The Wee Peeple Newsletter - September 2011 Issue 55 weepeeple.com

The Dollmaker started tearing the map drawer apart searching for the county map. She located the fire and realized that, as the crow flies, that monster fire fueled by dead trees and fanned by a 40 mile an hour wind coming from the north- that fire was only seven miles away to the northwest.

traveling North to South. By that time the Dollmaker had become entangled and detangled in computer wiring trying to get the computer into the van, rounded up the dog, searched unsuccessfully for cats and chickens, ran around in circles repeating the names of deities, threw anything that was within reach into the back seat, and paused, trembling, at the wheel of her van, at the end of the driveway, ready to flee,

The Dollmaker didn't leave. It looked like it was going to be okay. The dedicated emergency staff kept telling the Dollmaker to "Go. Now." But the Dollmaker just couldn't leave. She rolled her little van down the highway but kept circling back at the next intersection. The wind was blowing the smoke to the West and South. She really thought the worst of it had passed. Well...

Off to the North where the fire had started, the Dollmaker heard more explosions.

Explosions. Geeze! What on earth was exploding out there? Gas tanks? With every explosion, another black plume would billow up against the massive white billows already obscuring the tiny red sun.

The Dollmaker cringed as she heard what she guessed to be propane tanks hissing and ammunition popping, and had to wonder if some of the residents of the forest might have been stashing bombs in their garages... and then, tragically, as the sun went down, the wind changed direction.

Soon the Dollmaker was breathing smoke and an Army guy walked up to her window on foot, noticing her kind of ducking down in her seat, pretending that her vehicle was unoccupied. "Ma'am", he said really gently, "The wind has changed and the fire is coming this way. I'm sorry but you have to leave." Whereupon he actually rolled his truck along right behind her little van all the way to the Roadblock area.

For the next three days, the Dollmaker stayed with friends in downtown Smithville, listening to shreds of information panic-embellished into wild rumors about the condition of their homes and properties.

Sirens and explosions haunted the Dollmaker and huge plumes in the sky caused her to frantically re-pack her van every morning with anything she had taken out of it. The light was yellow and the air was smoky, especially in the mornings, as she and her friends waited for news from inside the Disaster Zone.

Well, after 48 hours of that, the Dollmaker, armed with a large bag of cat food, determined to find a way to sneak past the barricades on Highway 71 and get some food to her cats and chickens, if they were still alive in there. Twice she tried to enter Hwy 71 from a side road, only to be stopped by State Police.

This did not deter the Dollmaker. The back roads were her only chance. They were narrow and winding and sometimes she had to pull over because huge trucks carrying bulldozers crowded her off to the side, as they lumbered through the still-smoldering forest.

She passed through three checkpoints, pointing to the cat food bag each time, and instead of stopping her, the good firemen gave her directions. On and on she drove through the forest of smoking black sticks which used to be trees. At the last checkpoint they cheered her on!

But the Dollmaker was not really prepared at all for the sight which awaited her.

Her home and property were burned to the ground. The rent house was burned to the ground and all but one of the storage units.

both of the chickens were alive and okay and bore no resentment, figuring that everybody just ran away and came back again, and life would just go on as usual.

Two of the cats, Nacho and Pancho, showed up, filthy dirty, hungry, but overjoyed to see the Dollmaker

(and yes, the cat, Pancho made it through this disaster too- now he is down to seven lives...)

And inside the Peach House, standing around on tables and shelves, waiting to go to the Texas Renaissance Festival, were bunches of smokey but intact Wee Peeple Dolls.

So, the Dollmaker reassured the cats, dumped the bag of cat food on the ground at the back of the property for the chickens, cats, deer, squirrels and birds, took some pictures and got out of there, before the Emergency Staff tried to protect her by kicking her out.

Pretty shook up, she drove away from the mess that used to be her home, not really believing what she just saw with her own eyes.

The Dollmaker sighed. Well. This was certainly inconvenient. With the Texas Renaissance Festival looming... Opening Day just exactly one month away... It suddenly hit the Dollmaker that she needed a place to live ...and a place to work.

The librarians settled her in front of a computer and fluttered around assuring her that they would reorder the book at no charge, while the Dollmaker sent out a message to her Facebook friends that she and her dog and her computer needed a place to stay for a while.

Oh boy. Watch out world. Catherine not only offered a place to stay, high-speed internet, and a couch for Mason the dog, but she encouraged the Dollmaker to use her dining room to set up a Dollmaking Studio while waiting for the utilities to be turned on in the Peach House. And! Catherine wanted to make dolls!

Okay. So, the Dollmaker began to gather the materials she would need for Dollmaking. People started pitching in- a truck loaded with awesome upholstery fabric samples pulled up in front of Catherine's house, giant bags of yarn and sewing machines were dropped off, large plastic totes arrived filled to the brim with special trims, shells, floral leaves, watches, scissors, thread... everything! Even little felted doll hats! Checks and Gift Cards arrived in the mail and the Dollmaker bought tiny paintbrushes, stuffing and hot glue and ordered a whole bunch of wooden doll bases from Beverly, Woodworker Extraordinaire.

First, that fallen tree had to go. The Dollmaker hired her friend, Nealie to chop and carve it into 25 useful stump-seats which did double duty as driveway deterrents.

Daughter Shannon and Company arrived and camped out in the Peach House to growl at scrap metal hustlers. Friends with bulldozers cleared the property of all that gnarley metal and the Dollmaker watched her 72' mobile home get squished into a rectangle which fit neatly into the back of a 16' trailer. That was interesting.

and the Library replaced the burned library book, which the Dollmaker took out again, but she hasn't really had a chance to read much of it yet.

Over the years, the Dollmaker estimates that she had collected probably close to a million little things.

After the fire, there were still probably several hundred thousand little things scattered in amongst the ashes. Pottery, coins, stone carvings, fascinating metal shapes, a miniature teapot collection, a few White Wizards, wickedly blackened tools and silverware, fossils, iron and glass gnarled into abstraction...

It is truly amazing to see what survived. Excavating through the rubble is actually pretty exciting: The Dollmaker sees raw materials for Doll Constructions EVERYWHERE! So MANY cool twisted shapes!

So even though they are losing their smoke smell as they air out, genuine Smokey Dolls surmised to possess Woo-Woo Powers, having survived what the media is calling "The biggest Disaster in Texas History" will have a special stamp on the bottom identifying and honoring them this season at the Texas Renaissance Festival.

The white arms of the Backyard Goddess were outstretched toward the ruins as she seemed to whisper quietly,

Right. HOWEVER, she also found that a great burden was lifted off of her shoulders- Frankly, she never liked being a landlady, didn't really want to live in a mobile home for the rest of her life; she was watering twice a day and still the trees were dying... paying three electric bills... alone and isolated on a commercial piece of property without a friendly neighbor to share a cup of tea or a glass of wine...