Fire Scare and Leaf Season

Last night my dad called and said that there was a fire. At first I thought they meant IN their house, but no, more like 1/5th mile away. I went online to read about it - said 30 acres burned, but no houses. From my understanding, my dad said that the phone and cable lines are down - damaged from the flame retardent stuff.

I found this picture online and I'm *pretty sure* that the tiny little white blip that I've circled in yellow is my parents house.

Scarily enough... this is the third big fire in the 6 years they've been living there. The first happened like 5 months after we moved in, during November 2000. I was online, chatting with my would-be husband and the power went out around 1:30am. (A transformer blew out). Around 3am my mom woke me up - the power was still out, but she said there was a fire coming towards us. We began to pack all the important stuff - legal papers, photos, near and dear stuff that couldn't be easily replaced. Everything was loaded into the cars. Then we began to hose down around the house (they have firehoses and hook-ups), and I think my dad even tried to trim some tree branches away from the house. We knew once we left the house, we wouldn't be allowed back up (they live in an area that has only 1 pavement road access). So we kept putting it off, chatting with the neighbors, hosing some more. And then finally the firemen got it under control. It did burn down a few houses though, including one that had a restored Ford Model A 1930's car that was insured for $1,000,000. The things you remember... :P

The next fire was last year - my brother was leaving for a college class and notice that a neighbor's house was on fire. His cell phone wasn't receiving reception, so he went next door and had them call the fire department. Turns out the lady left a fire in the fireplace unattended and it got out of hand. Nobody hurt, but a year later, they still haven't fixed their house. My brother took some interesting photos with his cell phone camera. My sister watched from our property and reported that a helicopter dumped extra buckets of water onto our land. An odd patch of greenery there for a while. :)

But I'm glad to hear everything is ok... they get too many fire scares!

I also have my fabric for Judy's Leaf Season quilt. I'm still a little hesitant on some colors I have in the batch, but I'm gonna go ahead and make at least one leaf out of it... who knows if I'll like it or not.

The green/tan/brown is going to be for the non-leaf blocks. The fabric with purple and blue stripes didn't come out right - but it's definately one that I'm going to use.

I'm mostly hesitant about the red, it seems so vibrant! I have been aiming for a blues-greens-purples type of quilt, with a little orangish and reddish in there.

We'll just have to see how it flows together when it's in blocks. Oh, the background is white - the same stuff I used in my other quilt-for-a-hour-a-day. I know, I'm so boring. ;)

Leah