Donaldson And Little Lewis Wildfires

I didn't get back to the shed until after 7 am this morning, having got back to the shed at midnight the previous evening.

My son-in-law was sent to fight the Donaldson Fire while my oldest daughter remained with the ambulance, and I took care of their children in their absence. But my ability to think clearly or stop these horrible migraines makes it more befitting to say that my grand-children looked after me. I drove all the way back to Alto this morning before realizing that I had forgotten my purse, and had to drive all the way back to Ruidoso Downs to retrieve it. I'm just not handling life very well right now.

I lost a credit card belonging to my boss on Sunday, another of his credit cards on Wednesday and forgot my purse this morning - I am now mentally tempered to run for a government position.

Donaldson Fire:

Evacuation of Alamo Canyon is still in progress by both Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department and fire resources. Residents are being directed to the Hondo School Gym as a shelter and the roping arena for livestock/animals.

The fire grew rapidly during the day due to extremely dry conditions and gusty winds. Around 2 pm this afternoon, the winds picked up dramatically and pushed the fire towards and over the Alamo Canyon Road. Multiple aerial resources assisted ground resources in holding the fire and keeping it south of HWY 70, east of the Forest Service boundary or FS Road 443, west of the Pichaco Road and north of Pine Tree Canyon. With the setting of the sun, the fire is starting to lie down and become less active.

A structure group has been established to work from Alamo Canyon to Coe Canyon and monitor the fire situation to keep the residences informed.

Today fire crews used both direct and indirect suppression tactics trying to keep the fire from progressing.

Current Size: 43,290 acres

Summary: The fire is actively burning in steep, rocky, inaccessible terrain in private and Mescalero Apache Tribal lands south of Hondo, NM.

1 Air Attack, 1 Lead Plane, 4 Single Engine Air Tanker (SEAT), 1 heavy Air Tankers and 1Modular Aerial Fire Fighting Support (MAFFS) #7 C-130 worked the fire for most of the day. A Type 2 and Type 3 helicopter will be assisting the fire resources.

Fire Behavior: Extreme fire behavior (running)

Weather: Thursday– Sunny with Temps: 89-94 degrees, Relative Humidity’s 12% and Winds 13-18 with gust to 25 from the southeast with afternoon thunderstorms.

Resources: Resources from the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, New Mexico State Forestry, Lincoln County Emergency Services and area volunteer departments responded. Approximately 284 personnel are assigned to the fire.

Structures Threatened: 50 structures threatened and 5 destroyed.

Smoke from the fire may impact the communities of Ruidoso, Ruidoso Downs, Capitan, Lincoln, Hondo, Fort Stanton, Tinnie, San Patricio and other surrounding areas so please take precautions if you have any health or respiratory issues.

Donaldson Complex Fire, Little Lewis Fire Still Burning Near Ruidoso

RUIDOSO - Residents of Alamo Canyon continue to be advised to be cautious of the fire situation in their area and be ready to evacuate if the need arises, according to the Pecos Zone Team that is fighting the Donaldson Complex Fire that broke out early Tuesday morning.

Officials ordered precautionary evacuations of the Alamo Canyon area south of Hondo Tuesday night because of the fire.

The Hondo School gym was designated as an emergency shelter for those evacuated.

The fire was threatening five structures, including a primary residence.

The Donaldson Complex Fire is burning about six miles south of Hondo and has burned an estimated 44,000 acres. Accurate mapping will be conducted Wednesday morning.

The Pecos Zone Team reported Wednesday morning that crews went direct with dozers in places that were possible and where burnout operations were deemed necessary to secure the line to existing roads. The fire laid down at the ridge line of Alamo Canyon and has not dropped into the canyon.

The fire has started to heat up this morning but crews are continuing to aggressively fire the fire and aerial resources will be used to assist the firefighters on the ground.

The fire started as two fires, the Camp Fire and the Donaldson Fire, from lightning strikes at about 2 a.m. and merged Tuesday afternoon.

The fire is burning in rugged terrain on the Donaldson, Skeen and Triple A ranches south of Hondo.

In related news, Otero County officials are preparing Sacramento residents for a possible evacuation because of a 150-acre wildfire in Little Lewis Canyon, the Alamogordo Daily News reported Wednesday.

Sheriff Benny House said the U.S. Forest Service and local fire departments are attempting to contain the fire.

"We're looking at keeping citizens out of the path of the fire," House said. "The Forest Service and OCSD deputies have been on scene since the onset. We received the initial call around 12:30 p.m. We originally got the call of a plume of smoke in the Jim Curtis Canyon area. The fire is under investigation at this time."

New Mexico State Forestry officials say the wildfire was caused by lightning and has forced the precautionary evacuations of up to 30 homes near Mayhill.

Authorities say it's burning pine and juniper on private and U.S. Forest Service land about eight miles south of Mayhill.

Crews are aggressively fighting the blaze and say slurry drops have slowed but not stopped the spread of the flames.

