June 26, 2011. Flames are slightly below our house.
July 18, 2011
The big story around here for the past month has been the fire, of course. That’s finally under control and the big concern now is dealing with the aftermath, i.e., rehabilitation. In the areas that were severely burned, the soil tends to repel water and the organic matter in it has been burned, so there’s danger of erosion and flash flooding if/when it rains. That means except for last Monday, when we landowners were escorted in with our insurance agents, we still can’t go up there. But the fire team turned the authority over to the Forest Service yesterday (Saturday, July 23rd) and hopefully they will give us permission sometime this week. In the fullness of time we can start dealing with our own aftermath. It should be interesting and keep us busy for a while.
So what’s new in your life?
We have been to Yellowstone several times since the fires of ’88 and it has been very interesting to see the recovery of the forests and meadows there. The fires have restored the park to a more diverse ecology instead of the homogenous and extensive expanse of forests that had resulted from over-aggressive fire suppression. I hope that the recovery of your land is much faster since you are further south.
This week we finished fitting out our new Honda CRV so that we can use it like we did the old one before our December 26th accident. It now sports an almost invisible adapter that will allow us to tow it behind our motorhome when we head out after this current contract is completed. And, yes, the adapter plate was considered in the insurance adjustment.
What’s new? Well, I got up this morning… No, I do that every morning.
Nothing is new except we had tall waving-in-the wind native grass, so beautiful, but with our continuing droughts, we are putting in rock. When it’s done, I’ll give you a picture.
Interesting psychology. “…we landowners were escorted” I read that ‘lan downers’ with a silent d on land. I wouldn’t have read it that way before the fire.
Mike,
How tall are the trees in Yellowstone? I agree our forests here were overgrown, that’s why the fire was so intense. We’re expecting that the trees here will recover a lot more slowly than they did in Yellowstone because of the drought. Being further south is offset by the extra altitude. We’re not expecting to see any tall trees in our lifetime. But I am curious to see what does grow. The two pictures I took of new growth were in soil that wasn’t completely scorched.
One of our neighbors down the road is planning to plant some trees and haul water for them this summer. They might do all right because they have better soil there. Up where we are the trees were mostly in rocks. We used to call it Rocky Mountain loam if the chunks were light enough for us to pick up when we dug with our mattocks and pry bars.
Thanks for bringing back good memories. That place has never been never without its challenges and adventures. 🙂
bikehikebabe,
Not everyone up there is discouraged. As I said, one of our neighbors is anxious to start planting and watering some trees. They have only a few acres and only use it in the summer, but they’re not discouraged. Another neighbor bought their cabin a couple of weeks before the fire. We talked to the lady a bit when we were up there last Monday. She was just hoping other people wouldn’t give up.
Today. This moment. Alas, no gut wrenching romance!
Saw my grandniece for the first time this weekend – about 6 weeks old.
Rummuser, gut wrenching romances are no fun.
A dog or a wife has been discussed on other blogs (Leveraged Intelligence & Grannymar). Looks like a dog would be a nice companion for you.
BHB, with my bust hips and my doddering father, a dog will complicate my life more than it already is. On the other hand, imagine a woman, not necessarily a wife, giving me a lot of TLC! It will be bliss.
our temps have been in the mid 100’s for days on end… i think 29 at last count. BUT! i awoke to blessed rain in the night and this morning it was actually 78 degrees!!! a cold front. it matters not that it will be 101 by 5pm and then up as high as 106 (heat index 115) all week. we had RAIN!
i am a rain lover. i really should be living in the pacific nw.
am desperately trying to bloom where i’m planted.
as for doing … alas… very little in this heat. it’s actually dangerous, because with it, we’ve had very high humidity. hard to breathe. just reading good books, sipping iced tea with orange slices, lemon and fresh mint. yum!
cheers to all,
tammy j
Evan,
Now that’s good news!
