Today I will tell the tale of a Sunday afternoon adventure wherein our new vehicle got it's name and we didn't (stress on DIDN'T) light the forest on fire.
Our tale begins thus- in getting this job with the Kolb Ranch in Hysham we have been blessed to receive several benefits that wouldn't otherwise have been available to our newly wed budget. One of these is a copious amount of STEAK! Large, juicy beautiful beef steaks- the kind that cost $50 at a steak house, big as your plate. My freezer is full of them!! We have done several cook outs already where we make steak over the fire. It is SO YUMMY! (We have decided that over a grill or a fire is the only way to do steak because of how messy it is on the stove top.) My husband is the fire-grilled steak professional, and we have had so much fun with this new treat.
This last Sunday afternoon we had decided on a cook out that would involve the grilling of steaks. Gilbert packed the car and the 'kitchen' for the cook out and we headed off to a beautiful spot in the mountains where he had been working the day before. We set up camp, only to realize with despair we had forgotten the matches!!! Or lighters, or any first world invention wherewith to light a fire. It was too far of a drive to just pop back home, so we had to get creative.
Well first Gilbert's idea was to use my glasses lenses to light our bag of paper kindling on fire. We tried to no avail, the curvature of the glass just wasn't right. We decided to use the two bars of cell service Gil had to call my older brother Jake, who was the pyrotechnic mentioned in the previous post- he has studied ALL the ways to light fires for survival in the wilderness. Unfortunately for us he didn't pick up the phone! Oh well, we tried my other brothers, also notable pyrotechnics in their own right. They gave us some ideas, and we hung up to attempt them.
Nothing was working! We just wanted steak! Then I said, "I am sure there are a bazillion ways to light a fire using a car!" Then genius struck- Gilbert used the jumper cables on the car battery, touching them together to create sparks. (Isn't that what your dad always taught you NOT TO DO?) It worked, the bundle of paper and plastic bags he had in his hand lit, and he ran for it to the spot where I had prepared the rest of the kindling and wood. He didn't make it. The flames ate the paper so fast (probably because he was running, and it was windy...) that he had to drop it. Luckily he dropped it right on a very dry fallen tree. Not so lucky was how fast it and the surrounding dry grass lit on fire as well.
We stomped out fires and moved dry wood away from the flames as fast as we could go. Don't worry, the wind picked that moment to give a huge and continuous gust. Recently we watched a movie called "Hotshots" or something- about the crews of men who fight real wild fires. It wasn't a great movie, actually we wound up throwing it away because it wasn't very appropriate, but in this moment of great alarm we discovered what we had learned from it. Gil started to dig a fire line as fast as possible- which is where you dig up everything to expose only the moist dirt- to keep the fire from spreading. It worked! With lots of stomping, and a bit of a melted tennis shoe later the fire was under control and we were cooking our steaks. But for one terrifying moment I thought we had started a disaster that would destroy the whole forest and our lives. Okay, perhaps a little dramatic, but the wind was such that I don't know if we could have drove out fast enough if the flames got out of control. So thanks be to Heavenly Father who watches so carefully over us. Next time we are bringing matches!!
This is my tale of how our new vehicle received it's name: Flamethrower- and of how we DID NOT burn down the forest. What about the tick mentioned in the title? Well, a few days later we woke up and right before getting out of bed I felt a little brushy feeling against the inside of my knee. Weird. I used my heel to brush it off, never thinking it could be a bug. I got out of bed and had peeled the covers back just enough to realize there was a TICK IN MY BED! AHHHAHAHHAAH. Okay, I really enjoy living in the country but hello, I could TOTALLY leave the TICKS out of it. Gil killed it (my hero:) and I proceeded to check the bed for other crawlers. I think that the tick must have come back with us in our pillowcases because we had taken them on our little cookout.
We survived our crazy and dangerous adventures, and here are the pictures to prove that it wasn't too traumatic and that we did in fact have a good time.
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