5 days of fire, so far...

Our house is up in a canyon. One canyon west of Topanga. We live in Ventura County, right next to the Los Angeles County line. Our house is just under 30 miles from the ocean. It’s about the same distance to downtown LA.

Up the canyon from us is the northern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains Preserve. The Preserve runs south and west to the Ocean. It goes around towns and small suburban LA suburbs, if you’ve been watching or listening to the news you’ll recognize some of the these names. West Hills, Calabasas, Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, Oak Park, Camarillo, Malibu and of course, Thousand Oaks. If I climb to the top of the Preserve I can see most of them. And since Thursday, they’ve all been on fire. We’re lucky, we are on the windward side of the fires.

The winds this time of the year blow in from the desert east of us. The winds are called Santa Anas. The blow warm and hard. They blow for days. Friday the Santa Ana wind was blowing between 25 to 30 miles an hour, with gusts to just under 50. Santa Ana winds are relentless, they last for days and weeks. Today, Saturday, the winds stopped, they dropped to a light breeze. The forecast says they’ll pick up and again Sunday and blow until Tuesday, maybe longer. Fire likes the Santa Ana wind. The drop in the wind is giving the firefighters and chance to regroup and begin to contain the fires. Fires that have been out of control from their start Thursday.

We’ve got our bags packed, important papers in a plastic box. Dog supplies for our German Shepherd. Should we pack our camping gear, food? It’s under discussion.

Well over 250,000 people are under evacuation orders. The hotels are full all-over Southern California, the freeways are bumper to bumper, where would we go? We have family in San Diego and Santa Cruz, friends in between.

We have Spectrum cable for television and internet it’s not working, hasn’t since Friday afternoon. We have T Mobile for our cell phones, they don’t work either. If we drive down the canyon we can get cell service. The cable company says it’s a fiber optic problem, T Mobile says they can’t get in to fix the cell tower for our area because it’s in a fire restricted area.

We’re getting our information from AM radio. KNX News Radio and KFI are doing a wonderful job.

KNX is all news, the news right now is all fire. The station has reporters everywhere and there are constant updates. KFI is a talk radio station. Like many talk stations they go paid programming and syndication on the weekends. They blew that all off because of the fire, their regular hosts are anchoring and KFI is all fire like KNX. Both stations are doing what radio has always been tasked to do, KFI and KNX are serving the community. They are really doing a great job. The programming is informative and it’s interesting. Both stations have partnered with local TV stations and essentially been able to double the coverage. Neither station has neglected to provide coverage of the tragic Camp Fire in northern California. Both carry news conferences live, they have meteorologists live and both have been really, really, good on traffic.

KFI and KNX are powerful reminders of what radio should be and can be. Congratulations to both stations.  

It’s mid-morning on Sunday. Right on cue the Santa Ana winds are back. We have our internet service back. We’re listening to KFI. They just carried a press conference. A few facts, 8,000 fire personnel are on duty. 700 LA and Ventura county deputies have been assigned to looter patrols. There has been very little looting, so who knows.

While watching all news television station KCAL 9, my wife said “Oh no!” It was a story on burned out home in Malibu, she knows the house well. She directed a photo shoot there when she was with an agency a few years ago.

The LA Rams train in Thousand Oaks, 75 players, coaches and other Ram employees live in TO. They had to evacuate. Several players have donated their game checks from Sunday for community relief efforts. Others are organizing an auction of memorabilia, like game jerseys, for the same cause.

This morning, Monday, I looked out my office window to the Northeast, there was smoke in the clear blue November sky. I was downwind from it. I went outside, I could smell the smoke and I heard helicopters. I went back to my desk and checked Ventura County Fire. Sure enough there was a fire on Rocky Peak, less than 5 miles as the crow flies. That was at 10:30. The fire burned up to the Freeway, the 118. Just after 11, the wind died, the helicopters water bombed the fire and killed it in its tracks. It took multiple aircraft and 50 fire crews to take care of it. The Freeway was closed for 3 hours in both directions from Topanga to the Yosemite exit.

It was tense, I walked two blocks to where I could get cell service and called my wife, told her the dog and I were okay and staying put. We are in a red flag area, that means, be alert for possible evacuation.

It’s windy again, gusts to 40mph, it’s cooler and cooler weather helps lessen the fire danger.

This is the 5^th day of fire, everybody is stressed. We haven’t had to move, I can’t imagine the stress level of people who are living out of their cars, staying in hotels, worrying about their pets and possessions, their homes. 

This is exhausting.

Seasonal labor...

"This reminds me of you" my frie4nd Taylor said and sent this link the other day...