Rummuser,
It sounds as if you need a loving mommy. As do we all sometimes.
tammy,
I’ve been thinking of you when I read the reports about the heat wave. We love the climate here, but if we move we too are thinking of the Pacific Northwest. We might get tired of the rain after a bit, and there is the danger of a huge earthquake, but it does have its appeal.
i’m sorry… but bring on the quake! if it were cooler i’d take it.
up to 107 most of the week… no end in sight. that’s not counting the heat index which they say will reach 115 most days…
interesting to me that “hell” is supposed to be very hot in all the sects that believe in hell.
guess you could call this hell then? SMILE.
oh tammy… you’ve turned into a complainer. yuk.
not true to my innate nature. i apologize to one and all!
rammusser… i’d be your mommy if you had a crystal clear turquoise blue pool for me to lounge in and servants to bring me all the tastiest vegan dishes… wait… if you had all that you wouldn’t need a mommy!!
love and cheers you guys (and ladies!)
tammy j
this week… my area was under threat of SNOW – that is something we don’t do up here. Apparently snow clouds were seen above but as I haven’t been around such places since the 60s when I was a teen (and didn’t care) I have no idea what they are…it was darn cold though. We only just reach 10C on ?Monday. It was at least 1/2 or below that overnight. Suggested clothing on the weather website even more unusual – 3-4 layers plus windproof item!
It didn’t SNOW although during the evening lots of my pals were saying things like “I think it’s piling up outside” – fortunately it wasn’t…
As well last weekend, I got into trouble with a new ‘healthy food product’ that I have been making and I’m still not recovered from imbibing too much dried fruit/suphites – I have always had problems with apricots but these ones I made had substitutes in them! Real bummer….
tammy,
I agree! I’d rather take my chance with earthquakes.
What about it, Rummuser? Would servants taking care of you work too?
Cathy,
That must be strange weather given that you’re so close to sea level. According to Wikipedia your only recorded snowfall was in 1939.
I hope you’re recovering from the apricots.
Jean, lots of places around the country at sea level got a dusting or more of snow. Poor old Christchurch already affected by quake (after) got hit as well. Many houses are not particularly enclosed and with many without heating or for that matter real utilities not a great time for them…
I’m not all together over the suphite problem but nothing as bad as it was last Saturday night…- which by the way was not apricot based so that means it’s all kinds of dried fruit. I looked at why suphites are used – apparently to restrict mold and detriotation (?sp). .
Cathy,
It sounds as if you’re setting new records for weather. We would be in trouble here in our apartment if the electricity went out in the winter. Our heater wouldn’t work without the fan so we would be bundled up in our comforters and would be eating cold food. So I sympathize with the people affected by the earthquake.
Some health food stores here sell dried fruit without the sulphites, but it’s very expensive. Probably worth it, though, if it doesn’t make you sick. I just looked it up and it sounds as if sulphite-sensitivity has the same symptoms as allergies. My daughter has to carry an epi pen because of her allergies… I hope your sensitivity isn’t that bad. It’s scary stuff.
the electricity difference with NZ and your country is that not many people would even have a furnace…heating is an individual thing. You decide what you will use, purchase the item and then use it.
this place has 2 fireplaces but they have never been used – they are not efficient enough.
i have 2 different heaters – one is a radiant type and the other is an oil heater…
That’s interesting. We have a backup electric radiant heater, but we couldn’t have an oil one in our apartment because we couldn’t vent it to the outside. Up on the land we had a woodstove…not as pretty to watch as a fireplace but a much better source of heat. It, of course, was destroyed in the fire.
the oil heater is portable as such – on wheels and you just plug it into a wall socket and that is that – has a thermostat//dial on it.
nothing needs to be vented
lots of people have fan/blow heaters but I find them to dry out the air too much and have had problems with them with my Asthma…
Cathy,
Thanks for the description. It sounds as if your oil heater still needs electricity, so that wouldn’t be a good backup if our power went out for any length of time. It’s not something I worry about, but I do have a supply of down comforters in case of an emergency. It does get cold here in winter.
It used to be we would go up to our land and use our wood stove in the house. Not exactly an option at this point. 🙂
Now the fire is 98% contained. It’s July 29th.
Hopefully they will let us in sometime this week. It’s now July 31st.
Yes, that is the a sure need for you both, along with other property owners. So that you can all start to move forward on the re-greening and re-homing pathways. Hope your community continues; although I’m sure their will be neighbours who will never return because it will be just too difficult to deal with…