Tag Archives: fire

Citizen of the Year – Day to Day

Estelle Fennell – Citizen of the Year

Last fall we had fires. We also had our intrepid reporter and news manager at KMUD, Estelle Fennel, who 24/7 kept us informed, went into the fire zone, and won great respect for her efforts from CDF and other locals.

Estelle Fennel has been named Citizen of the Year, by a strong vote. There will be a party in her honer on Valentines Day at the Mateel Community Center in Redway.

I am really glad to see this honor go to her. She has been the lifeline through many El Nino storms, keeps a level head and perspective to an often diverse population at odds with each other. She is fair, honest and we, are very lucky to have her.

Day to Day

In other news, Russel got a chest cold on top of what he was already dealing with. He has been home in bed most of the time since last Thursday. Poor baby,
this is so not him.

I have no Holiday Spirit.

We are going to Eureka, if he can make it, tomorrow to buy tires for the Toyota, as they are bald and we need to drive about 200 miles over hill and dale to Sacramento on Saturday to catch our flight to Michigan on Sunday.

Michigan where it was 10 degrees and snowing the last time I looked. brrrr

Give me wet windy 50’s in northern California any time.

I miss working on sites. My host (Hosting Matters) just added some new software within CPanel that is gonna be great to start playing with. I need to redo my www.creationdreams.net site. [Still needs to be done 3/15/2010 !]
And I am still waiting on content for the client site i started almost 2 months ago.
When I return from Michigan, I hope to start in earnest these web projects.

Moving On – Home Improvement

Fire Update…and other stuff

The fires have been contained, although they’re still burning and the smoke is still a major problem.

We finally have an appointment for Russel to see a doctor at the chest clinic at the VA hospital in San Fransisco, Fort Miley. This is on Wed the 8th. Please pray for ‘good news’ and something fixable.

After waiting the whole summer and not getting it done, our builder Alan finally agreed to come out to the land and hook the water up to the house and put in and hook up the propane hot water heater. We rushed out yesterday to get a bathroom vanity and top and faucet, as since he was gonna be there, it seemed prudent to have him put that into place at the same time.

What this means is… we will finally have a flush toilet!!! and hot/cold running water to the shower and a sink in the bathroom. This is really cool. It elevates the time spent there from ‘hi-end’ camping to a low budget motel. 🙂

The timing couldn’t be worse, as we leave Wed and i have to pack Tuesday, but he will be out Monday and Tuesday…and so it goes..

Today we go out and paint the bath room. Russel wanted blue, not my color at all, but we have settled on a pale sky blue for the whole thing and later i will come back with either darker blue accents or maybe deep violets/plums type accents. At this point it just needs to be done before the water is hooked up.

Russel is really not feeling well for most of the time now, so i will mostly be doing this. More later, and maybe pictures this week.

Last week one day i started trying to figure out what photolog package i really wanted to use, Amy’s or Gallery. No time to learn Gallery now, and i think i can make Amy’s guide work without using the tables as layout… if i have any spare non-crunch time i will be working on that.

I Learned how to run and action and batch process in Photoshop5, it’s what i have 🙁 which i needed to do cuz i have lots of folders full of photos and wanted something quick and dirty to get them to size, until i have time to really work the ones i want to keep and frame.

More fires..more waiting is

Well the fires closed down school today.
There was no school on Friday either.
This is because the particulate matter in the air is too great, or so says the Air Quality Control people. Yes it is smokey. Some days worse than others… today wasn’t nearly as bad as yesterday.

They say no school until maybe Thursday. This means no work for Russel, of course.

Just more of waiting is…. 🙁

Waiting is…

‘Waiting Is…’ a coined phrase by an old friend. He taught me a lot about patience, although I still have a lot to learn.

Waiting for the fires to finally burn themselves out. The smoke fills the sky and it is hard to breathe today, as it was on Thursday. We (here in Garberville) did have less smoke on Friday and Saturday, but that just means some one else had it… it all depends on the wind flow.

Waiting for the phone to ring. Still waiting for the appointment for the chest clinic for Russel, who is hurting lots more and coughing more too. I am most concerned about the ‘pain’. It doesn’t hurt for him to do deep breathing (as in yoga breaths), but the pain pressure is always there and at times much stronger. He has been using Vicodin and that is not good as he is not one to use painkillers willy-nilly.

Stress is hurting me. And not being able to walk, (it’s too smokey to even go outside unless you have too), isn’t helping my body much. Waking up with more aches and pains than I went to bed with.

Our mortality is showing. It becomes apparent that one should embrace each day and each interaction with a friend or acquaintance as if it were the last time you may see them. It is sometimes hard to do, in our busy lives. But it is the most fulfilling way to be.

Russel was commenting on this yesterday as we ran into someone we don’t see often. He is feeling his mortality for sure, and that in a way, scares me because it shows me that he is too really worried and that it’s not just me being a worry-wart.

So, as TR used to tell me, ‘Waiting Is..’

Fire

Garberville and all of Southern Humboldt is covered in smoke from the Canoe fire burning on the north coast/King Range/Honeydew area. This is from CDF’s web site:

“Inaccessibility continues to hamper containment efforts along with hot dry weather on the Canoe fire. Fire intensity increased in the late afternoon and evening yesterday expanding the fire to 1,993 acres. The fire crossed the southern containment line along with numerous spots. Additionally, the fire was very active in the northeast portion of the fire. Containment is a concern as the fire expands toward the indirect line under current weather conditions.”

There is now also fear that the fire may start to encroach on human habitats namely – the northern most part of the Salmon Creek area. Voluntary evacuation is now in effect for the folks way up that hill.

I have only lived in So Hum for 12 years, and since then we have not had a fire of this size this close to us. So far we have been lucky in that no buildings have been lost, or lives for that matter.

My heart goes out to those in so many other areas that haven’t been so lucky, to lose all you have worked so hard for in a heartbeat…whether it is fire or water or wind, it just hurts.

By the way..
Autumn Equinox blessings to us one and all.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt