How Bad Do You Want It?

We're at our home in the Hill Country. We've been looking forward to a week of vacation up here. I was going to spend the week finishing my work in progress OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER. Larry was going to play golf every day.

Guess what I'm doing instead of writing. Packing up photographs, albums, and other mementos which we'd brought up here because the family gathers here for special weekends.

A wildfire is burning less than 4 miles from us. It started late Sunday when a dead tree limb (victim of the drought along with thousands of other trees in the state) fell on a power pole and knocked it to the ground. Sparks from it started a fire.

We heard about it from a friend up here when we arrived last night. We sat on the porch and couldn't smell smoke or anything. This morning we got up to not just smell smoke but see it everywhere. My heart is heavy at the thought we might lose all this, but I guess that's why we have insurance.

Minor Consideration

It's a minor consideration that I'm beginning to think that this book will never get finished. Every time I'm on a roll with it, something happens. It's been this way since May when I went to Louisiana because of flood waters threatening my brother's farm.

Thousands of acres had burned at last report yesterday. Fifteen homes have been lost so far. People have been evacuated. We're waiting to hear if we have to go. No lives have been lost yet, and I hope it stays that way.

However, I know that's just the way it is sometimes. Almost as if it's the universe's way of asking how strong is your will to persist. How deep is your determination?

How bad do you want it?

At this moment, all I want is for that fire to be suppressed--no more homes lost, no lives lost.

Takeaway Truth

As everyone up here has been saying for month: "Pray for rain."