The fire has jumped containment lines and threatens about 15 to 30 homes in the area.

An evacuation shelter is being set up at a high school in Cloudcroft for any displaced residents.

A wildfire last month west of Mayhill burned about 29,000 acres before it was contained.

Thomas Montes is right in the middle of Alamo Canyon but when I offered to go with Jan to start transporting animals out she said that he didn't need any help moving horses or livestock out.

I feel as though I have been beaten within an inch of my life. I am so tired of the stress and these migraines. Life, and all the adversity that comes with it is too serious to be left homeless and vulnerable.Somehow amongst all of the chaos and emergencies I have to be able to get a home on that land and get my life back, and my family restored but I know not how. I never thought it would be so difficult and I ran out of options a long time ago. Going into July 2011 and I am so physically ill and simply terrified.

Michael Huckins, Dr.Kenneth Ogilvie , Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins without the return of our stolen building fund I have virtually no chance of obtaining the home we bought and paid for. And I don't know which family member can speak on our behalf. Just like Dorothy McKeever, Dana Dildene and so many other women we have faced horrendous hardship. We have already paid a price no women should be forced to pay... being made homeless and our family shattered. After over 3 years of this torment and cruelty I simply beg for mercy. Please intervene and force Robert Huckins to return what he stole.....so we can have what you have.. a home.

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.~ Albert Einstein

Rain Needed In The Worst Way

Short of doing a rain dance I am a little unsure how to get the rain forecast to actually materialize, but it's delightful to have any rain on the weather forecast, and today is overcast sending the temperature outside to the lower 80's. Wildfires broke out on local ranches yesterday, including one in Hondo and one on Sam Donaldson's ranch in Arabella.

And still more homes burn. What a simply heartbreaking situation we are seeing in the United States. So any people losing their homes to flood, fire, tornadoes that it's hard to take into account all that is happening around us.

Update 1: Los Alamos Scurries To Protect Nuclear Lab From Fire

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., June 28 (Reuters) - New Mexico fire managers scrambled on Tuesday to reinforce crews battling a third day against an out-of-control blaze at the edge of one of the nation's top nuclear weapons production centers.

The fire's leading edge burned to within a few miles (kilometres) of a dump site where some 20,000 barrels of plutonium-contaminated waste is stored at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, fire officials said.

Officials for the government-run lab said the stored waste is considered low-level radioactive material and remains a safe distance from the fire in an area cleared of trees and other vegetation.

Carl Beard, director of operations for the lab, said there has been no release of radioactive or hazardous materials into the environment and there was no immediate threat to public safety, "even in these extreme conditions."

The fire, believed to have been ignited Sunday by a fallen power line, has consumed nearly 69,000 acres of thick, pine woodlands in the Santa Fe National Forest, which surrounds the lab complex and adjacent town of Los Alamos on three sides.

Tucker said he feared the so-called Las Conchas Fire, whipped by high, rapidly shifting winds, could soon double or triple in size.

"I seriously believe it could go to 100,000 acres (40,470 hectares)," he said at a news briefing. "We have fire all around the lab. It's a road away."

A small offshoot of the blaze jumped State Highway 4 onto the lab grounds on Monday, burning about an acre of property before it was extinguished about two hours later.

MONITORING AIR QUALITY

More than 300 firefighters, backed up by a fleet of seven water-dropping helicopters, battled the blaze, as fire managers scurried to bring in additional ground crews.

Lab officials also called in teams late Monday to monitor air quality, with high-volume air samplers ready to deploy. Hundreds of National Guard troops have been dispatched to back up law enforcement in the area.

Both the town of Los Alamos, home to about 10,000 residents, and the laboratory, with a work force of about 12,000 people, were evacuated on Monday, and the lab will remain closed at least through Wednesday, officials said.

Situated on a hilltop 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Santa Fe, the lab covers 36 square miles and includes about 2,000 buildings, none of which has yet burned.

Established during World War Two as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb, it remains one of the leading nuclear arms manufacturing facilities in the United States.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico said on its website its greatest concern was for the 20,000 55-gallon sealed drums of plutonium-tainted waste stored at one corner of the complex, some stacked in the open on asphalt, some in tents, some buried underground.

Fire officials say if the blaze did manage to reach the area, they would use fire-retardant foam to douse the flames.

Meanwhile I keep returning to my own dilemma. My oldest daughter and I discussed this awful situation yesterday afternoon, but we just can't find a resolve for she, like myself, can't finance a newer mobile home, or anything.

By midnight last night I was so ill I couldn't sleep, yet couldn't sit at the computer either. I sat outside this shed with tears running down my face. It's so hard not to feel the searing pain. Tomorrow it will be July 1st. I have to get flowers delivered to my mother before July 4th.

My boss needed medication picked up at Lawrence Brothers so before noon today I went to get it for him before driving to the Lazy J Ranch. I walked into the store with the credit card and the truck keys in my hand and a lousy migraine blowing my head off my shoulder.

