OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!

Ok, here is the biggest Thanks I've come across yet!!! Thank GOD our house did not burn down today when our YARD caught fire from a tossed cigarette(we think). The wind was gusting about 30mph so you can imagine how quickly a bunch of dead and dying juniper, holly, and weeds went up. The neighbor who alerted us to this fire was working with Ryan to get our garden hose out to the flames but it was wrapped around a post and some flower pots and a rock or two. The fire was too big by then for the hose to have done any good, plus not knowing if a broken electrical line had caused it, I really didn't want Ryan over there near it. My second call to 911 "yall don't understand, the flames are spreading FAST and there is a freaking GAS LINE right under the fire!!!", we retreated a few houses down to a neighbor's driveway to watch the fiasco. These poor neighbors were doing a walk-through for the closing of their newly purchased home, wonder if they are thinking they should have kept looking?

FINALLY the firetruck showed up and proceeded to spray(from the top of the truck) the middle of the road. Granted there was so much smoke they couldn't see the fire(you couldn't see the whole intersection), but they overshot the flames by about 10 feet for 3 or 4 minutes!!! The neighbors were incredulous! Just when we thought things were about to get way worse, they got off the truck and got closer to the fire. It only took about 10 minutes for them to get it out(most everything had burned to a crisp by this point) but I still had to go out with a hose and shoot down some hot spots after they left. Thank God we took the pine tree out this summer, it was *right* there within 7-8 feet of this with branches that would have been over the fire.

The next phase involved the whole freaking neighborhood! Our corner "garden" contains the box of wires for phone service! Mark was trying to get me since I left him with a panicked "the yard is on fire, I called 911, we are fleeing to the neighbors, I hope they get here soon, the trees are about to be next!!!!". He was out of town, 3 hours away, and terrified the house was burning! So, he called his office and had "the girls" come check on us. One of them loaned me her cell phone to get in touch with him(thanks SO MUCH K) when we figured out our phone was dead. Mark reported the phone outage and they arrived sometime after we left to get groceries. When we returned they were waiting to dig out the old lines. There is a natural gas pipe under the corner of our lot so the gas company was supposed to come out and mark it for them to prevent that sort of tragedy, they never showed. So, the men with the digger started in, and I came out to investigate. Their hole was about 10 feet wide, 4 feet across and maybe 5 feet deep. I asked how many were affected by this since the hunks of melted wires indicated it wasn't just our phone. TWOOOOHUNDRED people were without phone service from 10am til 6pm today!! I felt so bad! Anyway, they still have to come fill the hole in around the new wires but I am able to call my parents and let them know we are safe and I can get online to post about it. Thank God it wasn't our house!!