Lillooet Fire Evacuation Alert

Last night was just way too scary!  A friend, who lives in town, called and said she got a knock on her door that all of Lillooet was under an evacuation alert.  The Mt. McLean fire, which has now been burning for the last nine days, came back down the mountain directly above town and really flared up.  I flashed back over to Dallas, who I had been talking with on the phone, and my heart leapt in my throat.  Visions of the massive 1972 Lillooet fire, when I was a kid, quickly flashed in my mind.  I knew I had to get to town.


Sydney and I sat down at Bridgeside Mill, near the bridge heading into town, and I grabbed my camera.  The flames were huge and shocking.



We were there between 11 PM and almost midnight and people were everywhere, fire sure makes people nervous, including me!  The evacuation alert is still in effect today (July 31 2009) and thunder and high winds are predicted this afternoon, not good.



I kept in constant contact with Dallas by cell, as they were readying things up and ready to move at a moment's notice.



Yesterday afternoon I registered the skidder with the Ministry of Forests and within a few hours they called and wanted the machine on standby, on a lowbed, ready to roll by 10 AM in the morning.  Roadrunner Contracting came out this morning and whisked it away tootsweet.  Hubby has put a 600 gallon water tank on it and I'm sort of wishing that it was still in our driveway and not sitting in town waiting.  The tank looks pretty beat up but no leaks :)



Lillooet, and the whole province, really needs rain with no lightning and thunder... c'mon just give us a downpour for even a day!  Unfortunately the weather predicted doesn't have that in it's future but we all know the weather people can be wrong.

For more pictures of last night's fire visit my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansasa

More Fire Activity

It seems we've had fires for the last month and things aren't slowing down.  The Mt. McLean fire is threatening Shalath and Seton Portage but I think Lillooet is out of danger, or at least if the winds cooperate.  The fire that has us concerned, out here on the ranch, is the Della Creek fire (I'm not sure what the Forestry is calling it).  It's across the river from us and down a bit towards Lytton but one gets nervous when a fire is only about five kilometres away.

On Monday Sydney and I drove down and it looked like this:



But it's flared up quite a bit and this morning it looked a lot worse.



Those fuel tanks are in our yard, and although a long way from the fire, you can see why I'm a little nervous when I look up the mountain, it seems soooo close.  I'm hoping the forestry gets a control on it before it climbs over the ridge.

This afternoon Hubby and I took a drive down and I caught pics of the K-Max chopper dipping a bucket into fire retardant.  You can see the smoke from the fire in the background.  The forestry has set up a staging area at Ruddocks Ranch where the choppers can fuel up, get water or retardant, and fly off again.



The pilot leans into his window and dips his bucket into a large pail of fire retardant, although it sure doesn't seem big when they drop that little teeny bucket on the fires.



I was shocked when the K-Max turned and I saw how skinny it was, it hardly looks as if one guy can squeeze in there :)



While we were out on the highway we spotted the flames candling along the trees.  For us to see the flames from the road they have to be pretty darn big!



The size of the fire has sure increased since it started and I'm really praying for rain... and no lightning :)



Yesterday I drove into Lillooet and Dallas and I went into the CN Rail (formerly BC Rail) yard and snapped pics looking down at Ainsworth Lumber Mill yard.  One of the choppers is dipping his bucket into the retardant.



Just as we were heading out of the rail yard we spotted the Sky Crane helicopter coming from the Mt. McLean fire and heading to the Airport.



You should have seen Dallas and I, it was actually kind of funny,.  I slam the truck into park, we grab our cameras (telephoto lenses on), both doors whip open and we're hanging off the running boards snapping away on the dirt road.  We must've looked a sight!  But anything for a good pic, right? lol

So a lot of my time is watching the fire in Lillooet, and then looking in the opposite direction towards Lytton... it makes for a very smoky atmosphere around here.  The heat is almost unbearable and the weather report says we are not going to cool down much.  I think that Hubby is going to clean out one of my deep freezers and sleep in it soon if it doesn't cool off.

I put together a video of the helicopters dipping for fire retardant and if you can't view it at my blog visit YouTube.



I haven't been posting all the pictures at my blog (it would take forever to load) so for more pictures visit my Flickr site.

Lightning & Choppers

The last few days have been unbelievable! On Friday I zipped into town and took shots of the helicopters dipping into the canal. The Lillooet Fire (now officially the McLean Fire) has grown to 600 hectares but has mostly climbed over the mountain and Lillooet seems to be out of danger at the moment.