While stood waiting for the prescriptions I wondered over to the deli to get something to eat. That led to a conversation with a group of people wondering why there was so much smoke being seen above Ruidoso. I pulled my cell phone out my pocket and phoned my daughter and son-in-law to see if they had heard anything over the emergency band radio, and realized that I didn't have the credit card in my hand.

Despite re-tracing my steps, looking under everything where it may have fallen, frantically looking everywhere for over an hour that credit card was gone never to be found. I was simply besides myself but I am so stressed, exhausted and so ill that even functioning is beyond me. How do you keep going when you have nothing left to go forward with?


I have to borrow the courage to face yet another month without hope of a home in sight, and I just don't know how to do that. Watching June go by has been excruciating. I had so much hope that if I could physically and emotionally hang on for one more winter surely some miracle would happen come spring.
But it didn't, and my nerves are shattered.

Someone in the Ogilvie-Huckins family must have Robert Huckins ears. I don't know if that person is Liam Griffin, Michael Huckins, Dr.Kenneth Ogilvie , Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins or someone else. There is simply no-way that our building fund has been spent, there is simply no-way that all of the stolen money from victims has been spent. Common sense dictates that it is hidden somewhere. Just as Robert Huckins sat in jail on $100,000 bond having withdrawn $110,000 out of the Wells Fargo bank only a few weeks earlier. He knew that he had the $110,000 - but he was not going to reveal where. I am simply begging for the return of our building fund. Robert and Sylvi Huckins will very happily watch women homeless and have no mercy upon those he stole from and destroyed. I am begging you to have mercy and retrieve our building fund so that we can have a home and this torture ended. Literally begging. You may be our ONLY hope left bar a miracle.

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ~ Robert F. Kennedy

Straight Talk

Despite the thunder and rain clouds yesterday afternoon the rain we had prayed for, and hoped for, went around us leaving nothing but cooler temperatures, which was certainly welcome. But we needed rain, a considerable amount of rain.

And the wildfire at Los Alamos is growing into an insane predicament with 60,000 acres engulfed by this morning. So much heartbreak, so much worry for those whose homes are destroyed, and those who are in jeopardy.

Wildfire Reaches Los Alamos Nuclear Facility

SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) - A raging wildfire on Monday briefly entered the property of the preeminent U.S. nuclear facility, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a vast complex that houses research laboratories and a plutonium facility.

A mandatory evacuation was ordered for the town of Los Alamos, which has a population of about 12,000. The speed at which the fire has grown surprised fire officials.

The laboratory, which ensures the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, is a national security research facility located in the Jemez mountains of northern New Mexico.

It was set up in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project to create the first atomic bomb and still maintains the nation's largest nuclear weapons arsenal.

Firefighters were able to douse flames on a one-acre (0.4 hectare) "spot fire" just inside the southwestern boundary of the lab site, about 25 miles (40 km) outside Santa Fe, authorities said.

Buildings still have not been touched by flames, and authorities said there was little threat to sensitive areas of the 28,000-acre complex (11,000 hectare).

The laboratory's plutonium facility is on the northeast side of the complex, while the fire seems to be moving south and east, said lab spokesman Kevin Roark.

"The facility is very well protected from any kind of wild land fire threat," said Roark. He said the facility survived a May 2000 wildfire that claimed some lab buildings and did more than $1 billion in damage.

Explosive materials on the laboratory's grounds are stored safely in underground bunkers made of concrete and steel, as well as earthen berms, Roark said.

"This fire is going to be with us for a while. It has the potential to double and triple in size," Los Alamos Fire Chief Doug Tucker said.

Nuclear watchdog groups are keeping a close eye on the fire, said Jay Coughlin, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

One would think that I could but get one nights sleep.. but tonight isn't going to be it. I started to panic about the house/barn until late tonight, as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I heard that my youngest daughter is again suffering serious complications from the MRSA.

I am getting so worried about her health, and so frustrated being homeless and unable to find the stability I need to be a mother or daughter. Homeless, struggling to get a trailer and barn renovated, simply doesn't give me that opportunity.

The worry about my daughter is being compounded by the worry that my mother's birthday is upcoming. How many birthdays does a person born in 1927 have left to celebrate?
I keep thinking about Dorothy McKeever, and the awful circumstances she was in when she died. Her daughters recounted it on Topix:

My mother was a victim of Bob Hutchins she worked her whole life to retire in Ruidoso when he cheated her of her dream. He took advantage of her kind heart her trust and she is left with an unfinished home - he walked away with well over 100K. We thought the safety measures were in place the bank 'WAS' to send an inspector for each draw he requested. He would bring an invoice to my mother who is sight impaired and tell her what he had done she would sign and submit to the bank. The bank would send an inspector and release the money to him. Reviewing the paperwork of work he claimed to have completed was fabricated and not even started but there on the bottom of the page was a signature from an inspector - a co-conspirator I can only suspect. She had to return to work in her 70's to pay for other contractors to make the house livable. My stomach turns when I go there and see the hardships she has had to endure and the conditions she has had to live in.
I hope you get your due Mr. Hutchins - you are a crook. My faith is only in the judicial system that they will successfully convict you and you spend you time behind bars.

