The dirt contractor has been on vacation and working other jobs, so no progress on finishing the work over the top of the house. It's almost done, but I want another foot or two of soil over the crest, all along the length of the house.
A week ago today, we were at a wedding reception 30 miles away, and received a phone call from a neighbor - a wildfire had started nearby and the wind was blowing it straight towards our place! We weren't worried about our house, and not even much about our shop and apartment (since it's a metal building), but it's pretty nerve-wracking driving in Fort Worth traffic, wishing you could get home RIGHT NOW. We did start making a list of what we should take out of the apartment, if we could get there in time. We can see the cloud of smoke from miles away. When we finally get to the road that our gate is located on, of course it's blocked off and full of fire-fighting equipment from three or four different nearby fire departments.
The neighbor that called us had managed to get in our gate before access was blocked. He went down to check on the shop/apartment, but the smoke was so bad he couldn't stay down there. When we finally got through the equipment on the road (we found out that Mrs. 1911's 2WD Lexus RX will drive in borrow ditches) and made it to our place, the neighbor was waiting for us up top near the shooting range. Here is a cell phone pic that doesn't do it justice:
You can see the berm we shoot into in the middle of the picture. My property line is in the trees above that (where the smoke is). They stopped the fire just short of our line! There was a hot spot there that flared up again several times over the next few days, but the guy that is developing the acreage to the south of us for house lots kept a water truck there and kept putting it out again.
The air has smelled like smoke for a week, but we dodged a bullet that time. Even though the fire couldn't have hurt our house, we would have been sad to lose any trees.
Turns out that the fire was started by a neighbor (three places to the south) that was welding on a gate / cattle guard. It's been pretty dry around here lately, and there has been a burn ban in place. You just can't be too careful when it's that dry. The county to the west of us has had a big fire going for a week that has burned 4,500 acres and is only 55% contained.
Meanwhile, in happier news, the native grass seed mix that I planted on the hill above the house is starting to come up. I watered it twice a day for week, before anything germinated/sprouted at all, but five days after I noticed the first tiny sprouts, it is definitely coming up:
It grows very slowly, but that is OK since it is hardy, native species, and adapted to our alkali and rocky soil. I've reduced watering to only once a day, and it is doing fine. There is a chance of rain forecast almost every day for the next week so that would definitely help.
