Month: August 2018

29 August …

 

 

Thank you to those who let me know about the blog page being down.  It was something with “Two Cows”, the domain carrier.

All seems to be working again.

~~~

Our weather is cooling off.  Night temperatures are in the high 40s … time for a blanket over the sheet just before dawn and an extra shirt for the mornings.

Currently our nearest fire danger is from the Hirz fire burning just 11 miles south of McCloud toward the Hearst properties.  Winds and terrain will most likely take it east of us.

 

This is the view out my east window one day when the smoke was all-encompassing.

 

A lot of folks were wearing heavy duty filter masks, especially those with asthma and other chest problems.  There are two in the family who have had asthma problems in the past, but so far we are all doing okay.  Just not overdoing when the smoke is bad.

Mark has been giving a lot of thought and work time to fuel reduction.  In addition, we have a safe area (a fairly large spot without trees where we keep the grass mowed).  It also has water available from the 5,000 gallon tank which gravity feeds.

For the last two days we have had 90-95% clear skies.  That seems to be all we’re allowed for now. Light smoke this morning, predicted to worsen later in the day.

Oh well …

~~~

Last week, Mark and I went to a recital/concert by the Siskiyou Summer Choir which is led by a schoolmate of my boys.  The choir did Renaissance music (mostly religious as you can imagine), including five canzonetti by Monteverdi, followed by three Chinese folk songs … one of which became an ear worm for the next day.  All sung a capella.

I had not previously met Peter’s (the director) wife.  Turns out she is Chinese … hence the folk songs.

It was not a stupendous evening, but I did enjoy it.

~~~

I have a very old square rosewood grand piano which I bought years ago thinking it would find a place in the house and I would take lessons.  Wrong!

It has been on its side in a storage shed for way too many years but I may have found a home for it.  I called the County Museum and the initial reaction of the Director was “We have enough pianos already.”  But when I told her it was the one which came around the Horn probably in the late 1800s and was in Justice’s Tavern in Dunsmuir for years (with the rings left by sweating glasses to prove it), her reaction changed.  Of course, it will need heavy restoration, but she and I both hope to find a home for it either at the Museum or with a private party.  Otherwise it may have to be burned since there is no place for it in the new family house here.

Or, come to think of it … Craig’s List.

Wish me luck …

~~~

Have I told you our rooster is one of those crazies who starts crowing at 0430?  It doesn’t start to get light until after the crew leaves for work and school at 0630.  Oh well …

~~~

 

 

While going through another pile of leftovers from the years, I found an old book. 

 

When I opened it I found …

“Bunky” was the nickname of one of my cousins.

I remember a lot of the illustrations clearly and have begun reading it to Paul.

~~~

My herb work is way behind schedule this summer.  I am still having a bit of trouble getting back into a routine.  This morning, when I brought in the clothes for folding, I noticed the lavender needs care soon.  I’ll try to remember it this afternoon or tomorrow.

Oh well …

~~~

And to finish this week, I adapted this from a friend’s post … 

The tendency might be to see all the people who support me and say, “She has enough support. She doesn’t need me.” Nothing could be further from the truth. If you are in my life, I need you. I need your presence, your ears, your touch, your tenderness, your protection, your reassurance, and your love.

I am not standing here on my own. I have hands holding me up.

I don’t have the luxury of checking out (although I may want to sometimes) because I have family to feed and care for and books to read and friends to talk with and poetry (and a blog) to write and chickens to let out in the morning and put to roost at night and seasonal changes to follow and grandchildren to watch and …

The only way I survive is through others. Through you.  If you’ve been helping to keep me afloat  …  Thank you.

And don’t stop … Please.

 

So … ‘til next week …

 

22 August …

 

We are still having smoke.  It hadn’t been too bad the end of last week and we actually saw blue sky monday, but … yesterday was a bad one and this morning isn’t any better.  We seem to be hanging in limbo between summer and autumn.  Colour change is slow.

There was a post on Facebook this morning which advised throwing stones at the smoke to make it dissipate.  Maybe I’ll try that.

No pictures this week.  Too much smoke.

Temperatures are dropping.  That’s good.  It makes sleeping more comfortable.

The rooster starts crowing about 0430, but it isn’t light until after 0600.  We’re getting one or two eggs a day even though they aren’t due to start laying for another two weeks.  And they can be closed in by 1945.

Five weeks to Equinox.

