Weaver's Web

Life has been in tumult. We’re driving forward with our move to our old property at the River from the place we purchased at the Lake. We were unable to sell the River house, largely due to the road that Mother Nature took out with a landslide back in February 2017 and that the county never did a proper permanent repair on. The road was open, but frightening if we have a further slip. Lowball offers were not things we were willing to consider.

Anyway with the two places less than 2 hours apart we’re doing the bulk of the move ourselves, one carload at a time. Gives me a chance to sort, and do a Marie Kondo, not that divestiture is my strong suit. Today I’ll be sorting through footware and by the weekend listing stuff on eBay. Note, we’re leaving a rare amount of things at the Lake to stage it for sale.

In the midst of all this there were wildfires here in Northern California that had us evacuated out of the River House back to the Lake, a 6 day preventative power outage PG&E instituted to prevent wildfires (not that it worked; the Kincaid fire appears likely to have been sparked by a power line they didn’t turn off. Ungh.) & on top of all of it my 11 yo husky cross was diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery. The days are running into each other and I’m not fully sure which way is up.

Our evacuation order got lifted Wednesday evening & we got power back at both the Lake and the River within hours of each other. I returned to Sonoma Thursday morning, car filled with the contents of the fridge and freezer (very well traveled groceries- they left with us when we evacuated,) and the dog across the back seat. I got to the vet in Sebastopol at 8:30am after a 2 hour drive. Despite having walked before we left and the moment we got out of the car, he decided to take a dump at the bottom of the Vet’s stairs, thus making clear what he thought about the situation.

Though I promised myself I would keep it together, I choked up chatting with the vet pre-op. She did her b st to be reassuring without sugar coating. The good news it’s a rule of tumor that tends to spread locally and can be aggressive locally, but does not tend to metastasize distantly. Then I drove back to the River house.

Over 2 & a 1/2 years the road has gone without its permanent repair. What did I find when I got the the slide site? Road crews. Earth moving equipment. Piles of steel I beams. And the road blocked 1/4 mike away from my driveway. Really? You’re doing this right now? This will be our new normal WHILE we’re now in the process of moving back. Weekdays until the end of the year, the road will be blocked for the majority of the day, 7am thru 5:30pm. Trash will not be picked up. Mail will now be delivered. I pulled back 10 yards, parked and started carrying things to the house. When I got back for my second trip, after putting 55 lbs of frozen food away, the crew moved things out of the way for me and broke for lunch.

At 6, I drove out to get Arjuna. Poor pooch was stoned out of his gourd. He’d been given 2 mg of Dilaudid for pain post operatively and was awake, but far from steady on his feet. There was good news; the sarcoma which had grown disturbingly quickly in the past few months, was infected. Yes there was a cancer, but infection and pus were behind a good portion of the apparent size of the mass. It’s been cleaned out and antibiotics should take care of the rest. I bring him back for a wound check Thursday. Till then he’s bandaged paw to shoulder and wearing the cone of shame.

All this upheaval has made for a good calorie burn for me. I dropped 20 pounds between the end of June and the beginning of October, I’m now down another 7. With luck it will be between 30 & 35 by Thanksgiving. I dearly would like to be south of 250 by New Years. We shall see. Ultimately, I hope to be at 200 by blthis time next year.

No, I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth. Life sometimes just happens.

Fire season is upon us and I have had to cast a very steely eye on my property, looking for all the things I need to do to reduce the fire risk here. We’ve already had three sizable fires in this county this season. Thank God none of them have been right here. With an acre and a half, there’s a lot of things to do, not just to make them look pretty, but to reduce chances of us becoming crispy critters.

Natures simply happens here in the country. When water is plentiful in Spring, everything comes to life. Bulbs dormant in the ground awaken and annuals mowed down the previous year once again poke their heads through the ground. Sadly, the drought of the last decade has taken it’s toll on some of the trees; I’ve had to take three down that had given up the ghost in the past year. Left standing they were not only unsightly, they were dangerous.

I know by now this sounds like a broken record, but that I find myself actually doing significant gardening and landscaping, still throws me for a loop. A tree may have grown in Brooklyn, but it certainly wasn’t in my neighborhood.

There has been drama to deal with. Our neighbor across the street stopped taking his psychiatric meds three or four months & with a not so surprising deterioration there after. His live in girlfriend of over 30 years has alternately said he’s bipolar, while at other times she calls him schizophrenic. Not being his psychiatrist (or even a psychiatrist), I’m uncertain of his true diagnosis, but I’m equally clear that something needs to be done, particularly true given the events of last weekend, and her recent admission to me. She’s afraid of him.

