Waiting...

Well, Dad and Mom are just hanging out right now, because there's a cold front blowing through right now (although it's still 80 degrees outside!) and they're on alert for the Fire Dept in case the winds, which are really starting to kick up, blow up the Kootenai Creek fire worse than it is now. A couple of our trucks and some of the other firefighters are already working the fire or are pre-staged for structure protection. Here's a link to the Inciweb site in case you're curious: http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1733/

This fire started way back in July, but it's been pretty much a non-event until last week, when a cold front blew through and it really started moving quickly. Folks in the area are not happy with the Forest Service right now! Interesting enough, we (without Schultz!) actually looked at some houses in that area, and decided the roads were too windy and narrow for good, easy access. Hmmm - the Lord works in mysterious ways.

But there's other stuff to tell you about too! First, Dad went to the Reno Air Races last week, where he met up with Dave (who calls Schultz the psycho-dog, and I agree!), his son, and some of Dave's siblings and Uncle Jerome for a little while. Dad said it was fun, but was really happy to come home.

Dad and Mom have been doing quite a bit around the house too. First, they finally finished building steps from the back deck to the hot tub - no more jumping down 4.5' to reach the tub. Dad has been cutting up firewood - we're going to install a Kuma wood stove in the main room of the house for auxillary heating. We've got lots of wood, so we may as well use it! Mom has also started a new project - she's building a raised-bed garden behind the house - it's going to be 4x8 feet, and have 2 ft high dry stone walls. There's lots of rocks here, so she may as well use them for something too!

And of course, they continue to train with the Fire Dept. Last week's training was low-angle rescue with the Ravalli County Search and Rescue folks. They learned how to get a stretcher with a person in it safely up and down steep slopes. It can be pretty challenging!

And last, but not least, Mom actually saw a mountain lion last week! We've seen the tracks before, but they're usually pretty good at hiding - this one ran right across the road in front of the car about a mile from our house. Fortunately, there's lots of food for them here - there are turkeys and deer everywhere - besides, no stupid cat would ever try to take on me and Blockhead - we'd show that dumb cat who's in charge!

Mom was hoping our new internet connection (a USB cell phone antenna, with an external booster antenna from Verizon) would let us post pictures, but you'll just have to wait until they go downtown - images are just too much for the connection I guess. But it's still better than dial up!

Hope you're having a great fall!

More Hiking, Less Working

Well, Dad and Mom aren't working anymore - the Farmer's Market cut back their hours, and their are a lot of single moms there, so Dad and Mom are just on call in case someone gets sick. Which is great for us, and Mom's OK with it, but Dad's going to get bored soon.

So, we've been doing more hiking, and Dad and Mom have been doing more fire training too. See all our pictures on our Picassa Web album at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Daphne.ItchyDog/SeptemberHiking?feat=directlink

And Mom added some more pictures to the August Web Album as well; the link for that album is in the last post.

Hope everyone's Labor Day was great!