Gnarly Oak

This tree is growing right on Los Alamos Road at the top of our field behind our house. I've taken a number of pictures of it during different seasons. It has seen the comings and goings of all the people who live scattered around the hills above us. There are a lot more people living up there than one would realize, since very few of the houses up there are visible from here. I published a picture taken from the top a couple of days ago, when we were reminded how narrow and exposed the road is up there, yet there are several ranches and lots of cattle scattered about.

The tree also witnessed the comings and goings of countless fire trucks, bulldozers, firefighters and even DC10s and 747s dumping flame retardant, and helicopters scooping water out of backyard swimming pools. I find it hard to think that all this was going on in our absence.( For some reason it makes me think of the time I fell off my bike and woke up in a ditch with a concussion. I was told that I had been up and walking around yet I still can't remember anything.) People who were able to get in and take pictures sent them to us. Our friends who live across the valley from us took pictures of Hood Mountain and sent them to us, but we never saw with our own eyes exactly what happened during the ten days we were gone.

There was a story in the paper this morning about a man who has spent the last six weeks looking for cats who fled the fires and were given up for lost by their owners. By hunting at night, setting humane traps baited with mackerel, and driving slowly around the most devastated areas with a strong flashlight and a lot of patience, he has managed to coax over a dozen burned and starving cats out of hiding and return them to their owners. 

It is a source of inspiration to me that so many people find so many unique ways to help. This man, whose cat ran away last year long before the fires, was devastated and enlisted the help of a professional cat finder in Southern California to help him find it. Who would have believed that he would have occasion to use his newly acquired skill to help other people?

 It was very windy yesterday and there is now a fire born of the same conditions as ours burning near Ventura in Southern California where my nephew is a firefighter. I pray that they will get control of it quickly although it sounds las if it, like ours is a firestorm burning out of control.