I am also disgusted with Mr. Huckins...He left my mother with a half built house as stated by Judy Torres my sister. I blame him and the bank for distributing the monies to him when a full inspection was not completed properly. When I asked the bank for the names of the inspectors I was told they could not disclose that information. I did have a signature but of course could not identify any of the letters. And it seems rather odd when all the monies were distributed to Bob the loan officer at the bank was transferred. My mother sits there with a half built house while he is still running around the town and not behind bars.

The mere thought of never seeing my mother again, of her not being able to see her only child, only grand-daughters and great grand children. Of not being able to help my daughter. Of not being able to get into a home before winter, of not being able to survive another winter homeless...

This is too great a burden and no women should be victimized this way.

I don't know whom to make an appeal to. I don't know if it's Liam Griffin, Michael Huckins, Dr Kenneth Ogilvie or Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins. But I am desperately trying to reach someone who has leverage.
I want to see my mum again, and as each day passes the chance of my ever seeing her again decreases. I want to be a mother with stability, not left homeless in dire straits. These are terrible economic times but your son, cousin, brother knew that he was stealing from people who had no other resources. That his actions would be total destruction for the victims.

I am simply begging for the return of our stolen building fund. I am begging as I have never begged anyone in my life before. He should have never been allowed to destroy Dorothy and so many other women. Please don't let him destroy my family. Please...

The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I'd say that compassion begins with attention.~ Daniel Goleman

Not A Drop In Sight

We had rain forecast yesterday afternoon, but no rain appeared and it doesn't look promising for today either, though it's overcast and the thunder rolls in the distance.

I have spent 24 hours trying to get rid of a serious attack of virus' and trojans on my computer and it still isn't as functional as it should be. Everyone knows how frustrating these attacks can be, when you lose the ability to load pages, or get control of a computer that is being hi-jacked. But a real irony surfaced. I started cleaning the computer at 5 am yesterday morning, and was still working on it at 7.30 pm last night.To say that I was angry and frustrated is an understatement. But I never got a migraine.
I can't even start thinking about a home, getting the barn finished, without becoming so ill I can't even stand on my feet. Yet I can fight with a computer being hi-jacked and it never cause me the same physical/emotional reaction.

As time has gone by I really started to wonder if I will ever be well again. I feel so depleted. Or if these migraine attacks would not stop even if I could - by miraculous means - obtain the home we paid for in 2007. I think about so little else. It's such a desperate situation.

Yesterday I forgot about our home and barn, and became consumed with stopping the virus' and trojans from destroying this computer... and managed to be stressed to the maximum without suffering ill health. But repairing a computer is within my ability.. building or financing ANOTHER home isn't.

As the arid conditions continued a doe came in to be close to the water trough. She remained when she found some sweet feed, and was joined by a year old fawn before the day was out. 3 other doe's joined her by the next morning, then 3 young bucks by late afternoon. Rarely do we see so many mule deer come in mid-summer but the conditions are so dry.

With the Wallow Fire still burning, the fire near Santa Fe causing concern, now a wildfire is raging near Las Alamos. We need rain in the worst way.

Los Alamos Officials Order Mandatory Evacuation Of The Community Because Of Wildfire

Los Alamos County officials are reporting the fire is now threatening Los Alamos. They are ordering a mandatory evacuation.

White Rock is not being evacuated at this time. Residents in Los Alamos should not go to White Rock to stay in case it is later evacuated. Residents are urged to prepare now to be ready to go when their group is called using Reverse 911.Residents in Los Alamos in the Downtown, North Community, Quemazon, Eastern, and Western areas use either the Truck Route (East Jemez Road) or Trinity Drive to NM502. Royal Crest residents would use the Truck Route to SR 4 to NM502. Residents on the mesas (North Mesa, Barranca Mesa) use the graded road in the bottom of Rendija Canyon, the same emergency route used during the Cerro Grande Fire in May 2000. The road has been graded today and the gate through San Ildefonso property to NM 502 is open.
Take only your most essential belongings, including medication and pets. Large vehicles such as RVs should not attempt to use the road through Rendija Canyon due to the low water crossings in the road. The road is graded to accommodate passenger cars, trucks or SUVs, not oversized vehicles. Residents in White Rock should use SR 4 to NM 502 to evacuate if that becomes necessary.The Big Rock Santa Claran Event Center is open as a shelter for those who are voluntarily evacuating with no accommodations. Residents who have friends and family in the area are asked to relocate to stay with them in order to keep shelter space available for those who most need it. The County is coordinating with regional resources to open more shelters.

