sometimes...

i think there IS a god who watches over us.

laura came up to check on the new guys..she let everyone in and out for a pee. she wandered around and gave everyone snacks in the house and in the mp building.

i came home early and met her in the driveway just as she was ready to leave. we went back into the mp building to do the diabetics and say hi to everyone in there. as soon as we got into the mp room we smelled smoke..the feLV room was thick with it...the little heater fireplace that we have used since we built that room 3 years ago had started a fire in the electrical wall outlet.

laura ran for some tools to pull the socket out from the wall and i opened windows to help clear the smoke. we called 911 and the firemen came. they made sure the fire was out and not travelling up thru the wall. they told us we were lucky, this could have been bad.

firemen are such great guys..they are brave and they are completely dedicated to helping people. they answered my questions about my biggest fear which has always been a fire sweeping thru any where up here. the buildings are old and while we have upgraded both the mp building and shops panels and serviced the house electrical breaker boxes..some of the wiring here is really old. when we asked if they could come out and do a full fire inspection of all of the buildings for us, they said that they would. and they did suggest that somehow we find the money to hardwire in monitered fire alarms in every single building (he said this will be really expensive)..that way if i am at work and an alarm goes off..the fire dept will be notified and automatically respond. i think we will have to do this as soon as we can, we can't risk anything really bad happening to our guys.

that smoke was deadly, burnt rubber and plastic and paint..i coughed quite a bit from it..even if the fire hadn't spread, it could have killed the birds for sure and probably the cats and dogs too. and if the fire had spread into the walls..i can't even think of what would have happend to them all. he said it was a good thing we had upgraded the panel because it did its job and threw the breaker.

no one has been here for the past 4 hours and once i got home and settled them to bed...no one would have been in that building til morning again..i can't help but think it was not just blind luck that put laura and i in that room within minutes of that socket catching fire.

so whoever was looking out for our beloved saints tonight....all i can say is a heartfelt, thank you.

as far as the animals caught in the middle of this...brianne is the smart one... she hightailed outside to the fresher air in the cat run. the rock and mama t sat on the couch and watched the fireman do their work. dusty and lucky ate half a box of cookies to keep them quiet for a little while and poor reggie just got his door shut on him.

and i will call our electrician tomorrow to come and replace that plug. laura will remind me to book the fire inspection and we need to get all of our fire extinguishers serviced because they have sat up on the walls unused for the past several years now.

wake up calls can scare the crap out of you, but thank goodness we got that call and we were here to answer it tonight.