It was not until '04 that we endured our first FLA hurricane, but we had seen several wildfire seasons. The weekend we found this house, made the offer & had it accepted, fire burned stands of pine less than five miles from here.
Because of A's commitment to his old job & because one of the women we purchased the house from was taking the BAR in early August, we did not actually move in for three months; three months of wildfires burning all around the county. My first house was going to burn to the ground before I ever lived in it. Have I mentioned I am afraid of fire?
Because of A's commitment to his old job & because one of the women we purchased the house from was taking the BAR in early August, we did not actually move in for three months; three months of wildfires burning all around the county. My first house was going to burn to the ground before I ever lived in it. Have I mentioned I am afraid of fire?
It is a simple choice for me. I will take three weeks of on/off power (more off than on) & four hurricanes happily rather than endure half that time of smoky air & "is the house on fire or worse, the barn" nightmares.
In '07 the county north of us caught fire. Fire blazed & the county seat was evacuated. Less than 50 miles away, our air was so smoke laden, I swabbed the eyes & nostrils of the horses every morning, scraped the scum off the top of the large water troughs & even so, the morning fog, laden with ash, made them all wheeze so deeply, I could hear them before I could see them, standing less than 15' away. Ashley (named because she was born during a previous wildfire) developed a cough that never quite went away. She remains our "canary in the coalmine" goat & a good predictor of pending pressure changes, wind changes, high pollen & all other threats to clear breathing.
Fay has been downgraded & will downgrade again, although most weather maps show her pivot from north bound to west bound with us on the west edge of the circle. Yesterday, I tipped, scrubbed & refilled all the livestock waterers, checked the bottled water in storage & started filling every small container with water to make ice, while we still have power. After '04 I know the most valuable thing, the heaviest to bring in, the most indispensable in a rainy wet storm is water. & after the storm has passed through, water will be harder to find than it would be during a wildfire.
& if we don't lose power & need all that ice, next week we can have mojitos.
Fay has been downgraded & will downgrade again, although most weather maps show her pivot from north bound to west bound with us on the west edge of the circle. Yesterday, I tipped, scrubbed & refilled all the livestock waterers, checked the bottled water in storage & started filling every small container with water to make ice, while we still have power. After '04 I know the most valuable thing, the heaviest to bring in, the most indispensable in a rainy wet storm is water. & after the storm has passed through, water will be harder to find than it would be during a wildfire.
& if we don't lose power & need all that ice, next week we can have mojitos.
Do you have a good mojito recipe? I have been sadly disappointed by all I have tried after my divine (but $10) mojito at New Deal.
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