Just Another Day in the Country

Archived discussion from Toril-2.
Ashiwi
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Just Another Day in the Country

Postby Ashiwi » Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:38 pm

It's long, and it's just a story, albeit true. It happened last night...


There I was, sitting at the computer again, like so many nights before, chatting with my friends in Toril. I was excited because this small town of Skiatook had shown me, once again, why I loved being out here so much. In spite of the sad state my credit had been left in upon my divorce, and the fact that I had only recently gotten my new job, the bank had been more than happy to advance me a small loan in order to take care of some things around my property. The manager of the bank had been tickled to do it, as I was a new resident of the town. Where else would that have happened?

Suddenly I saw something that seemed very out of place in my remote area, something I haven’t seen since I lived in the metro. What appeared to be police lights were bumping and jolting down my long and winding drive. In confusion, I took my ever-present flashlight and made my way out my front door, watching as the vehicle passed my porch, heading to the back of my property towards my mother’s place.

I flashed my light in his direction, and watched him back his car into the scrub and brush along either side of the graveled road, returning to where I waited. His lamp was shining almost directly into my eyes, and I could not see his identity, so with instincts born from living in the city, I gripped the heavy shovel I now kept next to the door, instead of the baseball bat, and hailed him before he could get too close.

“Can I help you?”

The stranger took a few steps closer and I saw him wave in the direction of my mother’s property. “Just wanted to let you folks know, there’s a fire over there.”

I stepped out from my door and peered over my porch railing. Between my mother’s property and mine was a stand of trees surrounding a small pond, and beyond that stand of trees all I could see was a billowing cloud of garishly glowing orange smoke.

My heart leapt into my throat, and the stranger in front of my home was forgotten, the shovel falling from my fingertips without a thought. I don’t, now, remember the pell-mell flight over broken ground through the pitch darkness, wearing nothing but my flannel pajamas in the below-freezing night, but I do remember thinking that if my mother had known there was a fire, she would have already been at my doorstep. I knew that she would still be sleeping. As I rounded the tree stand I saw that her home was yet untouched, but the fire was close, so much closer than my senses wanted to comprehend, and between her home and the fire was nothing but autumn-dry trees and shoulder-high scrub brush.

I hit her door hard, warping the frame as I sailed through it into the inky blackness inside her home. As I reached toward the light switch I knew to be at the end of the hallway, my feet tripped over the multiple lumps on the ground. When the light flashed on, I found the typical crew of motley cats my mother had rescued from the streets over the years, along with the terrier-sized opossum that frequented her place for raids on the catfood and warmth during the winter. Later I would ponder the minor miracle of that opossum not sinking its razor-sharp teeth deeply into my leg, but at that moment I was too busy shouting loud enough to wake the dead.

Once my mother was roused, I raced back to my own home, grabbed the old coat I had just replaced, pocketed my flashlight, and found my shovel again on the way out the door, along with the heavy garden rake I kept by the porch. It took only a moment for me to reach the back pasture, wading through snagging brush and field-grasses, towards the flames that were leaping higher than my head. In the distance, across the fields, I could see the lights of emergency vehicles, the kind that were built to traverse rough landscapes, as they were putting out fires as far as my vision could carry.

I pushed through the smoke and tried to get closer, but the winds were blowing the flames in my direction. I had only taken several digs at the hard earth with the shovel before one of the small trees among the brush went up like a q-tip soaked in kerosene, dousing me in sparks, which I patted out furiously, before running my hands through my hair in sudden fear of an errant spark catching there. The clouds of smoke eddied around me thickly, and it was difficult to breath, so I backed away and relegated myself to screaming hoarsely out over the pasture-lands, in the hopes that the emergency crews would hear me.

I turned to jog back through the brush toward my mother’s home, in order to make sure she was packing what she needed to flee, in case the flames made it that far, and saw headlights coming down the road, once again. It was the unidentified stranger, who soon introduced himself as the local fire department chief, and he was advising my dumbstruck mother that she needed to gather what she could to be prepared to leave. My mother, of course, had long lived in the country, and would not be budged. She was bound to stand right where she was until she saw whether the flames were going to come close enough to her pens for her to have to release her animals into the night.

The chief was saying the trucks were on the way. Thank God. But would they arrive soon enough? My mother motioned to the path leading up into the pasture, where the trucks would be able to drive into the blaze, but the gate was old and leaned precariously on one rusted hinge, blocking the drive. Without thinking, I pulled hard at the gate, wrenching it off the protesting hinge, and pushed over one hundred pounds of steel and aluminum to the side, allowing them entrance.

