My Mother's Day was going great ... ds1 and I went to church then stopped by the natural foods market we shop (the same one that's closing).  They were having a Mother's Day Tea that ds1 and I attended.  We came home, changed clothes, and then headed out on a little shopping trip.  That's when my day went horribly wrong.  The lady in front of me when checking out was saying something about a huge wildfire.  She wasn't making sense about where it was so I asked.  Turns out it was more than one fire (they believe at this time 8 separate fires were set just in my area) and one was on my road and another was behind my house.

This is what we we were greeted with...

Horses being evacuated just north of us.  Unfortunately, I got to experience our sheriff's dept. at its finest (I mean that in the most sarcastic way).  The officer who had the road blocked off would not move her vehicle so the trailers could get around her.  People were screaming at her to move and she ignored them.  Finally someone shouted at her that they were going to move her vehicle, like it or not....

The fire helicopter was using the river to fill the drop bucket with water, but switched to getting water from a neighbor's pond to make quicker work....

More scariness from the skies...

A couple of the horses that dh helped round up to get in trailers for evacuation...

Out of control...

The view from across the road from my house last night as I was finishing loading my vehicle...

These were taken while standing in a neighbor's backyard last night.  It looked like a home and barn on this land were going to burn, but they were saved!  This just kept creeping closer and closer to my neighbor's (and my house!).  Dh stayed out until 1:40am this morning helping this neighbor keep things watered down....

When dh came in at 1:40am this morning, all appeared to be okay.  His clothing and hair smelled horrible so he went to take a shower.  Not five minutes later I saw flashing lights everywhere in front of my house.  I threw open the front door and saw my neighbor across the road's backyard engulfed in flames.  The wind had shifted and that quickly it all went up in flames.  Embers were flying into our yard and further.  Dh and I ran around for a good while stomping them out with our shoes.  One of the firefighters came and asked if we were ready to go if necessary.  I told him my vehicle was packed, but I did have two children and a dog I had to load so I had to have enough notification to take care of that (ds1 was wide awake on the sofa by the front door and ds2 was sleeping beside him).  He said if the fire made it to the road at our neighbor's that it would jump the road into our yard.  He said we would not be able to get out if that happened.  At 2:40am things were so bad that he gave dh the nod that it was time for us to leave.  Dh chose to stay and help so the kids, dog, and I went to a grocery store parking lot (we had nowhere else to go) to wait it out.  Thankfully, ds2 stayed asleep, but ds1 was restless so I passed the time praying aloud and reading aloud from Psalms.  At 4:10am dh called and told me they said things were okay around us and I could come home.    It was definitely a long night with extremely little sleep.

We are aware of two homes that have been destroyed - there may be more.  So many roads are blocked off right now that it's hard to know for sure.  This is what's left (nothing) of one of those homes...

This is what's left of my neighbor across the road's backyard...

Ash is covering my entire yard front and back...

Please keep our area of Florida in your prayers.  Things are still smoldering and could ignite again.  Two fires are burning around us still.  More fires are going in other areas and others have just started in the last couple of hours.  I'm watching a house burn on tv right now.  So sad.  The winds are blowing fiercely.  We haven't had rain since the beginning of April so things are extremely dry.