A bit of this and that

Just when we thought the fires were calming down a storm went through the district and, poof, another 100 fires... when will it end? It seems the whole province is on fire and we really need some rain, and not just a day or two, but a hard 7 day rain with no lightning. The other night our sky looked like we were on another planet. Hubby and I drove down to Ruddocks and could see the smoke wasn't coming from the Intlpam fire. It must have been from the Stein fire and it was thick. Luckily it seemed to curl around the ranch and head for town and up to Fountain Valley so we could see it but we couldn't smell it or breath it in.

This picture was taken at 4:49 PM


Our sun, when visible, looked like this:



A bit earlier the sky didn't look too bad but the longer we stayed outside the worse it seemed to get. This picture was taken at 5:52 PM and things are much more "orange/red."


Hubby will be moving to another fire tomorrow. He's headed for West Pavilion up in Leon Creek. He's no longer needed at the Intlpam fire and got the word yesterday after returning to work for only one day. He just had two days off and was told if he didn't take the two days he would be fired. Hubby is not used to working like this. A meeting was called and the guys were told they were only allowed to work for 14 days and then it was mandatory to take two days off... he went to turn in his slips and realized he was on his 19th day. That's pretty common with Hubby and when you're a logger you work when you can because sometimes you're off for long stretches at a time. The Forestry sure runs things different than they do in the logging industry. Luckily we had someone to replace Hubby or we would have been scramblin' to find someone (thanks Billy).


The summer holidays are winding down and I had to take a trip to Kamloops to pick up the kids' school supplies. Sydney and I zipped over the other day. I stopped at the Lytton bridge and snapped some pics of the Osprey. The last time I took pictures they were just tiny little (albeit ugly) chicks. They are growing fast and look rather stunning now. We didn't see the Mama so maybe she's up and left the nest. The other Osprey chick was flying about while we were there.



While I was in Kamloops I picked out my kitchen counter. It will be three feet across and ten feet long. The sink will be in the centre (if I ever get my hands on the exact sink I want, darn'it) and the counter will have six drawers. A tip out tray in front of the sink and an electrical box on the end will complete it. The top will be laminate because I priced a piece of quartz and holy crap that stuff is darned expensive... like 3500 dollars! (I could buy a lot of camera gear for that money) Yeah I'll be skipping that for sure. So I'm just waiting on word from the cabinet guy as to whether or not the sink I've picked out will fit so I can order it and get this thing together. Then we need to have a wall removed, Lord where am I going to put all the "stuff" that hangs, sits, and hovers near the existing wall?? I really think I need a basement to hide stuff or maybe I should hire an organizer to come in and... well... organize :)

Another two weeks and three days and the kids are back in school! I wonder how many parents are counting down the days? Jevan and Sydney are getting excited about heading back, especially now that they have all their shiny new school supplies. Some days I feel like school time can't come quick enough, and other times I wish summer would last forever. With each year that school starts it seems my kids are growing up and don't, sometimes as parents, we want them to stay the way they are? Just the other night I came out of the shower wearing a summer dress (I don't often wear a dress) and as I entered the kitchen my youngest, Jevan 6, says "Hey beautiful." I thought that was the sweetest thing... until I realized he was standing in front of the stove, his hand sneaking a yorkshire cooling down waiting for the roast to be done.

If you'd like to see larger pictures, as well as the complete set, visit my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansasa/

River Trip

It was sad news yesterday when I found out fishing for sockeye has been permanently closed for the season.  I currently have two fish in my freezer; one spring and one sockeye, caught during a short five day opening last month.  Usually by this time my freezer has at least 50+ fish, as well as I've already canned, dried, and smoked a ton.  Sockeye stocks are extremely low and the Fisheries has shut down the river to all sockeye fishing.  This is extremely rare and I've never seen this happen in all the years we've been fishing.

I picked up Aunty Helen the other day and she had my new lens.  After hearing about the sockeye closure, the kids, dogs, and I took a run to the river to see if we could spot any deer roaming around and try out the lens.  None was to be found and I was disappointed with that, but I took a few other pictures while we were down there.

The kids walking along the road.




A view towards Lytton.




You are allowed to dip net for Chinook (Spring) salmon and I saw the Indians who live across from us scaling the rocks dipping their net.




