Burnin' down the house 2

Dad and Mom went to another intentional structure burn a couple of weekends ago - this one was organized by Corvallis Fire - they're the only ones in the valley with yellow trucks. We all make fun of them of course. Anyway, this burn was well organized and the building construction was interesting - the entire building is made up of mill end 2x4s stacked on top of each other like bricks!

Evidently, back in the day when there were a lot of mills around here, the mill workers could bring home all of the mill ends they wanted, and they just stacked them up to build houses! The mill ends looked like they were 1 to 4 ft long on average, and stacked on the outside of a frame. Anyway, it takes a while to get it burning, but once it starts, it really goes fast and hot. See the photos here (starting at photo #6 in this album): http://picasaweb.google.com/Daphne.ItchyDog/VictorVolunteerFireDepartment?feat=directlink

In other news, Dad is employed again, which makes him happy and me sad - more time alone with Blockhead! Dad is working 2 to 4 days a week as a counter person and parts delivery guy for O'Reilly's autoparts store in Hamilton. He mostly likes working there, but does find some things rather annoying - like people expecting him to magically know what make, model and year of vehicle they have, where the part they asked for and purchased goes in the vehicle, and how to diagnose a vehicle's problems from the sound over a cell phone! But he likes helping little old ladies install windshield wipers.

Mom is keeping busy doing grant writing and strategic planning for the fire department. Both of these are challenging and keep her brain engaged without putting much of a strain on her free time, which is important to her! She's also working in her CSA garden on Friday mornings (see the link to Clearwater Farms) and continuing with her music ministry at Church. Mom also completed a First Responder's course for the Fire Dept this spring, and just has to take the Montana state test to get her license. First Responder is the lowest level of medical training/licensing you can get, but is perfect for her position in the fire dept - it would be very rare for her to be on her own with a patient for more than 5-10 minutes before the ambulance shows up, at least in the district. She's considering adding on a Wilderness First Responder's endorsement, which requires a little more ingenuity and self-sufficiency, but would be good when we're all hiking in the backcountry.

So far, fire season has been pretty quiet - it's been a rainy and cool spring, we had hail and snow yesterday - so we're all happy about that! We hope your spring is as beautiful as ours!