'til the cows come....snort??

I thought I'd post this, since it's so fresh on my mind. It happened yesterday. The whole time I kept thinking...good blog material here. I started the shift with some exercise. Most days, exercise is required in the mornings we work. This day, we played volleyball. I was pretty bad, seeing how short I am. But I talked some good smack, and gave it a valiant effort...notice the photo of my arm... now that's effort. We did some station jobs, and made some lunch. After that, a call came out. Then another, then another. 3 all at once! We went to a car accident and called for 2 other city ambulances to back us. After that we all came back to the station. I was sitting up in our family room with my friend Chase. A call came out for a fire. We ran downstairs and got our gear on. We headed to the address, and did see smoke. Once we got there, we noticed the property owner trying to burn the reminants of an old camper shell. What was interesting, was that he was blocked in on all four sides by other homes. We stood and surveyed for a bit, on how to get the tiller truck close enough, to the fire. Of course the panicked neighbor is waving and pointing "hey!! blah blah blah, blah blah!!" Can't hear a word, but we laughed that he's probably pointing out the fire to us since we were constructing a plan, he must've thought we couldn't see the giant flames licking and the black smoke. My partner Jake and I, went around back to see if we could access there. there was a barbed wire fence and field, seemed like a no go. But the captain told us it was our best option. What that meant, was a lot of hose dragging. The truck came around, and Jake and I grabbed hose and tools. We got to the fence, which normally we'd cut open but there were two cows in the field. Being in the fire department means, if the cows are loose, we'll probably be the ones to have to wrangle them. Jake said he'd help me over the fence,

and he'd hand me the hose, then he'd hop it. Here's the first folly. Me. Wee me. Climbing a barbed wire fence in all my gear including my airtank, which is all roughly 50lbs. The fence would give, and my gear would pull me backward! Jake was pushing my airtank trying to help me over. He'd tell me which leg to kick, but for some reason, I couldn't move easy. Oh BARBED WIRE...that's why. I finally gained the upper hand and got on top of the fence to where instead of a graceful, professional descent..I fell straight to the ground. Of course, fire, ambulance, trucks with flashing lights all draw a crowd. I'm sure people loved the sight of that. My bag carrying my mask was ripped. I then began to drag the hose through the fence toward the fire. Not being a farmer of any sort, I thought cows just stood and ate grass. No, they were wondering what I was doing on their turf. The were walking up to me, sniffing me and the hose. I was trying to do my job, but not get charged by a cow too! I admit I was a bit nervous. We hooked the hose up and put the fire almost out, to which we ran into some water pressure problems. We sat there for a bit as the engineer figured it out. As the last of the fire smoldered, the cows descended on us.

 They must've been territorial, or were embarrased at the sight of their many cow pies, I still don't know. They were screaming at us and snorting and such. They came down the wee hill, and walked right into the smoldering fire. I assumed they understood me, as I was informing them that area was "hot dudes," but they ignored me. What happened next, I'll never understand, or forget my old man wheezing laugh, when both of them stopped, took a potty break, and a poopy break right in the middle of our fire. They turned around, snorted at us, and walked off, I'm sure laughing. That's what they thought of us I guess. There are a lot of citizens that aren't fans of the fire department. Now I know, a couple of cows too.