~~~

School started yesterday.  Paul is a first grader now and the first impression of his teacher is that she is a “teacher”.  It should be a good year.  He came home tired, but this morning all was well.

Kamille is tutoring her autistic student again.  He is in fourth grade now so they are at the middle school. 

I don’t understand the break now between elementary and second school.  It’s not like it was when I was in school.  Then the elementary was K thru 6, middle was 7 thru 9, and high was the rest. Now elementary is K thru 3, middle 4 thru 8, and high the rest. 

I guess 4-4-4 makes more sense than 7-3-3.  But considering maturity, maybe not.

~~~

I am still reading Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories and started reading Louise Perry’s Gamache stories.  Christie is always an easy read.  I am trying to decide if the Gamache ripoff of Poirot is worth it.

Also still reading about Washington’s spies during the Revolutionary War.  I wonder if the DAR would consider descent from one of those men as acceptable for membership.  It would seem they should qualify as “Patriots”.

And the third book currently on the reading stand is a James Rollins novel, written over a decade ago, which includes information about a new ice age as the result of the breakup of the Arctic ice sheet.  Interesting since current headlines are speaking of the Arctic ice disappearing with breakups larger than have ever been recorded.

~~~

Fresh produce tailgate giveaway was yesterday.  This month it was zucchini, shredded iceberg lettuce, cauliflower, coleslaw mix, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, and cantaloupe.

We will be having zucchini fritters, zucchini bread, steamed cauliflower, raw cauliflower, cauliflower fried with melted cheese, salads and slaw, sharing cantaloupe with the chickens, and learning how to cook eggplant.

Not as many folks as last month.  Guess the smoke got to ‘em.

~~~

A classmate of Mark’s is a vocal musician and leads a summer chorale.  They will be giving their season-end concert/recital friday night at the church Mark and Kamille attend.  Mark has heard them practice and says they are amazing.  The family will be going.

~~~

And that seems to all for this week.  Politics are crazy.  Weather is crazy. Rooster crow is crazy.  Maybe throwing stones at the smoke will work.  Just might be crazy enough.

 

What a beautiful thing to be able to say “I fell apart, yet I survived.”

 

 So … ‘til next week …

 

 

15 August …

 

The house is changing.  There are now light leaf green drapes in the living room  where there have never been curtains of any kind … and plans to redo the front of the house.  Plus my bookshelves are being perused and sorted between “give away” and “keep”.

All normal and expected but still a bit like watching the aftermath of your own funeral. 

New house.  New life.

~~~

Weather is still like late summer although the leaves are just beginning to change.  And of course, fires.

 

 

There was a small, but spectacular, one at the Mt Shasta City Park …

This picture of the Mountain with the smoke was taken by a local pilot …

And one from  the ISS … Find the “C” in Carr and move toward the top of the picture.  See two light spots?  The fuzzy one is Mt Shasta.  Don’t know what the other one is.  Maybe a reflection on the window.

Days continue to be smoke filled.  Some days you can’t see the Mountain unless you know where to look … and even then just barely (The one you can see is Black Butte.  The Mountain is to the far left … look closely).

We had planned to sleep out in the meadow last sunday to be there for the meteor shower but the smoke was too much.  Maybe next year.

Then, this morning, as I went to let the chickens out, I noticed we had a light rain shower overnight (just enough to leave spots, not enough to make a difference) and when I looked up I could see clouds.  Wow! 

There is still smoke, just not as much.

~~~

I am late with the VanGogh once again.  I see a picture or two every week and am getting so I can pretty much tell when it was painted.  If you look at the brush strokes and the lighting, you will be able to date them as well. 

This one, named “Small Bottle with Peonies and Blue Delphiniums” was done when he was beginning to experiment with colour shading and before his brain started allowing him to see things, such as air movement, that most of us don’t see … in June-July 1886.

