The world is on fire... or at least California is.

This freaky sunset brought to you by the Butte Fire (taken last Friday)

This was my drive into Sonora, Calif., last Thursday afternoon...

 The Butte Fire started the previous afternoon, about 43 miles from Sonora,

and since spread quickly and moved a lot closer.

Drive to Sonora Friday afternoon... a wee bit smokier.

Note how dark it is, at 5:30 p.m. Spooky stuff.

I've never been anywhere with such thick smoke.

Tiny bits of white ash fell like a very light snow. Odd.

I have relatives who've been evacuated from their home for days, now,

due to this fire. Happily the fire missed their house,

now they're waiting for the power to come back on,

so they can move back (no power=no water if you're on a well).

Last Sunday afternoon DH and I tore ourselves away from scanning fire info

(re: the Butte Fire, the Valley Fire, and the Rough fire)

and head to the golf course.

DH golfs, I bird/peruse nature.

Acorn woodpeckers living up to their name.

"This one goes here..."

I love how this branch is so densely drilled

that in parts it's see-through. 

I love the white eyeliner on this California ground squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi).

Cutie. 

Non-native mullein affected by fasciation

(note normal mullein bloom on lower left).

I love fasciation and the super interesting shapes it brings about.

Another herbivore (desert cottontail, Sylvilagus audubonii), diggin' the golf course habitat.

Their habit of freezing when startled is great for photography. =)

Canada geese, another herbivore species that favors this place.

Considering I didn't have the auto-focus telephoto lens,

I'm very happy with how sharp this shot is. Luck!

So, with a couple soothing, non-fire-focused hours under our belt,

we see this...

Oh, dear. Another fire?!?

It was the Sundance Fire, near Oakhurst.

Happily, we also saw this large air tanker a little while later,

 and the smoke cleared pretty soon thereafter.

Phew!

And last night it actually rained a little bit (minor miracle),

which is very exciting.

I hope it helps quiet some of these fires.

It's also about 20 degrees cooler than it was last week.

Also good.

Anyhow, I don't have a profound way to end this post.

It's been very sobering seeing what's been happening

in Middletown (via the Valley Fire) and elsewhere.

If there's a vote re: whether or not summer should end now & fall should start?

I'd vote YES, please.

Let's do that.

Stay cool, everyone.

xoxoxobb

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Super Exuvia! (plus wildfire cloud sexiness)

It flies through the air

with the greatest of ease,

that daring young exuvia

on the flying trapeze.*

Found this near the bottom of a dahlia, suspeded somewhat invisibly.

Pretty sure it's the exuvia of YET another bordered plant bug.

I say "yet another" 'cause just before dark, the day before, across the garden, I found:

eep! I'd NEVER seen this sort of thing happen in person. SO COOL.

Obviously some kind of beaked bug shedding its old exoskeleton.

However, bug colors can change as they dry out & inflate wings, etc.

40 minutes later:

Beauty, eh?

Pardon plant cage wire, but it was basically dark,
I couldn't really see and I didn't think to engage auto focus,
so this is the ONLY shot I took that was clear.

Next morning I rooted around the VERY same dahlia plant and found:

A VERY fresh looking bordered plant bug, Largus spp.

I'm guessing it's the same individual, just all dried and hardened,

and maybe L. californicus 'cause we're in California & it looks right. =)

BUG MYSTERY SOLVED

Looking at Largus images on bugguide

I ran across images of the nymphs,

which I'm convinced are the TINY, shiny bugs

that earlier this year crowded our zinnia plants:

As you can see, that zinnia stem indicates these little dudes are LITTLE.

Yesterday morning, peering up from a basil leaf:

Hi!

It's a very snouty little creature that I find adorable.

  I'm thinking Scolops genus, one of many plant hopper species.

I just love that face with the dreamy eyes. =)

The ONLY reason I knew this dried lavender leaf was actually

a crab spider is that it ran out & posed when I arrived.

Amazing camouflage.

Imagine flying around, trying to find nectar & pollen in a super dry year,

zooming past a dead lavender leaf & it GRABS AND EATS YOU.

Yikes! Nature is NOT kidding around.

I was in the above spider's neighborhood 'cause I'd spied this

and wanted to know who it was:

Looks a lot like our friend on the basil--though this one didn't fare so well.

But, a spider's gotta eat.

A relative: an exuvia of a fulgorid nymph (another adorbs plant hopper) I found days ago.

Even its exoskeleton is cute. =) This thing is pinky nail tiny or smaller.

FIRE SEASON

This photo was taken from our backyard Saturday at 5:22 p.m.

The El Portal Fire started ~3:30 that day.

I love the (presumed) lenticular cloud forming over the pyrocumulus cloud. Wow!

Two minutes later, lenticulars are pretty much gone.

 SO much amazing texture.

Once again, felt the wildfire feelings:

awe at this powerful, weirdly beautiful phenomenon,

AND concerned our house might burn down.

Never fear, though, it's on the "other" side of Merced River from us,

and the "French" fire (east of Oakhurst, CA) is bigger & more out of control, 

but is much further from us.

In the meantime, we will be breathing a pretty smoky palette.