Seton Lake is very smoky and I gather the fire flared up again last night.




It's the first time I've seen the fire up close. This picture was taken at the beginning of the bridge into town.




It's a wonder the pilots are able to see in all the smoke.




Last night we had over 8 hours of thunder & lightning, and then rain would pour down in buckets. I ended up taking video and extracting the pictures because it wasn't easy taking stills. Not the best quality pictures but they show what we saw until well after midnight. Earlier the sound of the thunder made you cover your ears but as the storm moved towards Lytton the thunder wasn't near as loud. The storm caused a few more fires and sadly we are expecting another thunderstorm this afternoon.







For more pictures of the choppers and lightning visit my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansasa/

I put together a quick video at YouTube:

Lillooet Fire

Things hit really close to home yesterday when a fire broke out above Lillooet. Lightning hit a very steep part of the mountain making things difficult for the forestry. The fire was classed as rank one and within a few hours had escalated to a rank three. Parts of the fire were deemed "unworkable" from the ground and could only be hit from the air. The fire went through the fire retardant and I think that's when eyebrows raised. Dallas called me and, while downtown, said she could see the flames on the mountain. Pictures I saw this morning show the mountain glowing in the night and the T-Bird was put on 24 hour evacuation alert. (NOT confirmed)

This morning I grabbed my camera and headed over to the Triangle Field. We've had smoke from the Goldbridge fire and now the Kelowna fire which made it quite hazy around here, but with this fire the smoke is rolling in the hills and is just too darn close for me!

Here's some pictures I took this morning.













Let's hope today brings rain and no more lightning strikes. Everyone in Lillooet stay safe!



Updated pics:

6:30 PM July 23 2009





9:00 PM July 23 2009



For the full set of pictures of the Lillooet fire visit my flickr set.

When I updated this blog post, to add the new pictures, all my comments were lost, please feel free to comment again :)

Whirlwind Week

I really look forward to Monday... most people don't, but heck it's been one busy week and I can usually take a breather on Mondays. On Tuesday the kids and I zipped over to Kamloops and spent the night in a hotel. On the drive over I asked the kids what they wanted for supper? "We want to go to the hotel and have pizza delivered!" was their answer. I tried to convince them we could hit any restaurant they wanted but no way, they wanted delivery. I remember the first time Sydney ever experienced home delivery. We were in Nanaimo and when the pizza delivery man came to the door I thought Sydney was going to faint, she had never seen anyone deliver dinner to our door before :) Although I remember driving into Vancouver, on the way to Nanaimo, and when she saw an apartment building she turned to me and said "Mama these are the biggest houses I've ever seen." Ahhh the joys of living in the country.


The day I left for Kamloops Jaycee had dropped off two boxes of the largest apricots I've ever seen. Usually, in Lillooet, we have much smaller apricots and was shocked to learn that these had been grown over at the farm next door. I made three bottles of apricot brandy which will be ready in November, and about 8 pints of apricot jam, and still have a few left. I might make up more jam because I'm using it a lot in a recipe I've got from "The Big Cook" cookbook.


This weekend we had to move the pigs from the chicken run to a new pen, Hubby was outside early in the morning and the heat was quickly becoming unbearable. After an hour he was starting to sweat like Ham-let and Pork Chop but he got it done. Then you should have seen the antics of us trying to get Ham-let and Pork Chop into the pen. After all of us running after them in the yard they headed back into the chicken run, but then Hubby and I got them cornered and he was able to grab them, one at a time, and carry them over. This was after they had doused themselves past their eyeballs in mud... and the squealing, my gawd you'd think that he was carrying them to the butcher block! One big disappointment is I've had to give up my cucumber patch because Hubby cornered off a portion of my garden and unfortunately the cucumbers were on the pig's side.


The kids and I drove into Lytton on Friday because my port replicator (a thingy I hook up to my server for non-tech people) up and quit. I've had it for 31 days, one day past the store warranty. I called the company who makes it and was not impressed so I called the online store where I bought it. Without hesitation they agreed to take it back and issued me an RMA number. Good people and great customer service.


While we were in Lytton we walked over to a small park and I took some pics of the kids.







In this picture you can see where the Thompson River and the Fraser River meet. The Thompson has always been much cleaner than the Fraser.




