Milford Flat Fire update

This photo belongs to KUTV.com as taken from the air over the Milford Flat Fire earlier this week.

363,052 acres so far....That is the latest numbers on our Milford Flat Fire.

I realized that I had no clue what an acre was and definitely had no concept of what that amount of acreage was. Check out the link above and you will see why I was totally blown away at the amount of actual land that these numbers meant. To see it drawn out geographically is more of a massive thing than just hearing about it.

We have firefighters from all over the country helping to fight this monster fire. Sunday of last week we had smoke and hot ashes falling on our town and on us if we were outside. Visibility was very bad at the time. By Monday, it had cleared up some.

Last Saturday, a prescribed burn on the Greenville Bench, went out of control also. It is in the same vicinity of the east side of our fire just on the other side of the interstate. Yesterday it had consumed and additional 14,600 acres within the same county. What a mess! The Greenville Bench fire has 236 firefighters and should hopefully be contained today.

They are shooting for Tuesday on the Milford Flat Fire with the 564 Type 1 firefighters that are fighting this enormous blaze. They plan to turn it over to the Type 2 firefighters sometime today or tomorrow hopefully.

Our fire at the moment is roughly in 85% containment. Lots of farmers lost their feed for their cattle, horses, etc. FEMA is helping out with the costs of the fire, but I think that the farmers and ranchers are going to need some serious help to survive after this. It is also so sad for the animals who make their homes on the mountains and in the surrounding area. Some were most likely able to flee, many were not so lucky.

This is my latest loomed scarf. It is a Cable/Seed pattern for the looms by Graciela_Worth .
I would have to say that this is one of the more complicated loom patterns that I have used. It was so much fun to learn though!
Wow! Look at me go, I can do cables with some seeds on the side!
The result turned out pretty darn good I think.

Graciela uses a knitting board for her pattern, but I loomed this in the round on the Knifty Knitter red hat loom. I love the way the scarves turn out on this, but I long for a finer gauge loom to get a more closely knitted result.
~Sigh~
Someday I will get a few more looms to add to my "only Knifty Knitter" sets.

Please go visit Graciela at her site. She is an amazing person with fresh, new ideas every week and she always has some wonderful advice for the novice loomer.

Okay, okay.... I know I am supposed to be doing scarves for Threads of Compassion, but this little number has a special home.... my Mom.

My mom is a terrific lady who through frazzled nerves (that part was me) and all the white hair she has (also mostly me...), is 81 and still very active even though she is in pain a lot.

My mom doesn't live in Utah, but in Mississippi, where she was married to my Dad a grand 49 years before he passed away in 1995, and still lives in the house she raised me in, the one my Dad built. She is a true old fashioned, God fearing, hospitable at all times, Southern Belle.

Up until recently, she had a 3 day a week job, even though she has Crohn's Disease and a few other health issues.

So mom, you see, I still can't crochet or knit,: (, but look what I made for you!

Wonder if she has a place on the fridge for it!

This is the first hand craft I have ever made for her so I hope she likes it.

No, Mom really I made it! No, I didn't pay to have it made!

Will update our fire situation next post!

Take care of you!

Milford Flat Fire

This fire started with a lightening strike on Friday and in the last two days it is now completely out of control. It has jumped the interstate 30 miles from here and closed down a section of the interstate that goes for about 100 miles. It went eastward up and over the mountains that are pictured here and northward into more mountains. So far they are saying it has consumed over 280,000 acres in a 250 square mile radius. The winds have been very high and have moved it really fast.

The picture of the road was taken about 5 miles from the first picture and only about 20 minutes apart. This is a wall of smoke moving northward towards a geo-thermal power plant that ships steam to California. This train track is further down the road closer to the fire. At this time it was just getting it's legs.

This picture was taken from my neighbors lawn facing north east at 1 A.M. with my cell phone. This fire is a good twenty miles away from where I was standing at the time and this was the most unreal thing that I have ever seen. It had a 30 mph wind going west to east at the time that was pushing it along. The orange clouds were well over 500 feet into the air and probably as far as you could see was just glowing.. so were the clouds at 1 A.M.

After this picture this fire had begun it's travel over the mountain ranges and proceeded to jump the interstate where they had to close it down because of the smoke that was so black and so thick that no one could see where they were going.

Please go take a look at the news footage in this link of the Milford_Flat_Fire.We have been glued to out T.V.'s trying to get updates. This footage isn't enhanced in any way but is actually a bit under played for the complete monstrosity of this fire.

Take care all... will keep you posted.

Fourth of July in small town Utah

I know, I know, it isn't the 4th of July... I am a few days late but, I am always late with something. It seems to be my goal in life.... to be late for my own funeral I would imagine. Figured I would share some of my small town 4th of July fireworks pictures with you all... I was way impressed with my cell phone since these pics were taken with it. Totally awesome I think, but then I am a bit prejudiced toward my own work, usually I don't like it at all, but these are great!!!

Earlier in the day, they had some food, games for the kids, a dunking tank, and some other little things to do. Plus the parade... Our parades are a bit different than most places. They consist of four wheelers, ambulances, sheriff's trucks, golf carts, and floats, the cheerleaders being pulled down the street behind a truck in little Red Flyer wagons, and some ladies doing the Macarana. They were actually well coordinated, way more than I would have been... then they get up and dance for a minute, sit again in the wagon and off they go! My son, pictured at the bottom, had a water fight but he cheated a bit... he dumped the whole bucket on his friend as she was trying to do it to him first... they were both totally soaked.

Today and yesterday we have had wildfires that have completely closed off the interstate about 30 miles away and the fire has taken, from what the news said earlier, over 140,000 acres. It is rampaging to the east of here now, at the moment the threat is not as bad as it was last night when it started at about 4 miles from my house. Unfortunately for the firefighters working on this monster, the wind is not helping... it was going yesterday at over 30 mph, now is about 10 mph.

Take care, will post more things this week on our wildfire with some pictures that I need to fix some before posting them.