Homemade houses and woodland understory remain exquisitely vulnerable but if Tomás Sundance happens in all it’s bon-and-cooking- fire glory [ya gotta just LOVE Organized Religions,

So Exceptional…ist] we, downwind and uphill, will definitely be ready to burn despite

all the hard hard work and diligence of Team Black and, more importantly for those of us north

of Highway 160, Team Blue, who have been on the scene since an attempted backfire without backup caused the fire to jump it a dozen or so days ago. Here was their first incident report;

https://www.facebook.com/SpringFire2018/videos/1003258883131588/

That red outline grew tenfold before any containment lines began appearing, or rain.

In the interim calamari as well as intense concerns continued but

Sunday we toured Libre’s Arts and Entertainment District, checking progress at Bill and Muriel’s

and the Emptiness at Dean’s.  Wish I’d seen the larger iterations of what

he was working on before the Fourth when all – ALL – his paintings were evacuated, leaving

him only a few pieces on paper to work on.  The view from his studio still showed

smoke, although the view north from mine no longer showed much.

Monday was Town,  Aggie left at home hopefully healing the egg on her knee, for many errands, the discovery of a new [to us] echt-Pueblonian restaurant [not shown] near Linda’s dentist

and back to the Smokin’ Huerf’ by four, where as of that afternoon the fire [red lines]

remained out of control to the west and south…but hoping for Good Outcomes despite

fuel on the ground, dogs in the woods and exhaustive walks

up aptly-named Dry Creek, observing cat scat…BIG cat scat.

Skies continued normalizing northwards

though less so to the south,

as we enjoyed a moment of calm before the Return of the Gordons and

Patsy from Leadville late Wednesday following our eleven hours of pumping

which raised the water level in the tank maybe thirty inches.  Dry here.

The next morning some of the evac areas were rolled back to pre- and Pats returned after exploratory investigations up the valley to lunch, packed and surreptitiously slipped into the Manzaneros.   For our part we went to Walsenburg for a pleasant tour of the Libre 50th show at the Museum of Friends [below, half of my diptych; and a drawing by Douglas Blythman]

after which I spent a steamy couple of hours pulling paintings from the racks at the Habib for transfer to the Repo in August.  Linda went to La Veta where she heard all the evacuation

orders had been suspended, allowing everyone not burnt out to return home.  Patsy’d meanwhile made it up her ridge hours before, found bulldozed firebreaks all around, some sections of road much improved, some as bad as ever and fire in abeyance.  We had

hamburgers and wine at La Plaza, leaving that evening to swim against a tide of fire-related vehicles streaming out of the mountains,

Missions Accomplished.

Until the next one.

Dry here.