Fire Season

According to the calendar, it is spring in Alaska. I'm still skeptical. It doesn't feel like spring. Spring means WARM weather. Planting flowers and vegetables in the garden. Shorts. Tee-shirts. Sandals. Not sweatshirts and boots. Ice on the pond in the morning. This state needs a refresher on what the seasons really mean.
Spring here also means fire season. And we have already had a close call. On Monday night, my husband called - there was a fire on Tall Tree, which runs parallel to our road separated by about a half mile of muskegg. I didn't see any smoke until I walked out to the front of my house. Thick plumes of grey-white smoke, a grass/tree fire, were already visible at the end of our street. It looked close so I walked down there to get a better idea of the distance. Standing on a gravel pile, I could see flames already shooting up beetle-kill pine trees and hear the voices of the firefighters already on the scene.
 I knew exactly where the fire was - last fall, our dog, Maggie, had spent the night tangled up in that area while my daughter, husband, and I spent hours fruitlessly searching in the dark with flashlights and guns. We could hear her whimpering as well as the howls of the coyotes, but as the coyotes' yips grew closer, her whimpers stopped and we were forced to give up the search until morning. Despite our worst fears, Maggie somehow freed herself from leash and collar and bounded out of the woods as we resumed our search at daybreak.
Looking at the fire, I called a neighbor to let her know. She arrived a few minutes later and we climbed onto an absent neighbor's second-floor deck for a better vantage point. A forestry helicopter arrived, and circled the area, before setting down to attach a bucket for water drops. As more neighbors arrived, so did the stories of other fires and evacuations. The East End Road fire. The Homestead fire. The Caribou Hills fire. All of which started like this one, small. but jumped into massive blazes within a few short hours. All of us began making plans to round up animals and necessary belongings to move them to safety should the need arise.  I figured that I could put two of the horses in the trailer and take them across the road while one of my daughters rode the third. The pigs worried me as I contemplated catching and crating three rapidly growing, fast, and strong pigs. My neighbor was concerned about moving her hens, geese, and ducks, all of whom are highly susceptible to toxic smoke from a wildfire.
As we watched, the helicopter dumped bucket after bucket of water onto the fire. When we couldn't see anymore flames, and the smoke began to diminish, my daughter and her friend ran down the trail to see what was happening and report back. As I followed, I was struck by the irony of sending two teenagers to check the fire line location of a brushfire. When I reached them, they were happily chatting with several firefighters and the fire was all but out.
About an hour later, the Department of Forestry, with four-wheelers on their trucks, drove down our road to access the area and clean up the fire. They finally left after midnight.
There is still a ban on open burning on this end of the peninsula but some people never listen or learn. With thousands of acres of dried brush and beetle-kill spruce, the Kenai Peninsula is a tinder-box just waiting for a match. The fire hazard will diminish as the new grass grows and we continue to have rain, but it still is a real and present danger. I have my priority list - kids, animals, food for both, camping equipment, and certain items of sentimental/practical value. During the Homestead fire, I had everything packed within 20 minutes and animals ready to go if we had to leave. Of course, now I have more animals, but still figure on the 20 minute time frame.
It's one that I really hope I never have to put to the test.

Coffee and Sunshine

The sunlight is killing me.
The very thing I prayed for all winter, during those dark, cold, snowy, miserable days, is now contributing to my demise. I can see the headlines now - "Long Days Kill Woman". Or "Be Careful What You Wish For"...
Back in December, the sun rose mid-morning and set mid-afternoon. I tried to get all of my housework done by the time the sun came up, feeling smug and accomplished, despite knowing that the sun didn't rise until 10 a.m. and I had been up since 6. But hey, its winter. I need all the gloating I can get.
The days leading up to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, are pretty dark up here. Especially where I live. Winter inhales deeply, sucking the light from the sky, draping an icy curtain of black velvet around anyone who dares to step outside.
Now, I am walking the dogs at 6 a.m. in full sunlight and trying to convince myself that its ok to go to bed when the sun is still shining at 10:30p.m. I don't know how much more I can take.