A BIT OF A WEEK!

It has been a bit of a week!  For me, it has been a productive one.  We have finished all the landscaping at the front of the house where the trees used to be, and now are just waiting for a chance of rain to seed the area.

I have finished removing all the quack from the two large rose beds and have added 6 inches of well composted soil to the beds, which by now the Roses should really be enjoying.

I have almost finished creating all the flower beds around my barn shed, that should be completed by Monday, and my big old vegetable garden has been tilled and sits waiting and ready to be planted.

We have very little left of the 5 yards of soil, which makes us both very happy...

But what really is topmost on my mind, and I am sure in the mind of all Canadians is the tragic killer fire that is burning up thousands of hectares, towns and communities in Alberta.

We all have seen the pictures, read the stories, heard the video - but none of us can really know what those folks are experiencing first hand.  Personally I can't even imagine it.

Can you?

They show pictures of the miles and miles of traffic evacuating Ft McMurray, those vehicles driving to safety under the most unsafe and terrifying conditions - smoke so dense that there is no visibility, flames close enough to touch them and showers of live burning embers surrounding and landing on vehicles as they sit waiting for the traffic grid-lock to move.

The whole city has been evacuated.  In that scenario are people who have been hospitalized for serious medical conditions - heart patients, cancer patients, children, newborns, elderly.  Nursing homes full of elderly patients who have no way to filter the events as they are happening.

Animals - in the surrounding forests, farms, homes... some taken - some left behind.

There are stories of incredible happenings - a young woman giving birth in the convoy heading out of the city.  Firefighters working around the clock to save burning dwellings, while their own homes burns to the ground.  Good Samaritans from cities miles away filling tanks of gas and driving up and down along the only highway out of the burning area to offer free gasoline to those who are stranded because their vehicles have run out of gas.

It is unthinkable, and yet it is.

Prayers are not enough - but they are needed and they are being given.  So are donations of money, clothes, items of every description from Canadians across the country.

If any good can come from such devastation and tragedy, then it is happening already.  Strangers are reaching out to their neighbours, fellow Canadians and Immigrants alike, they are showing the best side of being human... Love and Compassion.

It's been a bit of a week - for sure!