When the trucks finally passed through into the pasture, I could not remember ever having felt so much relief as I did then. It took three trucks, taking turns refilling at the water tankers awaiting them outside on the main country road, in order to douse the flames, every one of those trucks packed full of volunteers from town who came out in droves to fight the fire.

I found out later that one of the volunteers was the owner of the local Tastee-Freeze. He was not a man who needed the money of a second job. He was just a local man who volunteered his time to ensure the safety of the residents of the small town he loved.

Today I took stock of the bruises I now bear, the deep muscle aches, the old sneakers I was wearing with the now-melted soles, the over one hundred acres of scorched pasture lands around my property, three of it my mother’s, and my and mother’s homes, still standing. Then I drove into town and bought extra water hoses so I could run water all the way out to the burned area and douse the charred land so there wouldn’t be any flare-ups. I also bought cakes and a thank you card, and dropped them off at the fire station.

It’s just another day in the country, and I have to say I’m awfully glad to be part of it.

So when are you coming to visit?
Gormal tells you 'im a dwarven onion'
Gormal tells you 'always another beer-soaked layer'

Inama ASSOC:: 'though it may suit your fantasies to think so, i don't need oil for anything.'

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Jenera
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Postby Jenera » Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:03 pm

You and your luck with fire, sheesh.
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Postby Lilira » Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:29 pm

OMG Ash (Pardon the pun)

That's like a tale straight out of a book.

So glad you guys are okay!!!

HUGS,

Lil
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Postby Shar » Tue Nov 29, 2005 11:34 pm

Yikes. That is a horror story. Fire is scary. Glad you and your mother are ok Ashiwi. My question is, how did the fire start? So many possible answers to that question, but have they any idea?

Good luck!
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Kallinar
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Postby Kallinar » Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:54 pm

SO what were you doing with the shovel? Trying to dig a firebreak or planning to beat down the fire giant warlord?

Screw Tiamat...you braved that experience !corpses and thats a better accomplishment than anything else. Glad to hear you're safe cause I know all about them there brush fires from livin in California amongst the nasty crud in the mountains there.
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Postby rylan » Wed Nov 30, 2005 7:11 pm

Glad you're all alright *hugs*
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Postby ssar » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:26 am

Oh geez.
Glad you, your mum and your dwellings, pets are ok!

What an epxerience!
teflor the ranger
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Postby teflor the ranger » Thu Dec 01, 2005 1:41 pm

Kallinar wrote:SO what were you doing with the shovel? Trying to dig a firebreak or planning to beat down the fire giant warlord?


Circle and backstab.
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Ashiwi
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Postby Ashiwi » Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:39 am

teflor the ranger wrote:Circle and backstab.


I would have wielded a small gardening spade for that job.

And Shar, out here it could have started for any number of reasons. It could have been somebody dumb enough to think they knew how to burn off their brush, and really didn't, it could have been a careless smoker, kids with fewer brains than empty hours, a poorly installed fireplace, an electrical short... with as dry as it's been this season, anything could have been the cause.
Gormal tells you 'im a dwarven onion'
Gormal tells you 'always another beer-soaked layer'

Inama ASSOC:: 'though it may suit your fantasies to think so, i don't need oil for anything.'

Haley: Filthy lucre? I wash that lucre every day until it SHINES!
Ashiwi
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Postby Ashiwi » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:24 am

I must be getting an old hand at this. Last night was much worse, but it didn't faze me nearly as bad. My world is burning.

It was the knock on the door that woke me at 2:30 AM, a strange and foreign sound to penetrate the fog of my sleep, and I raised my head from my pillow to do what I do every morning, look out the window I sleep next to. All I saw was orange. My room was alight with the wash from the flames, and it amazes me that the light did not awaken me.

Shortly after the last fire I had a man with a large tractor come out to brushhog the area around my home, as well as my mother's. It's like one small island floating in a sea of black now. The last time it swept in from the east, from the back pastures of neighbors, but this time it came from the south and that vast expanse of grassland and brush where there is nobody and nothing to notice or stop it. The flames crawled across my line of vision everywhere I could see. It had snuck up on us, surrounding us on all sides but the north, where my nearest neighbors are. It made a semi-circle around our properties, to the east, west and south.

