Christmas at McRanch

[Mack Hacker, #60477]

The family was really looking forward to Chrismas at our ranch with folks in from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. We had been getting ready for several weeks. Then Monday night the fire started on the place to the south It was just a little trash fire at first. Then came the fire trucks. By 10:30 PM, they had it under control and all was well. About 5 acres had burned.

 

Then Tuesday afternoon, the wind came up and the fire was back. The fire was approching my place and got to within 100yds of the property line. Once across the fence, there was nothing between me and the flames but 300 yds of dense, dry cedar. I made a dash to the gunsafe and threw everything that said Colt or Browning in the truck, hooked up the boat and told my granddaughter to drive it out of there. I stayed behind to water down as much as I could and remove as much fire fodder as I could.

 

I went up and began wetting down the roof. At 66, it didn't take long to make walking around on a wet roof seem like a bad idea. I got the horses into the corral and arranged for someone to come get them, That was when we received an "all clear" from the VFD. Last night went well. The wind is switched around to out of the north and all seems to be OK.

 

We intend to have a great family Christmas. I hope you all can do the same. Enjoy the things that are really important. Every once in a while we need something like this to remind us what those are.

 

Mack