When Blessings Are Counted

Last night put everything into perspective for a lot of people in our Lisbon neighborhood. I was just finishing up feeding the horses at around 7PM, when I looked past them to the woods behind us and saw flames. A call to 911 as the sirens went off in town confirmed that it had already been reported, and I watched in horror as the flames completely engulfed our neighbor's log cabin abutting the back portion of our property. Terry, on his way back from Pennsylvania, was called and diverted through the back roads in order to get home, as Kimball Road was justifiably closed to traffic. He took the Occum exit instead of our own, and said he could see the flames from there. Another friend and horse farm in the neighborhood with fire ponds saw five tankers going back and forth all night to load on water, and a "pool" was set up in the middle of Kimball Road to usher water to the house at the end of the lane. I, personally, have never seen anything like it. At least five surrounding fire stations came to the rescue last night, and managed to contain this colossal fire to the house and not the neighboring homes or woods. The house was burned to the ground. Our neighbors, who were home as the fire started (it is currently presumed to have been started in their chimney) made it out physically unscathed, however. A BIG blessing in the face of such a big loss.

Photo: From the Norwich Bulletin - Click on the title of this blog to read the article in he April 20, 2011 edition of The Bulletin.