Fire!

We were on our way to town today, when I noticed smoke on the south side of our property and pointed it out. My DH was not concerned and was turning in the opposite direction when he reached the road at the end of our driveway.

He thought that is was a brush fire started by one of the neighbors and not our concern. He always tends to look at things in a positive way, expecting the best. I, on the other hand, tend to look at things in a realistic way and expect the worst. He constantly reminds me of this fact, only he calls me negative instead of realistic.

I finally convinced him that the smoke looked like it was actually coming from the corner of our property which now belongs to our youngest Son. Still staying in positive mode, my DH then suggested that it was probably our Son because he had the day off today. He did however reluctantly turn in that direction.

When we got closer we realized that it was a neighbor's field that was on fire and there was no one there watching over it, so it must have been an accidental fire of some sort. If left to burn it would quickly reach the woods and then it might be pretty hard to get under control.

We called 911 on our cell phone and got a neighboring county who quickly transferred our call to the proper county. I guess we are using a cell tower in the neighboring county, so that is something that you need to take into consideration when calling 911.

We placed the call at 2:00, the first fire truck arrived at 2:07 and they had the fire completely put out by 2:13. I was impressed, they put out the fire around the telephone poles first, then just drove around the field with two trucks spraying water on the flames.

We probably don't think much about our local volunteer firefighters until we need them. They do a great job and are taken for granted most of the time.

Tracfone

I had to get my DH a cell phone so that I would always be able to reach him when he is away from home and I have some emergency. Like mares foaling or stallions escaping their pens and getting in with each other. That is always a good way to get your heart rate up. I can deal with mares foaling but when the two studs get together, I feel a little overwhelmed.

The problem that I have is that he never seems to have it with him. He does faithfully take it to work with him but he leaves it lying here by the computer most of the rest of the time.

We can't afford a cell phone plan. I can't justify it with our measly income, so we have used a Tracfone for the last 3 or 4 years. I can usually get a good coupon code, so that it doesn't cost us that much.

I do get a little upset that at both places of employment where my DH works, they have his Tracfone number and call him, burning up my hard earned minutes. I believe that if they need to get in touch with him then they should pay for his minutes or supply him with a phone.

I purchased minutes for the phone last night on the Tracfone website. I bought the one year card with 400 minutes, then used the coupon code 52057 to get 200 bonus minutes. I had previously purchased double minutes for the life of the phone, so that doubled the 400 minutes. This was added to units and time that I had left, so that took me to January of 2010 with 1026 minutes for $100. This coupon code expires sometime in August.

I told him this morning that just because I got a good deal and he has a lot of minutes doesn't mean that he can use them to gab for long periods of time with anyone but me. I will be watching.