"Mom, I smell smoke." In January or February of 2010, my son said those four words to me and I ignored him. We have a wood stove and it was winter, but we weren't going to be home long enough to start a fire. Knowing there was no fire going in the wood stove, I just passed it off.
Just prior to that, our septic system alarm had went off. I went downstairs and silenced it, writing a note to myself to tell Jay to check on it because last time I did this, I forgot and we burnt up our septic motor.
A little while later, I was pulling clothes out of the washer and putting them into the dryer. When I opened the dryer door, I noticed it smelled like smoke. Hmm, that's weird. Again, there wasn't a fire going downstairs in the wood stove. I hadn't been burning anything outside. Strange. I again ignored it.
After finishing with that load of clothes and gathering another to be washed, I sat down at the kitchen table to work on a transcript on my laptop (at that time I free-lanced and worked from home). I looked up and glanced out my patio doors and for a moment thought it looked really foggy outside. Hmm, it wasn't foggy earlier.
You know how sometimes it takes a while for something to click and then when it does, you think, duh, how could I have been so stupid? Well, this is a case in point. I got up from the table and went to the patio doors, looked out, saw how foggy it was, decided to open the door and step out on the deck. That is when I heard a sound that is just sickening. Fire crackling. Not a-good-ole-campfire either. It was our goat shed and it was completely engulfed on the east side. Our babies were huddled up underneath the hay feeder and the mamas were standing close by their babies continuing to eat, of course. (Apparently not only will goats eat just about anything, they can eat just about any time or under any circumstances.) Our horse, Woody, was also standing very close by just staring at the fire.
Panic and hysteria set in. The kids came. More panic and hysteria. I grabbed the phone and dialed 911. I bet that was interesting from the other end. My kids were screaming and bawling. The 911 operator asked me if my kids were hurt and I told her no, but they were screaming because our goats and horse were standing very near to the fire and they wanted me to save them.
When you live in a very rural town, word spreads very quickly. People here love their scanners and people here know people here. Immediately, I started getting phone calls. I was trying desperately to get the hose strung out to reach the goat shed. Suddenly my cousin, I've called "Spank" since he was two and he's now in his mid-20's, came to my rescue. He had heard it on the scanner. We had just bought hay, $75 worth, and I wasn't about to let it burn up so I had already started throwing bales. Spank helped and we cleared it all out. We got the babies out and took them to the garage with my kids. Spank stood with the hose doing what he could to keep the fire contained. It was very, very windy that day.
Before long, my brother appeared and the fire department...and half of our town's population. We live down a long lane so most of the spectators just parked out on the road. There is no way they could see anything, but I know how it is. Our local volunteer fire department came out in full force and were very kind and helpful. The fire was contained and under control. My uncle and father-in-law showed up and between them and Spank and my brother, we were able to put everything in order. It's amazing that just 45 minutes before I was tossing hay bales like they were weight-less, suddenly they weighed tons.
We had new babies and had recently moved them out to the goat shed (from the garage, thank God). It was still pretty chilly so we were using a heat lamp to keep the babies warm. As mentioned before, goats will eat and chew on just about everything, including electrical wire. Apparently, they had chewed threw the heat lamp cord, which shorted out the electricity in the goat shed, which is hooked to the septic system electricity, which is why the septic system alarm went off.
Here is a funny from the fiasco. On the 911 call-out over the scanner, they mentioned our address and a goat farm, which is funny, because there were only about six goats at the time. Besides my cousin hearing that and knowing it was our house, the family that owns our local gas station was quite concerned about the goats welfare. (They are always asking right before Easter to purchase a young goat as that is their custom.) So when they saw a local fireman later that night, they inquired whether any goats had been lost or hurt. Too funny. Good to know they weren't concerned about our safety or our property or anything like that!
I was somewhat embarrassed because it was just a small goat shed, nothing fancy at all. Our animals were fine. Only half of the goat shed was destroyed. It seemed like such a fuss over nothing, but I didn't know what else to do. I felt so helpless, I couldn't just stand there and let it burn. I remembered how shaky and sick to my stomach I was after that. I cannot even imagine what it would feel like if it were my house. That sound was sickening. I now have a new appreciation for people who have house fires and have to stand by and watch.
Hopefully the next time my son says he smells smoke, an alarm alerts on the septic system, I smell smoke inside my clothes dryer and I think it looks foggy outside when it wasn't just an hour earlier, I'll pick up on those signs, signs, everywhere signs...
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