So you would think it would start to slow down on Sunday, right? No way... I ended up preparing a bunch of lunches for Hubby to take to work for all next week. I decide to deep fry chicken nuggets and I'm standing at the kitchen stove, sweat pouring from my brow, when suddenly I feel a huge breeze hit me. I think Hubby felt sorry for me because he hooked up a large industrial fan blowing it into the kitchen to cool me off, sweet guy :)


The recipe I used for the batter is quite good. It comes from my Aunt's page at her website and I'll copy it here.

Deep Fried pork for sweet and sour (or chicken, or zucchini, or ?)

Mix 2 cups flour with 1 cup of cornstarch, 3 eggs, and 2 tablespoons salt. Add enough water to make it the consistency of pancake batter. 1 medium roast pork cut into pieces. Dip pieces into batter and deep fry.

You only need to thinly coat whatever it is you are deep frying because this stuff really puffs up. The only modification I did was add a bit of Mrs. Dash's spice and some Lawry's seasoning salt to give the batter a bit of a spicy taste. She has it on her webpage for pork but you could use it for anything, and after I finished making the chicken nuggets I cut up a zucchini from my garden and deep fried small rounds... it was delish.

Photos and thoughts

We took a quick river trip on Saturday, later than we usually go down, so some of the pictures aren't as clear as I'd like.


Baby grouse.  Mama was up in the tree too but she was hiding much better than her baby.




About ten seconds past where baby grouse was, we spot a doe walking up the hill and she stopped to look at us.  I sure wish I could get a clearer picture of a deer but it seems lately they are only out walking around at dusk.




My nephew, Mikey, puts the set net in the Fraser but didn't catch a thing.  July 21 we can get our gill net in and put the set net away until next year.




Heading for the truck I see there are still lots of brown eyed Susan's around, or I think that's what they're called.




Not to dwell on Annie's passing, but I was looking at some of the photos from our last weekend river trip and came across the last picture of Annie that I took.




I'm getting better but one really doesn't realize just how involved our lives become with our pets.  Everything I do seems to bring up some kind of memory... lately it's the chickens coming in our front door.  All I would have to say was "Do your job Annie!" and she'd quickly run and herd them back out to the porch.  I guess Annie used to keep them out even when I was out and about because when I came in yesterday I found our rooster, Goofy, quite far down our hallway.  The only other times I've found chickens in the house was when Annie was with me and the front door was accidentally left open, or she was being super lazy :)


This week over at DPS, the assignment is "A Mistake."  It's the first time one is able to dig into their old files and find a picture that was a mistake but you like it anyway.  I had a few (who am I kidding??) I had LOTS to choose from :)  Not the "liking" part but the mistakes lol.  Normally I've been ruthless and delete most pictures that don't turn out because I refuse to be like in the old film days when you had your pictures developed and, for some unknown reason, kept every picture, even if it was a black photo (why did we do that?).

Anyway here's the two I chose:
Flowers in my garden, depth of field was way off for this one but I love the colours.







I narrowed it down to the hummingbird (wrong exposure, slow shutter speed, bad composition, etc.) but I'm having second thoughts, luckily I can change my submission up until the last day.  Any thoughts?

Watch what and when I say things

I'm in the bathroom scrubbing down the walls in the bathtub when my 6 year old Jevan toodles in. Our conversation goes as follows:

"Whatcha doin' Mama?" he asks.

I reply "Scrubbing down the walls in the bathtub," thinking isn't it obvious? because he can clearly see what I'm doing.

Holding the toilet seat up, he then says "I have to poo... or maybe pee?" more as a question than a statement.

I tell him "Well if you are going poo put the seat down and sit." Jevan has a habit of lifting lid & seat and then sitting on the bare porcelain.

"Naaaah I'm just going pee Mama."

After he's done and flushed, I grab the toilet brush to give him a quick lesson in swooshing the toilet out (the boy has to learn). I tell him to lift up the brush, give it a bit of a shake, and stick it inside the bowl. As I'm doing this I tell him "Contrary to what your Daddy thinks I wasn't put on this earth to scrub toilets and everyone should do it after they use the toilet."

He agrees (because he always agrees with me) and suddenly from behind me I hear him say "Oh hi Daddy."

I turn around and Hubby is leaning on the bathroom door... head shaking, eyes rolling. I didn't realize he was back from town but did tell him he really shouldn't sneak around the house!