Never seen a forecast like THAT before. =)

However, better smoke than fire...

And there's always the smoky sunsets: delicious!

xoxoxobb

*This is based on the Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze song, from 1867, inspired by the super successful trapeze artist, Jules Leotard. Presume the name of the close fitting article of clothing favored by dancers comes from his last name. 

An image of Jules Léotard in the garment that bears his name (in public domain due to its age).

=) He's probably wearing rather unusual attire for the late 19th century, but I imagine he's wary of clothing that may catch on things...

A valiant effort

to rain, but none was forthcoming.

It was nice to have cloud cover, though.

Back to sunny and mid-60s. In JANUARY.

And there's a wildfire in the county.

In what is normally the COLDEST, wettest* month of the year.

xoxobb

*I KNOW we get our coldest temps in Jan, not sure we get the most rain then, but we're Mediterranean, so get the VAST majority of our precipitation in winter, and virtually ZERO June-October. And so far, January is precip-free, which is FREAKY. Setting records all over the place, in this, the first month after the driest year on record for California.

'cause I can't stop obsessing about the Rim Fire: great raw video (+cute spotted fawns on my porch)

at this news site (ktvu).

"Bear" is the passenger in the truck with the flashing lights (at 2:16).

Apparently they'd pulled over to suggest to the gentleman parked there that

HE MAY WANT TO DRIVE AWAY so perchance he'd not roast.

All I want to do all day is look for video and photos and read stats about this rager.

I owe you a post re: quiz winners, & I've been getting a lot of wildlife near our house, etc.,

but any time I'm on this computer I just look for Rim Fire data, so my apologies.

There are some photos on Twitter (biobabbler) of wildlife,

and I'll include a few here, 'cause y'all deserve it.

The smaller of the 2 fawns, I believe.

Slorp!

Sibs.

The wildlife have been doing a good job of cheering and entertaining me.

Gotta love baby deer on your back porch.

xoxobb

(P.S. The fire is not near our house
so these little deer are safe in that regard.
Though they are lethally cute.)

I am SO not qualified for this challenge...

For the short of attention, span-wise:
Thinking about landscaping around our home,
which is on a 5 acre rural lot,
but now that our house came w/in
1 mi of burning down via Carstens Fire,
my husband's repeated desire to adhere to
Cal Fire's 100-foot-clearance-around-your-house thing
is no longer met with my bored sighs and rolling eyes.

Our backyard not long before we were evacuated.

Air quality in our yard:

(w/apologies to those who already saw this in the fire posts)

So:

How do I landscape in a water-stingy
eco-friendly (conservation biologist, after all),
gets-mega-hot & is ALWAYS DRY all summer,
deer-and-rabid-gopher-proof kinda way,
when I canna plant anything w/in 100 ft of the house?

And I want intense colors, some wacky, variable forms,
and to attract all kindsa pollinators and birds and other creatures.
Except gophers and starving deer.


Background

Been more into gardening, lately,

thanks in part to husband's successful elimination

of a Super Hero Garden Foe

(who last year ate my entire garden

so I stalked off and pouted until this spring).

Also, 'cause my life soundtrack lately is

the Good Enough Gardening (TM) podcast,

with the fabulous duo, Jean Ann Van Krevelen and Amanda Thomsen.

They're just the entertaining, conversational, opinionated and funny,

smarty-pants, NON-PERFECTIONIST gurus I needed.

Helps me think things are possible.

Annnnnyhow,

I bought Amanda's CHARMING how-to book on

landscaping for beginners, Kiss My Aster (not a paid endorsement).

It's basically all cartoons, choose your own adventure,

WAY up my prone-to-get-overly-analytical-and-frozen-in-perfectionist-panic alley.

Tons of useful information,

but I've got a variable that is not addressed.

And I wouldn't expect it to be addressed.

Probably don't get to do much w/in 100 feet.
Might be able to sneak herbaceous and non-super-woody shrubs
after the first 30 feet, but even that isn't certain.

Don't think a distant skirt of vegetation
that I can barely see is the answer.

So, WHAT the heck to I DO?!?

You know you're in the sticks when...
One of Amanda's cool shortcuts is to go to Google Earth
and find and print your house/yard,
then trace that so you have a scale model of your space.
So, I thought, I can do that!
I use Google Earth all the time.

No.

Apparently, we live so far out in the boonies,
they don't have decent resolution images of our house/yard/land.
House is just a vague, beige smear
in a vague, beige landscape,
dotted fuzzy green & blue-grey tree-blobs.

Adventures of Invisigirl!
Years ago I called a cable company
to see if it was possible to get cable here,
and he said, "You're not there."

Pause. Waiting for an explanation. None happening.

"Uh... what do you mean, we're not there?"
"You don't show up on our map."
Me: "I can SEE your company's cable 'cause it's strung through our yard,
to get to the next neighborhood."

"Oh. Well, sorry, you're just not on the map."

Makes a girl feel special.
Cable and cell-phone companies are blind to us,
Google Earth has a pretty serious astigmatism.


However, bonus to living in the boonies:
You can garden outside in your coolest summer pants,
even if those pants are technically pajamas.

Who are the jackrabbits gonna' tell?

xoxobb


p.s. If ANY of you have dealt with this 100 foot clear space issue
when thinking about landscaping, please let me know what you did/concluded.

Logic: If the sky looks like this in your yard,

then you may be evacuated.
Soon.
Among the things I learned, yesterday.

The Carstens Fire had been ripping along, near our house.
Got a Code Red call from the sheriff's office at 1:15 a.m. Monday.
Basically saying, be ready, 'cause we might need you out of there....
Then around 5 p.m. (or so?), got the "Please go now" call.

By the time I started packing the hens into Staples boxes
(modified with large air slots & fluffy bedding),
a GIANT red fire engine bumped up the 1/4 mi gravel driveway.

Bear said they were structural fire guys,
so were here to figure out how they might protect our home.

As I picked up the 2nd hen and plunked her into the box,
one of the guys said, "Friendly chickens!"
 =) Indeed.

Throughout the day, I'd see what I thought were birds flitting by,

silhouetted against the amber sky,

then would realize it was a large, blackened-yet-whole leaf,

drifting into our yard from a fire almost 3 miles away.

One of the freaky pieces of "ash" we got at our house:

An entire oak leaf, big as my hand.

Blistered, blackened, and beautiful.

And shiny, charcoaled bark chunks so big

I could tell they were from Ponderosa pine trees.

Also identified manzanita leaves, and cedar scales.

Unlike any vegetation inventory fieldwork I'd done before.

=)

Blackened biology.

Photo of Carstens Fire, Sunday, from Sierra National Forest land:

It's an interesting state to be in:

thinking, "Wow, our house could burn down,"

while staring at the HUGE column of smoke,

thinking, "That is SO BEAUTIFUL."

Orange and brown, purple and red,

slate blue, grey and black,

all swirling, rising, expanding.

I could watch all day.

Presently we are holed up at a charming friend's home.

She also has chickens & a cat (all sequestered),

so our accommodations are great,

and I expect the hens are loving the view.

And appreciating the greatly improved air quality.

Last night 1 cat basically hissed and growled

underneath our bed ALLL NIGHT;

the other cat is STILL under the covers,

in self-storage,

to detox from the over-stimulation, no doubt.

Poor baby.

But, hey, we're all here,

and 100% singe-free. =)

Life is good.

xoxobb

okay, looks like we may be getting evacuated: Carstens Fire chez-bb

So, time for ONE photo. 

There's more on twitter, a smidge more on tumblr.

Our backyard at 4 p.m.

Gotta go retrofit a staples box for a chicken.

xoxobb

wheee! great Motor Fire footage of lotsa helis, + planes & flames

 
As @YosemiteSteve said, great fire helicopter porn. =)

Motor Fire Air Show Copyright 2011 from Tim Walton on Vimeo.

This guy, Tim Walton, is the bomb! =) Sweet stuff.

There are some moments where you see THREE helicopters in the air at once. And several times he's showing you flames up on the slopes and one of the darn helis gets in the way. =)

Apparently Highway 140 will be open tomorrow at 6 a.m. (per Yosemite Wildland Fire facebook posting), and evacuees can return at 9 p.m. tonight. Sounds like things are wrapping up.

Nice WORK everyone!

bb

Very nice footage of Motor Fire...

 

Motor Fire Copyright 2011 from Tim Walton on Vimeo.

Interesting stuff...

bb

Fire fire fire, & biobabbler hears a Who

 

Bear is working today because of this:

Photograph of the Motor Fire from Yosemite Wildland Fire group, on Facebook.

And this a.m. it is 91 dF at 938 a.m. at our house,
and we are higher in elevation than El Portal (site of the fire),
so it'll be hotter there.

Wishing a safe day for everyone involved in this fire.

A television report called this the Yosemite Fire.

Let's be clear:

It's a US Forest Service fire, it does not (at least as of early this a.m.) involve even an acre of National Park Service land. The NPS being, of course, the landowner and manager of Yosemite National Park.

=)

Which, is why Bear posted on Facebook today the above boo-boo by the press as the reason why the USFS is not a huge fan of Yosemite.

If I were a USFS person, particularly those involved in dealing with this fire, Stanislaus NF (north of Merced River) or Sierra NF (south of the Merced) folks, I'd feel like one of the Whos in Whoville:

We are here! We are here!

Here's the YouTube version of Horton Hears a Who: zoom to 8:00 if you want to see the pivotal moment.

ANYhow, point is the US Forest Service is the main land owner right now, not the NPS, despite what one might interpret from the press.

And I JUST took this picture out my back door:

It's big, so you can click and zoom.
Bear says it's a slurry bomber.

It's a busy weekend, here.
Here's a pretty official source of info on the fire, if you are interested.

Speaking of, I have to go make the chicken wading pools,

and clean out their water towers, refill,

and include ice cubes 'cause it's already over 90 degrees.

Hope you all are well, and stay comfortable, safe, and dry.

=)

xoxobb

P.S. As of 4:17 p.m. we're up to about 19 slurry bomber passes overhead.