In the morning I will take my rutted old drive into town, driving through blackness before I get to my front gate. When I get back, I will assess the damage and take pictures. I already know, however, that if we had not had the previous fire, and had not had somebody out here to cut the grass down around our houses, that we would have gone up in smoke in our sleep.

God smiles on us in the strangest ways sometimes. I jogged up my blackened drive to the west, heavy of heart as I made my way to Sharon's place, our nearest neighbor in that direction. After waking my mother I had rushed back to my place to keep a watch on the trees behind me, and saw the inferno that licked at the sky from where her home lay. I had to know that she was okay. Luckily, her home was untouched, but glowing embers still lit the night from the charred remains of grass right next to her porch and in a full circle all the way around her home. It was she who called the fire department to us, who was the first to see the flames in our area. And the whole reason she saw them in time to save herself and her family?

She woke up in the middle of the night with an uncommonly strong urge to pee.

It rained last night before this happened. Just a sprinkle here, and hail in Tulsa. It wasn't enough to make any difference at all. Once the fire started, the heat had everything dry enough to burn before the fire ever made it to the next spot. Something's got to give. It's got to come down in a torrent soon, or we're going to have another dust bowl on our hands.
Gormal tells you 'im a dwarven onion'
Gormal tells you 'always another beer-soaked layer'

Inama ASSOC:: 'though it may suit your fantasies to think so, i don't need oil for anything.'

Haley: Filthy lucre? I wash that lucre every day until it SHINES!
Kifle
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Postby Kifle » Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:52 pm

You have convinced me never to move to the country. Good to see you're still ok. I honsetly think you should move.
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Ashiwi
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Postby Ashiwi » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:12 pm

It's not like this all the time. This is a result of the drought we've had ever since that earthquake that caused the big tsunami. We've had the strangest weather I've ever seen, and I've heard discussions that speculate it could reach as high as 135F this summer. If it stays this dry all year, the consequences will be felt all around the nation, since any crop surplus normally had from this state will be non-existant. Our lakes are a good foot below their normal levels, and in spite of the 85F weather we've been having in early March (typically 50's around now), I've seen very little sign of spring budding. With the winter as mild as it has been, we'll see a bumper crop of insects, including those nasty tiger mosquitoes which have made their way into the state, and a bloom of algae in the waterways that will be previously unmatched.

Fish will choke and rot in the lakes and rivers, bird flu will spread, market prices on both vegetables and beef will skyrocket, and hundreds, if not thousands, of our elderly and infirm will suffocate from the heat in their homes. If the weather continues the way it is now, Oklahoma will be the gateway to Hell this summer. We've already made the national news because of the fires... imagine what it'll be like in July and August if we don't get a whole lot of rain this spring.
Gormal tells you 'im a dwarven onion'
Gormal tells you 'always another beer-soaked layer'

Inama ASSOC:: 'though it may suit your fantasies to think so, i don't need oil for anything.'

Haley: Filthy lucre? I wash that lucre every day until it SHINES!
Lilithelle
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Postby Lilithelle » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:30 pm

Here's a picture Ashiwi e-mailed to me...
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Postby Duna » Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:05 pm

We've had more than our share of rain.. you can have it :P
and I must say yer right about the weather.. Indiana's usually hot and muggy in July/August.. but last year July was just hot.. not muggy but hot like 100's..
August wasn't that bad.. but it was just wierd.. we'd have 3 days in a row of 100 or so degrees.. then we'd have 3 days of mid 70's.. and winter has been more than mild, 3 or 4 days in a row of 50 - 60 then 5 of 20 and under.. it's no wonder everybodies sick..
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Postby Tasan » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:57 am

Yeeeehaw 10" of snow overnight! You know it's a nasty snow storm when the power goes out!

Indiana, prepare to reap the watershed next week, bwahahaha!
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Postby Kifle » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:14 pm

Tasan wrote:Yeeeehaw 10" of snow overnight! You know it's a nasty snow storm when the power goes out!

Indiana, prepare to reap the watershed next week, bwahahaha!


It wont happen, but we did get 66 mph winds through most of yesterday which made moving a bitch. I had to chase my daughters socks through the apt complex.
Fotex group-says 'Behold! penis!'

Kifle puts on his robe and wizard hat.

Thalidyrr tells you 'Yeah, you know, getting it like a jackhammer wears you out.'

Teflor "You can beat a tank with a shovel!!1!1!!one!!1!uno!!"

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