We’re ok, and safe. Our cats, dogs and chickens (4 out of 5) made it and we’re staying with friends on the West Side in Santa Cruz.

OK, so serendipity saved my animals.On Tuesday afternoon, Shawn left the headlights on her van on and her battery didn’t like it. So on Wednesday morning we called AAA and, after some confusion, they sent out a very nice guy to jump the car (my Prius isn’t very good at jumpstarting...) Shawn had a very busy day planned with Devin having final exams and rehearsal for his play (which opens Friday) and Rory had Aikido. But since the rehearsal and Aikido were later in the day and the high school let out just after noon, they went off in the Prius and were going to go see the new Indiana Jones movie.

So, I stayed home to work from home. Which I did. Spending a bunch of time on the phone....

Then I called Shawn’s cell and Devin’s cell and left them messages (they were at the movies!)

I started running around the house grabbing the stuff that you always think about grabbing when your house is in danger.

Note: If you don’t have a list, stop reading this and at least start one...

Why did we have one? Well, we had received an email from Shawn’s grandmother who had asked us if we were ready for fire season... she had sent it Tuesday night! Did I use the list? No, but I had it pretty fresh in my mind.

The rest of the time in the house went like this:

Portable phone in pocket (cell phones don’t work at home) I start scrambling.

Animals! Cats into the dog crate, grab the cat food, go down to van and make sure it starts, look up at smoke cloud... take back seat out of van and drop by the side of the driveway... dogs are ok in the yard...  grab the laptop computers, put cargo box on top of van

grab duffle bag and shove recent laundry load into it

--phone rings-our friends Lisa & Lori, they’re headed up--

Sewing machines, photo albums,

--phone rings-my sister, who lives in town--

grab hand-made heirlooms,

--phone rings-my neighbor; they’re at the beach but headed home, I promise to break into their house and rescue their mini-dogs if needed--

--phone rings-Shawn! They’re out of the movie and headed home--

Shawn’s book that she’s writing, changes of clothes, shoes, start thinking about how to rescue chickens.

--phone rings-Sarah, one of Devin’s friends. He’s calling folks...

Dog food bin, Lisa & Lori arrive! (that was fast!) They’ve spoken with Shawn and have their orders. I direct them toward photo albums and the sewing room.

I grab our camera ad snap a few pictures, some of the smoke and some of the inside of the house.

Grab a plastic storage box, dump out the contents into the garage and go get the chickens. I put hay in the box and dump a bunch of feed on to the hay. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 chickens. Decide that there isn’t room for their water (smaller bowls would get dumped). Shove them into the van.

Then Natalie jogs up. Lisa, Natalie’s mom, is watering the backside of the house and the roof.

I start worrying about how to get Devin & Natalie into the car.

We notice that the wind has shifted and ash is beginning to fall around the house and cars. uh oh... Clear out the house & let’s go.

Shawn had gotten a lift from someone and had driven around the back way somehow to get to the house. Back  up the van. Shawn goes into the house and we somehow get more stuff into the van. Then we got out of there down to the west side of town, where we remain.

I’ll try to up date as I can. Thanks for all the good thoughts!

We’ve been checking various sites online. http://www.kron4.com seems to have the best stream of information.  Looking at the CalFire site, it looks like our house is ok, but the fire line is so close we can’t tell. They have a map too, but it’s from 11-Jun. Here is a Google Map of the area with some fire data on it.

Jeff Shawn Devin & Rory (and the animals too)