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The wind has shifted. Fort Collins is smoky and orange. It's 97 degrees at 6:24 p.m. Despite the weather, the High Park fire is still 45% contained. My husband has been allowed to return to his house. (Actually he was there all along, he just wasn't allowed there. But our across-the-fence neighbors to the south and east were not evacuated, since they are on a different road, so Neal was parking in Butch's driveway and walking to his house.)
His well pump died Wednesday night, the night the kids were fed up enough by uncomfortable conditions at my house that they went to sleep at Neal's. Probably nothing to do with the fire: it was fourteen years old. The Sheriff's department let him and the well guy in to diagnose the problem, but only for half an hour, under escort by one of the National Guard at the roadblock. Half an hour wasn't enough to replace the well pump. The National Guardsman said, "We'll have to make another arrangement." Bob, who owns the pasture to the east, said, "Just cut my fence, drive across the pasture, do what you gotta do." It's good to have good neighbors. Fortunately, the evacuation was lifted the same day the well guy came back with a new pump. Meanwhile, Neal was carrying five-gallon jugs over Butch's fence to water the horses.
Now my birds have flown: Nixie back to Portland, where she will watch pigeons the rest of the summer; Mungo to Connecticut to see his East coast friends. Neal will join him there in ten days and they will hike up Mt. Madison and Mt. Washington. Neal reminded me that he originally planned to do the hike first, before Mungo saw his friends. I would have had to deal with the fire and the evacuation and the horses and the road block and the well pump and the well guy and Butch and Bob and the National Guardsman by myself!
I still have a tuba in my car.
His well pump died Wednesday night, the night the kids were fed up enough by uncomfortable conditions at my house that they went to sleep at Neal's. Probably nothing to do with the fire: it was fourteen years old. The Sheriff's department let him and the well guy in to diagnose the problem, but only for half an hour, under escort by one of the National Guard at the roadblock. Half an hour wasn't enough to replace the well pump. The National Guardsman said, "We'll have to make another arrangement." Bob, who owns the pasture to the east, said, "Just cut my fence, drive across the pasture, do what you gotta do." It's good to have good neighbors. Fortunately, the evacuation was lifted the same day the well guy came back with a new pump. Meanwhile, Neal was carrying five-gallon jugs over Butch's fence to water the horses.
Now my birds have flown: Nixie back to Portland, where she will watch pigeons the rest of the summer; Mungo to Connecticut to see his East coast friends. Neal will join him there in ten days and they will hike up Mt. Madison and Mt. Washington. Neal reminded me that he originally planned to do the hike first, before Mungo saw his friends. I would have had to deal with the fire and the evacuation and the horses and the road block and the well pump and the well guy and Butch and Bob and the National Guardsman by myself!
I still have a tuba in my car.