The Source of all that Ash and Smoke

I found out from friends that this was the really local Redlands fire. It is I think technically "San Bernardino County," but it is about a mile from my house, right where I walk all the time. The top of my street runs into Sunset. This is on Edgemont, which is one street over parallel to Sunset. This view is of San Timoteo Canyon, I believe, which is a relatively common fire area. There is not a huge amount of fuel in comparison to the forested mountains, but still too much for my comfort, thank you very much. The top pic has the leftmost part blackened from the fire--that's not "shadow," that's scorched earth. The next pic has the foreground showing the fuel that burns, the middle with some gray burned area, and some jet black going right up to the green planted area right next to the large home. Pretty scary. The next pic is not burned at all, but just shows the natural scrubby vegetation that is very dry this time of year...and the homes built right next to the tinderbox of the canyon. The last pic looks like a moonscape...burned canyon. Thankfully down the street from us is a fire station!!!

Local Fires

I got a phone call from my cousin Rose in Virginia: "Are you ok?" You too may have heard on the news about the merging of two large fires in southern California--Yucca Valley and San Bernardino National Forest. CNN.com has the story with lots of pix and scientific info on wildfires. Besides earthquakes, that's our local natural disaster. Our last big one was in 2003. At that time at night our binoculars gave us a bird's eye view of the licking flames covering the mountains going from left to right over our whole view. Another year before 1997 we could see the scooper planes on TV and then go outside and see them in the sky. The creepiest time we could actually walk to a part in the canyon behind us where you could see flames with the naked eye. Fire that close to us is very unusual. The fires we have now are unfortunately very common.

Anyway we were pretty unaffected this time so far until I went outside to walk this morning and smelled and saw the smoke. Yikes! The haze you see in the pictures is not fog or smog, that's smoke. The ash is very unusual. We've not seen that before with other fires. It's over EVERYTHING. We will have an annoying cleanup when we're done. I shouldn't complain, in comparison to the folks evacuating or losing their homes.

I've read that the Yucca Valley fires have Joshua Trees burning. Those are very special desert succulents that only grow in a few places including that area, Lancaster where we lived when we were first married, and the Middle East ( speaking of another "hot spot").

In the SB Forest, the well known bark beetle infestation killing trees which become giant matchsticks is the big problem. It costs individual landowners $1000 per tree to get one removed. It's not unusual to spend $20,000 as a single homeowner. Then there's all the public land that's not been cleared of infested trees.

News Flash!!!!!

Elena rolled over today!! Back to front at ONLY four months old, I'll have you know!!! Of course, advanced gross motor skills are no guarantee of advanced intelligence, but don't bother me with that fact right now!! AND she's playing with her special patting toy on her blankie while on her tummy!! Ok, I'll calm down now and go back to work. The countdown is now 14 days till the next Nonna-Elena encounter.

Pictures Don't Lie??

The first shot is Lee's custom made bike the day BEFORE his 50 mile ride on the Santa Ana trail to Huntington Beach. The second one is the really deceiving one. He just had crashed, breaking four, yes, folks, count'em, FOUR ribs. He is not smiling because he is just barely managing on pain meds, of course, the chef extraordinaire undaunted. Since then neither of us is doing very well. He's making a slow but steady recovery.

I do not have any pix to go with my story, thank God. I'm having a renewed siege of migraines. I'm back on Topamax, and I'm very slowly trying to get to a therapeutic dose so I can habituate to the sleepiness. After 12 headaches in June and a full week non stop so far in July it seemed like the right thing to do. I'm due again for Botox, so I'm hoping between the two it will abate. I am really trying to figure out what God is trying to tell me. I know for sure I am thankful for each day, no, each minute of every hour that I don't have a headache.

More Elena Pix

Here she is, such a big girl, going to be four months old on Monday. Next pic is a wonderful shot of her with Erich. "Daddy's little girl" Last one is a classic pensive look that I would expect coming from any progeny of this brainy couple. (Ok, I'm allowed to brag now that I have official grammy status.) We will all get together in 16 days in Ensenada, but who's counting?