Minimal Cleanup

The messages from the insurance companies are somewhat mixed due to our lack of internet and phone services, but somebody should be arriving to help with removal of dead plants. In the meantime today Dana and Peter are clearing a path through the ash and soot around the house by washing it into the landscaping as instructed by the powers that be. Everybody is wearing N95 masks and old clothes for it is filthy work. We’ve sacrificed yet another set of outdoor furniture covers, replaced after the 3017 fire.

Luis, the irrigation guy came to cap off the pipe that connected to the vaporized valves. John is trying to hand water whatever he thinks can be saved, Luis will be back to start replacing all the melted pipes throughout the garden.

In an effort to report our lack of internet and phone service, Jim called AT&T to report and find out if it was neighborhood wide fire damage related or a problem with our own service. Because he didn’t know our 30 year old password (and we certainly wouldn’t have either) the person he was talking to (in Tulsa, Oklahoma!) wouldn’t tell him anything. All he could do was schedule a technician for next Wednesday. My new mantra...you really couldn’t make it up.

While all this activity was going on, I cleaned the bathrooms, put clean sheets on our bed and wrestled with putting the king sized duvet cover back on....no mean feat.

The view from the bedroom door shows the red star which used to hang on the outside of the fence now lodged in the bushes above the stairs which used to be outside the fence. It’s a good thing I had shades installed on the French doors in our bedroom so we don’t have to see out on the wreckage. Without the fence we’re pretty exposed.

All the decking around our house is covered in little burns from embers. We think we’ll keep those to remind us of what a near miss it was....