakfast and headed out the door when the phone rang. Harv was letting me know where he was at on his way down and mentioned that Merle would be back around 7:30 or so. I don't know if I missed the memo or if Merle just didn't say anything or what, but he went up in a plane around 6ish this morning looking for steers. It was a super cub of a guy in town, whos buddy took him up and they flew for an hour or so.

That's something to wake up to- let me tell ya. I know they have done this before, but I just hadn't ever thought of doing that to find steers. So, I headed down to the corrals and did chores with Ross. We were just saddling up our horses when Harv pulled in. We got everything ready to go and found out that Merle was close, so we just waited a bit for him, hooked up and loaded and headed out. Merle reported that he only saw one steer in the corner of Scott's 560, so we decided to look for it after our hunt for the first two we knew of. He made a comment about the steer not looking really good and I asked how close they were able to get. He said that you might have been able to grab the ear tag... I decided that I didn't know if I really wanted to fly with them or not! The pilot is also a crop duster so they flew really low I guess!

We needed two steers out of Delberts pastures. We saw one on our way in and needed to find another and move them home together. Of course, the steer wasn't in the same place where they saw him yesterday so we all split up and rode the pasture. After a while, Harv flagged me down and told me that Merle was coming with the steers. Right about then he came over the hill with the whole group of cows and the steer. We got him cut off with a cow, but she wouldn't stay so we had to fight him to the gate. In typical yearling fashion, we got him to the gate and he shyed and tried to run back on us. If it wasn't for Merle's fourwheeler to push on him I don't think we woudl have ever gotten him back with our horses. But, we did and sent him towards the other steer in the next pasture.

We gave them a break for a bit and then sorted the yearlings off and headed home. You always try to walk and slow them down as best you can, but not with these. One wanted to run the whole way so they both did. It took all you had not to run up on them because they would just move faster. So, needless to say it didn't take long to get home because I spent most of the time catching up with them! We got them home and up into the pasture on the creek. Merle stopped at home and grabbed teh trailer and we loaded our three horses and his four wheeler and headed to the 560 where he thought he saw the steer in the corner. We looped around that pasture while he rode the back quarter and found nothing. The little fart must have jumped the fence to the west and gone back. So, we loaded up and went home. But, somewhere along the line Risse's called and said that there was still one steer left in their pasture. This is the big (8,000 is acres?) pasture that Ross and I went to find when we loaded up those 12 steers. So...I think I know what tomorrow morning with hold.

Anywho, we came back home, ate dinner, and then went up to unload some barrels of Crystalyx that Harv brought down. After we got that done, I went to help Ross with some oats that he needed sacked and Merle and Harv went out to take a picture of some cows with a lick tub. I thought it was rather entertaining- would have like to watch them set out the perfectly clean tub in the grass and seen which cow ran to it the fastest for a picture! But, after we got all that done, Harv headed out and Merle told me to go home and take a nap and pack if I needed to.

So, I went home and just after I layed down Merle called and mentioned that we forgot the milk replacer (we ran out and Pee Wee is hungry!) in town. He said he felt really bad but if I could go get it that would be great. I didn't mind at all- they were out stringing salt and we really needed it. So, I exnayed the nap and went and got the milk replacer. I headed back home with it and just as I sat down to make some phone calls the pager went off...

I could understand the "Attention Martin Fire" and the word "Hisle". Well, that means it's close. I called Merle right away and got the numbers for people tha twould have heard the page loud and clear. After we made phone calls and got back ahold of each other we figured out that it was a fire near Hisle. Well, Hisle is just up the road so I got in my gear, grabbed the truck and took off north. I radioed us in to dispatch on the way there and tried to listen to their really bad directions to the place at teh same time. When I met Merle he quick put his gear on there on the road, and we left Adrienne adn Rylee with the pickup to head home. So, we take off for the smoke (which is a long ways off from Hisle). We went all the way north to the highway and then back west towards the Weaver place (if that means anything to you). We are going west headed to a driveway that we think is right when we meet the Interior trucks headed the other way. So, we turn around and follow them. Not one minute later we meet them headed back the opposite direction again! So, we turn around again and go back to where we originally were headed. From there, we had a rancher (I think the oldest Weaver) lead us up into the timbers of the badlands. It was quite the trail. In fact the tender trucks that came later had to park way down at the bottom of the hill because they would never make the crick crossing or the hill climbs up there. We finally got there and were really the first set of trucks. I think there was one rancher with a pickup tank there and maybe one other personally owned fire rig. So, we got to giong. It wasn't as big as it looked, but it sure could have burned if it wanted. Merle left me with the truck and headed down in there with a McCloud. I stayed back and made sure there wasn't any back burning and put out hot spots. At one point, I decided the spot I was at was pretty well covered so I rolled up my hose and turned the truck around to watch what else was going on. Just as I did that, Merle showed up. So we took off for the other end of the fire and started wetting down teh edges and putting out hotspots. This was quite the trail to get around. I was surprized we were able to get teh trucks as close as we did.

At one point, when we were rolling up the hose I managed to push the button that rolls the reel too long and sprayed Merle in the eyes with high velocity water. That was brilliant, and I'm sure it felt great on the eyes. Since I hadn't had anything happen to me today or done anything really dumb yet, that was it. I felt really really bad- but what do you do. We ended up there for another hour or so until we ran out of water. Some "firegod" who thought he was in charge of the show basically told us to go home- so we did. We left the other Martin trucks (who had not been there long because they came another route at first and had a tender tuck break down) . We left them to mop up with teh explorers and we filled our truck at the bottom of the hill and headed home. It ended up only being about a 25-30 acre fire, but it was on some rough turf and it did jump in one spot where there was no connection of burn fuel.

I love to fight fire. It's not a good thing- perhaps I like it too much. But, definitly not something I woudl wanna do everyday of my life. Those people are tough. We got out of there and headed home. Wrote down all our records and fueled the truck up for the next fire. It wouldn't take much for that fire to flare back up, so I may be out again before morning. I really woudl like some sleep, but we'll see- a fire is a fire! ...and the other night we did skp another one bale fire. they paged three times- on the third time I almost called Merle, but chickened out. Why should we drive all the way to Martin and west to watch one bale burn when most of the fire fighters live in town? That was my theory anyway.

But, Im in now- probably not going to get a lot of packing done. More interested in showering and going to bed. I won't have much more for blog posts so you all will have to find a new source of daily entertainment! haha...it's so sad that my life is that entertaining!

But, so be it. I don't wanna go to school! Nooooo! ...o well, that's life.

"Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" -New Testament, James 3: 5