With Serb forces streaming out of Kosovo to meet last night's NATO air-strike deadline, the plump 50-year-old teacher piled his possessions, wife and seven children onto his tractor trailer and headed down from a mountain refugee camp to his home village of Ostrozub.
His red tractor yesterday jolted along muddy mountain tracks onto roads suddenly open and busy with hundreds of tractors, cars and trucks, all packed with grubby but cheerful refugees.
"We heard some news that the police left this place so we came back," said Mr Krasniqi, standing outside his stone farmhouse in the afternoon sunshine, stroking his bushy grey moustache.
This week's withdrawal came at a crucial moment: three days of rains had left the mountain refugee camp at Pagarusha a quagmire. "We lived under plastic sheets on a floor of straw and cardboard," he said. "On Sunday the rains came and there was suddenly a river running through the tent."
It is a relief, too, for the disaster agencies, who for weeks have struggled to thread supplies through front lines and monsoon rains to reach the refugees. "They are moving. And there's a huge humanitarian effort that will kick in once they go back in their villages," said Mr John Campbell, Safety Adviser for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office in Kosovo. "Once they feel safe and secure they will go back."
But many have nowhere to go back to. For three months this summer Serb forces smashed their way across the central Drenica region, looting and burning houses and fighting short sharp battles with retreating guerrillas.
This countryside, with its woods and lush green hills, is beautiful, except every other house has a collapsed roof and scorched walls.
But Isa is lucky. A shell has smashed one corner of his home and the rest has been ransacked, as has every other house in the village. But it was not burned. "Well, they took the water pump, the sewing machine, the fridge. They didn't bother taking the television - they broke it instead," he said.
Inside, what could not be taken has been smashed. Bullet holes riddle the brickwork and the far corner of the house is open, blasted by a Serb shell during the three months it was empty.
This rolling countryside yesterday presented a surreal picture. Front lines have melted. Roads once targeted by snipers are now open. They are criss-crossed by dozens of white jeeps bearing aid workers and observers, by tractors and overloaded cars bringing back refugees, and by giant Serb transporters ferrying armoured personnel carriers back to their bases.
Five miles away from Ostrozub, Mr Campbell inspected a hand grenade strung to a trip wire left by one of the big bunker complexes which have been abruptly abandoned. "Our big concern is for security. The Serbs left them. There are more, there are anti-personnel mines in other positions."
The complex, on a hill above the town of Malisevo, is now home to well-armed guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
"We're now on holiday. We respect the ceasefire," said their commander, named Planku. He indicated the new American-pattern flak jackets and helmets his men now wear. "But the Serb is like the fox. We don't trust them at all. If they attack we're going to fight. We've never been stronger than we are now."
The Serbs are as bewildered as the guerrillas by the sudden orders to abandon positions they had fought bloody battles to seize this summer. In Malisevo, the police now glower from their headquarters, their squat blue vans drawn up in a cordon overseen by a machinegun. KLA troops now surround them on every side. "We hope for the best," said a burly policeman. "We have no orders."
NATO will claim a diplomatic success in forcing the Yugoslavs to pull back and allow aid workers to keep the province's shattered population alive through the coming winter.
The West hopes to use this lull to start peace talks designed to give Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians autonomy if they drop demands for independence.
For now, the Albanians are playing along. KLA spokesman Mr Adem Demaci said yesterday that his units would not take advantage of the withdrawal to move into any villages holding Serb civilians. They are as keen as the Serbs for a breathing space, having been given a bloody nose this summer.
But next spring will be a different story, with international monitors saying the guerrillas are getting fresh supplies. Few in this province expect the present hiatus to be more than a temporary winter respite.
"I hope for peace. I hope one day for independence," says Mr Krasniqi. "But I've kept all the blankets and the plastic sheets we used in the mountains. They are over there, on my tractor, waiting for the next time."