I was caught by the colours of the peonies and the shadows in the fallen petals and leaves.

~~~

I read two or three books a week (I know it isn’t as much as some of you) and was struck last week by a “coincidence”.  In all of the books the authors had used a quote from Shakespeare … “The fault, dear Brutus …”. 

What I found interesting was that one was a history, one a mystery, and the third a short story collection.

Have you even run across this phenomenum?

~~~

We added to Paul’s Smokey Bingo while out on a walk one morning last week.  We counted rings in not just one but in two tree stumps.  The first one was only 28 years old, but the second one was already three or four years old when George and I bought this land.

There was an additional lesson.  We learned how to tell wet years from dry ones.  It was easy to see that when we first lived here the winters were “good” ones qualified as wet.  However, rings from the last decade sure show the drought.

Last Monday, Paul and his brother went spelunking up in the Pluto caves off Hwy 97.  Another Bingo square.  And on a walk we saw a burned out tree with a baby tree growing in it.  

Yesterday, Paul and I went to a neighbor’s house to learn about sugar pine trees and collect some cones.  Sugar pines have noticeably shorter needles and honkin’ big, long cones.

Then we visited the greenhouse and native plant garden at the USFS in Mt Shasta.

Out of 24 Smokey Bingo squares, the family managed to finish 13 (and completed three rows) with at least 5 other squares planned for later this month.

We all learned something this summer.

~~~

The rooster crow now sounds like a rooster crow and he has begun practicing his profession.  He seems particularly fond of one of the Black Comet hens.

The second cockerel has found a new home which caused me a bit of a panic the first evening there were only 15 rather than 16 birds on the roost at bedtime.

 

 

And we are getting one egg a day!  We weren’t expecting eggs for another week or so.

 

 

~~~

Radio club this evening and school starts next week.

 

Remember …  Live for what tomorrow has to bring, not what yesterday has taken away.

 

So … ‘til next week …

 

 

 

 

  8 August …

 

The Carr fire was caused by a flat tire on an RV … rim sparks on pavement near dry grass.  Talk about improbability.  It is now tracked at 173,522 acres – 47% contained.  But, as you probably know, the fire complex in the middle of the state has outgrown the Carr and is at 300,086 acres.

 

The west is on fire.  Wasn’t there something about “the fire next time”?

 

Relief efforts for the Carr fire are being overseen by the Salvation Army in Redding and our area is doing its part.  The following is from a post by daughter Kamille last friday …

“Y’all, people are freaking amazing.  St Barnabas Episcopal Church (Mt Shasta) donated funds so we could take cases of water down to #Carrfire#salvationarmy.  Weed Grocery Outlet donated five (5) extra cases of water to the 30 we purchased. THEN as we were loading up, a stranger in the parking lot donated cases of Gatorade, and Rodney at Grocery Outlet added to it. [There was also a donation of feminine hygiene products.]
“We are now southern bound in the Hammond Ranch Fire Chief’s truck, donated to help move the water and supplies. ”

(The guy in the picture is Rodney Barr, the manager of the local Grocery Outlet)

This week the need was for pet food. They will make that run this afternoon.

~~~

The fruit trees are a mixed bag this year.  A couple of the apple trees are doing well but they are out in the meadow where the deer and squirrels get at them.  The Granny Smith in the courtyard will have enough for one pie.  But the Satsuma plum has fewer than a dozen plums.  It had bloomed nicely and I don’t recall a frost, but there isn’t fruit.

Oh well …

~~~

Weather has been warm and smoky !!!  Three days of nearly 100º ahead.  We have little muffin fans for the bedrooms and so far we’ve been sleeping okay.

~~~

About 0430 Tuesday morning I was popped out of sleep by an odor I know fairly well.  The dog had tangled with a skunk.  That is something a dog does only once … unless he is really dumb.

Mark bathed him in a soap something mix and so the smell was reduced, but not gone yet.

~~~

At the close of the last school year, Paul came home with a Summer Bingo card sponsored by the USFS.  The free space in the center is Smokey Bear but the rest are all learning projects.  Those included gathering acorns, finding a hollow tree, identifying burn marks on a tree or a piece of wood, watching a sunset, starting a stone collection, learning about tree rings, learning about wildflowers, and a slew of other stuff which may or may not be accomplished in the next two weeks.