Those without transportation should call 505-661-RIDE (Atomic City Transit, the County’s transit system). They will start arranging busses to pick up those who need bus service.Gov. Susana Martinez came to see the fire firsthand late Sunday night. She said that several homes have burned, but the exact number won't be known until fire crews survey the area. Fire crews said a fire station has been badly damaged by the flames.

At least 30 structures, mostly homes, have been burned in the area. Many of the homes were lost in the Tent Rocks area and residents had just minutes to evacuate their homes.The fire is within 50 feet of Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is closed.Residents in the Cochiti Mesa, Las Conchas, Bandelier National Monument and the Valles Caldera National Preserve have been evacuated. Campgrounds near the area, including Jemez Falls Campground, have also evacuated.

Evacuees are being housed at the La Cueva Fire Station, Buffalo Thunder Casino, Cities of Gold Casino and the Pojoaque Pueblo Wellness Center.Power and phone lines are down in the area.The estimated acreage of the fire swelled from 6,000 to 43,000 overnight because of extreme fire danger associated with drought, dry and windy conditions and improved fire mapping, according to forest officials.Anyone voluntarily leaving Los Alamos or White Rock from northern Los Alamos should proceed southbound on Diamond Drive either to Trinity Drive or East Jemez Road (White Rock Truck Route.)County officials said if residents voluntarily evacuate, they should take necessary steps now to remove essential belongings in case they cannot return to their homes in the near future. In particular, residents are urged to take necessary medications and pets with them.

Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/28362925/detail.html#ixzz1QViRIhgq

I can only appeal again to the Ogilvie-Huckins family. If that person is Malcolm Huckins, Dr. Kenneth Ogilvie, or Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins. Your brother, son, cousin stole our building fund and having tried every method to get a home without it we simply can't do the impossible. Please help us retrieve our building fund so that we, too, can have a home before winter arrives, and have our lives returned to us.

The inability of those in power to still the voices of their own consciences is the great force leading to change. ~Kenneth Kaunda

Computer Woes

Late yesterday my computer was attacked by the Trojan "XP Internet Security 2012" and it more or less shut everything down. Malware isolated and deleted the trojan, yet I'm still trying to get the computer functional. I am having difficulties restoring the Firefox browser, and all my passwords have been deleted.

So it's been a frustrating time trying to undo damage and prevent more damage.
The weather is so hot it is unbearable, going close to 100 degree's here in Alto, well over 120 degrees inside this shed, which has become a hot house with no air. And yet another wildfire has started in northern New Mexico close to Los Alamos and White Rock. We have rain forecast for later today and tonight and I am praying that it comes, we need rain in the worst possible way. Until then I'll keep struggling with a computer that seems to have a mind of it's own and doesn't want to heed any command given..


Dr.Kenneth Ogilvie, Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins, Malcolm Huckins. Your brother, cousin, son stole our building fund. Until he returns it we are destitute and desperate and I appeal to you to have mercy upon us and motivate him to return our money to us so we can live in a home. I'm unsure how anyone can view leaving women, like Dorothy McKeever and myself in the worst situation any human being can be in, as acceptable. It's not acceptable. Victimizing women should never be acceptable behavior. All I want is the money for our home returned - our building fund - and to be allowed to have our lives and family back. That isn't a lot to ask for. But it's everything to us.

The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles. ~Mohandas K. Gandhi

Mountain Heatwave

Yesterday was another 92-93 degree day and there seems to be no end in sight unless the promised rain comes by the end of next week.

My bosses horse ran 3rd, so he was pleased and I managed to get some gardening done before the permanent migraine debilitated me to the point where I could no longer stand up. Keeping my balance at the best of times is getting so hard.

I spent the night just trying to get rid of a medical problem I have not been able to control in 3 years. By midnight I was awakened as the pain increased, and have been violently ill ever since.

I never thought I would die homeless in the United States.
When my mother left the United States in 2007 I never even considered that this would be the very last time I would see her alive.
It never even crossed my mind that anxiety, stress and fear could kill you...

But it's all my reality today.
The phone company arrived on Thursday to make repairs to the phone wires inside my bosses home. I have had a 200 ft phone wire strung across to the shed, a system that gave a poor internet connection and was difficult to maintain. During the conversation between the repairman and my boss a DSL package was sold.

It became clearly obvious that the repairman didn't understand that this is a garden shed that I am living in. Yesterday morning he walked in and tried to get through the boxes of belonging before realizing that this 57 year old woman is actually living in this mess. I suspect he thought that I came here to work, then went home.

Having been water soaked so often the shed smells a bad as anything I have ever had to deal with before, but mold and sewage is soaked into the building and concrete that it would be virtually impossible to remove. The wildlife who walk in and out simply compound a terrible problem.

So I left embarrassed while the two repair men installed DSL into a garden shed I am frantically trying to get out of. This wasn't my life before hiring Robert Huckins to build a 1,700 sq foot home, but it is today.

