AS THE SEASON ENDS

Posted on by hollyfrostgoldportpress

By Holly the Assistant

Yesterday, I saw the first harvest warning from local law enforcement. The annual harvest has started, slow down for farm equipment, your itty bitty plastic car will not beat a two lane wide hunk of slightly rusty metal older than you. More politely worded, of course.

The schools are gearing up to start: Bus Drivers Wanted!, law enforcement checking the school zone signs still work, the big downtown college welcome back fair, where local vendors show off what they have available to separate the college students from their financial aid, er, show off their wares, and the state fair is advertising heavily for the upcoming festivities.

Climate wise, it’s still summer. The hottest days of the year should lie ahead. (This year has been a touch odd, weather wise, here. Not unprecedented, just not normal. Eh, it’s one of those states where the ‘wait five minutes and it’ll change’ really does apply to not liking the weather.) The garden’s been weird, and the late frosts and birds wiped out all the tree fruit so far.

For a long time, as home schoolers, we met the back to school season with rejoicing: cheap notebooks and the good pencils! National and State parks empty of people! Weather still good and crowds gone! But as the kids grew up, it started to affect us more: back to school also meant return to enrichment activities, early enrollment college classes, actual regular college classes, etc. Now it’s fitting in a couple responsibilities I have to local and state youth organizations that need to get wrapped up before the youth are tied up in school, and the opening of the local civic symphony season.

Which is, that last, why you’re getting a fairly short note today. I’m running off to a pre-season music workshop this morning. Sarah is . . . I think working on furniture, weather allowing, though she might be supervising house painters and flooring contractors. I got an update on a book last night, along with “ragweed pollen, my head is killing me”, so she’s still alive, though the ragweed should probably be watching for axes.

If you are in the areas that have been burning and are now getting the misnamed monsoon thunderstorms, please keep your eyes open for burn scar mudslides. I know of at least one road closed indefinitely in my region. If you are in the area of I-70 that decided to wash out, be mindful of your roads, as well.

And please keep us posted, all you with medical events and natural disasters. We do note and worry about you.

42 thoughts on “AS THE SEASON ENDS”

  5. I feel wonderfully blessed! The wife and I have no (remaining) serious health issues or mudslides; but my day job decided I was redundant, so my books are now a more important source of income than I had planned…

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  7. Got 12 quarts of blueberries frozen, so that worked well this year.

    Have harvest about a dozen cukes and a couple of radishes and tomatoes so far. (Radishes were OLD seed, so I was kind of surprised any geminated. Letting half go to seed for next year.) Carrots look like they’re doing well. Beans were OLD seed too, and none of them came up (Duh). Also old beet seeds and have about a dozen that sprouted. Waiting to see how they turn out. Raspberries are done, but only got a quart out of them. Blackberries are ripening and about to start picking, but those are all wild and not too many of them. I could harvest a couple of bushels of concord grapes but nobody here likes to eat them raw, and nobody cares for grape juice except me. I suppose I could cultivate them for wine, but what kind of wine can you make from concord grapes? Not exactly prime French or German vintage.

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    2. Concords make great pie – basically grape jam in a crust.

      You -can- make wine from Concord grapes – Manischewitz has been doing it for decades. New York State vintners have been making wine from various labrusca species for a long time, as do Ohio and Michigan vintners. Used to like white wines from Larry Mawby in MI.

      Which caused me to see what Larry was up to. Retired himself, his winery has moved mostly to sparkling wines, and he has managed to make some vinifera grapes grow to make his wines. Not a bad commercial choice; generally, labrusca varieties make wine that is an acquired taste.

      I had a friend in Michigan who had his own small vineyard – I actually helped set the posts for the trellis, helped harvest, helped crush and did the ‘village idiot’ role for pressing the grapes. He grew several labrusca varietes and a couple, more cold-tolerant vinifera – my favorite of his was a white vinifera, Rayon d’Or.

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    3. Dr. Welch, in search of the perfect non-alcoholic communion wine, headed for western PA and NY and grew Concord grapes. We now call it Welch’s Grape Juice.

      I have drunk Concord grape wine. Don’t bother.

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  9. For those of us in Desert Resort towns its still a few weeks until the snowbirds arrive and the last gasp Labor Day alcohol binge DUIs and fights hit us. Got 0.005 “ mist so far with all the monsoon T storms ripping us up with high winds and dust. They publish flash flood warnings but no flying lawnchairs and garbage tote warnings, which would be just as relevant.

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      1. That was yesterday. We had the infamous high base thunderstorms, so a few people got some rain and the rest of us got 70 mph wind gusts and dirt. My allergies have been terrible since yesterday evening. The weather guessers are hoping we might get more moisture next week, and fewer 100s. No one is optimistic.

