Today was...
Well I don't really know what to make of this day.
It was by far the most heart throbbing and scariest day I've ever experienced in a long time, it made everything I ever worried about seem like fodder.
This was certainly not what I had in mind to share on Hive tonight.
I was at work, it was just after one in the afternoon and while I was working I heard my Old Pops talking on the phone about a fire going on, it went above my head but when he put the phone down he didn't even look at me he just said "The farm is burning" and he was on the phone again by the time he was done with the sentence.
It took me a second to realize what was going on but before I knew it I had everything of value and I told him we are leaving! I didn't even ask my boss. "I told him, we are leaving!
Fortunately I have a great boss as he urged me on to get out of there.
I live roughly 15 kilometers away from work and I was about two kilometers away from my work place when I saw the smoke and seeing the smoke so far I knew this was no small fire. This was something serious.
Usually people always over exaggerate situations but no one could really tell us what was going on, but we were on our way and while I was driving home I thought about what I would do? How am I going to stop this?
These First Two Photos Were Taken Roughly Four Kilometers Away From The Farm.
When I arrived on the farm it was only my stepdad and my brother in law there with two oaks on a pickup that had a water tank on it. Me and my Old Pops drove past to unlock both of the farm gates on the farthest end so that if all else fails we had an escape route and when the neighboring farmers came they had a easy way onto the farm.
By the time we unlocked the gates the fire was about 500 meters further from where it was when I arrived, it moved quickly and erratically jumping from one side to the next as the wind kept changing directions.
By far the scariest situation I have ever been in and I've come pretty close to death before but this was so different.
While we were busy on the frontline of it I heard faint voices screaming at each other giving commands, this way, that way, leave that area. I heard tractors going about but the rumble of the fire seemed to drown it all out eventually. I couldn't see anything because the smoke was too thick, but I knew people we don't even know was there helping.
Helping Hands.
By the time we had it under control I was able to take a breather and get this video, I never knew time could go by so fast, it felt like 15 minutes which in reality was actually more than two hours.
This was on the farthest side of the farm, the fire has already moved through the whole of our farm but fortunately enough we were able to stop it from jumping over the road. If the fire did however manage to jump the road things would have gotten real terrible not for us but for a whole bunch of people living in town because there would have been no way to stop it then the terrain was inaccessible and we basically don't have a Fire Department in our town anymore. (Thanks to the wonderful ruling party of the country we don't have much of anything left.)
If us the people don't stand together in times like these we would all certainly perish.
The Aftermath.
In this video you can see in the distance how the horse dung and bushels are still smoldering away.
Fortunately for us, we didn't lose a single horse, sheep or buck in the process, neither did any house or vehicle burn down. It was a touch and a go situation though the fires went right past the farm houses and it could have been a very different situation if the wind decided to blow in a different direction.
We could have lost everything but we didn't! I would count us lucky beyond measures.
Looking At The Bright Side.
We lost around 70-80% of the usable pastures and since we have horses this would most likely affect us financially because horses do eat a lot. Since we got the farm the worst fear we had was a fire raging through it and look at us now making the best of it. As I said it could have been so much worse, at-least we still have some grazing field left not all is gone.
The best thing about this is that the fields are going to come back so much more healthier than they were, pulling a few bucks out of the pocket to feed the horses for the rest of the season is just something we will have to do and it won't kill us to do so, it would surely hurt us a little but still, I'm just trying to look at the bright side of things here.
