Station Fire heading toward Acton.........

Hello friends, I should be in bed right now. We had a little party and roping for Paul's birthday Saturday. We all had a blast and of course the house was a wreck after the party and I was cleaning up and Jeremy was on the computer. Then the phone rings..........it is never good when the phone rings late at night. It was my Mom, Sallie. The fire was heading over the mountain towards Acton. She said I might want to hook up the trailer and get down there. It was almost 11pm by the time I was heading out and when I got about halfway to the pavement looking south all you could see was a red glow over the mountains. It was at least an hours drive but I got there pretty quick. Vickie her other daughter was already there and they had packed up a bunch of the valuables and had gotten them some bags packed. Sid, who is just shy of his 90th birthday, thankfully agreed to leave without too much fuss with his nephew. Sallie said she is sure it was cause I had showed up and he felt like the horses would be taken care of. That made me feel good. So it was 1am by then and we all just sat watching the news trying to decide at what point do we load up. So the three of us had just laid our heads down and had maybe gotten about 30 minutes of sleep when we hear sirens and the sheriff over the PA system saying we were now under mandatory evacuation orders and we needed to get out now! So we all jumped into action loading up Vickie's car with all the valuables and papers. Then we headed out to load up the horses. We had four huge QH broodmares and a stud to deal with. None of the mares had been in the trailer since who knows when and it was dark. We all worked as a team really well and loaded everybody without an incident and headed out of there. It was the eeriest thing ever. There were sheriffs and fire dept. everywhere. Horse trailers were lined up in every driveway. Cars all loaded up and people getting out. And by this time it was about 430am. We fueled up both rigs and headed to the ol rancho. Everybody got here safe and sound except on mare in the back of my trailer had gotten the crap kicked out of her by the mare in front of her. I had tied the kicker up as close as I could and tied the victim of the kicking all the way in the back of the trailer. She should have had enough room to get away but apparently not. It is not a huge deal but she is a bit swollen and sore. Poor girl, she will have to ride back, whenever they go back, in another trailer or a different trip. As far as the house, we got word tonight that the main house is fine as well as the couple of cows and sheep that we left behind. The small house in the back that Armondo and his family live in is gone. They are the caretakers for their ranch. Their neighbors just behind them and their very good friends Sam and Kathy lost their house. I have not heard back from Sallie at this point, she was heading over to the hotel where they are staying (Sam and Kathy) to tell them in person about their house as they did not know yet. Armondo did not handle it well as to be expected. I am hoping that at least this means they are decently in the clear since it sounds like it has already swept through their area. Their sheep had the property cleared of the brush so that is a plus and the couple of cows that stayed behind were in a huge open pen that we were pretty sure they would be safe in. Besides that, I told them I just did not feel cowgirl enough to load that damn blind cow and her calf in the dark without a good saddle horse! I hope everyone in safe and their animals are safe. God Bless the firefighters busting their butts trying to get this monster out.