Canary in the coal mine

   

Pit 36 fire

   We live on the wet west side of the Cascade Mountains, not on the dry side where the Pondersoa pines go up like kindling in summer wildfires.  But in this hot and dry summer, we have had a fire burning for 10 days along the Clackamas River in  Estacada, just 21 miles northeast of us.  The heat loosened boulders on the cliffs above the  road, and they rolled down.  Fire burned away all the vegetation from steep cliffs; landslides will be likely when the rains come.  Large trees with smoldering embers inside have fallen across smaller roads.  The fire is called the 36 Pit Fire, named after the abandoned gravel pit where the spark from target shooters' pistols ignited it.   It covered more than 5400 acres,  jumped the river, and closed a major road before the 1200 firefighters could get it under control. It is still smoldering.

Tree feller fighting fire

Animals in peril

  Our good friend Sally lives near Estacada; she was on high alert, ready to evacuate  with her horses and donkey. For the first few day of the fire, winds blew smoke an ash to the south of our house; then the wind shifted.  Ash fell on us like softly falling snow, and we wiped it off the cars  and patio furniture. There were two days when the smoke was so bad that my throat burned and my chest felt funny.  Judy did not dare step out of the house. We closed everything up tight and turned on the air conditioning.  Judy struggled with coughing and shortness of breath, and used her oxygen more than usual.  A week later, she can tell long before I can when the wind shifts and there is a faint smell of smoke in the air. The increased work of  breathing has worn her out.  She who never complains talks about exhaustion and sleeps for hours many afternoons.

The air we breathe

Homegrown tomatoes

     The extraordinarily hot and dry weather has been great for growing tomatoes.  Many years, tomatoes do not get red here before October, and gardeners hope they ripen before the first frost.  When I moved from Eugene to Newport,  my favorite parting gift was the one perfect tomato that my friend Izzy had managed to coax from her garden.  She presented it to me as the rare, precious thing that it was.  This summer neighbors and friends press tomatoes on us as if they were zucchini. Sheila brought fat red ones to distribute at exercise class.  Gail brought us rare heirloom types, Indigo Rose and Chile zebra and Cherokee purple.   Katie showed up at a women's dinner meeting with boxes of tomatoes, "Take more!  Take more!"  We came home last week to find a bag of large tomatoes and a bag of cherry tomatoes on our doorstep, stealth courtesy of our good neighbor Janet.  Even Holly, visiting around the Northwest in her RV,  had a spare tomato  to pass on.    I skin the tomatoes and freeze them.
    Be sure to visit us this winter.  The air will be clear by then, and we'll have stew.