Shortly after 4 o’clock Sunday morning, the dog awakened us barking furiously at something outside. We then heard the sounds of trash cans being overturned. We thought raccoons at work, or maybe even a bear. What ever it was, Arjuna refused to come in off of the patio deck. After five minutes, I poked my head out from the bedroom to check on him, only to see flames leaping up in front of our garage. I screamed for LJ, who was instantly out the front door in nothing more than a pair of bedroom slippers. He grabbed the hose at the side of the garage, while I ran for my phone to call 911. I threw on a pair of shorts and flip flops, grabbed my flashlight, and was out to join him. By the time I got there the flames were already out, our recycling bin having been reduced to a pile of molten blue plastic. All our other bins had been overturned, and two of the pails filled with dead wood had been completely emptied, the pails several feet away from their former contents. The trash bin was on its side, but the garbage bags had not been ripped open, as one might expect, had a bear or raccoon attacked it. What animal would open a recycling bin, not overturn it, but instead set it on fire?

A fire truck arrived 15 minutes after we got the flames out, not bad response time for a place this far out in the country. I’d already called 911 again to tell them we’d gotten the flames out, but they said a small group of responders would be there anyway. It was indeed small – one small fire truck and only one fireman. After checking the scene out, he was confident we’d gotten things extinguished completely, and confirmed he too thought the fire suspicious.

By 4:50, he was on his way. Shortly after he’d driven off, we heard crashing noises and loud music coming from the neighbors’ place. Their home sits behind a tall stone wall and a tall wooden gate so normally visibility is limited. Seeing their front gate open, we ventured into the yard. We called their names, but got no response. In the early morning light, we saw all their doors open, every spigot on the yard running at full force, and several pieces of broken pottery and overturned furniture just outside the house. We called 911 to come do a welfare check.

The sheriffs deputies showed up 15 minutes later. I stayed by my front gate waiting while they entered the property across the street. What they found inside was a house completely trashed. Furniture was overturned everywhere, most things fragile had been smashed, and every last faucet was running at full force, all of the sinks & the bathtub plugged closed.

After searching the neighborhood for 30 minutes they finally found our neighbor just outside the fence at the far side of our property, disheveled, belligerent and neither particularly cooperative nor coherent. They had to tazer him to subdue him. 15 minutes later they drove off with him to the hospital for a medical clearance, before taking him to the county jail....

And this is where I left off two weeks ago, when I started this entry. Shortly thereafter life got exciting.

The neighbor’s first arraignment was the Tuesday after he was arrested. His girlfriend, his sister and her boyfriend & I all went and were able to speak with the public defender. The upshot was the Assistant DA & the public defender were able to make it clear to the judge that there were some serious mental health issues in play; the neighbor himself made it clear that he’s not playing with a full deck, as the judge questioned him. Standard bail for what he was charged with (resisting a peace officer) is 5K; his was set at 25K. We all breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He was going nowhere that day other than back to jail, leaving time for his gf to get a stay away restraining order, and with luck, start the process to get him mandated into some sort of psychiatric care.

I returned home and decided to check the full outside perimeter of our property for fire risk. I was not happy with what I found. I rarely go around to the north end of the property on Cliff. It’s out of the view of the house, so I was unaware of the swath of bone dry brush along that side of our homestead. For months I’ve been focusing on a circle of 100 feet around the house, so called defensible space during fire season. Finding 300 or so feet of bone dry brush, six to seven feet wide, between our fence and the dirt road was sobering. All it would take was one carelessly flicked cigarette or one dragging tailpipe sending sparks and we’d be in for one hell of a bonfire. Have I mentioned this is on the downhill side of our land?

Not acceptable. I started work in earnest the next morning, but in 100 degree July heat and tackling this by myself, the going was not fast. I’d gotten about a third of it done by Friday, the day the Mendocino Complex Fires began. Little did I know then, this fire would see us evacuated by midday the following Monday and would ultimately grow to be the largest fire acreage wise in recorded California history. Fortunately for us, the southernmost tip of the fire got no closer that 10 miles from here; the firefighters, bless every last one of them, were especially effective on our side of the fire. We were home in just 2 days.

