Yesterday we helped out at a prescribed burn in Happy Camp, CA. We were only going to be there for a few hours to help cut some line and fall some hazard trees. After lunch we got dragged into the burn show and had to haul flaming drip torches (they literally drop flaming pools of fuel on the ground) through tangling blackberry bushes and head high poison oak. It's quite a concept to have to walk with a 35 lb pack, 8 lb tool, and 20 lb drip torch through briar patches. I would throw flame onto the ground at my feet only to become ensnared in the thorn infested bushes and tangled up in their vines. At one point I had a near panic moment when flames around my feet flared up in the dry undergrowth while I twisted and turned to no avail to escape the briar patch's evil clutches. I lunged forward desperately, yanking free of the vines but bringing the thorns with me, deeply embedded in my thigh.
I got a little closer to the road for my next strip of fire and was able to overhear one of the guys on my crew joke that this was an "entrapment waiting to happen" (being entrapped by flames). I couldn't entirely disagree. I had a brief image of being tangled up in barbed wire and being gunned down by enemy sniper fire. I told him not to joke about those things.
Having the limp noodle legs that I do, my captain had mercy on me and put me in charge of the holding crew. The holding crew stands on the road or fireline and makes sure that what the lighters are lighting doesn't get lost and run off up the hillside. We had 10 burners and 4 holders, just me with the radio. The fire started to burn up the moss on the trees and the wind started to blow over our line. I got nervous fairly quickly. Thankfully it wasn't long before my squad leader took over my job and I became just another holder.
It was nearing 7pm and I hadn't eaten since noon so my calories and blood sugar were dropping fast. Those of you who know me know this can be a dire situation at best. I took off my gear and rummaged through my pack for what was left of my sandwich. It was only a few bites (a third to quarter of the sandwich) but it would keep me going for a little while longer. Just as I got my hands on that bad boy, a desperate call came over the radio that our fire had slopped over our containment lines. Bah! I threw my sandwich back in, put my pack on and made my way through the thick smoke to help out. Along the way I caught a few hot coals on the other side of our line and put them out by mixing them with the dirt around it. By then the guys seemed to have their side handled so I went scouting for more little spots to put out.
When things finally quieted down again, I got my sandwich back out of my pack and gobbled it up. Four bites maybe. I pulled out my apple while the lighters walked past me and said they were putting more fire on the ground. I demanded they let me eat my apple first. They refused. I scarfed it down quickly and went back to sucking smoke and looking for spot fires through my watering, stinging eyes. They decided they needed more lighters so I was pulled back into the mess. Several long passes with my drip torch later, they called it off and said we could go home. I dug a granola bar out of my bin in the buggy and stuffed it down as fast as I could and drove the crew back to the station.
We got back to the station at midnight and then I had a 40 minute drive home, dodging deer on the river road like a pinball machine. I got gas in Yreka before the last little stretch to Montague and the attendant there said "Good Morning!". In my mental fog I repeated it back and then continued to mull it over while the gas pumped. Who says that at 1230am? How crude.
I got home a starving, exhausted mess but still had to somehow make food happen and shower since I had trudged through massive bushes of poison oak for hours on end. I popped a lean cuisine into the microwave, showered and then ate it sitting on the lid of the toilet due to my lack of enough energy to eat at the breakfast table. I plopped into bed with my hair soaking wet at 2am.
At 5am it was light enough out to rouse me from my slumber and something resembling a bad hangover hit me like a truck. My head hurt, my eyes were swollen and I felt like vomiting. I went in and out of consciousness until 7:30am when I decided the effort was useless and I would need to get up and continue my calorie consumption.
Since my imaginary friend refused to get out of bed and make me breakfast, I staggered to the kitchen and started a cup of coffee. I opened the refrigerator and thought "What the hell!? I've been robbed!" Well, I hadn't though. We've all been expecting to be gone on a fire and so no one has food in their refrigerators because it will just go bad and rot in there for a couple weeks before we can get home to disinfect everything. All my food was frozen or packaged. Great. So I grabbed my coffee and went back to bed.
This is where my panic set it in. I was all alone, starving, tired and aching and the nearest restaurant (1) was probably not open, (2) probably does not deliver. I considered the food in my cupboards and knew I needed something with a much higher calorie content than what was there. I needed corn beef hash and eggs. Things got desperate so I pulled out another lean cuisine. It has all of 300 calories in it. So I was a tenth of the way there. Wimpering, I crawled back into bed to mull over my increasingly desperate situation.
Then it hit me. Why yes folks, I do have survival skills after all. In my collection of extra stuff for my gear, I remembered I had a single serving packet of spam that I used to carry around and never ate. I could make spam and eggs! And I would be ok! With renewed hope, I pulled the packet of spam out of the box in my closet and went about readying the meal. I opened the packet and realized the spam was not the color it should be. Argh! It wasn't expired but apparently while carrying it around in my gear, the package had become slightly damaged and compromised the safety of the spam.
With the pan already hot and me growing more and more desperate by the second, I cut up some sliced turkey, threw it in the pan and threw two eggs on top. I poured coffee number two.
So here I am, still in dire need of calories but smart enough to know that scarfing down a massive jar of jelly belly's would be a really bad idea. I'm still in my pajamas and it's after 10am. I'm not entirely certain how to handle this situation. It reminds me of the show "The Alaska Experiment" and the part where one of the women gets cabin fever and is basically incapable of getting up and saving her own life by going out and getting food and wood for a fire. Thankfully her husband is there and mans up to handle it. I don't quite have that same luxury. I've been sending out mental pleas like a beacon for batman and no one has shown up at my door with a can of corned beef hash...much less fresh corned beef hash from a restaurant. I discovered a couple rotten potatoes in the bottom of my cupboard and I'm starting to eye the frozen steak sitting out on my counter. It's as solid as a rock. I might have to get in my car and drive the 15 minutes to McDonalds but so far the energy required eludes me. I think I'll go back to bed to conserve energy.
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