So I suspect that the joke of today is that I now have DSL. I have been in this shed when it was 25 below zero, with no heat. It's now in the 90's, without any way to cool it. I have seen it with 7 inches of water soaking everything.. mud & raw sewage flowing through. The degree of anxiety and stress I have experienced each summer trying to get into a home on that land is beyond cruel. I miss my mother more than I can even verbalize and it's destroying me not to have a home for her to come to. Today I may be no closer to a home, and I'm feeling the pressure but I do have DSL.
*Smile*

Water Filling 2,500 Homes In Minot As River Rises

MINOT, N.D. – The Souris River's full weight hit Minot on Friday, swamping an estimated 2,500 homes as it soared nearly 4 feet in less than a day and overwhelmed the city's levees. City officials said they expected more than 4,000 homes to be flooded by day's end.

More than a quarter of the city's 40,000 residents evacuated earlier this week, packing any belongings they hoped to save into cars, trucks and trailers.

"The river's coming up rapidly," Mayor Curt Zimbelman said. "It's dangerous and we need to stay away."

Fed by heavy rains upstream and dam releases that have accelerated in recent days, the Souris surged past a 130-year-old record Friday and kept going. The river was nearly 5 feet above major flood stage Friday afternoon and expected to crest over the weekend after reaching more than 8 1/2 feet beyond major flood stage.

The predicted crest was lowered a foot based on new modeling by the National Weather Service, but it was little consolation in Minot.

"This has been a very trying time for our community," Zimbelman said. "It's emotionally draining for all of us."

As they had the past two days, emergency officials focused on protecting water and sewer systems to avoid the need for more evacuations. They were confident about the water system, but a little less so about the sewer treatment plant. It had been sandbagged as high as possible.

Also of concern was the Broadway Bridge, a key north-south route. Levees protecting the northern approach were being raised, but Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Col. Kendall Bergmann said it was touch and go. The levee work also protected the campus of nearby Minot State University.

Members of the state's congressional delegation pressed for a federal emergency declaration making people eligible for individual assistance, a step they said was needed for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up transitional housing centers.

Sen. John Hoeven said a helicopter flight over the Souris valley showed damage to smaller cities nearby. He estimated more than 5,000 homes in the valley would eventually have water damage, including those in Minot and Burlington, where officials gave up sandbagging Thursday.

Deputy auditor Cindy Bader estimated Friday that more than half of the Burlington's 1,000 residents had left to escape the rising Souris River.

Burlington's city hall, school and police and fire departments appeared safe, but some homes in the evacuation zone had water up to their first floors and higher. In one neighborhood, the tops of two traffic signs barely peeked above the brown, brackish water, which reached just beneath the eaves of two nearby houses.

Wayne Walter, a Burlington city councilman and truck driver for a snack food company, said residents were stunned by the river's rapid rise.

"When we went to bed last night, and when we got up this morning, it was a big difference," Walter said Friday. "Down by the dikes, we saw it just trickling over (Thursday night). This morning, everything was gone."

Walter said he lived across the street from the evacuation area, and the Souris was still about 4 feet from his own home.

"Right now, we're staying there, but we've got the camper packed," he said. "They tell us to leave, we're gone."

Back in Minot, a car parked near the Broadway Bridge was dry Friday morning but submerged by midday. Nearby, about a half-dozen gophers found themselves stranded in a small and shrinking dry patch. Furniture store workers cheered as one of the gophers swam 20 yards to safety.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched four boats to patrol flooded neighborhoods and respond to 911 calls. City officials said no injuries or incidents had been reported by Friday afternoon. The evacuation zone was empty except for emergency officials and some geese, who paddled in about 5 feet of water washing down the streets.

George Moe, 63, whose house was about a block from the water's edge, returned briefly Friday to pick up some keys. Moe said the only thing left in his house was the mounted head of an antelope shot by his wife, who died about three years ago.

Moe worried about the home he's lived in for four decades and the shop where he works as a mechanic; it was taking on water and he wasn't sure he'd have a job after the flood.

"I hate to see something go to hell after 40 years," he said. "There ain't much you can do."

Watching all of these disasters is unfathomable. We no longer see the tornado victims in the news, but think about them often. How can so many people be thrown into despair at the same time, and where is God in all of this?

If Malcolm Huckins, Dr. Kenneth Ogilvie, Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins has any power to demand that your brother, cousin, son return our building fund I plead with you to exercise that power. We have paid the dues of this crime many times over and I can't face another winter homeless, or see my mother die without having had the time to spend with her family. This theft has stolen so much from us.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy. ~ Thomas Paine

93 Degree's: Too Hot.. Too Dry..

Very rarely do we have temperatures as high as we had yesterday. West Texas heat arrived and it was literally suffocating. We desperately need rain. It's so dry that it's almost terrifying.