When Lakeport was evacuated Sunday afternoon, the fire having powered its way over the mountain from Mendocino where it started 48 hours earlier, we packed the cars, to be ready to leave if we had to. Lakeport is 20 miles northwest of us. Monday morning my husband decided to head with the dog to our old place in Guerneville. He hates bumper to bumper traffic with a passion and the idea of evacuation emergently with the dog left him cold. I had a dental appointment for a cleaning, also in Guerneville, and so we were both heading there. I anticipated returning, planning to bring a friend we’d hired to help me attack the brush. I was at the dentist when the mandatory evacuation was ordered for Kelseyville, with an advisory evacuation extending south to our neighborhood.

I drove to our old place, unloaded my car and headed back to our current homestead to take all the artwork from the walls and get them to safety. I also needed to turn off the propane to the house, water the potted plants and move them out of the direct sun, to give them a chance to survive the triple digit heat, assuming our place didn’t burn. I know in retrospect that sounds stupidly foolhardy. Honestly, with our property going right to the water, and with the house having been there for almost a century without a fire, I felt our place likely not to burn, and amen, this time I was right.

I got to the house at 6 sharp, in time to see many of our neighbors clearing out for safety, though not all. Taking the blankets from our bed and most of our towels, two at a time, framed art came off the walls and we’re carried out to the car, & layered carefully in my he boot, until I could put no more in. I shut the gas, moved the plants, packed up some food to take and was about to leave when LJ called. “Take the coffeemaker! And the grinder! And some dark roast!” The man has his priorities.

I drove to Santa Rosa, to friends who’s home survived the fires there last fall, one of only two to survive in their subdivision. Lightning not likely to strike twice there, right? With pretty much all the fuel gone from around their home, what place could be safer? Besides, they have a large finished basement with room to store our art safely. Our framed marriage certificate, the one they had both signed at our wedding 10 years ago, was amongst the things I was unwilling to part with. I finally got to our place in Guerneville at almost midnight, got the food into the fridge & crawled into bed onto the air mattress next to LJ.

Wednesday afternoon the evacuation was lifted for us, and I came home, bringing Patrick with me. We’ve been working daily to cut back brush all over the property, the first thing we hit was the brush along Cliff, polishing that off in a day. We managed to fill to the brim the green waste bins of not just our place, but three of the neighbors who hadn’t returned by Sunday night. It gets picked up early every Monday here. On top of that, there have been trips to the green waste section of the county dump at least daily and often twice, 200-240 lbs of yard waste every trip. My sense is we’ve moved somewhere between a ton and a half to two tons out of here in the 8 days since we returned.

The air quality has been awful for most of that time. Finally this afternoon it has cleared dramatically. I’m grateful; I’m getting tired of using the N95 masks. Meanwhile, the fire burns on, but graciously is moving away from us. It’s moving to the east and has entered the Central Valley, over 60 miles from where it began in Mendocino, just east of 101.

..it just hasn’t been here.

It’s been surreal here. At times I’ve been calm enough, the denial of the risk in simply being here strong enough and then once the conditions change, better very locally, but so bad not so distantly, that patina of calm cracks wide.

I live in the wine country of Northern California. It dawned on me half an hour ago many who follow me know I live here & just as likely know about the wildfires rampant here.

For those who don’t, Monday night there were abnormally high and bone dry winds which sparked fires in multiple locations almost spontaneously. We’re near the end of the long dry season so there is much fodder for fire. While it’s not yet determined, fallen power lines seem a real possibility, if not likelihood. Within hours one had spread into heavily populated areas of Santa Rosa; within 24 hours it destroyed almost 3000 homes.

Locally a blaze began on the other side of the page from us. It was pretty much restricted successfully to a peninsula that’s juts into the lake. Folks got evacuated in the middle of th night from the north end of the city of Clearlake. We took a family we knew in, a young couple and their 3 year old. The following morning when we awoke there was so much smoke that we could not see the lake. I have lakefront property. Well, the local fire got contained & they were able to return home after 3 days.

Meanwhile things almost everywhere else is having less success than we. The
Fires have spread dramatically and two of the better exits from this county drop right into areas already facing mandatory evacuation. In short, not an option. That realization truly shook me.

While there is no need to evacuate now I feel pressed to be ready. There is now 2 weeks of clothing in the boot of my car, small valuables and sentimentals I am unwilling to lose, & necessities like the computer. It’s sobering walking through your home an asking yourself what comes with you. Mañana I’ll put some dog food & a bowl for him. Mandatory winnowing. It’s a valuable exercise and not unexpectedly a painful one. After packing I spent the bulk of my day expanding the defensible space around the house and garage.

As I write, strong winds are forecast to strike the area tonight and tomorrow. Fingers crossed tightly this is not a repeat of Monday.