Colliemom wrote: Dryer is an old Roper and takes forever in a day to dry stuff.
You all have a nice day, keep cool out there in the dreadful heat and hopefully nobody within range of the fires.
Good morning all.
I don't usually post here, but now that I'm on vacation and have a bit of time I'll say hello.
First, Sue, you might want to check your dryer vent. Your clothes might not be drying because the vent's clogged with lint (don't ask how I know ...)
Second, those fires are in my backyard. Here's a picture of the "Fish Fire" about 15 minutes after it started -- it's probably 3 miles west, as the crow flies. They're thinking that it was intentionally started.
This is a little closer -- probably about a mile, and later in the afternoon. The temps were about 110* on Monday. Not a fun day.
And this is what they first called the Reservoir Fire -- up in the canyon behind me, probably 5 miles north. This one started when someone drove off the road and their car caught fire.
Both fires have merged, and they're calling it the San Gabriel Event now. This is what it looked like late afternoon on Monday. I'm standing right in front of my house:
Voluntary evacuations were called mid-afternoon on Monday, but most of us on our street stayed. We were never in any danger, but because of the 2 fires being relatively close to us and each other, the authorities didn't want to take any chances. The fire we had 2 years ago was much scarier, and I did leave for 36 hours for that one.
And this is what I've seen the past two nights. There's a spot at the top of the hills that haven't burned in close to 20 years. They can't reach it except by air, so it's been hard to fight after the sun goes down.
Surprisingly, the smoke hasn't been bad here -- it's traveling away from us, as is the fire. This morning I woke up to temps in the low 70s/high 60s, and could open the house up for a bit. The fire is moving away from me, but is only about 10% contained. Everything closeby -- all the hills you see in the pictures -- don't have much old growth, so there isn't anything to burn. That's good.
So that's been part of the "fun" around here. The other part has been Mr. Jed. For the past week he's been throwing up. Not non-stop, but enough to be worrisome. Well, things finally came to a head on Saturday and I took him to the vet. Long story short, after an ultrasound of his GI, the vet is seeing a "not normal" stomach. Without opening him up and doing a biopsy we won't know if he's got an infection & majorly irritated stomach or it's cancer. We're going to treat him as if it's an infection & see how he responds. He's on antibiotics and a special diet, and so far, so good. If he begins throwing up, we'll know it's something else & I'll treat the symptoms until that doesn't work anymore. I'm not going to put him through invasive surgery -- he's 10 years old -- just to be told it's cancer & they can't do anything. So we're taking a day at a time, and he's happy. Me ... it's hard. We're leaving on July 6 for a month on the road. He's coming, of course.
This is him as we're heading home from the vet:
So, that's life around here. I'm hoping for some blissfully boring days ahead.