#alone!!!

1. Due to a cold front we got 60mph winds out of nowhere.

2. This caused many dead trees and powerlines to fall.

3. In turn, this caused fires that were spread pretty quickly due to the winds.

4. A few properties and a good amount of feed lots were set on fire, with some already having damage from felled trees/poles.

5. I do a five mile hike every day in my local nature park, and today, predictably, there was no one else there. This made it a nice day to walk and check out the creek that runs through multiple properties

6. I walk one loop trail usually four times. On my last loop I notice new, huge bird prints that weren't there on my previous loops. They appear over my footsteps.

7. I circle back twice to get pictures. I assume it's a Mexican eagle or something similar but am not sure because of how far away they are from each other.

8. Still, I'm superstitious enough that I finish that lap and then head home. I send the pictures to my friends, one of whom jokes that it was an emu.

9. I get home. I show my mom the pictures and jokingly read off my friends' guesses at the source.

10. She says "well, that does look like an emu to me".

11. Minutes later, she finds out that one of the damaged properties had emus and looked to be missing some.