It’s Smoke Season Again

There’s a saying here in the Shasta Valley, that we have four seasons—Fall, Winter, Spring and Smoke. The last few days we are living up to that saying. On July 5th the Klamathon Fire broke out. Pushed by high temps and winds it rapidly consumed a major portion of the town of Hornbrook before breaking out into the surrounding wilderness areas. At one point the fire was about 11 miles away from us and the first night the ominous orange glow of flame lit clouds was easily spotted over the mountain to the north of us. In the last 3 days the CalFire crews have been able to get a line around the southern perimeter of the fire but new evacuations continue to the east and we are about 3.8 miles from the next evac perimeter.

Living in close proximity to a fire has a lot of impacts besides the constant worry—monitoring information channels, worry each time the wind direction shifts. We have 3 fire fighting helicopters bedded down at night in the fields to the north of us. Each evening the copters come back around 8 p.m. for their evening rest. In a way it is comforting to have them here, between us and the fire. At least we know that they would not be parked in harm’s way. A little before 9 they start lifting off for their day of water and retardant dumping.

The town has become the usual fire town, population swollen by the fire crews, trucks and service vehicles. Everywhere you go people shopping for supplies, or in the case of the evacuees, clothes, personal essentials, pet food.

The smoke has been on again, off again. This morning clear and cool enough I could open the windows and cool the house down, listen to bird song. But the air is tinged with the smell of smoke and it looms ominously on the northern horizon.

Hopefully in the next few days the fire crews can make good progress. Right now the fire is at 35,200  acres and only 30% contained. Fingers crossed that we have some good luck with the weather....

I was going to add some images but Google does not recognize my photo album....*sigh*

2018...what?

It has been almost three years since I did anything with this blog. I have to admit I got stuck in the tangley web that is Facebook. At first it seemed so easy. It was all fun and pretty colors and "Liking" stuff, getting "Friends". But the last few months have been a real drag. I've had to opt out of so many groups due to total overwhelm with people who seem to be only focused on info mining with no giving back, or arguing about politics, or why your statements are wrong, or, or, or...then I had Facebook going onto my iPhone photo stream and making cute little slide shows of my photos without my permission. Then increasing numbers of non-sensical ads and videos that would start up without some obvious way to shut them off. Then someone complained that I was using an alias on my Facebook page vs. my real name. That brought out the Facebook police who demanded that I either send them a copy of my driver's license or my passport to prove my identity or they would shut down my page as of January 26th. Well, you can guess how far that got (it's the Tom Petty influence here, I admit). It's just the final straw in a long slow death of the romance. I am still on Instagram which I love because it is so visual, and the captions promote brevity, and no depressing news headlines in your face every time you log on. A lot of my friends are on there as well, so I plan to carry on there. But I'm also going to try to get this blog back on track. I just feel it's a much more intimate way to communicate with people vs. Facebook.

Don't get me wrong, I'm going to miss having the communication with friends and family there and also the ability to easily share photos with my Mom. I'm going to miss all the cool links to recipes, weaving stuff, knitting stuff, and just general cool stuff that I've saved. But I feel like Facebook has been a long, slow suck on my spirit and soul. I feel depleted and overwhelmed by it. I find myself lately, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through my feed trying to find something to catch my interest. I've decided that I have so much more to do with my life...hiking, yoga, reading, weaving, knitting, sketching, time with friends and family...I could, in fact, write an email to someone vs. just a quick blip and a "Like". I could be a lot more productive (although I have been accused of not sleeping). So I'm going to turn away from the whole FOMO mindset that seems to drive Facebook and just spend time nourishing my mind and my practices. It just seems like a good thing to do, and I'm kind of excited about it.