I have never been able to withstand these types of temperatures and they tend to be very unwelcome in these mountains, but it's the lack of rain during the tourist season that concerns us. Rain will send sewage through this shed. It's misery above and beyond what anyone can handle when everything you own is drenched in rotten smelling water and you can't find a dry place to put your feet. But the alternative is an uncontrollable wildfire and that would be disaster for many.

By mid-afternoon yesterday I was suffering from a debilitating migraine yet again, and as I went to sleep I vaguely remember praying to just go to be with the Lord. I just can't take anymore stress and these migraines are like having a weight around my neck. I can't get away from them. No amount of medication seems to be able to control them. The stress of trying to get into a home and see my mother again is compounding them.. a violent circle.

I have to get a web site designed for a local horse facility, and my boss has a horse running today. I'm unsure if he needs me to drive him to Ruidoso Downs but between the two of us neither one can see the road clearly. I am so deathly ill today I just want to curl up into a ball and disappear.

The metal roof that I had for the horse barn seems to have been ruined in the violent winds that have tossed everything around since I started buying building material, but so much of our belongings are being ruined it simply breaks my heart.

Again, I make a heartfelt appeal to the Ogilvie-Huckins family. I don't know whom can ask Robert Huckins to return our stolen building fund, whether it be Malcolm Huckins, Dr. Kenneth Ogilvie, Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins or another family member. But I am simply begging for your help. We need our home, like you need your homes. We need my mother like you need your mothers. We need this cruelty to stop and our lives restored. No women should ever be left homeless after they paid for a home - not in a civilized society.

Conscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.~ Madame de Stael

Summer Solstice

My health deteriorated in the past 36 hours and I am getting as frustrated with these awful migraines as I am the inability I am experiencing trying to renovation of the single wide and barn.

Yesterday I managed to go to the Lazy J while I still had the ability to drive, and Jan and I discussed this awful state of the situation. No help to get the single wide renovated, no money to obtain a home that is ready to reside in, no idea how to get the electricity working. The stress is unbearable and outcome so bleak. I so desperately need to get into a home and get my life back together, get my family and career back.
This is making me so seriously ill.

By mid afternoon I yesterday I had no option but to go to bed and try to get rid of a shocking migraine. My nerves are simply shot. Even while speaking with Jan I couldn't stop gagging.. couldn't even speak without wanting to vomit.

In the middle of the conversation Jan made a comment that had both of us in tears laughing. I think you have to be a certain age, when your eyesight is no longer as good as it was, and you feel like you have been picked up by the heels and dipped in "age" - and you suddenly find yourself saying something so funny. In this particular instance Jan thought that a horse in the pasture had two birds sitting on his head.. those were his "ears."

My mother, who has eyesight as poor as mine, once sat within feet of a skunk commenting on this strange colored cat walking on the patio. And yesterday we mistook horses ears for birds..
I love growing old.. it brings so many surprises!

Meanwhile across the nation the heartbreak continues for so many....

Arizona Wildfire Burns Horses And Well As Pasture And Homes

PALOMINAS, Arizona (Reuters) - When fire ripped through the mountain pasture in southern Arizona, old roping horse Charlie panicked and charged straight into a sheet of flame.

"When fear takes over, sometimes they react. His reaction was to pull away and run right into the wildfire," said horse rescue worker Theresa Warrell.

The veteran workhorse, who suffered burns to his hoofs, underbelly, muzzle and eyes, is among hundreds of horses and other livestock rescued as the Monument Fire roared down out of the Huachuca Mountains and galloped across tinder-dry ranchland in this high desert valley.

As around 11,000 people were evacuated and scores of homes burned to the ground, volunteers worked around the clock to save horses, donkeys, cats, dogs and even hens exposed to the wind-whipped blaze that drove residents from their homes often with just with minutes to spare.

For animal experts, saving often panicked livestock presented an even greater challenge to rescuers.

"It's more of catastrophe, because it is very difficult to move your livestock at a moment's notice," said Dusty Prentice, a large animal veterinarian tending to Charlie's burns at the Horse'n Around Rescue Ranch and Foundation in Palominas.

"How do you get 20 or 30 horses or even two or three backyard horses that have not been in a trailer for quite some time ... evacuated within ten minutes?" she added.

Among other animals rescued was Rosie, a shaggy haired donkey reported missing as the fire bore down on homes in the wide open pasture, forcing owners to make a hurried retreat to safety.

"I fully expected to find the thing toasted, because everything up there was toasted," said Steve Boice, who co-founded nonprofit Horse'n Around with Warrell.

"But as I came around the corner, there was the donkey drinking out of bird birth. She was not singed, she was fine. It was pretty incredible," he added.

As fire crews bring the blaze that torched 62 homes and burned over 27,000 acres under control, rescuers are concerned that some of more than 100 horses saved from the flames will want new homes, as local residents begin to salvage their lives from the ashes.

Among them is Charlie, a sturdy, tranquil veteran of ranch work who is responding well to treatment with antibiotics and painkillers, Prentice said.

