The last two days are a blur. I woke up with a headache that as of noon has not gone away. The first thing I did at 7am was take two Tylenol with my vitamins which should have taken care of it but it didn't. It's getting warmer now and we closed up Tammy's house because smoke is very present as of an hour ago.
I had a zoom work meeting at 10am. It was nice to catch up with them but it's difficult sometimes to refocus on work. The good thing is that when I am working, I am not worried about the fire progress toward my house.
Recap.
Tuesday, I think, yes it was. My dad's birthday. About 11am I got word via email from our local fire networking group of the fire, which had started from a lightning strike the day before. I started preparing and then shortly after received the all-Sonoma-County warning that went out. Made everyone crazy who received it and didn't need it, but it mobilized my support network, who arrived shortly to help me get everything packed in the cars in case evacuation was needed. I contacted Erica at Flat Broke Farm to see if she could pick up the animals and keep them at her place if we needed to go, and she was on standby.
It was hot, sweaty work. It was worse in the house than outside, but the temps outside got to 106 and even though we enjoyed the occasional breeze, it brought with it concern about how that would impact the fire to the northwest. We walked to the end of my driveway at some point to see if we could see any smoke, and the towering gray plume above my neighbor's house was terrifying. Turn around 180 degrees, and we saw the huge plume from the fire nearly surrounding massive Lake Berryessa in Napa with a huge white thundercloud on top.
As we continued to work, it started raining ash. When burnt leaves started floating down, I called Erica and told her I was ready to go NOW. She was at the feed store and said she'd pick up the trailer and get on the way to us. Not long after, our phones blasted the mandatory evacuation notice, and I got a call from Jess. She and Cory headed up to help get us out.
We were starting to load chickens when Jess and Cory arrived with Laina. They didn't want to be caught and it took a bit to get hands on them. The hens went two to a laundry basket with a rubbermaid bin lid duct taped to the top. Easy to clean, and good ventilation. One of the hens escaped and Jess earned her new title of Chicken Wrangler when she calmly walked up to her and picked her up, putting her back in the basket. Another almost got out later. They took advantage of any opening to try to escape. Yellow the rooster was the last to be captured and put into a borrowed travel crate from Tammy. Everyone was ready to go when Erica arrived with the trailer.
The goats loaded well into the trailer, the chickens and a bale of hay and chicken feed were loaded in to the truck, and they were on their way. Shortly after Erica arrived, a trailer appeared for Bette's goats. As Erica prepared to leave, we waited for an impressive maneuver of the goat trailer passing the arriving horse trailer on our narrow driveway at the upper gate. These folks are amazing. Erica headed out, and I wandered into the kitchen to see what else I needed. I kept saying, "No, that can be replaced." Then Tammy reminded me that last year the things I wished I had grabbed were my handwritten recipe book and lotions and potions notebook. So we grabbed those and some more pictures and headed out. There are things I need now and remembered forgetting to grab, but overall we did a good job. I will be compiling a list for next time and hope that there is no next time.
We went to Jessica's place to relax and plan further, had some food, and then Tammy and I headed down to her place with Bella. Oliver stayed at Jessica's with Bex and Q. Not long after we hit the freeway, I received word from Tammy that she'd stopped at a gas station in Santa Rosa because her tire was losing air. The gas station didn't have FixAFlat in stock. Neither did Cory when I called but he offered to come change the tire for us. We can change tires but we were wiped out from all the packing we'd been doing and gratefully accepted his most efficient help. There was a nail in the tire. It was probably around midnight when we got to Cotati and adrenaline kept me up for a while. Bella settled in easily, hanging out with Tammy's dog Zoe.
Wednesday was a bit of a blur. I did some remote work and then ordered more feed for the animals housed at Flat Broke. Tam was getting her tire fixed nearby and picked up the order for me. Then we delivered it to the farm (socially distanced - dropping at the steps) and went to Penngrove to pick up scraps for the pigs at Faletti and visited animals there for a while. Windsor is threatened so Jess and Bex and crew started looking at options for evacuation for themselves.
The fire was headed like an arrow to my place but overnight shifted to the east and toward the city of Healdsburg, which is now on evacuation warning. Everything is much too close for comfort. I keep joking when I talk about things at home that I'm going to use or loan to Tammy or give to her: "If it doesn't burn up..." Dark humor helps sustain me.
I got a text message that a package had been delivered to the house that I can't get to. I thought the police would have blocked off the roadway and had felt secure in my house because of that. Apparently the postal service is still trying to get mail to us - when no one is supposed to be there. I called the post office and he said he'd have the carrier grab the mail and bring it back, and they'll put me on hold for the duration of this mess.
Tammy is picking up some things from Jon that he took in his truck to put into her storage unit. I'm trying to get some work done.
Erica sent some photos of the critters this morning. They are doing well. Luna was bloated when we loaded her onto the trailer but she looks better today.
I'm going to post this early today, at about 12:30 p.m., because I have no idea these days when/if I'll get back to the computer, and what the power and WiFi situation will be like hour to hour.
We are safe and well and hanging in there. I hope you are too.
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