Wildfire Chronicles Pt 1 & 2

the fire in angeles crest is the closest i have ever been to something like this.

yesterday afternoon, driving right around the corner by the house, it looked like a volcano was coming to life in the san gabriel mountains...at this point the fire was still on the other side of the mountains and wasn't considered much of a threat.

yesterday evening as i drove out again this is what it looked like...bright orange flames mounting over the hillside...

a couple of hours later
flames that had to be over one hundred feet high were grazing down the mountains. it's hard to express how huge and terrifying the sight was when all i have is a blurry photo...

the news said last night that they had the fire 10% contained.

this morning i went outside the house and took this picture of the smoke from the front yard...

driving towards the place where i took the previous photos...

i rounded the corner and this is what greeted me:

apparently, overnight, the fire split into two directions and the firefighters lost what little control of it they had. they have issued mandatory evacuations for hundreds of homes in La Canada Flintridge

the most recent one i took, about an hour and a half ago.

listening to news radio, the fires are of course top stories. the fire in azusa is, thus far, 70 contained, and the fire in rancho palos verdes is 60% contained. finally, they mentioned the la canada fire (officially named the Station Fire), and said it is 0% contained.

praying for everyone who has had to leave their homes...

mimi's cafe

wren, jeannie, carol and colleen are out to lunch with grandpa floyd. he is eating filet of sole...

jeannie: how's your fish, dad?

gp floyd: (thinks for a moment) well, as the hymn says, "it is well with my sole."

first things first: a really awesome night-cloud-shot...

after-church lunch at wolf burgers

a Tarzan-watching Caid...

the-end

classic wren and cam

Today, after church was over and the general socializing and talking etc. was done in the parking lot, we finally decided where to go for lunch (wolf burgers, interestingly). As we began to walk to our respective vehicles, Cam took Wren's arm in both his hands, pulled her towards their car and said: "Come on, Granny Sue, let's go."

kids.

So...

Wren and Cam have been gone since Friday and i've been house sitting for them...which means that i've gotten to watch Caid and Gwen in the mornings!

Yesterday Caid was sitting on the couch looking

at an old Richard Scarry book (it even has Jeff's name in it from when he was little) as i was feeding Gwen. All of a sudden i heard him exclaim: "TRADER JOE'S!"

I walked over to him to see that he was looking at the page with all the things you find in a supermarket...displays of vegetables, scales, check-out aisles, racoons butchering steaks...

and i said, "Oh wow, it does look like Trader Joe's!"

Without removing his eyes from the page he replied insistently: "No, it is Trader Joe's!"

silly me.

Later, once Ginger had arrived to have lunch with them and take them home, i related the above anecdote. She laughed and said to Caid,

"Yeah, you like Trader Joe's, don't you?"

"Mm-hm," Caid replied with a mouthful of pb&j sandwich.

"What other places do you like to go?" Ginger then asked him.

Caid thought very seriously for a moment.
"Mmm," he pondered, "North America."

"North America??"

"Yeah!" he said. "With all the animals."

silly her.

well, here's what's been going on.

Two weekends ago, Amaris and i had, what we call, a "creative isolation" weekend, where we stake out a spot, and don't really leave it for two days...and we just work. Her, on her novel, and me on whatever drawing project i have going at the time.

cats--not so much

At one point Amaris made herself a sandwich using some packaged deli meat and cheese...only to figure out about 1/3 of the way through eating it that she had forgotten to remove the paper from the cheese.

yep, she ate it.

Amaris working

me working

yaaay

The sad part to this story is that i ended up having to start my drawing over a few days later, because i went and made the heads bigger than i had measured out. I NEED TO NOT DO THAT.

Well, that's how we learn... :P

Caid expounding on the health-improving qualities of a good cobbler and ice cream.
...not really. i just like the way he's holding the spoon...

reid and cam playing croquet...

Oops, ice cream on the shoulder.

Water play at grammies! This was last week.

We had just watched the old Disney Swiss Family Robinson, and Caid was inspired by the scene where the older boy (Fritz?) wrestles a water snake.

So Caid wrapped himself in the hose and began squirming around in it yelling "help! hellllp! it's a water snake!!"

And grammie came to the rescue...beating the snake away!!

Caid also had to examine a brown furry beetle that was making weird hissing noises

poke

A few videos that actually accompany the post below...

whew