While coming back up we spotted the fire across from us, the Intlpam fire 951 (Forestry has finally stuck with a name).  It's the fire that Hubby has been working on for over a week.  The fresh plumes of hot smoke told me the back burn they've scheduled for the last six days, may possibly be happening.  We roared over there and I got a few pictures.




I was shocked when I got home and realized that my new lens can see more than I can.  Although I didn't see it at the time, that is our skidder in the picture!  Hubby was only there long enough to grab the water tank and hustle back over the hill, he didn't even get out of the skidder, and you can see the dust flying around him.  It was sheer luck catching a pic of him over there!  Click the picture to view it a bit bigger.




A lone cabin sits on the hill in front of the fire.




Shortly after getting over to the fire I had to laugh at myself when all kinds of people kept stopping and either looking or snapping their own pictures.  I was prepared with all my camera gear but completely forgot that I had my rubbers (gum boots) on (I always wear them to the river), and not only that but one pant leg was tucked inside the top of my boot and the other was out.  Also having three very confused dogs in the back because they have seldom been that far away from the ranch... well I must've looked like a redneck hillbilly!  God forbid I hope no one took my picture!



If you'd like to see larger pictures, as well as the complete set of pictures I took yesterday, visit my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansasa/

TtV

Wondering what TtV is?  Yeah I thought the same thing until I googled it.  It's short for "through the viewfinder."  And what exactly is that?  Another good question :)  I read on a blog about using a Kodak Duaflex camera, one of those old as the hills cameras that people used to use looooooong before I was born.  It's the one that you hold at your waist and look down to see the subject in front of you.  I made several bids on eBay for a few but always lose out at the very end, and have yet to find one in a second hand store.  I was speaking to my Aunty Bonnie about it and she said she had one, along with several other cameras.  Not too long after that Robert shows up at the house with all the cameras from Aunty Bonnie.  Shame on me I still haven't called her to thank her, but I'm getting to it Aunty B... THANK YOU! :)

So the first thing I do is create an odd looking tube thingy out of a large plastic cup and tape it onto my macro lens that I have on my Canon DSLR T1i.  I then set the odd looking contraption over the viewfinder of the camera.  It's actually a Brownie Hawkeye but it will work the same as the Kodak Duaflex.




I snap a few pictures of my Starbucks coffee cup but quickly realize that, no matter how much I love my Starbucks cup, there was no way this picture was going to look authentic because Starbucks simply did not exist in Nov 1952 (the manufacture date of this camera)... or I'm pretty sure it didn't :)

I holler at Sydney, who's down in my room watching TV, move the cup, and tell her to set her head down on the table.  Until I figure out a way to attach my Canon, macro lens, and contraption to the Brownie, the pictures have to be taken from the table because my arms aren't long enough to hold the whole works together.

Anyway... here's two pics I snapped of Sydney.  The many groups I read up on say do not clean the lens; the dirt, hair, specs, fluff, etc., only add to the picture.  I think this one may be a little extreme though.  The only post processing in Adobe Photoshop is a touch of cropping and an action (my memory evades me but I think it was Mocha Madness) from Jodi over at MCP Actions.







I know I could probably do the whole thing without the Brownie in Photoshop, but what fun would that be??  I think this will be great to take pictures of the barn, horses, or anything on the Ranch 'cause we have a ton of old stuff around here ;)

I'm off to Abbotsford tomorrow to pick up Aunty Helen, woohoo she has my new lens with her!  I'm so excited to try it out, it feels like Christmas Eve and I'm waiting for morning ;)  Have a great night everyone!

Good news Bad news

The good news is Lillooet residents were allowed to go home yesterday, still under evacuation alert tho'.  I personally feel that the "neighbourhood by neighbourhood" re-entry was ridiculous.  I couldn't imagine camping down near the bridge, only a minute from the road check, and not allowed to enter until 4 PM if you lived in central Lillooet east of Main Street, while someone who has to travel from Kamloops (or wherever they stayed) and lives at Conway, could enter at 1 PM or if you lived at Cayoosh Indian reserve you could enter at noon.

