Fires, Fires Everywhere

by montanaclarks

This photo was posted on the Distinctly Montana Facebook page and was taken by Alan Hathaway. This second photo was taken I’m assuming by Mike, a friend and posted on his Facebook page.

The above two photos are from a fire near Bozeman, MT that on Friday was 500 acres. By Sunday morning it was 7000 acres. Saturday it was 100 degrees in Bozeman, MT and the wind was howling. Structures have been lost, fire fighters have been injured and it shows no signs of slowing. Fire behavior was erratic and evacuations were chaotic. On Saturday afternoon, our valley began to fill with heavy, smelly smoke from this fire, we could see the plume. It’s about 30 miles from us as the crow flies, 90+ miles by road–we are in no danger.

This was at our house Saturday afternoon–at 11% humidity, it’s no wonder there are fires everywhere.

This isn’t the only fire in Montana–in the Miles City, Montana area there are over 100,000 acres burning. Montana needs rain in the worst way–rain is in the forecast for Monday, let’s hope and pray it rains. We’ve had several years of mild summer forest fire behavior, this summer isn’t one of them.

Other than watching the fires there isn’t any exciting news around here. More work on the motorhome, a trip to Billings for batteries, some yard work–and that’s about it. I’m loving the new flower bed area in the backyard where I used small gravel for mulch–I took the advice of a reader and didn’t use the landscape fabric. I’ve had very few weeds sprout their ugly heads.

Monday, Labor Day, is my birthday–a momentous one–not one of those zero birthdays but important nevertheless. I qualify for Medicare!! For the first time in a loooong time I do not have a yearly deductible in the thousands of dollars. For the last year the insurance I purchased from the Marketplace had a $2500 deductible and an $8000 out of pocket. I can’t count the number of years or thousands of dollars we have paid for insurance and never used–because we never met the deductible. We are grateful for our health and I never thought I would wish to be 65–but I’m glad to be there!

And speaking of birthdays–the Cowboy asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said, “yarn.” And he delivered–before you get all excited and think he ordered yarn all by himself–think again!😆

The Cowboy has been asking me if he picked chokecherries would I make jelly. Well, I finally caved and Friday he spent about two hours in that hot sun picking chokecherries–it takes a whole lot of those tiny little berries to make jelly! By late Friday evening, we had 12 cups of juice–success! When we come back from our ATVing trip with Larry and Geri jelly making will be on the agenda.

Just before 2pm Sunday Larry’s big new Ford truck rolled up the driveway. It’s good to have them here. We sat outside visiting until it was time to finish the supper I had started earlier in the day. We enjoyed beef stroganoff, mashed potatoes salad and homemade ice cream. After all that food we took a walk up into our dry, dry hay fields. The smoke was awful last night and today–but it does make for beautiful sunsets.

There is a mountain range out there but the smoke has obscured it.

Life is good.

 

 

16 thoughts on “Fires, Fires Everywhere”

  2. Happy Birthday tomorrow!! Glad you are appreciative of your 65 yr old perk…haha! Sorry to hear about your fires in Montana. Sure hope you get some much needed rain. The entire west needs lots of rain and cooler temps. Glad you friends arrived safely. Have a fun time.

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  3. Happy birthday. Jim’s burthday is tomorrow but hes got you beat by 16 years. Smokes been bad here also but the chance of rain is looking mighty good. Fingers crossed.

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  4. Happy Medicare birthday! It’s a worthwhile milestone.

    We’re in the same boat as you are regarding heat, fires and smoke. Some dramatic rescues south of Yosemite (200 miles south of us) as Labor Day campers were threatened by a big new wildfire. And now we’re facing power outages as the temperatures hit 100+ degrees. UGH. I have a feeling we are in for a dangerous autumn.

    I hope you (and we) see rain soon.

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  5. My mom used to make choke cherry jelly in South Dakota, 1940 time period. As a child, I hated it, at 84, I’d probably love it. Fires are terrible, we are having the same in California.

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  8. Today it looks and feels like the whole west side of the country is going to burn down 😦 Our skies are thick with gray smoke and all of our friends along the coast are experiencing one or more fires. While we have a little rain in tomorrow’s forecast, sadly that’s not the case in other areas. Fun to have good friends come to visit. Hope you can still get out to play!

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