And the following picture in no way reflects how my Hubby sometimes leaves the bathroom:


Pork Chop & Ham-let have moved into the chicken coop at night and seem to be fitting right in with the gals. I've been pitting and drying cherries and they get the bad ones, I hope there's lots of nutrition in them because they would rather eat the cherries than their hog feed.

Annie

It is with an extremely sad heart that I post today.  This morning, at just after seven, my faithful dog of 13 years passed away.  Annie was my pal, my friend, and my girl.  She was born in May 1996 while I was visiting my Mom in Nanaimo, and a very pregnant Meegie gave birth to three tiny chihuahuas.





The first two chihuahuas were quickly claimed by my Mom (Taco Bell) and Aunty Frances (Kita) but after a few months no one wanted Annie.  That's how she got her name; Little Orphan Annie, and at that time we decided to keep her.  We had her Mom (Meegie) and her Dad (Spike, who has since passed on), what was one more?






Shortly after, my hubby's brother and ex-girlfriend lost their chihuahua and asked if they could have Annie.  I agreed and she was renamed Rya.  About a year later, with a bunch of circumstances, I received a call from someone in Lillooet asking me if I wanted a chihuahua?  When asked what the dog's name was, I knew immediately who it was.  I drove to Lillooet, we lived about two hours away then, and picked up my "Annie" that day.  They say a dog has a memory span of about five years, and because Annie had only been gone a short time, she remembered her "old" name and all of us.  She fit right in and I knew there was no way I would give her up again.





I have no idea what happened to her yesterday, most of my day was spent in Lytton.  I got home at just after six last night and when I was heading back out to the truck Annie was walking beside the woodstove.  Annie has a habit of flopping down and rolling onto her back so I can pet her belly.  When she rolled over I noticed some strange marks on her tummy, like she had been caught in something and had desperately struggled to get free.  I scooped her up and took her down to the shop where Pops was.  I asked if he had heard anything strange while I was gone and showed him Annie's belly.  He said no and that he had spent most of his day at the shop.  I then brought Annie up to the house where she quickly disappeared into my room.  I thought if she rested she would be okay.  A little while later I went to check her and found her under my bed, obviously in pain, because she was low howling with very quick breathes.


She managed to drink some water while I held her up and I made her as comfortable as I could beside my bed.  At 4:30 this morning I knew there was nothing more I could do and that she wouldn't be with me much longer...  I called Grandma at just after six and asked if Pops had something that we could give her to put her at rest.  He came over and, at approximately 7 this morning, I held her in my arms while he injected her.  Her breathing slowed and she stretched her head up, with wide eyes she looked at me and took her last breath.  It is a little comfort knowing that she is no longer in pain and I couldn't let her suffer any longer.  I'll miss you girl.... and someday I'll see you on the other side.



Thank you Sydney for looking through many, many pictures to find Annie's photos... I just couldn't do it and I want you to know that you helped Mama very much this morning.

A river trip, a record broken

It's that time of year when we start spending weekends at the river. We usually start out with a set net because, not only is it a big job setting up the gill net, but with the high water you get lots of sticks and logs coming down.

Hubby, the kids, and I all jump into the truck and we meet up with Hubby's brother, Doug, and nephew, Mikey. In all my years married to Hubby (15.5) I've never seen anyone around here catch a salmon with the set net. As a kid I used to fish with my cousins much farther up the Fraser and we caught many a fish this way. My twin brother and I did all the cleaning and they did the fishing. At the end of the day we'd pack the fish in gunny sacks, flip them on our backs and start the long trek up the hill to my Aunt & Uncle's house. Gosh that's going on 35 years ago!

Well we don't want to talk about how old we are so let's get back to the subject at hand :)

While we're down there I take some random shots not expecting anyone to catch anything... why break a 15 year record?

First there's Jevan and faithful Blue.





Then I show Sydney how it's neat to write in the sand.





Then Hubby calls me over to the rock. Now I find watching someone with a set net about exciting as watching paint dry. Thirty-five years ago it was exciting because the fish would almost jump into the net, but over the years one gets a bit bored when nothing is caught.

Here's Doug waiting... exciting eh?





Before I could put my camera down, Doug JUMPS up and, lo and behold, a FISH! One has to be quick because the fish can swim in and out of the net in the blink of an eye.





Yes my record is broken! Doug has caught a fish!





Mikey happens to have his knife handy and quickly guts and cleans it.





