A scary day

We had a chimney fire today and five of these huge fire engines responded to the call I made. Eighteen men in full firefighter regalia swarmed into the house, checking it from top to bottom.


The rest were outside, attempting to scale the roof to look inside the big center chimney. Despite the frigid temperature and the fierce wind, they went up the ladder and on the roof. The wind and the pitch of the roof was so bad, that one man slid down the roof and was just caught by the gutter and his comrade who was on top of the ladder, as you can see in the above picture.

They brought another ladder as an extension and were able to get up to the chimney. I don't know how they managed all this wearing their heavy suits and carrying lots of equipment and also wearing great big clunky boots.

The short version of the story is that there was no injury or loss from the fire and all ended well. Words absolutely fail me right now to express my gratitude and admiration for these brave men who came so quickly and worked under such awful conditions to save a house for someone they didn't even know.

A heartfelt THANK YOU to all the brave guys of the Level Volunteer Fire Company !

Ice Capades

Tried to call Ms. RFD on the phone lately ? If you have, you know the phone has been out of order for months. I finally went outside to test for a dial tone in the phone box on the side of the house and saw mountains of ice ! The water had not been turned off and the garden hose froze, split, and shot a fine stream of water on to the side of the house for many weeks of freezing weather, which resulted in the spectacular ice formations above.

The phone box was underneath all that ice, of course. Tried to break it all up with a hammer, but the ice was way too thick. Try calling me after the spring thaw - until then, send messages by carrier pigeon or pony express.