Mid-week Updates--the kitchen, the contest, Fire at Afton Forest Preserve . . .

The winner of my ebook is Laura H. I have already notified her, and she was very excited indeed. Congratulations to Larua. I sure did have fun doing this and will do it again soon. I thank everyone who participated & left some wonderful comments. So, we find that they have put in the wood for the flooring, today, and began a tongue-in-groove wooden slats for wall--we are not sure if this is how they plan on doing the whole thing. But so far it is a big improvement, once the yucky wall of sheet rock is covered. I'm not sure how they plan on doing the rest. Also there is supposed to be a new north window--whenever that's done I have no idea. We just go away and come back and something new is added. Last night about 7 pm we had a voice male from someone who had been out in the park that we take care of, saying that he knew that they'd had a burn for the prairie--they burn off the old prairie to help the growth, and get rid of unwanted species--and somehow they'd missed a hot spot and it had sparked over under mature white pine trees. Well, we went out and checked along the south-east border, and sure enough there was some good flames going along the fence line. My husband called 911--the very first time we've ever done anything remotely like this--and the dispatch took the information. In about 5-10 minutes engines from the small, but close by towns of Waterman and Hinckely were there on our road and my husband tried to tell them how they might be able to access the area. There's a creek that runs across the park and the engines wouldn't have been able to get across the small bridges which can only take a pickup truck at best. The sun was setting, and by the time things got rolling it had set. Dennis had me stay in the house and he drove out into the park and called me later to give me the up-date that the fire was out. It basically caught on to the pine needles, and once it reached the field, which was plowed under, it had no place to go. But hooray for these guys who came out and took care of the fire! So, needless to say tonight is a dinner out night. No desire to have to heat things up. Have someone wait on us instead.