Canyon Fire

Last Sunday we were preparing for an early Labor Day barbecue celebration when we noticed a small puff of smoke on the other side of Tehachapi Mountain. Being the peak of fire season, the sight wasn't unexpected, albeit disconcerting. We went about our day keeping an eye on the billowing smoke, noting the expanding cloud as the day progressed. As guests arrived, the air traffic picked up.

Several of these little guys were circling along with multiple helicopters carrying buckets.

 A pod-carrying DC-10 was called into action, too.

The reason for the big gun was this:

Dry vegetation and wind proved the perfect combination for an out-of-control wildfire.

Despite the distant threat and strong smell of smoke, we opted to take up post at the end of our street and gawk at the destruction.

For me, it was easier to stay calm when all you could see was smoke. When flames appeared over the crest of the mountain a few miles away, I allowed myself to feel a bit anxious.

The dichotomy of the right and left side of the image below strikes a chord of dissonance.

The aerial fire fighting was put on hold as the sky darkened, but the wind was blowing away from our home. We were able to sleep knowing we were not in any immediate danger, but felt sorrow for those whose homes were now in the path of the flames. 

The cause of this fire was a small airplane crash. I don't believe a cause of the crash has been determined, but the two occupants did not survive. Many homes and thousands of acres of land were lost to this fire. It is still flaring in some areas, but it is considered mostly contained.

Oshkosh. Oh, my gosh!

For those of you who are not in-the-know, Oshkosh is a celebration of all things aviation. I liken it to any state fair - there are displays, vendors, food, shows, and in Oshkosh's case, forums. This famed event lasts for a week and will either get you excited about aviation, or overload your aeronautical senses until next year's Oshkosh.

I've been hearing about the goodness of AirVenture since 2003 and decided I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about (damnit). With Burt Rutan and Bob Hoover tributes, this year was destined to be huge. It also gave me leverage to sway Ced into accepting that we could not possibly miss out on this promising event. With tickets in hand, we began our travel to Wisconsin and our very first official vacation.

Our travel plans brought us to Las Vegas to catch a flight to Wisconsin. I have to indulge in this step because it was our first time there. We stayed in the MGM Hotel and Casino and spent time wandering around the casino floor.

Growing up near Casino Row in south Mississippi, I had been in and around casinos and knew a little of what kind of atmosphere to expect. Ced had never been in any gambling facility, so he was excited to finally experience the night life. With the sensory overload of electronic whirs, beeps, flashing lights, and digital dealers, we kept to the edges of the floor getting a feel for the layout and scoping out potential eateries. Roaming from end to end of the MGM Grand, the desperation of the trapped gamblers hoping to hit it big became palpable and we were overcome with an immediate need to get the hell out. So we did.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we were able to settle into our campsite in time to catch the afternoon airshow. Standing among throngs of spectators, we got to see some amazing formation flying.

We scoped out FiFi, the world's only flying B-29 Superfortress.

This group of skydivers was quite eclectic. There were two planes circling the group on the way down, which made the sky extremely busy.

On we went to check out the static displays. Here's a five cylinder rotary engine. I thought it looked a little funny, so I took a picture.

The Glacier Girl was on display with lots of informative storyboards. While reading them, several people would run up, snap a photo of the storyboard, and move on. It was as if saying they were too terribly busy to bother reading a paragraph of text, but promised to do it later.

We saw lots and lots of warbirds. I've yet to remember the species and breed of every flying vehicle (sorry, it's easier for me to think in biological terms).

Several of Burt's aircraft were on display. Here's the Soiltaire and V-Jet II in the midground. Far in the back left is Catbird and Grizzly is on the right. I neglected to get photographs of all of the aircraft (unfortunately), but Starship, Boomerang, several Defiants and LongEZs were also there.

When dinner rolled around, we opted to partake in the Cozy Girrrl's Spaghetti Bash. Although we were in tight quarters, it was nice to see a bunch of like-minded homebuilders in one area. We were both too shy to try to strike up much of a conversation with anyone, though. So we scarfed our spaghetti and moved on.

Over the next few days we sat in on several forums, saw the airshows, skimmed over the vendors, ate lots of ice cream, and went to the EAA Museum.

The displays at the museum were incredible. Of course, there was a lot to look at and not enough time. I snapped photos of some of the more memorable aircraft on display.

This guy has to be my favorite.

Thursday was dedicated to Burt Rutan. He gave multiple talks, Boomerang and Starship flew, and there was a program at night looking over his career and accomplishments.



 

Saturday we managed to make it to the seaplane camp.

After ogling these water birds, we packed up and headed to Milwaukee to catch our flight home. I was definitely feeling the sensory overload of aviation and was looking forward to a recovery day of non-airplaneness. We made it back to Vegas where we stayed at this absurd hotel/casino:

In the morning we eagerly escaped the clutches of Sin City and drove the long four hours back home. Overall, I'm glad I finally got to experience Oshkosh and all that it is. I got to experience the fervor of aviation buffs in their element and share in the excitement of seeing great aircraft on display and in the air. Most importantly, though, we ended up meeting a lot more Cozy builders and heard their horror and success stories. Listening to other builders' experiences renewed our motivation to keep up our progress on our Cozy. Together we made a pact for our next visit to Oshkosh to be in our airplane.

