Wow, I've not been here for a while! Since I last posted Colorado had a fire...no, not the one we're enduring now....Waldo Canyon fire. From where I live I only saw the fire on the television news like everyone else, but...I experienced as well as I was on pre-evacuation orders for a week or two (I don't remember how long because each day felt like it was a month long). Because I live up against the mountain I couldn't see the flames of the Waldo Canyon, but we got all of the smoke, which was terrifying because you felt like the fire was next to you. Several friends lost houses in that fire.
Flash forward to a year after Waldo Canyon and I'm puttering around my house and I look out toward town and see a plume of smoke. I'm looking for smoke from a fire on the Air Force Academy, not for smoke originating in the Black Forest. It is about 1:30 Tuesday afternoon, I'm thinking about taking my dog to the vet and what errands do I run. I tell the kids "ohhhh, look at that, that can't be good"...I look online, the fire has been called in it's still small started over on Shoup and hwy83. I take the dog to the vet, the fire has spread enough that a woman waiting with her cats starts to fret, the vet techs are talking about it. I go home and look out to the west...and it's spreading....fast. In the evening I find out that some friends who'd lost their home last year in Waldo Canyon and have been staying with their parents have been burnt out again. A yarn shop that I frequent is on Shoup...we all feared that the shop has been burnt along with some other historic buildings in the area. Information is flying all around as is misinformation. As I type this 473 homes have been destroyed. I, undoubtedly, have many friends who are now homeless...I know I have many who are evacuated.
This has been a knitting blog, so I will turn this around to knitting....Table Rock Llama's Fiber Arts, on Shoup Road is still there. I know that they feel guilty that the shop is there when oh so many people have lost everything. I hope they know how important it is that they are still there. It's not about the yarn, fiber or needles. It is that their doors will open up and everyone will be able to step into the shop and there will be a little piece of "normal". Perhaps you don't knit, spin, dye...but you step in, maybe you go out to the big table in the studio and just sit. Talk to the ladies in the shop, talk to the people who come in. We are community.