"He's a very quiet easygoing animal," she said as Charlie stood, head bowed, allowing her to bathe the raw burns on his underbelly without flinching.

"I think he would make a good kid's horse."

And now more flooding is expected in regions with high populations. This is simply heart breaking, because there are so many disasters happening from state to state

North Dakota City Braces For Worst Flooding in 130 Years

Up to 12,000 people will evacuate from Minot, ND, to escape the imminent onslaught of flood waters that will soon overflow levees along the Souris river and swallow much of the fourth largest city in the state.

Weeks of heavy rain have swelled the Canadian reservoirs in the Souris River basin, forcing dangerous water releases to the Souris River. The basin has received about 200 percent more rain water than normal in the last two months. The Souris River is expected to reach a record-breaking 1,560 feet by Monday, squashing the previous record set in 1881 of 1,558 feet.

Water pushing down the Souris River Valley will test Lake Darling Dam, which is expected to release up to 20,000 cubic feet per second later this week.

The Minot Daily News reports that the Saskatchewan reservoirs were already releasing water at an astounding rate of 28,000 cubic feet per second on Tuesday morning.

“What I see right now is probably the most devastating in terms of the number of people directly impacted and what it will do to damage homes as water begins to overtop the levees and fill in behind,” said Maj. Gen David Sprynczynatyk of North Dakota National Guard, who has been involved in flood response for 40 years, to the Minot Daily News.

On Wednesday, sirens sounded at 12:57 p.m. to warn citizens to immediately head for higher ground. The sirens mean that the water has breached the dikes in the city.

As I look at what is going on around us it's almost beyond comprehension to see so many lose their homes and suffer so much loss. Yet I'm curious.. what do people expect a person to do when their home has been stolen from them? When it's loss was a deliberate malicious act?

I am sincerely appealing, literally begging, the Ogilvie-Huckins family to intervene and help me find and get our building fund returned so that we can have our lives back. I don't know if that be Malcolm Huckins, Dr. Kenneth Ogilvie, Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins or another family member. We desperately need your help.

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.~ Abraham Lincoln

Playground Of The Southwest

Today is one of those picture perfect days. Warm, but not uncomfortably hot, in the lower 80's. A beautiful clear blue sky day... and no wind. It would be simply delightful, a day that exemplifies why we have the title, "Playground Of The Southwest," had I not been up all night trying to stop a terrible migraine from going from bad to worse.

I am so tired of being this ill, this stressed. Exhaustion simply doesn't describe it. You feel as though you don't even have the energy to put one foot in front of the other. Maybe that is because you don't have the energy to put one foot in front of the other. I doubt that anything is more frustrating than being so ill so much of the time.
Yesterday I stopped at TR's store to buy a racing program for my boss, but I couldn't actually get inside the store because I was sat gagging, trying to stop myself from vomiting outside. I drove away thinking that if I drove around and started to breath deep I could get control of it.

On July 4th it's my mothers birthday. I am simply horrified that yet another birthday is approaching for a woman who was born in 1927 ~ and there still isn't a home for a senior citizen who sold her home to obtain one here. Nothing for her to come to, no-way of explaining to her what has happened for fear of putting her into such a stressful situation she, like Dorothy, will have a heart attack.
She purchased this house & barn for her great-grandchildren. It was to be our home, It was their inheritance.

It's compounding my own stress of seeing June arrive, and fleetingly pass, without any progress on the barn and single-wide. This is such an awful mess. My career, our family, our health hinged on getting into a home where my mother can be, and I can work. I am simply terrified that I will never see my mother alive again. That she sold her home for nothing but to line the pockets of a thief. I am terrified of facing another winter sat in a shed that isn't fit for an animal let alone a human.

The Playground of The Southwest certainly is a paradise here on earth.. but I question how this could ever happen in a civilized society where 75% of the population claim Christ and where the Constitution - which derived from the Magna Carta - is so important. And when the temperatures drop below freezing, and no-one can see their mother, grand-mother, great grandmother this paradise becomes hell on earth.

I am again begging the Ogilvie-Huckins family to intervene and help stop this injustice. This sheer madness. If that be Malcolm Huckins, Dr. Kenneth Ogilvie, Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins or someone else. I desperately need Robert Huckins, your brother, cousin, son, to return our building fund so that we can have a home and get our lives back.

The person that loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.~ Izaak Walton

****Robert Huckins Legal Plea And Sentence****

http://corrections.state.nm.us/offenders/search.php?page=0&Last_Name=HUCKINS

This money is our home. It is the home my mother paid for, having sold her one and only home to come up with the funds. I am begging the Huckins family, if it be Malcolm Huckins, Dr.Kenneth Ogilvie, Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins or anyone else with persuasive powers to intervene. Because until we obtain the money back we will remain homeless, for every alternative I have tried ... has failed.

Conscience is our magnetic compass; reason our chart. ~ Joseph Cook