Southern Border Compromised & On Fire

Living in Arizona during the largest fire in Arizonan history has me looking at fire maps lately. Now, I know we have dry spells and specific No Burn days to help quelch would-be fires from starting and/or spreading. But my latest peek at InciWeb reveals a large majority of our southern border states are now engulfed in flames.


Courtesy of InciWeb June 20, 2011

  The survivalist in me immediately recognizes that our southern border is compromised. Arizona has it's largest fire ever along with four others within our borders.  The Wallow fire, the largest, has spread into New Mexico and is now posing threats to communities there. New Mexico also has two other fires spreading up into Colorado.  Texas is riddled with around THIRTY fires right now. Florida has it's hands full with two fires and California has one as well.

Wallow Fire: What's YOUR Disaster Plan?

Image courtesy of hlswatch.com

Tornadoes are devastating Oklahoma, but I don't live there anymore. Riots are breaking out in some locations, but not where I live. Hurricanes hit the coasts annually, but I don't live by the water either. Actually, we're known for not having much water at all where I live...in Arizona.

So what natural disaster do I have to worry about? I thought it would be running out of water, due to a crazed city employee  trying to get some attention by blowing up the water treatment plant. Or a massive power outage, caused by any number of things, shutting off the public water system.

Focus on Beneficial LIFE Skills

5 of 6 daughters were in cheer or tumbling
and we were WAY too busy running around.

This summer, our family is focusing more on basic skills like gardening, sewing, canning, dutch oven cooking, and shooting and less on activities that might not be of much use later in life...specifically...Competitive and Performance Cheer.

 While our girls DID enjoy the activity of cheer practice with all the cartwheels, front walkovers, backhand springs and the such, what wasn't enjoyed was the snottiness of the spoiled teammates, the overpriced add-ons (hair bows, makeup kits, shoes, cheer uniforms...and on and on and on), and the price tag waiting at the end of the season if you wanted to travel to another state to watch them compete in Nationals. Did they get exercise...yes. Did they learn a skill that would help them as adults...hardly. Don't even get me started on how much time and gas we spent driving back and forth to practice (two girls on one Competitive Cheer team, eldest on another Competitive Cheer team, 5 year old in Performance Cheer, 3 year old in tumbling).