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  10. Ah, ragweed!

    Used to sneeze my way through the early school year K-7; went to 8 in Canada, don’t remember sneezing that way. Lots of Allerest, and very wet handkerchiefs.

    As an adult in Sacramento, toddled off to an allergist, who did the sensitivity test om my back. Ragweed popped up like 3 cm; false ragweed nearly the same, and a bunch of Sac Valley pollens all raised nice bumps. Also cattle hair?! I thought that weird. So, did the desensitization therapy back in the 70s, and it worked! 50 years later I’m still pretty immune to ‘normal’ doses of pollen. I suppose if I were silly enough to frolic in a field of ragweed, the volume would overwhelm my poor nose.

    So, sympathies for OGH, and all others who get lost in the weeds.

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  11. I’m having back-to-school anxiety this week. That I’m 70 freaking years old and retired makes no difference whatsoever.

    Last couple weeks of August every year, kind of takes the wind out of your sails. Even though nothing that bad ever happened to me, honestly. Just the constant demand, the constant push, and of course the performative disappointment. “Surely you could do better, young Phantom.”

    Here we are, 65 years later, and it seems those 14 years of public school left quite a mark.

    On the bright side I’ve done better than most of them, and outlived them as well. Go me! ~:D

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  12. South Central Oregon sitrep. Woke up this morning with dampness on the deck. When I got to the rain gauge it indicated “fooled you. Nothing measurable.” Still, morning humidity was high (like 65%, unlike the low 20s we normally get. Best of all, very little smoke.

    I went to Inciweb (inciweb dot wildfire dot gov), zoomed in and clicked on the Wrights Spring fire icon. Hmm, little growth (maybe 1%), and containment is starting to appear on the NE side of the fire. A bit more clockwise, and $TINY_TOWN will be officially safe. (Unofficial word was 98% goodness.)

    Just now, I went to Genasys* (if you don”t know it, learn, it’s quite friendly on both app and web page) for the local news. We’ve had our zone downgraded (that’s GOOD!) from Level 3 to Level 2. [Narrator voice: spending 3 days in a zone at Level 3 gets one twitchy. If things go sideways, no further warnings. OTOH, we’ve been on our own before…]

    They’re improving lines near us and clearing the danger trees. Swan Lake Point is still a focus, since it has ALL the local antennae for 911, Oregon DOT, and cell service. The heat-spot map looks better from last night’s survey, and that’s been one of the two big areas of concern. I *think* the southern hot spots won’t cause too much trouble; the plans seem to be holding. Please, Lord.

    (*) protect dot genasys dot com Use this. It might possibly save your life in a disaster.

    We’re doing more pine cone clearing. Not allowed to mow the grasses, but I did firebreaks earlier.

    So far, so good.

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    1. New fire on Rogue River that looks nasty. Lightening Strike.

      Mom was suppose to be in Grants Pass this Thursday – Sunday, with a jet boat river dinner ride with a Shriner group. She is not going, not with me having the procedure this Friday (I tried to get her to go; she will not). Now it is questionable whether the jet boats will run with the fire and low river (hurts the boat only accessible dinner location). Early yet. But the pictures emerging did not look promising.

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      1. I’m assuming you’re talking about the Fielder Mountain fire. That was yet another human caused (according to inciweb, and not even an “unknown” nor “undetermined”). Terrain looks pretty bad, but it’s getting a lot of resources.

        The evacuation zones look spooky. The Forest Service general fire outlook summary indicated that rivers may not be enough of a fire break given conditions. IMHO, I’m glad your mother is staying home.

        And yeah, it’s ugly. The Medford TV station* says that TPTB are asking residents to conserve water so they can use it for fire usage.

        (*) KDRV, at http://www.kdrv.com They have (by far) the best public media coverage of fires in southern Oregon, with a loose definition of “southern”. Their updates may include pages borrowed from the inciweb briefings, but that’s a plus for those who don’t know the wildland fire sources. They also aggregate info, so it was my first info source when we were in Bonanza and I was fighting Chrome on the cell phone.

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        1. (By “public media”, read MSM, with a solid local coverage. ABC affiliate, but we don’t have to watch nat’l news.)

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        2. Am I surprised if the rivers, including the Rogue, is not enough of a barrier for the fires? Oh, heck no.

          Mom mentioned the fire in question has already shutdown I-5 in both directions (IDK if is still closed). VS the fire outside of Grants Pass east of I-5. Surprised the I-5 closure has not hit national news or FB Reels. Have not had any national news on lately, but watch some of the wildfire Reels.

