LRF Cayo in a better light

Chuck and his tractor! Okay we all know its a riding lawn mower, but lets not burst his bubble...it has been a realy tough MARCH.

The table was our first piece of 'real' furniture for the house.

Isn't the Coconut Palm an awesome sight?

OKIE DOKIE! Now on to more fun and colorful things!

Here is my "RAINBOW MAN"! He has so many colors from bruising you can not tell where the bruises start and the tatoos begin!!! Ya know whats sad is that I laugh every time I post these pics!

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The total area burned was over 12 acres, maybe closer to 15. Sheez if I had thought hunters would do this, I would of offered them salt licks and corn to go entice the deer, not burn our place down just because they believe the deer will come to the ash and new growth.

It is amazing the noise a fire makes.

Just nasty gray and black.

Good thing is, we know how fast things green up around here, just wish it was not the start of the dry season, may be a while before we see green now.

Pics of ash

side yard and back field. Isn't it just nasty looking? Fires are so ugly.

Start at the bottom

Your best to start at the first fire post that says getting close and work your way up. There are six videos, some on the previous older post page.

The orchard

This is the orchard, after we were sure the houses were safe we went to work on it. Good part was we had cut and burned a bunch the week before, so it was mainly grass fires scattered through out. So other then my being a clutz, it was ok.

We turn into psycho fire rakers

This is the back of the house. The Cho Cho vine off of Chucks shoulder is maybe 15-20 feet from the house and you can see the palapa structure burning in the back ground. I gotta admit I got a lil choked up in this one because we had felt so defeated. Then...we just got serious and said we were'nt going down without a fight. And thank you lord, it worked, we saved the houses. The orchards as well were spared thanks to our back raking and preburning earlier in the month. After all the rushing and stress, when it all calmed down and was pretty well contained, I stepped in a hole and snapped my ankle. Jeez oh petes. Oh well, they casted it and its feeling lots better 4 days later, maybe Ill get lucky and not have torn anything. We shall see...

At the house

After the palapa we go into mini superhero mode and went crazy with rakes and shovels as the wind had died down for a few minutes. But it worked we kept the fire back about 15 feet from the house, even when the wind came again and sent it flying down our side yard, at least it was away from the house.

Palapa inferno

We had a beautiful Bay Palm palapa, about a 14 x 20, really tall and had only one small spot that needed repair. The frame was hard wood, so it was solid. Chuck had just finished cleaning it all out and getting ready to make it our lounging hammock area. It was about 40-50 feet from the main home and over looked the ledge to the back pasture. Always had a breeze through it. When we had moved the 4Runner with the trailer load to the front field, we heard it go up in an inferno. Look at the center of the video and behind the big coconut tree and you'll see the flames over the top of the two story house by a good 20 feet. If the wind had not died down right then, we would have lost the houses for sure.

Getting TOO CLOSE

The winds had picked up and the fire had gone across the whole lower pasture, so now it was coming up in a wide bearth rather then just the trail. What a horrible feeling to be so helpless. The Fire Department said they would come and never showed, we had no water as we will have to pay to have it come in and since were not living there yet, just had not done it.

Getting closer