Wildfires & Evacuations

What a week

Well, we have missed a couple weeks of blogs; not because we have wanted to, but just so much craziness going on.

As most of you know, Oregon is riddled with wildfires right now. There are two fires near Molalla, one south and one East of town. They were concerned of them joining and moving into town. On Tuesday (September 8^th) about noon, we were put into a level three (GO NOW) evacuation order. We had our important documents and clothes for about a week loaded and ready to go. We were about a mile from the level 2 (Be Ready) line, so we were not in a mad dash to leave.

At about 4:30pm, when the ash that had been falling all day started to become worse, we left. We headed to Emily’s mom’s house in Keizer about 35 minutes away, clear of fire danger with the two dogs and one cat.

Greg came back to the house every day to check on things and keep up on projects, all while wearing a full respirator. On Wednesday, he managed to move all the big animals into the high use area. This way they would be out of the tall dry grass pasture and living on dirt. If things did go up in flames, they would be less likely of die.

Many people reached out to us and offered to help move animals. We chose not to for several reasons.  Our farm animals are not like horses that are trained to be on leads and follow where you go. Just getting them into different pastures often takes a lot of effort. They must be pushed, usually by the Gator chasing them to move. Second, we do not have a chute to chase them into, to then get them onto a trailer. We also don’t have an animal trailer because live animals aren’t typically transported from the farm. Yes, we had wonderful offers, but it just didn’t seem worth the effort. They are animals used for eating. They are not pets. Some people may not like that, but they are 100% replaceable to us with no emotional attachment.

The poultry is another issue. We have a combination of over 300 ducks, chickens, and turkeys.  Some of the young ones are still in the barn (chickens & ducks). In the pasture, we have nearly 200 birds. What we did for two nights when we were at the highest risk of fire damage, we left a sprinkler out for some of them to be able to escape the flames.

As of today, the fires have yet to join and winds have shifted, so there is little threat of them moving into town. That doesn’t mean we are clear. The fire is about 8 miles away, but thankfully the weather is changing. With last night’s downpour of rain, the air is cleaner, and so much of the ash has been washed away.

Hats off to the firefighters, police officers, and volunteers that have put so much effort into saving Molalla and other areas in the west. Our sincere thoughts go out to those that have lost homes, property, and animals.