The McKinney fire, as of Tuesday evening, was 95% contained, and had burned over a total of 60K+ acres. There were a lot of little fires all around which were quickly contained. But the McKinney got nearly all the attention. On one 30 minute local news report, the McKinney got 20 minutes.
Smoke from this fire was blown north along the west side of the Cascades, past Grants Pass almost to Eugene leaving air at moderate to dangerous breathing levels. The direction of the wind meant Dunsmuir, Mt Shasta, Weed, and McCloud were unaffected and our air stayed clear.
Son Mark got a great picture which caught the essence of forest fires in this area. It shows one of the water drop helicopters against the heavy smoke which was turning the sun a fire white with an orange halo.
Further weather info is … here in McCloud temperatures have stayed cool at night with very warm days in Mt Shasta and Weed (in the high 80s to hot as much as 102º)
The cool mornings have meant just a sheet or a light blanket since I open windows for cross ventilation at night.
I’ve had to add one of George’s flannel shirts over a t-shirt for my walkabouts.
I have only a couple of those shirts left so I will keep an eye out for the fall/winter sales and add a couple more to my wardrobe. A tall friend wants some as well since they are long enough to reach the top of our tushes instead of ending on a level with our belly buttons.
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I recently decided to read Christie’s Poirot short stories. Didn’t make it past the first four.
They were written using a repeat plot pattern that got almost claustrophobic. Also, I am so tuned-in to Suchet’s depiction of Poirot, I had trouble seeing the little Belgian described by Christie.
Predictable repeating plot lines was the reason I quit reading Stephen King.
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Does anyone remember Mort Sahl?
He was often labeled a comedian because people (including himself) laughed at his not-so-subtle put-downs of actions of anyone famous, or infamous, enough to get their face and/or story in the newspapers of the day. And there were a lot of newspapers belonging to lots of people in those days and not as today when strings of newspapers (?) are owned by a single conglomerate with a single opinion.
He dressed casually, neither outrageous or corporate approved. Usually what in those days we called tennis shoes or loafers, chinos, a white shirt with an open button down collar, and a pullover sweater. He would walk on stage, whether big or small, with a folded newspaper of the day in his hand and begin commenting on what had been reported that day (or the past few days).
No one was spared. He and all of us laughed at entertainment people, athletes, politicians … anyone and everyone was fair game. All presented with an attitude of can-you-believe-this? without profanity or innuendo.
When he nodded and left the stage after a performance which had been a bit to the left, more suggested rather than in-your-face, so you always went home feeling instructed as well as entertained.
Of course, there is no longer any place for that kind of reporting, commentary, or comedy.
Too bad.
I miss Mort Sahl as well as the Smothers Brothers and Bob Newhart and Shelly Berman and others.
I can no longer recall Mort’s closing line, but I’m sure it was something like “Keep laughing.”
Oh well …
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The woman who lived here before me was, or seemed to be, enamored with the colour yellow. Her front yard was filled with it. All the way from small, close to the ground yellow to tall in-your-face sunflowers.
I have always been the kind of person who tends toward subdued blues and soft purples with a touch of crimson here and there .
Guess what I’ll be planting next spring … starting with more lilacs, another butterfly bush, and some bee and hummer attracting plants. I already have some shades-of-blue iris, given me by son Michael before he died, spotted around.
I have been weeding as vigorously as I am able (I started to say “can” rather than “am able” then I could hear my Grandmother saying “You can if you’re able”) so … as I am able from a sitting position on the garden seat/kneeler I bought for myself.
I left all the garden tools I had been using (for the new owners) when I left the farm as they are no longer usable by the new me. I plan to take (or have one of my sons take me) to get a new set of weed pullers, a hula hoe, a rake, etc. so I can garden at my new pace and positions.
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On to more discovered doppelgangers.
In sorting and identifying old pictures, I came across one of members of the University of Illinois chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, which I believe to have been the women’s journalism society, taken at the University of Wisconsin in April of 1930 when Susan Shaffer was a member.
Not only was I able to identify George’s mother (she was a student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) but I also found women who resembled my mother, me, and a friend of George’s and mine from our stay in New Mexico the summer after we were married.
Interesting.
