We Saw Blue Sky!

There are fewer active fires burning across Northern California and we've had much milder weather for a couple of days, so we had much less smoke in the air this morning. The long range visibility was still a little hazy, but it was so much nicer to actually see blue sky above. This afternoon though, the sky has the gray-brown cast to it again. I guess the wind changed again. If you look at the Satellite image below from the MODIS Rapid Response website (This one is dated 6/29, there are no newer ones yet and there won't be a newer one until the satellite goes over this part of the country again.) you can see a lot fewer red spots that indicate active burning. Thank goodness!


The map below came from the MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program on one of the US Forest Service websites. I've reduced the size of it for posting purposes, but if you click here you can get to the full sized and most recent map. Otherwise, just click on the map below and take a look.

According to Cal Fire, the total number of active fires has gone down, but some of that reduction is due to the merging of some of the smaller fires that had been started by the lightning event over a week ago. Hopefully the firefighters can get containment on the rest of the fires soon (And have no new fires start!) so those poor exhausted people can get some much needed rest.

Mike, my landlord who lives next door, and I took advantage of the clearer air this morning and yesterday morning. We now can walk under the trees! He got his chainsaw out and did some trimming on the low hanging branches of the trees between the houses. He also climbed up on the roofs of both houses and trimmed off the branches that had been brushing against the shingles. What a mess. He did the trimming while his girlfriend Kathy and I piled stuff into his little "truck bed" trailer. Two trailer loads of trimmings gone and most of the rest of the debris all cleaned up and hauled off. It looks much nicer between the two houses now, but we're all pretty wiped out. I think I'll go fix a nice tall glass of iced tea.... And then maybe soak a while in a bathtub full of hot water.. lol

Trampoline Fun Anyone?

I found an unusual video this morning. I doubt if you'd see a wild fox "playing" on a trampoline very often. The copy of it on YouTube was uploaded about 2 years ago, but I'd never seen it until this morning. He (or she!) looks like it's enjoying that bouncy place very much! lol...


On to other stuff, the cherries that I posted about on Sunday are about half gone now. The birds have found the tree and are having a ball stealing the cherries. My cats seem to enjoy watching the birds in that tree.. They will sit on a table that is near the back fence where the tree is and just watch the birds fly through. Of course, the birds seem to enjoy dive bombing my cats too. My next door neighbor's girlfriend had a good time with a ladder and a huge zip lock bag next to the fence. She's taking a gallon or so of the cherries to her daughter's when she goes for a visit later today. And, yes, I've been picking them too. They're yummy!

Speaking of "dive bombing" birds. Yesterday I was watching my 4 year old grandson blowing bubbles in the front yard and a pair of humming birds actually dive bombed him! I wish I'd had my camera with me because the look on my grandson's face was priceless! I have no clue why the birds did it. I don't think we were near a nest or anything! Maybe they were just trying to communicate to us that it was time to refill the humming bird feeders?

Today is May 7th. That means 9 more days until Mario Lozano finds out how long he gets to stay in prison for killing Kacie Barron.

Kacie's Ride for Hope is on for this year. The ride will be September 13th this year and the flyer is Here. (It's a pdf file, so it may take a moment or two to load.) Kacie's brother Pat has a page up about this year's ride: Kacie's Ride For Hope 2008. The web page says they are gearing up for this year's ride, looking for donations of cash or raffle prizes. Last year's ride enabled Pat and the rest of the supporters to donate $7,525.00 to the El Dorado Women's Center in Kacie's memory! They're hoping to top that amount this year. I hope they do it! They've also added a page of pictures from last year's ride; 2007 Kacie's Ride Photos. I spotted my brother in one of the shots! lol...

Yardwork........ Ouch

Ok, I'm admitting I'm getting old now. At least I am admitting it today. Yesterday my internet went down for a while, so I thought I'd go out in the yard to do a little clean-up in the yard. First of all, I'll explain what I've got here. I'm renting a house. It's a cute little house that was totally abused by the young family that rented it before I did. I moved in two years ago and the yard was a complete disaster. The renters before me did virtually nothing to the yard. Including mowing and stuff unless they absolutely had to. My landlord, Mike, who lives next door gave me complete free reign with the yard. In other words, I can do whatever I want with the yard.

Since moving here, I've planted some trees. A fruitless mulberry for shade on the front of the house. Another tree that was given to me by my Dad who called it a "Harry Lauder Walking Stick" tree. And an apple tree. All in the front yard and they're doing very well. I've also added some roses and other flowering plants in the front. Along the south side of the house is a flower bed that was just weeds when I moved in. There's an olive tree, some flowering quince, a couple old climbing roses and lots of other things that I haven't really identified yet. The olive tree is kind of interesting looking. It has a grape vine from the vacant house next door climbing up over the top of it. It has some of the climbing roses blooming up in the top. And there's a wisteria vine, also from the vacant house, weaving through it. About all I've done with the olive tree so far is trim off some of the low hanging limbs so that we can walk under it without bashing our heads. There were some white iris' growing partially in the thicket of flowering quince and I dug them up last summer and moved them to the flower bed between the house and the sidewalk where they're blooming for the first time since I moved in. I didn't know they were white iris until this spring!

Anyway, back to yesterday. When my internet went out, I went across the street to see if my daughter's internet had gone down too. We're both on a wireless broadband for access and if both of us are down, then it's our provider thats messing up, not our individual connections. They were down too. So I thought it would be a good time to do some weeding and such. My son-in-law was planning on mowing our lawns, theirs as well as mine. My 4 year old grandson, Devin, heard me say something about pulling weeds, so he announced that he was going to help me.

So Devin and I started pulling weeds near the gate and worked our way towards the house. (Devin is a pretty good helper! I pulled, he gathered the pulled weeds and carried them out to the burn pile!) We moved to the back of the house where there were some really tall weeds along the edge of the yard near my landlord's garage and the back fence, and we started pulling up stuff there. Now there was also this ugly pile of old siding, junk wood, pipes and other crud piled up against the back fence that's been there for years... While Devin and I were taking a little break while Robert (my son-in-law) was mowing and using his super-duper weed-eater on the tougher stuff that my little electric weed-eater won't chop, Mike's girlfriend, Kathy, came over and chatted a bit. She volunteered to help me move that pile of crud to a less visible area on the north side of the house. It took us a while, but the crud has been moved. The wood was mostly rotten so it took a bit to get it moved... In pieces.. lol... That corner of the yard looks a lot better now... You can see the dark line along the bottom of the fence where all that wood was piled for so long.


But... Today, I'm feeling pain in just about every muscle in my arms and legs. I imagine Kathy is too. Devin isn't, I'll bet... 4 year olds don't wear out like us "old folks"... lol.. I'm going to try to do some more work over in that corner of the yard today. That end of the yard is a "high" spot. My plan is to dig it up and rake the dirt down into the low spots that are usually small lakes when it rains. Who knows how long I'll be able to work on it today... I hurt! And I feel old this morning... lol.. Maybe I'll do an easier job today... Like wiring the supports of my shade structure back together that the wind tore up when we had that windstorm in January. I'd like to have shade over my porch swings again when it gets hot......