All Cleaned Up

Last Saturday members of the local Mennonite church came out and cleaned up my mess. They brought equipment as well. There were about twenty five volunteers, not counting the women who brought out some lunch. They all prayed, and fell to doing some very dirty and unrewarding work.

We've had some rain since the fire, and the pasture is actually greening up in the burned out areas. This picture doesn't show it very well.

This is the view from north of the house looking right at where it used to be.

This is the view from the front drive. All the questionable trees have been uprooted and buried, the foundation, the well pit, the septic tank and all of the trash has been buried. The head of the project told me they were going to salvage as much iron and steel as possible to sell and give me the cash, but I told them I would donate it to the church. Good grief - I should be paying them. No way I could accept that money. The Mennonites are always in the background of our society out here - you just never notice them until you are out around their farms. They are never involved in politics, they school their own, so no social interactions at the local football game, and so on. However, when the chips are down, they arrive, ready to assist in whatever fashion they can. I am extremely indebted to my community as a whole; the support has been overwhelming. This was just another example of the generosity of the human spirit in southwest Kansas.