Thursday Rant!

Today,  I am reading the front page of our local paper about folks rebuilding homes destroyed in the the fire our town experienced on August 30th.  63 homes were lost and open brush area burned very fast.  Right into town.  On page A5 there is an article about a fire safety online petition having to do with funding of brush reduction on federal land adjoining the city.  Then there is the letter to the editor on page A4 asking the county to please reinstate the chipper service. 

This is a high-risk wild fire area.  We have 3 acres to maintain (which here in the foothills is not huge), however we must clear brush away from our homes for 100 feet (defensible space) or we are in violation of California Department of Forestry and CAL-Fire regulations.  In order to do this, Garth clears what he can with his chainsaw and tractor, then he drags it up to our road making huge piles of brush and tree limbs. The County Chipper Service comes by with a chipping machine that grinds all this up and shoots it back onto our land.  We then compost the chips or use it for mulch.  

If there is no chipper service then we are going to have to try to burn it bit by bit when burn restrictions are lifted.  Now....that sends smoke into the air, no compost or mulch for us and there is built-in risk of creating a wild fire....which is why we have to limb-out and clear our property in the first place creating these huge piles.  We could spray our property so nothing grows....only slightly better that setting the county on fire.



You can see that we have piles on either side of a road that runs through our property nearly 4 feet high!

So....why can't homeowners pay for this service?  We would gladly do so.  Multiply this dilemma by  thousands of homes and properties in Placer County and the result is a catch- 22 that I simply don't understand.  

Our county extends from Lake Tahoe to Sacramento.  Huge and diverse.  Chipper service is not a big deal in downtown Roseville or maybe Tahoe City where the money and political base resides. 

If I end up publishing this post it will be because I can't let it go.  I may send it to the county, the supervisors, the newspaper or maybe God, but this move is about the dumbest thing I have heard since this morning's national news.

Auburn Wildfire

Yesterday, we were packing to spend three days on the coast at  Dancing Coyote Beach

 

We were married there, and love the whole Point Reyes National Seashore area.  We were going to take the kayaks, beach them in front of our cottage, and cool off from this awful heat wave.  Maybe some fresh oysters at Olema or Nick's....mmmmm.  


About 3 pm the sky.......... almost suddenly,  filled with an awful, low black smoke. It looked like a tornado was coming.  Garth took this photo from our backyard.  I went on the net and found out that there was a fire in town.

Then, we lost power (which, for us means  no cordless phone, a/c or water). We do have two corded phones and we received a reverse 911 call invoking mandatory evacuation.  Garth hitched up the trailer, we loaded some clothes, food, homeowner's insurance policy, passports (don't ask), medications, some jewelry, external hard drive, dog and cat food, cat box and Maggie and Missy.    We headed up I-80 and went to Ellen and Steve Johnson's house in Colfax and parked in their driveway ready to spend the night.  They had power, a/c, water....and most of all news!  At around 8:30 or so Garth determined that he was lifting our evacuation notice and we came home.  We started up the generator to get the refrigerator running and have a bit of light.  Power was restored somewhere  around midnight.  It is very hard for us to get our minds around all this. 

Here is where I am going for info. 

 

Now, here is the part that amazes me.  When you leave your home for what might be the last time, what do you take?   I have no idea why I took the passports, but..hey they are small.  On our way out the driveway, Garth stopped and ran back into the house and returned with a bunch of granola bars and a nice Cabernet Sauvignon  (good thinking).  My quilting friend, Elly, packed her new Janome and some quilts.  Since she was under voluntary evacuation, she and John and the pets eventually did not leave.  

What did I learn from all this?  First off, what is important to me:  my husband, my pets, the contents of my hard drive and a handful of jewelry.  Know your neighbors.  We live in the country, so that is almost a given.   Secondly:  You must have a cell phone that receives a signal where you are and a portable radio that can receive a signal.  We found that Garth's brother at Lake Tahoe and friends up in Colfax knew what was happening and we did not.  Had I not looked at the online news for those few minutes before we lost power, we would have been clueless and might have depended on rumor.   Finally:  take photos of items you own that are of value.    We are doing that this very day and will store them on a memory stick and online outside of the house.   Oh, and let's not forget that bottle of wine.

P.S.  By the way, I called to cancel our reservations this morning, and Janet at Dancing Coyote said she would send us a full refund.  That is another of the reasons we love this pretty place on the water.

Smoke, Carrie and Our Friend Marti

We live on one side of a lovely valley, but today it is hard to see across to the opposite ridgeline. The fires in California, especially in the neighboring county, are making their presence known with our air and our valley full of smoke.
The aerodynamics of it all elude me, but it has happened before. But still, when you live in the foothills and wake up at smelling smoke, you know there is wildfire....and you head for Google to see where the incident is located.
Here is the sunset...............and then a view of part of our backyard.
Tomorrow, I go to get my hair cut.....styled, that is. My super special stylist Ms. Carrie, owner of, Hair Productions in Auburn, has offered to let me display some of my totes and bags in her shop! So I am figuring out how to make a little display for large bags that will not take up much space or get in the way.

Now, bad news...We received an email from the correspondence e-fairy at the Auburn Garden Club. Member and friend, Marti and her husband, Paul were in an auto accident. The newspaper....says that their car struck a tree, and then spun out of control, hit an embankment and landed on its roof. This how the first responders found them. He is doing well, but Marti will be in the hospital for some time. They were driving only 40 mph with their seat belts on. Two tons of steel just going just 40 mph can be a scary thing. People, please be careful.