Thank you so much

We are so overwhelmed with gratitude for the number of our customers who have reached out to us with their thoughts and prayers.  We want to assure you that at the current time we are fine.  The photo above was taken from the ranch a couple days ago.  For those who have seen the news the short story is that we are fine, we are at the ranch and the roads are closed. 

For the rest of the story, this is a good understanding of the situation here.   https://goo.gl/maps/q32qGi5sXyWzKe3C7 

If you draw a straight line between the two fires and where it crosses 77 is us. The Telegraph Fire has just evacuated Miami and everything south of 60 in Globe. We are hunkered down still here at the ranch. If Telegraph continues in its current line it will take out the Burch Yard where all the livestock has been evacuated. Our cattle are still here with us. The Red Cross Shelter in Miami had to relocate a couple nights ago when the west side of Miami was put on immediate GO. The Telegraph fire is a monster and what the firemen have done to save our town is nothing short of a miracle.  Thankfully the firemen have saved all the structures so far and everyone has gotten out safely.

Firemen were here 2 days ago mapping where they want to put the containment lines in the event that Telegraph swings our way. They think it may swing south and believe that the Telegraph Fire is a bigger threat to us even though Mescal is only a two miles away. They are conducting firing operations tonight to try to get the southern and western flanks (where we are) under containment. The bulldozers should be on our ranch tomorrow. Right now Mescal is only 23% contained but they do have a perimeter on it. The firemen were in yesterday to prepare our buildings in the event that the fire breaks through the lines. The biggest part of the Mescal fire is now near Highway 70 and has burned out our Apache ranch friends at the T-11 ranch.

We have the cattle penned up and could be ready to load quickly.  We have been on GO status here since Friday night. We did not get a READY or SET just the GO. Thankfully Jim went to the valley to pick up big bales of hay to help with finishing our beef. We had a bad load of hay come in that was dairy hay instead of the hay suitable for beef and we lost several animals to bloat so we had no hay left that we would normally feed the grazing cattle even though our barn is full over very expensive hay. Now the cattle are penned up and enjoying life since they are munching away on the 1500 pound bales we use for finishing. Had Jim not done this we would have had to evacuate because we have no feed left. Thank God our butcher really pushed us to get into the big bales for finishing beef. We can stay hunkered in for a couple weeks at this point. The cattle have feed and we are well supplied for ourselves.  I tend to cook when I am stressed so every fireman we see gets a bag of cookies or brownies or muffins.  I have some new recipes to share in next month's newsletter.  :-)  If we leave the ranch we will not be allowed to return so we are staying put.  The cattle are doing great and are very calm and loving life.

Since we are on a GO order there are several ranchers who have offered us trailers to get us out. We stay in touch with them several times a day. We told the firemen that if they can give us a few hours’ notice we can be out with the whole crew. However at this point right now I am sure where we would go since our evacuation destinations are now be threatened by Telegraph and are on SET or GO themselves. Highway 77 is closed in both directions and has been for a few days. All the roads into Globe are closed and they expect them to be closed for some time. Miami is evacuated and Globe is threatened.

Honestly the whole situation doesn’t seem real. It feels like we are in one of those over the top disaster movies but then we wake up and it is real. The next few days will tell.  The daily fire brief this morning was encouraging.

We appreciate you as our customer and your support for local ranching.  We covet your prayers for everyone affected by these fires and especially for the brave firemen. 

All our best

Jim and Carol Ptak