This Weeks Ramblings....

Well the week was a busy one. As I mentioned before, I've been doing yard work all week. Wednesday was the day I did the greeting cards at the dollar store. That was a treat!(sarcasm inserted here). Normally it's fine but this week they had just gotten all their summer stock of rubber flip flops, holey shoes, rubber balls, etc..... Well the smell of rubber in there was extremely strong. By the end of the day I had such a headache I had to leave early. I ended up with a migraine and all the lovely things that go with a migraine.... I won't gross you out with the details. As it ended up I had to get up at 6 or so the next morning to do the paperwork so I could get it faxed in on time. Then I had to go back to the store, which I never do... it's one day a week...and tidy up the last details.
Needless to say I started off the next day with a migraine pill before it took off again, and headed off to do more yard work!
I decided that Friday had to be a day off!!! Yaaaay!! Okay well sort of. We did a bit of yard work here at home... cleaned up some in the carport, planted some canna lillies, watered the garden, etc. Then Randal and I took his Aunt and Uncle that have their trailer parked in our back yard, out to lunch. We went to a really nice restaurant. I had the special... sweet and spicy chili chicken.... It wasn't great..... but the rest of the meal made up for the meat! It was delicious! It was just really nice to sit in a pretty and relaxing place, eat and have some conversation. Then it was time to fly again.
We picked up the girls from school and came home and Randal headed out to work for an evening shift.
Shortly after he left, we noticed a ton of black smoke from a couple of blocks away. I said "Come on girls lets jump in the van and go see what's going on!" We headed over to see....as we got closer it looked like a plane crash, as we live close to the airport. It was a long swath of flames, just like a plane crash would be. I started to pray...I felt sick to my stomach. As we got closer people said no it wasn't a crash, just a fire. We were so relieved. As it turned out it started at a log home building site. They assemble the homes there, then take them apart and put onto trucks and ship to the buyer. It was a gigantic fire - we could see the flames from a few blocks away. There was a big pile of logs it was burning through and the wind was very high, so the fire was moving fast. I guess they had some barrels of some kind of fuel on site. Wow did they ever make a loud boom and a huge fire ball! Boy was I disappointed that I didn't have a camera! So sorry no pictures for you... I may be able to find some later.... there were tons of photographers and news cameramen there.
In the path of the fire was a massive stack of lumber. On the other side of that lumber is a lumber mill, then past that is an acre or two of wrapped lumber waiting to be shipped. On the other side of all of this is a gas station!!! Yikes! We got there really soon after it started and within a few minutes after that two helicopters appeared with water buckets swinging underneath them. They weren't going to mess around with this... It was time to get serious!! Next to this fire is a river canal full of water, so the helicopters would hover over the canal and let their bucket sink into the water. They would lift them out and fly over to the fire and drop the water on the fire about one bucket per minute per machine. It was a beehive of activity. I'm sure they had every fire truck in town there and I know that all the ambulances were there and they called in one for backup from the next town.
You wouldn't believe the traffic. I decided to be responsible and park away from the action and walk. Not everyone was of the same mind. The police had a busy time of it keeping people moving. They would stop right on the highway to watch and the police would put their siren on and shoo them away. Janelle and I decided to walk over for a closer look. We sat on the bank of the canal, what I figured was a safe distance away, and watched the helicopters come in to fill up then swing around and dump their watery load on the head of the fire. It took them a long time to get it under control. We stayed for about two hours then headed home to make dinner. I drove by late that evening about 11 pm and they were still fighting it, but seemed to have it contained to a log pile. The wind had died down too, so that made things a lot easier for them. Earlier the wind had been driving the fire forward into the mill, lumber piles, etc.
Just to back up a bit...
While we were watching the action shortly after getting there, Amanda noticed a snake slithering across the gravel. So we ran over to see. It wasn't very long, only about 12 inches... so we tried to catch it with a stick. I did manage to pick it up with the stick... I just wanted to get a closer look. We decided it didn't have rattles so it was harmless. Well Lindsay decided to pick it up. She figured "behind the head" was anywhere back of the head. So she did this. Well the snake curled around and was trying to bite her fingers as I'm standing there screaming at her to drop it. I then explained that "behind the head" meant right at the base of the head or even on top of it's head. After we went home we checked out what kind of snake this was...Apparently it WAS a rattlesnake!!!! I just about had a heart attack when I realized this! The worst part of it is that baby rattlers are more venomous that full size adults! Oh my!.... I was very thankful at this point that she hadn't gotten bit! I've lived here for almost 18 years and have never seen a rattlesnake, so didn't really know what I was looking at...
The weekend looks like a fairly busy one. It started last night with dropping the two older girls off. They are going to a youth convention about 5 hours away from here.
Randal's brother, wife and two kids are coming up for the weekend so we can meet the new baby. They will be staying with his Mom ........ it will be nice to see them and finally get to meet the cute little guy!! He's 2 months old already! Tonight we'll be having them, grandma and the aunt and uncle all over for a BBQ.
So today will be spent in preparation for tonight
The menu is:
-Steaks which I'll soon put in to marinate.
-baked potatoes.
-german potato salad
-bean salad.
-oriental cabbage salad
-veggies and dip.
-fresh baked whole wheat buns..mmmm mmm mmm
-dessert
-rhubarb torte mmmm

I'm looking forward to it... makes me hungry typing it out! You all have a wonderful weekend!
tata for now.