Fire, Fire on the Mountain - 10/13/09

Yet another unwelcomed exciting day in Neverland. No one could ever say this place is boring. We were all hanging around, enjoying our Sunday morning with some breakfast and relaxation. Chloe and Bruno came up from the path and told us, quite exasperated, that the mountain was on fire. Oh god. It is dry season and covering the mountain is just dry grasses. We ran out to get a better view of what was going on and literally an entire mountain, on our side of the valley, was ablaze and racing down the mountain, burning up everything, and in a hurry. We were all alone. Tina is still in the US and Andres (dude that comes during the week to tell us what to do) doesn´t come in on the weekends. So literally we were running the farm all by ourselves. On the one hand, I love this. It´s like we were just given an entire farm, with a fully stocked kitchen, and animals to boot, and we are just set free to do what we please. On the other hand, we have little idea of what the hell we are doing and there is nothing in the way of an emergency instructions manual. So we see the mountain burning up and we decide that, rather than take chances with our lives, it might be a good idea to pack up and go into Tumianuma. I was real unenthusiastic, to underexagerate, to undertake the voyage of hell for the third time in two days, but, it was a better option than burning alive. I packed up my beast of a bag in record time. We decided to take the three dogs, the donkey , and the horse. I was doing everything I could to get the kittens to stay in one of the donkey´s saddle bags, but they would have none of it; they were just breaking my heart. So we were all packed up, ready to go , and we managed to walk up to the spot where we were checking ou the fire before, and it started to rain a bit. We decided to wait and see if the rain would do the trick. Chloe and Bruno decided to take a horse into town and ask Andres what we should do. While they were gone we ate our emergency supply of cheese and banana bread. Always prepared! By the time they returned, the fire was non-existant, the donkey was angry, and we were all laughing at oursleves for overreacting. Andres sent word that we had nothing to worry about which was entirely apparent by then. We were doubled over laughing thinking about what the people of Tumianumba would say if we arrived, fully packed up, with all the animals in tow, freaking out about a nonexistant fire. To be fair, the mountain is completely scorched, but it defintiely didn´t reach the farm. Disaster averted. Today we chopped down a bunch of fica trees to make space for cows on the property. Fica trees have massive thorns, about two inches long, covering every branch, and the thorns have these awful microbes that stinch like a son of a bitch when they stab your, oh lets say, shin, hand, hip, arm, or really any other body part. And the little microbes don´t stop stinging for hours. I was not pleased at all but I have made it clear to Andres that I will no longer be working with the fica during my stay at Never land. He was very understanding.