A season for contemplation

I didn't read it right away. He poked me about it and I finally responded.

"Hey asshole, I just got to it, my fucking day has been busy, I had to box up all the god damn Halloween shit and haul it to the fucking garage, which is across the god damn street from this fucking house. Then I had to carry it up a fucking ladder to put it on the top shelves. I almost went into cardiac arrest, do you have a fucking clue how much ceramic jack o fucking lanterns weigh? Three of the mother fuckers, plus a shit load of other shit like a full size skeleton with light the fuck up eyes. 

Shit, I just looked up and realized the fucking 4 foot furry spider is still hanging on the god damn wall. Incidentally that bastard's eyes light up too!" 

Good, Clear thinking on "FEAR"...

My sister sent this,  written by her paper's Minnesota Farm columnist, Brent Olson.

Independently Speaking

Publication Date 11-1-18

Don’t be so afraid.

Seriously. It’s a little embarrassing, not to mention un-American. America is not a country founded by fear.

I’ll be the first to admit it’s a hard world, and there are a lot of bad things happening in a lot of places. But you know what? Being scared fixes none of it. A scared dog will bite a friend and a scared baby cries.

Scared of the immigrant caravan coming our way? Well, first of all, they’re still a thousand miles away and on foot, so we’ve got a little time. And even if there are 5,000 of them, that’s not so many. A few years ago, I leaned on a railing and looked at the border crossing south of San Diego. About 90,000 people cross the border there every day, and they’re pretty well controlled. Turning back a caravan of 5,000 people might not even make it into the day’s paperwork.

If you’re just opposed to new people coming into the country without the right papers, I’m with you.  We need a lot more immigrants to do the jobs Americans don’t seem to want, but they need to be properly documented so they pay into the system and are protected by the system just like anyone else.  And, that’s what’s happening. Twenty years ago, about 1.2 million people entered the country illegally each year. That number has been dropping every year and now it’s down to about 10% of that amount. To put that in perspective, my home town has a population of about 450 people. If we had our share of undocumented workers, that means one new person would move to town every year and a half. So, don’t be scared of immigrants. If you want to hire someone to milk cows or mop floors in a hospital, there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to be someone with an accent. It’s always been that way.

You can be as scared as you want, and it won’t change a thing. Let’s face it, if you live in the Western Hemisphere you’re the descendent of an immigrant, whether your ancestors strolled across the Bering Strait 10,000 years ago or got off the plane yesterday.

Perhaps we could take a moment and look at the reasons a person would be willing to walk a thousand miles carrying a baby. If our government is contributing to the problem, we should make it stop. That would help a lot, because, in the end, the only real solution to people fleeing their homes is that their homes are safe enough that they don’t need to leave.

“How about MS13?” you might say.

Well, yeah. Those are really bad people - brutal criminals who need to be arrested, prosecuted, and locked up for their crimes. And that’s what law enforcement is doing. It’s nothing new. In the 1840s, the Bowery Boys were a violent street gang in New York who hated the Irish and the Catholics. A few years later, the Irish and the Jews had their own gangs, after that the Poles and the Chinese had a run at being street criminals. The Italians were a little late to the game, but they do get credit for the whole Mafia thing. When I was in high school, people were worried about the Hell’s Angels. Now many of those Hells Angels who aren’t in jail have grey hair and prostate issues. There are factors as to who becomes a criminal that are far more important than skin color and religion. That’s just the truth, and letting someone convince you that you need to be terrified of…well, of anyone, is of no use at all.

I deeply, passionately disapprove of people who want to make me scared. They are like sleazy salesmen who want to sell you something you don’t need and are willing to say anything to get the job done.

That doesn’t mean I float through the world in a rose-colored glasses fog. We face real problems. For instance, for every dollar the U.S. Government spends, it borrows about a quarter. Do that with your credit card and you’ll lead a sweet life for a while.

But not forever. 

The scientists at NASA say that due to climate change, my area of the country is going to see more droughts, hotter temperatures, AND more floods. Right now, farm incomes are down, expenses are up, and that’s with really good weather. Farming has never been a relaxing profession; it’s not going to get easier.

You look around the world and some really bad people are in some really powerful positions of control.  Dealing with them is going to require friends, allies, persistence, and clear thinking.

These are some of the real problems I think about, and being scared won’t fix any of them.

There’s an election coming up. Please vote. I’d suggest you vote for candidates who tell the truth, who believe in science, and, you know, facts. People who are for something and not just against something. 

Especially don’t vote for hate or fear. It’s just un-American.

Copyright 2018 Brent Olson