What Would You Take? (Wildfire, Part 2)

 (photo courtesy Jeff Stahla)

We had only minutes to decide. A wildfire was headed our way. We had time enough to take whatever would fit in our two cars. So, what to take? The answer surprised me.

Some things were obvious: my harp, music-in-progress notes, computer, favorite photos, toothbrush and a change of clothes. Then other things...the chain saw, in case trees fall over the road and we can't get in/out; my small file cabinet, which has important papers (like proof of house insurance!); our passports (I'm a travel addict).

The next day, we were allowed to return, briefly, that day to get our truck. Naturally, we thought, "We'll load it up!"

Here's where it got interesting: We got to the house, looked at each other and said, "What do you want to take?"  Walking around the house, we couldn't come up with much. I love my books and plants, but, they are all replaceable. Ditto for almost everything else. We realized there was nothing else that we cared about all that much. In fact, it occurred to me that it would almost be a relief to NOT have most of our stuff. (And we're not talking about a lot of stuff....our house is just over 1,000 square feet.)

Einstein once said something like,"Each of my possessions is like a stone in my pocket, weighing me down."  I feel inclined to agree- and it was interesting to have such a visceral experience of it.

We didn't get long to ponder this.  As we were loading a box of paintings (irreplaceable-painted by friends and family), a wall of smoke engulfed us. Time to go. Having no way to know where the fire was, we had to assume it was close. So, we left with an almost-empty truck.

It's true that, without insurance, we would have been urgently motivated to take necessities - cooking pots, blankets, clothes, and so on. And I don't for a moment dismiss the deep pain and loss suffered by many people who did lose everything in that fire. My prayers go to them daily. I just found it interesting to observe that the idea of less stuff was so liberating to me.

What do you all think? If you had an hour to pack your car, what would you take?

Bang, Bang, Lights Out (Wildfire, part 1)

The explosion of sound hit me with such force I thought the windows of the house might shatter. I sat bolt-upright in bed, my heart leaping out of my chest. I had been sound asleep when the lightening strike connected, but its bellow would wake the dead. The lights that were on in the next room - my partner was still up - went black. When I realized what happened, my first thought was..."Oh, no, I hope our (newly upgraded) solar system didn't just get fried."

Little did I know, this was the LEAST of what was to be fried.

That lightening storm ignited the spark that ultimately caused over 130 square miles of Colorado to burn.

Three days later, our neighbor, a veteran fire fighter, stopped by. He pointed to the fluffy cloud beyond the hill. "You see that cloud?" Yeah, we saw it. "It's not a cloud, it's smoke from a fire. I'm packing up my car and getting out of here."

As luck would have it, we were having a new propane cooking stove delivered that day. Right after the neighbor left, I called them to suggest they postpone our delivery. No answer. Minutes later, the delivery guys came walking up the road.

"Hi. Sorry we're late. Our truck broke down just a short way down your road."

You mean in the section that's one-lane? Where there's a rock wall on one side and trees on the other and only room for one car?

"Yeah."

Seriously bad timing. The next hour was spent helping the guys move the truck so we and the neighbors weren't blocked in. They brought the new stove up, via our truck, and installed it. In the two hours those guys waited for their replacement truck to show up, we became buddies. Since it was already evening, we threw sausages and potatoes on the grill for everybody and sat in our 'patio' furniture, to watch that cloud that was not a cloud.

"Sure is quiet up here." One of the guys commented.

Little did we know it was the quiet before the storm....

The Croak that Heralds Summer

A few days ago, I heard the first froggy-dude of the summer! This brave boy was not afraid to sing, despite the still-freezing nights we are having. Given that our nearest pond is only a few feet from the house, and I was bringing in firewood when I heard him, you'd think I could catch a glimpse of little Romeo....but, no.

As a veteran frog hunter, it's embarrassing to admit that it took me quite a few years to glimpse one these little guys. It was one of those early- 2000 summers and we were in drought. Our giant pond dried up. Completely. And it was only June. The poor Romeos were hopping around, not sure where to go or what to do. (It did finally rain enough that there were tadpoles that year.)

Finally, I understood why they were so hard to spot. Chorus frogs are tiny- no bigger than the last segment of your thumb! Naturally, they are mud colored, too. By May, we often have dozens singing all around our house. Their chirpy song is delightful- and its a good thing because the vibration of that chirp carries for miles.

(Photo curtesy of wiki- I did not have my telephoto that day!)

This, in contrast to the Titicaca water frog- which lives in the high, arid borderland between Bolivia and Peru in Lake Titicaca. (I just learned about them through my work with Idea Wild) These sumo-frogs weigh around 2 pounds, and measure up to 20 inches. They spend most of their time at the bottom of the 300-foot deep lake, and breathe predominantly through their skin! Over-hunting* and pollution, along with introduced trout that eat their tadpoles, have left these frogs critically endangered.

*Roughly 5,000 indigenous people live on islands of the massive Lake Titicaca, which measures 180 miles by 50 miles. Most are subsistence farmers and fishermen. They traditionally eat both fish and frogs. Some (the Uros people) have created their own islands, with floating reeds, on which they live.

I wonder what the Lake Titicaca frog sounds like? Probably not chirpy.

Downside of Solar Power

When we moved to our little house with solar power, we thought we were pretty hip. How cool is that, to generate all your own power? It didn't take long for us to realize it wasn't ALL sunshine and roses- we were initiated our first night in the place.

For starters, very few people are well versed in solar power systems and no two solar power systems are the same. So, when something goes awry, there's no one to call.

This leads to one of two things:
a supreme sense of self-empowerment, knowing that we can take care of ourselves, or
a sense of impending doom and the smell of rotting food in the second (electric) frig. (The primary frig is propane)

So, when something starts beeping, flashing, or everything shuts down, I hit the off-on button. If this doesn't work, I look to see if everything is still connected right. If it STILL isn't working, I go and do some other chore (haul wood, clean the woodstove, clean the skunk spray off the dog, it varies...) and call my husband. He's pretty handy. But, if we're both stumped, well, we do the only thing we can do - just keep trying things until something works. This can take days...

Oh, and one more thing- when it snows and the snow sticks to the solar panels, blocking the sun, like it did recently- guess who gets to go sweep them off? (How DOES the snow stick to them when they're almost perpendicular, anyway?!)

Still, the up-sides are huge. Besides being less polluting than many other forms of power, I have an excuse to go out and play in the BEAUTIFUL new, untouched snow!

Now, seriously, does anyone know why snow sticks to panels sitting almost perpendicular to the ground?

What Lurks in the Darkness?

Yesterday, we had a visitor. “Sarah” is a biology teacher at a local, experiential high school. She and her kids are documenting the natural restoration of the forest and the return of wildlife to a wildfire-burned area. Since we live in one of the many hundreds of square miles of Colorado that burned in recent years (more on that later), she has set up a handful of camera traps (motion activated cameras) and video feeds near our property.

One of the camera traps is set up next to our neighbor's spring. The other night they got this photo of a lion saddling up to the "bar":

Since the said bar is only a few hundreds yards from our house, we were intrigued.

And now I've got confirmation that the tracks I found the other day were, indeed, of the feline persuasion.