It has been kind of fun.

~~~

For about a month now I have had a craving for ice cream … most any flavor … just ice cream … almost an obsession.  Were it not for the facts that I no longer have a uterus and that I am nearing 90 and that it is for ice cream rather than pickles, I’d wonder if I were pregnant.

~~~

I had thought to spend the night of the 12^th out in the meadow watching for the meteors.  But now I think that may not happen.  Smoke you know.

When it is nearly impossible to see the mountain at the top of the meadow,  hoping to see clear sky seems unlikely.

~~~

… and now to end this post …   

It’s okay to cry and okay to be sad. It’s okay to miss them and okay to wish you had done something different, but never blame yourself for how things turned out. Never tell yourself you can’t do better and never tell yourself this is the end of the road.

It’s okay to fall but never okay to stay down.

 

So … ‘til next week …

 

 

1 August …

 

The fires in California are hitting my center.

The Carr fire west of Redding burned out several towns and subdivisions including Old Town Shasta (it had been a favorite place of Michael’s), burned out a friend’s daughter, and burned over Michael’s last residence as well as the place where he died. It currently stands at 115,538 acres – 35% contained.  

The Cranston fire east of Hemet on HWY 79 (Pines to Palms Highway) is in the area where I grew up.  It is called the Cranston Fire because the closest landmark is the Cranston Fire Station where I backed into a bridge abutment the first time I tried to drive Daddy’s pickup.  It burned Mountain Center where some Tyler-Hall cousins live and had burned toward Idyllwild where other Tyler cousins live.  The Idyllwild cousins are safe and at home again and the fire is nearly contained.

Other fires have made me sad and wary but these two, right together, hit me …

~~~

However … life goes on and last wednesday was another food bank day.  I think folks are beginning to believe that I have taken this on as a given project and expect to see me arrive for work.  That’s nice.

~~~

The family arrived home with Paul on saturday about 1730.

Now the house feels right again with the exception of some of Paul’s behavior.  He was acting up at the dinner table one evening and his father asked if he had behaved that way back in Baltimore.  The answer was “No,” so Mark asked why.  Paul said “Because back there I get everything I want.”   Readjustments take time.

So far, Paul and I have gone on picture-taking walks and out to care for the chickens, and last night we went out into the meadow and played with Little Sir Echo before we watched the RED (from the smoke) sunset.  We held our breath as the last light went down behind the mountains.  Tomorrow we will count the rings in a tree stump.

~~~

Remember the RLStevenson poem I mention (maybe too often)?  Well … we are in an interesting place right now.  We get up and dress “by golden candlelight” but we still go to bed “by day”.  The sun doesn’t hit the house until nearly 0700 and it is still light at bedtime (2000).  No longer full summer but not yet autumn.

~~~

My herb gathering and prepping has taken a backseat … like so much else.  But the Oregon grapes are nearly ready for jelly.

I am gradually rebuilding patterns and habits and have hopes for the next goround.

~~~

We still have a lot of smoke. There have been times when we can’t see Mt Eddy at the top of the meadow let alone Black Butte and the Mountain.  Fortunately the smoke is grey rather than toxic brown. 

Humidity has remained high.  It’s resembles being in New York when the temperature is 95º and the humidity is 98%.  You sweat and stay wet.  No way you can “glow” like a Lady in this weather.

Want to get something done?  Do it early.

~~~

The rooster’s crow is sounding more like it should and less like a kazoo.  It is a kick to listen to Paul crow at him and hear him answer.  We will begin getting eggs next month.

~~~

… and just a reminder …  

 

There are things we need to say to each other … sans fear.  Do you love someone? Tell them without being prompted.  Do you like their hair or what they’re wearing or something they’ve done?  Ditto.

That’s how you build up the world around you. You affirm. You share.   It means more, so much more, when we directly tell someone that they matter.

Whenever we feel it, we need to share it.

 

Go on.        Do it.        I double dog dare you.

 

So … ‘til  next week …