Fall in the Mother Lode

After a few, intermittent days with showers, and one Big Deluge a couple weeks ago, we got out the chainsaw and went to work on last year’s log pile. Temps breaking into the mid 70’s today, same as yesterday. The dog-lawn has sprung back to life (assisted by some seed and fertilizer), and parts of the hard-pan field have yielded to similar persuasion – and only a few samples of broadleaf/curly dock in sight.

New Growth

Meanwhile the Harley lighting project stalled due to my reluctance and unfamiliarity with EFI and a full gas-tank, so we reverted to the cosmetic alternative (hooded signals and main lamp), and got the bike back together in order simply to ride in this fine weather without scorching heat and oppressive fire smoke…

A Bit Rainy

As some may have heard, we’re getting a bit of rain since yesterday. That being Rain Today: 1.45 inches already at 7:30AM, and Rain Yesterday: 5.49 inches…so, The Lake is back, Yachtsmen get your oars!

An hour later the storm cell has moved on and it is lighter and brighter, and the water is flowing pretty good, right to left and down the creek.

Long-Pants Day

Forty-odd degrees cold this morning at o-dark 6:30 and windy gusting to 16-miles in the afternoon, so the first long-pants day since…April? I forget. It was an awful summer, gladly past but not forgotten.

All the canopies have been removed and stored away for the season, and the umbrellas furled. Also big clouds piling up over the Sierra, and probably more snow. Yesterday we sat in the sun and relaxed, then did yard chores. First a do-over seeding and fertilizing of the Dog Lawn, and also another bare patch out in the field where not even weeds are growing, and finally the “real” lawn beside the house. Inside I patched and sanded a few spots in preparation of The Painters coming, just needs a dab of primer so the new paint takes evenly. A pressure-washer guy is coming Friday to tackle the exterior, and colors have been selected – but with the wholesale disruption of the Supply Chain, even paint may be hard to come by, so we’ll see if there’s additional delays.

Another 0.14” Tonight

54-degrees this morning, the second day that we awoke to a wall of clouds in the East, but coverage more persistent today. After picking up doggie ‘treasures’ I went into the garage and turned off the automatic sprinklers for the season.

Yesterday the weather cleared by noon and we enjoyed lunch with the dog in the outdoor courtyard at Poor Red’s. The air-quality has been excellent, “green” instead of yellow, orange, red, purple or dark magenta — all of which we experienced this Summer during the Fires…

Amazing Grace

Hopefully the rain that started last night around 1:40AM will help with wildfire control, as long as dry-lightning doesn’t start any more! The dog retreated to the garage where it’s dry – but occasional downpours lashed at the house and the field is wet. A good morning for a walk.

Plain Air

Yesterday was pretty good and ended up better, which is to say only Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, but this morning started out that way and has gotten better – so we took the doggie out for a walk since the skies were not all clouded with smoke, and then went to lunch at Poor Red’s. Burger and fries for me, Caesar for my wife – hand-fed nibbles for the white Siberian Husky.

The wiggly-wobbly Dr. Seuss Tree in the distant tree-line, left of center.

Due North is to the Left, South to the right. The windmill is facing West and spinning rapidly, so the wind is headed due-East, towards The Fire. Hopefully it will get pushed up onto granite with little fuel. One local Fireman commentator in the news related that one burn area, a steep canyon below Twin Bridges, was choked with large fallen trees, and there was no record of it burning since 1940 – and actually none prior to that either. That’s 80+ years of accumulated fuels, and in the past 10-year drought, things have been getting dryer and dryer including forest-floor fuels, with a strict moratorium on fuel removal.

Only after the King Fire a couple years ago that burnt down to the bottom of the American River Canyon, and after repeated requests by our Congresscritter, were some avenues opened to allow downed-tree and debris removal, and a higher level of National Forest management. That activity in the last two years probably saved a lot of houses in Pollock, because of all the tree-loss due to bark-beetle infestation and removing that dead wood.

Que Mala

Welcome to California – it’s actually a desert state, more arid than damp, and wholly unlike the “Pacific North-Wet.” Years and years of forestry mismanagement results in this, obvious conclusion. I can’t even see my neighbor’s house across the fence-line, and the AQI is extraordinarily bad. Shelter in place today.

UPDATE: The afternoon brought us easterly winds and the overhead sky improved a lot, and so did the air-quality index, but this pattern is expected to repeat with no rain in sight. I think the doggie suffers the most, but often we can’t keep her inside, she’s always been an outside dog and doesn’t like confinement.

136,643 Acres

Wiggly “Dr. Seuss Tree” off in the distance.

As the sun rose above the tree line this morning, a red rubber ball, behind and to the right of the wiggly “Dr. Seuss Tree,” you could just make out the top of the fire-cloud. Reportedly the West end of the fire near Grizzly Flat, down in the Cosumnes River canyon, has been boxed-in and 12% containment achieved…

Yesterday a mid-day breeze out of the southwest blew away the smoke and our AQI improved vastly by the afternoon, and the same pattern is expected to be repeated through the weekend. But that pattern includes an nighttime cooling wind that allows the smoke to drift down the mountains overnight and bring the AQI down – or up, depending on your perspective.

Finally around 3:30PM with a bit more wind the skies overhead became somewhat more blue than gray, and after another hour and a half the air-quality instruments started showing not-horrible numbers – but by then the doggie was grumpy and played-out from not playing at all, and hardly touched her dinner. This will repeat tomorrow.