Category Archives: Humboldt

Humboldt County California, SoHum, southern Humboldt County California, happenings in Humboldt

River and Creek Photos 29 Nov – 2 Dec

Humboldt County was hit with several strong storms last week,
Hazardous Weather Outlook and the Storm Reports.

The best thing about these storms was the amount of rainfall.. rivers went from a trickle you could walk across to this.. almost overnight.

Eel River at Alderpoint bridge 29 November 2012, looking upriver:

Eel River at Alderpoint Bridge Nov 29, 2012 - looking upriver

 

Eel River at Redway bridge 2 December 2012 looking upriver:

Eel River at Redway bridge 2 December 2012 looking upriver

 

Redwood Creek in Whittemore Grove near Redway 2 December 2012:

Redwood Creek at Whittemore Grove near Redway 2 December 2012

 

Update

Kym Kemp has posted some great photos of Redwood Creek taken by Kim Sallaway … here.

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SoHumAwareness and spring

Within a few days after this post, with the rains continuing, Humboldt County started slipping and sliding away.

Being a disaster junkie and wanting the latest up to the minute news on whether the road to town was open or not, I spent one Sunday morning, March 27, reading KymKemp.com blog and others, listening to KMUD.org and KHUM.com and checking their websites and twitter feeds, and reading Facebook pages trying to get the most current info.

Frustrated I contacted Kym Kemp, who seemed to have the steadiest flow of current info and asked if she thought a Facebook page where all this info could be compiled in one place was a good idea. She said Yes! And a few hours later I had the SoHum Awareness facebook page created, added both Kym Kemp and Estelle Fennell as admins to keep the content flowing and we were off and running. We had 300 people ‘liking’ the page within 24 hours, and over a 1000 a week later.

No sooner did Briceland Road get a temp repair to one lane, with full photo commentary on that, than the huge slide on Highway 101 happened. The inability to move around our rural area stresses people to the max. Kids at the high school were on one side of the slide and parents on the other..no way for buses to be able to travel the only other road, snowy muddy mountainous ‘local’ roads that unless you live on them, most people have never driven.

This launched the SoHum Awareness facebook page into full throttle, it was 10 days of constant updates and comments on how to get anywhere from here, the conditions of the roads that were available.

And then there was and still is the massive landslide at Dobbyn Creek threatening homes and roads, the landslide in Benbow taking away a persons land, and other slides throughout the county.

We were busy.

And then there were missing persons, accidents, other road closures.

Over the last several weeks I have been pulling the data from SoHum Awareness facebook page and Kym’s blog and other sources into a website that will act as the archive for SoHum Awareness facebook page, as well as a place for those to go who don’t want to go to Facebook for any reason (SoHum Awareness facebook page is a public page anyone can read the content.. you don’t need a facebook account) or don’t want to go to Kym’s blog either, as she has marijuana related articles on there as well as local info.

I have always been ‘into’ disaster preparedness, I look at SoHum Awareness facebook page as the beginning of gathering locals to pay more attention to how fragile our connection with the rest of the world is. We can be cut off in a hurry and for lengths of time. We need more organization around these issues, and I believe this page and website will help further that goal. We are already connected to county roads, CalTrans, Southern Humboldt Technical Response, CalFire, Briceland Volunteer Fire Department, and the list will keep growing. And as always it is the work of the few to benefit the good of the many. I hope to get more locals involved with the different tech systems available to map incidents, to help when things go terribly wrong.

The page is being used daily by local news broadcasters to gather info, (too bad they don’t acknowledge where they pull that info from in their reports).

I hope to have the website for SoHum Awareness facebook page up and live by the end of the month, it all depends on things slowing down so I can catch up to the current news.

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So that is why I haven’t worked on this blog lately or my other websites that I am moving on the WordPress platform.

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salad greens shade house

Shade House for the salad greens!

And then spring was finally here, which meant for me, getting the lettuce / herbs / salad greens beds happening.. and buying starts for everything. Planning the garden and getting it in. We also got a small greenhouse up (one of those steel pole poly types) to get some starts going and to house the early stuff till the weather in the garden is warm enough.

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And tonight maybe Rapture !

 
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Birthday Bliss

My birthday was September 11, hard to believe I just turned 58! I really never thought I would get to be this old.

After many years of not much ‘fun’ for birthdays, this year I really wanted to have some out-of-the-ordinary fun..for me at least. Thankfully I felt good and much of my energy had returned after the months long cough issues.

We started the day going out to Ferndale, coastal farming town for the town-wide yard sale. It was a sunny pleasant day and we wandered, didn’t really find any ‘great flea market finds’ but had a nice time looking.