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I have been an off and on fan of the PBS series called “Secrets of the Dead” which deals mainly with archeological findings from exploratory digs. I am able to access all of that series via PBS Passport.
The one I recently watched dealt with the truth vs myth question concerning King Arthur.
King Arthur has been an interest of mine from the days of Tennysons’s Idylls of the King. That interest was fed by my trip to Cornwall back in 1994 when I had the good fortune to take tea at his home with Geoffrey Ashe who was the go-to authority at that time for all things Arthur.
I was on a tour with five other women and Geoffrey was tour guide for part of that tour. He showed us the possible sites of Camelot and Arthur’s grave (in the ruins of the Glastonbury Cathedral) among other guesses based more on hope than on truth as far as it went at that time.
I have since learned there was a strong ruler in Cornwall where ruins of whose “castle” is probably among those being unearthed on the island at Tintagel. Those digs seem to indicate a wealthy “ruler’ and the scholarly guess is that wealth, accrued during the Dark Ages, was the result of commercial connections with sea access to areas to the south now known as parts of France, the Pacific ocean facing coast of Spain, and all the Mediterranean sea countries. The trading commodity was tin.
While eastern Britain progressed after the departure of the Romans by becoming owners of land establishing themselves as farmers and husbanding cattle and goats and other food animals, the western part of the island (mainly the southwestern part) prospered by trading their tin needed for the production of bronze. That trade made it possible for a strong ruler and his people to prosper without farming or hunting.
This Secret of the Dead made a lot of sense even if the mythology is more magical and romantic.
Geoffrey also taught me how those cathedral walls could be made so thick without oodles of large flat stones and why some gates were called “kissing” gates.
I wish I were able to make a return visit to Glastonbury and Cornwall and had a chance to join Geoffrey for another cuppa and a talk.
He died last January just short of 100.
I wonder what he would have to say about the new finds and what they appear to say about the legend.
There was also a book written recently advancing the theory that Uther Pendragon was a clan leader in the northern border area who united the Scottish clans to protect the lands north of Hadrian’s Wall, while at the same time the AngloSaxons, whose bones indicate they that interbred with the indigenous Britons, became a settled people.
The likelihood, based on archeological finds all over southeastern Britain, is there never was a real war requiring a “British” King known in legend as a Great Warrior King.
Oh well … so much for magical, romantic dreams.
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Another does-anyone-remember-this conversation starter.
Anyone remember when the place you go for gas became rather than a service station where you went to get gas (which was pumped for you) and they would clean your windows, as well as check tire pressure, the water level in the radiator, oil level, and a plethora of other services like sweeping out the back of the pick-up became simply a gas station where you buy gas and have to pay for the air for your tires?
I do.
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A demonstration of real cooperation and kindness was recently seen when the young people of the Jackson Country Oregon Future Farmers of America offered their county fair stock area to the FFA young people of Siskiyou County as a place to show their animals for judging and hold the sale of their stock.
The Jackson County fair had been held just a week or so ahead of the scheduled Siskiyou County Fair which was canceled this year due to the McKinney, and many other fires, causing mass evacuations in Siskiyou County and the fairgrounds used as relocation areas.
It is the money raised by the sale of those animals which FFA kids, regardless of County, rely on to continue raising animals and also put some funds aside for further education.
Without the kindness of their Jackson County counterparts, Siskiyou County kids would have gone without this year.
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I was able to get the BeeBalm repotted. Poor thing had begun to show a touch of despair.
I hope to be able to get the site for the new Butterfly Bush ready for transfer to its new place where it can cut the glare from the neighbor’s white fence which is a bother for my west facing windows during afternoons.
If I can get the weeds cleared, I’m sure John can help with the transplant.
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There are at least thirteen tomatoes set on the two Krim bushes which were given to me by Mark. They are from little fingernail size or a bit smaller to a couple table sized one of which is starting to change colour.
Still nothing showing on the White/yellow.
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For all you lovers of a good scare … yesterday was National Roller Coaster Day !!!
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I recently read this on Facebook …
Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no.
Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery.
Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.
We are at our best when we serve others.
Think about it.
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Now to end the week …
None of us are immune to life’s changes. How we move through them is what defines us.
Choose to be grateful, no matter what.
So, ‘til next week …