          I had not researched either fire. Mom gets the information on the new fire from SIL (aunt) who lives in *Grants Pass. Another uncle, also Grants Pass, can follow the first Grants Pass fire from their house. They have not been evacuated (yet). Do not know if cousin’s former house in Grants Pass is in affected area or not (cousin lives outside of Ashland, now).

          The aunt just moved into town from Applegate Valley 5 acres that they are trying to sell. It was not the wildfire danger that has them moving into town. Technically that can be dealt with. It is that they are 91 and 85, 5 acres, and health. He would stay out there. They cannot take care of the place, anymore.

          (*) Half dad’s siblings families ended up in Grants Pass, eventually. The rest in Eugene. The two siblings still living are in Grants Pass. One 75, one 85.

          (i.e.) I am getting the fire information through gossip. Not surprised got ignition wrong.

          Between you, me, and the blog, I am surprised Willamette valley, coastal and cascade, transport hubs have not been hit this season with wildfire. Not enough regrowth in the areas hit in 2020 there are still sections that did not burn in 2003 or 2020, that would wreck havoc. Probably because no immediate plausible deniability of arson, because no lightening or high wind events to blame power lines until proven otherwise.

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          1. Aye, it’s probably no coincidence that the Wright’s Spring fire started the opposite side of the valley from the 2021 Bootleg fire. Bootleg was blamed on a lightning smolder from events a week or two before. Color me skeptical. (It happens, had a callout in the Aughts where one smoldered over winter–according to USFS, but the location of Bootleg’s origin was very convenient for some [redacted] making a statement.)

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            1. The 2003 fire on the Santiam pass was a 5-day lightening stump smolder fire from lightening. Far enough into the wilderness, far enough off any trails, let alone roads or power lines, and lack of suspicious burn patterns, means natural causes.

              I have reason to have gone “OH S*” on this one. I was with two other adults and 9 best buddy, 12 – 18 year olds, north of hwy 126 looping back down off the PCT to Big Lake, the Wednesday before the fire broke loose. Camped at grove of trees where ground was open due to crown coverage. Storm rolled through. We did not get any rain or lightening overhead; heard and saw lightening to the south. Wind, and high gusts we had. As in “Crack/Snap. Zip.” Last one or more of the adults getting up to check the area; all dang night.

              We would have roused everyone to pack and move, there was no place near enough that was any better to move to (timber wilderness is like that). Got to Big Lake campsite Saturday. Joined rest of troop for end-of-summer car camp. Headed home Sunday.

              Fire blew up Monday. Burning not only around Big Lake, where the troop was camped, but into the wilderness area group had been in the week before. Too many “what iffs”. When one backpacks in the Cascades, one takes these risks. Kind of why PTB wanted registry with route and group count at the trail heads.

              The new pre register long before actually going does not make sense. I can see the emergency when the crews are sent out to insure everyone registered is pulled off trails and they cannot find everyone registered because not everyone followed through with the hike/backpack. Can you hear the frustration of the safety crews? With the old method, at least it is known the group who filled out the trail registration were onsite and headed in.

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    2. Ah, looks like Genasys Protect isn’t universal, either by state or county. Lake County, OR has an evac zone for the city, but not the country. Nevada doesn’t use it, and SIL says their system is binary–Stay or Go. I like the 1,2,3 myself, though hated it when we were at 3 when the worst of the danger passed. Easier to admin, harder to live under.

      Go to the website (protect dot genasys dot com), enter your address. If there’s a zone, it will tell you.

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  13. …nor will your humungous SUV, even an electric one at nine thousand frelling pounds curb weight, do anything more than slightly inconvenience any of the behemoth John Deere Green cyberenhanced big iron farm equipment devices rolling around between fields with only fair visibility from that operators cab when things are folded up for road transits. There is more compute power on the big iron on my cousin’s farm than in anything from past years, but as far as I know none of it is doing “road traffic avoidance”.

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  14. And as an aside to the groundlings, lo, I bring you a clankervid, on TNG, and one both cleverly leveraging clanker video weirdness as a plot point and also with solid humor writing. Watch the whole thing.

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  16. I’m watching today’s episode of ‘The China Show’, and it’s the segment in which they talk about a Chinese millionaire who is a part of China’s intel community. This gentleman, who is considered one of the country’s top snipers (based on information from training exercises), bought a building that’s only 125 meters away from the Treasury Department building, which is located right next to the White House.

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        1. Same here (varies).

          But even when it is hotter during the day in September, it cools off to a colder evening and early morning than in hottest parts of summer, June – August. “Can feel fall in the air.”

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