Don't you think it would have been better to open the road check for 20 minutes and shut it down for 10 or something similar?  All areas would have been slowly populated, there would have been way less congestion at the bottom of Station Hill, and a lot of people who didn't travel very far out of town would have been home a lot quicker.  I know when there is a sale at the grocery store in Lillooet, and you aren't there the first day, usually items are sold out and you get a rain check, wonder what was left for the 4 o'clock residents when 4 hours of people got there before them, to stores that were most likely low in stock to begin with??  It's a wonder there wasn't a mutiny at noon!  But I am very grateful, that sitting here at 7:30 AM, most Lillooet residents are waking in their own beds this morning :)


So that was the good news :)  The bad news is the Della Creek fire, just across the river and down from us.  The fire has really taken off and it has me more worried than the Lillooet (Mt. McLean) fire.  Last night Hubby and I drove down and I took some pics.  The small light in the bottom right of the picture is an RCMP officer's vehicle blocking anyone from returning, a small group of houses is located to the left of his car in the bottom center of the photo.




While I was there I spoke with a girl who's grandmother lives just below the fires.  Binoculars in hand, she sat nervously in the back of a pick-up truck watching across the river.  Her Uncle Phillip was interviewed on the news last week saying he would not be leaving if an evacuation order was put in place.  I don't know if he changed his mind when we saw the RCMP come down the road, followed by a school bus, and evacuate the people over there.




This fire has the potential to really get out of control and a back burn is tentatively scheduled for today.  The back burn will either "make or break" the fire because it's going to be in a spot that could light up the whole mountain on this side.  The fire is 22 kilometers away from Lillooet and everyone should really be on their toes because the Mt. McLean fire swiftly made it over towards Seton and Shalath in no time at all.




Yesterday afternoon I was standing on my deck watching the billows of smoke coming from the back end of the fire and was shocked at just how hot the fire was burning!  Clouds of smoke quickly rose to the sky almost instantly covering the sun and we didn't know if it was a back burn or not... it turns out it was not and sadly the fire just took off.  Hubby was less than two miles away with our skidder, he said he could almost feel the heat and the noise was comparable to an aircraft carrier.





It's hard to tell in the picture but the smoke was roaring up quite fast.




I don't think these fires are going to stop until we see snow, seriously.  Even then, roots from trees can smolder for a year or more waiting until the first hot day of next summer.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I think we are far from being out of the woods (quite the pun there). 

For more pictures of the fires visit my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansasa

Lillooet Evacuated

It's been a bit since I've posted but with good reason.  All my hometown of Lillooet was evacuated this past Sunday.  Wow what a lot of excitement, and not the good kind.  The fire that started July 22 on Mt. McLean has really gotten out of control.  About 3000 people were swiftly evacuated and Dallas and family made it to my house in their trailer.  They are camped at my backdoor and probably won't be allowed back into town until Wednesday or Thursday.  They are lucky because a lot of people are sleeping in their cars at the end of the bridge going into town.  127 residents refused to leave and are taking their chances in town.

Here's a picture that Dallas managed to snap as they were heading out of town.

Last night Sydney, my brother Frank, and I drove in as far as we were allowed and I snapped some pics.  The fire is extremely hot and can be seen here candling along the top of the trees.



This is what it looked like when we hit town.  The location of the picture above is at the lower right when the fire really took off.  When we drove up we could see the Bell chopper, although I didn't notice but he was supposedly dropping a mixture of gas and diesel alongside the bottom of the fire creating what they call a back burn.  A back burn is when they create a controlled fire at the bottom in hopes that it goes back up the hill meeting the large uncontrolled fire to eliminate fuels.  They've done this twice and both times they have said it was successful.



Along with the Mt. McLean (Lillooet) fire I've been dealing with the Della Creek fire across and down a bit from us.




Hubby is operating our skidder on this fire and with the size of the fire I worry about him.



This is what the moon looks like here at night.


And this is what the sun looks like when it's setting.


I'm really starting to dislike the colours red and orange and would love to see some blue rain and green foliage around here again :)
My heart and prayers go out to all the displaced people of Lillooet and all the men and woman who are helping to battle the fires.  I understand that firefighters from Australia and New Zealand are headed to BC and I couldn't be more grateful because right now we need all the help we can get.

For a lot more pictures of the fires drop by my flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansasa/