 Hi James. I have to say, you are more than kind. Yes, it's been quite a year. We've been taking lots of pictures and even mapping and documenting the plants coming back in as part of trying to form a plan for "rehabilitation" of the land. Mostly that involves gathering enough evidence to show it's best to let it be. So far, that's how it's coming out. I'll get some pictures for you to see this week if you like. Maybe I can put them on our website or something so they're not in the way here. Your timing is right on, too. It was one year ago yesterday that the fire filled the canyon here, around our homes, and the firefighters had to give up and pull out because the heat was so intense. They reported all structures lost because there was no hope; all the slopes around the bowl of land in which the buildings sit were ablaze. But a miracle happened. Two days later -- a year ago -- tomorrow, they came back down the road and found everything was still here, still standing. Over the next few months five different firefighters told us they could not understand how this happened, that it was absolutely impossible. We believe it because we saw the evidence for ourselves. The flames came within feet and in one case inches of the structures, but nothing ignited on or in them. Most amazing to us, my garden was spared. The fire blackened everything right up to my little 2' high rabbit fence of chicken wire and simply stopped. Corn and squash leaves an inch away from these flames were not even singed. When we came home three days later, I opened the gate in the big (8' high) fence around that area and let the wild animals come in to eat what had been saved for them by hands that weren't mine. There was *nothing* else for them right then. Deer, raccoons, and porcupines came in so many numbers to eat of those garden plants, all of them with ripe produce, that they literally kept us awake at night for three nights with their calls. And we didn't mind a bit. :-) By the way, it turns out porcupines are quite noisy! Who knew? LOL And good ol' Arthur's not in boxes. He's tucked into corners and on shelves, and the back part is standing where he's always been in the shop. He is the future still standing there, waiting for me to pick it up again. That's meant a lot this past year. Here is a picture of how *he* was spared. He sits inside the garage door area of the building you see. That crazy (dead) Jeep has a full gas tank. The burned wagon you see in the foreground was stacked (by the previous owner) full of wooden pallets -- stacked as high as a semi cab or close to it. As you can see, the whole thing went up as the fire came down the hill where I stood to take the picture (and down the slope all along the side of the barn, in fact, and behind it). The grass was all burned then, too, up to where you see the tall tufts still standing. That really TALL grass was THERE then. But the fire simply stopped at the edge of where you see it. The short grass is what had grown back in the fall after the fire; I took this picture last winter. Thanks, James. Dawn
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