Fire, still

The fire due north of us is now being called the Dyer Mill fire. It is believed that it was started by a grill over dry pine needles. The fire has now consumed 5000 acres and right at 30 homes. Thankfully there has been no reported loss of human life. The original evacuation center has had to be evacuated due to the fire shifting. Our farm is three miles, give or take, from the evacuation zone. As long as the winds remain from the South we should be safe from this fire; my main concern is that the land south of us does not see a fire break out because we are sitting in a tinderbox and resources are already stretched so thin.

Living for so many years on the gulf coast we are accustomed to watching reports for hurricane development and being prepared in the event of a tropical storm. This is a whole 'nother creature. With hurricanes you rarely evacuate this far inland but you need to be prepared to batten down the hatches for wind and rain and have supplies on hand for the likelihood of power and water outages. How does one prepare to leave their hone knowing they may never return? How does one decide what is worthy of taking with them? How does one weight monetary value VS sentimental value? With the dairy and the animals it becomes even more difficult. Do we give space in the trailer to bins of family pictures and mementos...or the pasteurizer and milk machine? We could probably manage to load 1/3-1/2 of our goats in our livestock trailer and the back of the old fifteen passenger van but that obviously leaves a good number of goats behind. Goats that we have raised from birth. Goats that are our livelihood. And bringing goats means that we would be leaving behind our heritage breed hogs, Christin's alpacas, turkeys, chickens, and ducks. Other than perhaps grabbing a few rabbits, the breeding stock that Sara has built up for her meat rabbit business would be left behind as well. The horses we would have to rely on help from neighbors because our trailer simply wouldn't hold them even if it was not full of goats! And if we leave Cowboy behind I suspect Grace would refuse to leave with us.

Yet these things sound trite to even contemplate when there already are people who have lost everything and there are firefighters laying their lives on the line as I type to keep these decisions from being necessary.

And...hmmm...maybe we need to get back on track with getting those quotes for home/farm insurance? You think?