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| Clouds to the west on Sunday. |
Friday 8/9. I am quite sure I have figured out my sinus and sore throat problem - air conditioning. Whenever I am in an air conditioned space more than one day at a time, I have this problem. This is why I was feeling so badly when we arrived home from our trip to Maryland. Everywhere we went was air conditioned. After we returned and the adrenaline from the trip subsided, it took more than a week to recover. This past week I had gone shopping on Monday, then sat in the dentists office on Tuesday for a couple hours. All air conditioned. I will just have to be more diligent about my forays into Down There.
My apologies to Larry. It seems my assessment of the status of the canyon road after Monday's storm was faulty. It actually took him nine hours on his tractor to fix the mile of the road from his house to the pavement, as opposed to four hours from the last major storm. . . Bless him and his tractor!
Great new issue of "Farm Show". There seem to be more items for regular country folk and not just farmers.
We fixed the bottom of the liner of the tipi. It has been up for more than two years now and the critters have chewed up the cotton rope for nesting. We are using nylon rope this time.
The temperature got up to 80 today. I can't believe I was out working in this kind of heat when JB was in Seattle! Way too hot.
Dry lightening began flashing across the sky about 10:45 pm. That has to be about the eeriest one of nature's events I have ever witnessed. Reminiscent of a futuristic sci-fi movie. We could hear distant thunder and it took about 30 minutes to reach us, bringing the rain with it. Probably the only time we have been glad to have thunder. I watched the light show from the deck, then the bathroom and dining area windows. It was all coming in from the south and rolling down that canyon.
There was a horrendous clap of thunder directly overhead immediately after which we had large marble-size hail. Incredibly loud! Both dogs were on the bed shaking so badly that it felt like someone had put a quarter in a vibrating bed. We watched and endured. Found out later that Larry was caught out in the hail. Ouch!
When the storm had passed to the north and east, I was out at midnight doing my after-storm rounds. The dogs came with me and were thrilled with the outing and the quiet.
Saturday 8/10. JB did his "sleeper" rounds first thing to check for any strike that might be flaring up. There was smoke way to the north of us where the lightening had lingered for quite a while and most likely started another fire.
I only saw one humming bird yesterday, so I took the feeders down this morning. Now all they are doing is attracting yellow jackets. I do miss those little birds when they leave.
After JB left for Down There at 9:30 am, I clipped along the path to the north ridge and generally cleaned up small branches in the newly mowed area, all the while watching thunderheads build up to the south and east.
Smoke was almost overwhelming from the two nearby fires set last night. The one to the north, near Entiat, and another one to the south where the Colockam fire had once been deterred. With little air movement today the smoke just took over. At least our high for the day was only 74.
When JB returned he had quite a tale of a mudslide on the paved canyon road right where our canyon road meets it. More than a foot of mud and rocks that he had to carefully maneuver through in four-low. Just as he got through it the mess, he met the equipment coming up to clear it.
Tonight's light show started about 11:00 pm. Not as much rain as last night but certainly a lot of fireworks. Fortunately no dry lightening. I was out doing my rounds at 11:30 pm, the hardest part of which is getting out of a comfy, cozy bed, even if it is overrun with panting, drooling dogs.
Sunday 8/11. A nice cool morning of 56. JB went on his sleeper watch and called in a column of smoke to DNR that was a couple canyons to the south. I left about 9:00 am to do laundry and grocery shopping, while he spent most of the time I was gone talking to DNR. When they could not locate the smoke by driving around, they came up to Rose Camp to try and spot it. They arrived a little before I did. Very nice, knowledgeable young people who stayed a couple hours and guided a fly-by. They could see the smoke that was now only occasionally puffing up, but the plane could not. They were called off to another fire, but we received a phone call about 5:30 advising us that the smoke had finally been located and DNR was sending out a crew.
When I came home, I saw that the main canyon road had been graded all the way down to Larry and Elsie's. I was sure I knew who had done it and when the DNR folks left, JB and I drove over to their place with four bottles of wine as a thank-you. It is one of the weekenders from Wenatchee who spend a lot of time at their property during the summer as she is a teacher and has the time off. He has a larger tractor that ours with a box scraper. As we were visiting, it started to rain so we made a dash for back home - all our windows in the house and my car were open. Not that is was really a dash. You don't "dash" on these roads, but we arrived to find everything pretty well drenched. Nothing came in the house windows, but my car was wet inside and the dogs' beds on the porch were soaked.
This afternoon's storm pretty much missed us except for a couple showers, as all the clouds had gone around to the north and south clashing in the east. We heard the thunder for quite a while before it moved on.
What a weekend!
Monday 8/12. I arose at 4:15 am to see the meteor shower. Sat out on the deck but only saw about six shooting stars, five small ones and one large one. The dogs wanted out about 4:45 am so then I sat on the porch and saw a couple more small ones. Was disappointed though, as I thought there were supposed to be a lot more and I read that the pre-dawn sky would be the best to see them. Oh well.
Our son called a couple times this morning as he packed for his trip. His wardrobe isn't really appropriate for working out in the woods, but he is going to bring a few new movies that we haven't seen. He will arrive in Wenatchee tomorrow at about 5:00 pm and JB will go to pick him up. I can't wait!
I may not post much on Wednesday morning. It all depends on when JB has to be at the hospital and we won't find that out until tomorrow. Our son will take him down and stay there during the operation. He will come back up to Rose Camp once JB is in recovery. Then we will both go down in the evening to visit. Thoughts and prayers are much appreciated. . .
Thought for the day: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spend doing nothing. George Bernard Shaw
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