Sage Advice

We have a relatively steep hill on one side of the yard that has presented an interesting landscaping design challenge. I've drummed up a few schemes over the time we've been here, but haven't really settled on an overall plan. I knew I wanted a relatively tall, full plant along the top row to create a border, but not peak over the fence and distort our neighbor's view. This plant also needed to be heat and drought tolerant once established.

After pondering drought tolerant vegetation and the cost of purchasing the mass needed, the thought occurred to me to utilize a plant that was already doing well in the yard.

Meet Russian Sage.

This fragrant, purple shrub would do well as a border plant and was free! All I had to do was dig up runners and clip limbs.

With a bucket of clippings, I climbed the hill and began laying out my plan of attack.

The top of the hill was cleared of existing vegetation (read: weeds) and the sage clippings were evenly spaced.

 
Across the length of the hill, twenty-eight clippings were planted. Were I to purchase that many Russian Sage from a local nursery, the cost would have been around $200. Sure, the plants would have been a bit further along and more visually pleasing, but I'm patient. Especially when I'll get the same effect for free.

With the hard part of digging in the clay over, I'm working my way across the hill, laying down geotextile fabric to prevent weed growth and covering everything in pond pebbles. Cedric spent an afternoon running irrigation, so now all the clippings are watered consistently with a turn of a knob.

 

It's been a few weeks since the runners and clippings have been in the soil and they've all taken root. New growth has appeared and things are looking green and healthy.

Growing with the Garden

Last year was my first growing season in the mountains. I was really excited about the prospect of growing a few vegetables and planted my seedlings outdoors in April. In the southeast, this was a perfect time of the year to get your garden going, so I paid no heed to my neighbor's warning of potential snow and went about the business setting up tomatoes, corn, onions, and green beans.

Then in May it snowed.

Not a lot, mind you, but enough for me to panic and cover my precious seedlings in plastic. Then I left the plastic on for a week for fear of more snow. This was silly of me to do because I ended up steaming most of what I had started.

So, I replanted what was lost and chalked that up as a lesson learned. Things were coming along, although the plants were looking rather stunted. The concoction of soil we amended to make garden-ready-dirt was obviously not chock full of nutrients. Again, another lesson learned.

Despite having a munchkin veggie patch, I was pleased with the garden growth and happy to be actively learning the growing season by trial and error. My tiny corn stalks did begin producing ears, but never quite produced something edible. The tomatoes eventually exploded with fruit, albeit much later than I anticipated and nothing much larger than a golf ball. The thing that did the best was the sunflowers. They grew to a perfect height for me to appreciate their beauty, then fed the local bird population.

Once everything died down, I began composting kitchen scraps directly in the soil. Earthworms appeared and the dirt turned from sandy brown to a rich, dark brown. This year's growing season was looking a bit more promising.

I resisted planting anything outside until the end of May. Thinking I was past any last cold snap, my tomatoes went in the ground and the very next day it snowed. 

Luckily, the temperatures did not dip low enough to kill off anything and the garden has continued to flourish.

Volunteer squash popped up in the middle of my tomato patch.

One lone onion that was left in the ground from last year's try proved itself. I hadn't the heart to pluck it from the ground, seeing that it survived the winter. Plus, I thought it'd be interesting to see its life cycle.

This onion scape has doubled in size, bloomed and is now going to seed.

I thought, perhaps, the tomatoes were as large as they were going to get at this point.

Same with these sunflowers. I expected a bloom at any day when they reached this height.

But things have continued to grow.

The volunteer squash has gone out of control.

And I can no longer see the tops of the sunflowers.

The sugar snap peas have done much better than last year. We've been eating them in salads and stir fries. Delicious!

Volunteer squash blooms. . .

The green bean shrubs are still quite small, but at least they survived this year. I've gotten maybe a dozen beans off of them.

Roma tomatoes are popping out.

And more volunteer squash.

This photo was taken this morning. I now realize I have a serious overcrowding issue, but it's a little late to deal with that. Next year I'll try to be more conscientious of spacing between plants. I honestly expected things to be stunted or die off again, so I planted a bit more than I thought would actually grow.

Plus those darn handful of volunteers.

I'm tossing this image up to show the tiny grape vine that was planted at the beginning of spring and our neighbor's visiting cat. It's been slow going, but things are picking up now that the weather has warmed up.

 

Although there's been a learning curve, I'm quite happy with the progress of growing things around here. Learning the pattern of sunlight, moisture needs, nutrient requirements and the like is always interesting and will allow me to continue developing the curb appeal and backyard ambiance.