We did stroll into Abraxas, and a pair of leather boots caught my eye. Ok so your thinking, ‘Oh she likes shoes’, well only in that having ones that fit and are comfortable are hard for me to find. I am a hard foot to fit, always have been and I have been looking for years (yes years) for a pair of flat, leather, booties that are comfortable..and ta da!

I wore these shoes a week later to town for an all day shopping errand day, and felt like I was walking on a cloud. I just love them! And it is a big deal to me, as my other booties are 15 years old and worn out, and the only other shoes that I can even wear are SAS, which are really ugly.

Then we had great pancakes at the Main Street Cafe and then headed to Eureka for a few errands. We drove home through the redwoods along the Avenue of the Giants and stopped for awhile in Founders Grove communing with some big trees.

Then it was on to the Briceland Volunteer Fire Department BBQ & Boogie at Beginnings.

This was an event to raise money for our watersheds local fire department, these are the friends and neighbors who will show up at your place if you have a fire, and it’s all volunteer. So many generations of friends and neighbors were there, good music, good food and more than anything boogie-ing with our neighbors. It was really fun.

So all in all that was one of the best birthdays I have had in a long time. And it was also especially nice in that it was the only ‘summer fun’ I had since I felt better from the ‘cough’.

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Reggae on the River 2010

Even while I was still in the grips of the ‘cough’ we managed to go to Reggae on the River at Benbow, 2 day event put on by Mateel Community Center. It was in the 100s the first day and very hot the next. But we kept a slow pace and had a place for our big chairs under some shade trees. Met up with the usual reggae posse that we often sit by, some wonderful women from up north, it’s always fun to see them.

Joellen Clark Peterson 2010 ROR

Reggae Women

We also met up with old friends and new friends. And it was great to see ROR go to 2 days, sell out, and be irie!

I only had 2-3 coughing fits and didn’t feel any worse for being there, it was great to finally get out and about.

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Michael Franti at Reggae on the River

6 August 2006

Reggae on the River…is in a new location. I had bought tickets for Reggae and Bruce knowing I would miss one or the other. Reggae lost, I was there briefly on Friday before going to the city to see Bruce Cockburn. I didn’t really like the new layout or space, more on that at a later time.

I was fried from the week end and drive home on Sunday, but determined to go see Michael Franti at Reggae. I got to the site about 45 minutes before he came on and stood about 20 feet back from the stage (in the pit) waiting. Although I have been at shows where he has performed in the past, I have never actually ‘seen’ him in daylight… what a treat.

Michael Franti at Reggae on the River 2006
 

(this photo from newspaper so not too good)

The pit filled up with thousands of people, but I still had a good view. Michael is a power-house of energy, jumping, jumping jumping.. and engaging the audience constantly. Spearhead, his backup band is awesome as well. His new cd, Yell Fire has many great songs on it and he performed most of them. I was jumping and grooving and dancing and singing and was surprised I could keep going. But it was so good to see him so close.

And to see my 2 favorite music-poet men in the same weekend was just superb 🙂

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And then the sun came back!

And things are starting to dry up a bit. The road is holding its own for now, but here are a couple of pictures, which really don’t do it justice:

China Creek Road-Blue Slide Creek Road front slide 2006
 

The road is now only half that width, this was taken in the beginning of the storms.

China Creek Road-Blue Slide Creek Road front slide 2006
 

Over the side into the creek a river of mud. This is still moving slowly.

In a brief break ( a few hours) of the rains last month, I boxed up my computer and brought it out to our house. Finally… no more trying to commute to town to work. The road being what it was last month was really the deciding factor. I needed to have access.

I am working on several of my sites right now,
and also a new Flickr account. This will be an ongoing project as I want to move many of the photos I have on my other sites to this account. [ related post ]

Tuesday I have appointments in Eureka, and so we will make the day of it there. It’s been a long time since we went up, and I know we won’t get all the way through our lists.

I have an appointment later in month for the ‘trigger thumb’ problems I am having. The right thumb really hurts in the night and morning. Must get it fixed. Mousing isn’t really good for it and neither is typing. Also have an appointment with and ENT guy because my tonsils and throat are just plain messed up.

Doing the Blockbuster online thing.. it’s ok, their site is very very slow on this dial up. But it’s the only way to get movies now. I hope to get satellite tv and internet this summer and maybe then I will cancel the BB thing.

Been trading a lot of live Bruce Cockburn shows at BC_Live lately. Finally being able to use the computer whenever I want has made that possible. If you are a Bruce fan, go check it out.

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