Wit, Wisdom & Wonder

While Heather and I were separating out zip ties for the duck pickup, we heard the teenager Brittany screaming next door. Her house was filled with smoke and she was in full hysterics. Fortunately, she hadn't gotten inside so I ran over, handed her off to Heather to calm down at my house since she was still in full panic attack mode. 911 was called, fire trucks were sent out and I directed them to the house, as Erica (our neighbor) hasn't any number signage at her driveway entry or on her house. I also had grabbed the house key from Brittany so we saved the front door having to be bashed in.

I caught a lungfull of burnt plastic smoke, stupid me. After racing around the house looking in the windows, I couldn't see any fire and no smoke was coming out from under the doors. Since the front doorknob wasn't hot and I could see clear into the entry, I had cracked open the door to see if I could get their dog out but he was apparently in a crate back in one of the bedrooms. To add to the confusion, Brittany thought he was in the laundry room so the poor fireman kept searching the laundry room, yanked the appliances away from the wall, etc. to find him.

Long story short - Scoobie, the dachshund was finally found and saved and everyone was safe. Erica had emptied out the woodstove ashes into a plastic bucket, which caught fire at some point today. Fortunately, Erica had set the bucket on the tile base around the woodstove. If it hadn't been for the tile, the house would have burned down according to the chief.

Meanwhile, I need to see a woman about ducks.