We Had *The Talk*

Monday July 24 2017

The Fire Talk. Comes with summer and thunderstorms and from a spring and summer that produced highly flammable and prevalent cheat grass and weeds after an unprecedented winter of moisture.

The Fire Talk came up a couple of weeks ago as we helplessly watched our B.C. Canadian friends evacuated, barred from going in or out, or trapped on their place surrounded by fires (so far, they are OK, and back home, but the fires are still on-going.)

What would we do here?

We're 5 miles down a dirt road - surrounded by cheat grass-laden BLM land. Between 4 residences, we have 20+ 4 legged equids (and a passel of goats and dogs and such). (And, if you count the next neighbors, add 15 or so more horses, though they have some big dry lots.) The main way out is this bumpy 1-lane dirt road. An alternate way out is a much longer bumpier 1-lane dirt road that leads up to the Owyhee Mountains, and eventually off in different directions.

We have a big water tank on a trailer… but what comes out of that is not much more than a regular hose's worth of pressure. We've mowed weeds, but they're still growing and they leave dried stumps behind. We have plenty of green grass and trees around the house, and some dry paddocks. Plenty of water spigots around if the electricity is on. A small generator or 2. But what is all of this if a fire is roaring, and a 40 mph wind is blowing, and the fire creates its own weather and wind?

We have several horse trailers, either 2 or 4 horse trailers… but 1 trip with each would not accommodate all the horses.

It depends on where the fire comes from and how close it is. 

And when. Daytime? Middle of the night? More than once, I've been startled awake by a thick, acrid smell of smoke. I've jumped out of bed and run outside looking, hiking, climbing hills… trying to see from whence a fire might be coming (it's always been from fires some 40 and more miles away, but you wouldn't know it by the heavy smoke smell).

And it depends on where the fire comes from, and how close it is - that will determine what we do. If we have time to haul horses - great. If we don't, then what. Do we just have to jump in our cars and flee to save ourselves? I've got a bag packed by the door. I hope I never have to grab it, but I know where my keys are hanging. Do we have time to round the horses up and chase them out? Where? Up our canyon? Out the back gate east? Down the main dirt road northeast? Up the dirt road west? The barbed wire gates are open and ready if we need to chase horses up or down the road.

We have the memory of the Soda Fire from 2 years ago - 300,000 acres that came within 15 miles - still burning in our minds. Now we have thunderstorms in the forecast this week, and a Fire Weather Watch today from noon to midnight. 

Another reason I hate summer: I HATE FIRE SEASON.

We can just wait and watch and hope and pray it's not the year for this area to burn.

We Are The Chosen Ones

Friday May 17 2013

"60% chance showers likely" doesn't hold much weight with me, when the forecast is for the Owyhee desert in the summer. The desert and I have been disappointed too many times. Most often any rain will hang over the Owyhee mountains and not quite make it down here, 6 miles away. I do, however, take heed any time there are thunderstorms in the forecast… there was a chance today, after noon.

Carol and I rode Zeb and Mac on a 20 mile ride this morning, with rain clouds over the Owyhees, but with not much fear of getting wet.

Just as we were riding down our last hill near home around noon at the end of our ride, the mountain rain was definitely coming our way; we were just starting to feel a few sprinkles. It looked like our desert might indeed get a little refreshing shower.

There were also two very dark and ominous blue clouds heading directly for us that I did not like the suspicious thunderstormy looks of.

Sure enough, as soon as I started untacking Mac at the house, it started raining. Mac finished his grain meal and I turned him loose just as the skies opened up with a Malaysia-like monsoon rain.

It DUMPED, hurling cascades of water and spitballs of hail. I huddled under a cottonwood tree, enjoying the saturated chaos around me, debating about running through the downpour to the tack room, when I was encouraged to take the run option by a cannon of thunder that cracked across the sky.

I half-sprinted, half-danced through the glorious bombardment of rain and hail to the shelter of the tack room, and stood at the door mesmerized, thrilled by the foreign deluge and torrents launched from heaven to earth.


The horse herd turned their butts to the pelting drops, heads to the ground, while the parched desert ground became lakes, rushing rivers, and floods.

As the dark storm cloud and thunder moved northward, new streams

joined old creeks

to swirl and twirl in a colorful rushing dance downstream.


The horses headed for their favorite dirt pile, to 'wash off' the rain with several celebratory rolls in the sand.





We all felt very special, horses and humans and desert, the Chosen Ones who experienced this delightful desert downpour.

Yes, this was my clean white riding horse

Unsettled

Saturday July 28 2012

The heavens are unsettled, clouds roiling and boiling, thrusting upward into the blue sky, pluming, bulging, aspiring to thunderheads, shading gray and cobalt, boldly edging out the sun. 

They swell into rumbling threats, shedding cracks and booms. Silver spears spat from the sky shimmer in slices of sunlight, spattering hairy coats long deprived of water.

When purple clouds open up and dump rain, it is like manna from heaven to this thirsty desert ground; but Luna dislikes the alien gift from the Sky Gods. Unsettled, she whirls in agitation, seeking shelter from the hurled drops, but under the sky, there is no place to hide. Tail tucked between her legs, ears flopped back, she protests the unfairness of life.

[slide show]

She hasn't learned yet the art of stillness, of patiently waiting out the rainstorm, head to the ground and butt to the stinging drops, because it will pass.

The storm does pass, but when the next onslaught of storm clouds flings ice balls with biting disregard, even the most stoic Rain Waiters wither before the assault. The herd becomes unsettled, swirling, bolting, running from the insult.

[slide show]

And the sun chases the ice balls onward as another thunderhead builds in the west for the next round on this Owyhee summer day.

With a Bang

Sunday June 20 2010

Summer arrived today.

It has nothing to do with the date, or the summer solstice (which is tomorrow), but the advent of the Owyhee summer storms - like the spectacular intense and short one we had today (interestingly, exactly 24 hours ahead of the solstice).

Deep dark clouds built up over the Owyhee mountains. Even I could hear the thunder all around. Then suddenly - bang! It sounded like rifle fire. Crack! BangCrackBangCrack! A machine gun. Dozens, suddenly thousand of them, cracking off the metal roof of the house and barn, the ground alive with jumping white pebbles of hail - not just falling, but being flung down to earth so hard they leapt a foot back into the air.

The horses! I thought, and threw on a hat and jacket and ran out to the front pasture. (I'm not sure what I would have done if they were galloping in a panic.) They ran around briefly, but quickly formed into a tight ball, their butts hunched to the stinging ice balls, tails tucked under butts, some heads down to the ground. In protest they'd whirl around again and toss their head at the storm, then again turn their butts to it. The hail hurled and roared - on the roofs, on the grass, on the dirt, on my hat and on horse butts. It lasted just a couple of minutes - and it was past.

And the sun came out.


The horses went right back to grazing.






A few of them had a roll to shake off the pummeling they'd had.






After his roll, Jose came up to compare notes with me on the hail.


And the sun shined, and the ice balls melted as the first real Owyhee summer storm moved on.