Many of you tried to contact us during the wildfires in east Texas last week (and this week…). Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers and offers for help. We have returned to the farm and are in the process of resuming normal life, including providing you with an update. The cows are currently being transported back to Shady Grove Ranch from a colleague’s farm in Longview, and we humans are settling back in, figuring out where we left off.
We are happy to report that nothing of major value was lost–not one chicken, pig, cow, turkey, bale of hay, building, or piece of equipment. Our most significant losses were fences, pasture, and trees. Most of our property did burn, but God really had His hand on our operation. It was stressful to say the least, and very hard work for Matt and Bailey, who came back to the farm to fight the fire around the house, but it seems that it’s almost over. Now we are praying for rain to stop the remaining fires and to stimulate new growth of our burned pastures. The smoke is almost gone, and we are safe.
The fires aren’t over yet–in fact, we still hear planes and choppers flying nearby to try to stop the rest of the fires. We were affected by the Bear Creek fire that spread from Cass County. So far it has burned 50,000 acres and is still not totally contained.
Here are some pictures taken of our farm during the fires. There is also a video of a chopper that spent much of Wednesday dropping water on our pastures. We appreciate the tireless efforts of all the firefighters and rescue personnel. We are praying that God will send substantial rain soon to bring us out of this drought!