And Doug was kind enough to give me the fish :)

A nice way to cook a salmon is:

Baked Salmon
Fillet it. (Click here to watch a Youtube video on how to do that)
Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil and spray a touch of cooking spray (Pam) on it.
Combine salad dressing (Miracle Whip) with mayonnaise (Hellman's). Or one of them if you don't have both.
Spread mixture with a spatula over fillets.
Sprinkle lots of soy sauce over.
Shake dried dill weed over both fillets.
Cook for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Makes for a very moist fish with a touch of sauce. Very good :)

The river and the pigs

Umm what should I start with first? The river trip or the pigs? Let's go with the pigs, you'll be laughing at with me. (This post was longer than I expected so stay tuned for the river trip tomorrow).

Yesterday we moved the pigs above my garden into a calf shed. Calf sheds are great, because they are on skids you can drag them around where they are needed and use them for just about anything. So I run through my list of what we need: Calf shack set up, check. Hose from the garden, check. Mud wallow, check. Hay bed, check. Food, check. Fencing... uh well, not so good, but Hubby says it's fine. Hubby grabs Ham-let & Pork Chop and moves them in, they seem to be enjoying their new home. We all stand around for a bit watching & feeding them, and see how they like things. Everything seems okay...

One by one we all head off. I'm gone about 5 minutes, standing near the pool and suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I see two pigs running across the field straight at me with four dogs in hot pursuit! Well so much for that fence! (Why oh why will Hubby not listen to me?) Pork Chop & Ham-let ears flying in the wind free for the first time in their lives, Teddy, Doolittle, Blue, and Jumbo wondering just what in the heck are these things? ... the first thing I think is "Why me Lord?"

About 20 minutes later, through a few corrals, over the ditch and back around, they are back in the calf shack. I can leave again and I think all is well...

The next thing I see is two pigs, two cows, and four dogs blazing across the field! Gee I didn't think cows and pigs would be that freaked out by each other? Apparently I was wrong.

I quickly go for the pigs (the dogs and cows can fend for themselves!) but did you know that pigs can cross a cattle guard? I didn't know, and I now have that tucked away in my head for future reference.

Did I happen to mention it's 33 degrees Celsius (91 Fahrenheit)? Sweat is rolling in my eyes, stinging and burning... but does Hubby care? Nooooo, not in the slightest... "Let's get a couple of pigs?" he says to me one day. HA HA HA... him and his bright ideas... grumble.

The pigs end up down at the barn. I'm now sitting up at the house, I've just plain given up trying to herd them back to the calf shack. I honestly think we should catch them and throw them on a barbecue! Within an hour Teddy (our black lab) is seen herding the little bacon puffs back to their calf shack. I want to go out there and give Teddy a big ol' steak (preferably ham)! Even sitting here now I'm watching Teddy follow the pigs around the field (I long ago took the fence down). Update: Well now they are actually under my porch... I can hear them banging away but good old Teddy is hot on their heels! Another update: They are now sleeping nestled into their hay, tucked into the calf shed... most likely worn out from trotting all over this ranch!

I'm seriously thinking of renaming them, from Ham-let & Pork Chop to "Cut & Wrapped!"

Later on we had another chase, this time I just grabbed my camera and let the dogs and Sydney do all the work :)

Down at the corral, noses covered in mud. Sticking close is Teddy.





Teddy is getting plum worn out as he tracks them down.





Teddy gets a second wind as they come ripping down the long side of the corral.





Oh oh, Yeller comes to check them out. Sydney gets in on the action as Teddy cuts them off. We don't know what Yeller is going to do, this is his first time seeing them, from the looks of it he's confused.





Ham-let & Pork Chop decide against running into Yeller and swiftly detour through the fence. Oops, Sydney slips! Yeller heads for Grandma's and wants nothing to do with this.





After, not so gracefully, getting past all the pipes and parts on the other side of the fence, they take a quiet walk to the barn, Teddy is probably thinking "Why don't you guys go for a nap?"





Finally they're back up at the calf shack. (Notice the fence no longer attached to anything?)





Everyone takes five and Teddy has a well rested break.





Zonked.





Go to sleep Ham-let!





We've decided to forgo the fence and let the pigs roam free. They've been coming back to the shed, it's where they are fed and watered, so I don't think there's reason to worry about them. Teddy seems to be by their side most of the time and my garden is fenced :)