Greetings!

When is summer going to end??? I have never wanted fall to come so fast except for this year.

On July 4th, John & I were working in the yard and witnessed a lightning strike down river of us at French Bar. John hurried into the house and was one of 2 people that reported the strike.

On July 17th, the fire came to our house. We had a large reel gun sprinkling over our equipment and fuel tanks. We had our 6000 gallon water tank on a trailer backed up to the hill just outside of main ranch yard fence. We were Spraying water onto the bottom of the hillside soaking as much of it as we could. We had a crew from the ranch next door where Ellen is working. There were people with shovels, rakes, backpack sprayers, and water piss cans. Fortunately, the wind decided to change direction and it helped hold it off of the main ranch headquarters. At 3 am, the Gang crew went home and John, Ellen and I went to bed. Hattie stayed up to keep a watch in case of more fire and put out hot spots.l

We have been fighting fire ever since! It is still a very angry hungry monster right now.

At the beginning, our cattle were fortunate as they were all back behind Blackdome Mountain where all was cool, clear and fire free.

However, they are now surrounded on 3 sides by fire. French Bar fire has grown to a very large monster and the Bonanza creek fire is getting large too. The 2 fires are almost to meet on our range near our cattle. We are in the process of weaning the calves 2.5 months early due to lack of grass for both mom & calf.

The French Bar Fire has burned 3/4 of the grass on our ranch. We are not sure how many cattle will be able to stay here at Empire. We may have to sell the majority of our herd.