This summer's fires

Some friends of ours were trapped, more or less, in their home off Carmel Valley Road for about ten days.

When the sheriff's deputies came to evacuate them, they chose to stay and protect their home and livestock themselves rather than leave it to others.

Whenever I've heard of people doing this in the past, I envisioned some kind of diehard shotgun totin' redneck who would rather go up in flames than let any kind of government person set foot on their property.

As with so many stereotypes, this one did not stand up to investigation.

Our friends do have shotguns and probably wouldn't really mind if you called them rednecks. But their position is not diehard or fanatical.

While they did have to sign a waiver proferred by the deputies that they were staying voluntarily and were thus "victims" of the situation, they could have left at any time, if the road weren't blocked by fire, but without assistance and possibly without being able to take their animals.

But staying allowed them to keep an eye on the encroaching flames from a distance (never closer than two ridges away) and make what preparations they could, including flagging previously-cut dozer and jeep trails so that they could be re-used by firefighters if necessary.

In the meantime, we were all wondering when this state is going to figure out the proper place of wildfires in our landscape and ecology.

Forty years ago, I saw an exhibit at the Oakland Museum that explained the beneficial role of fires in many of the ecosystems that are found here. When fires are allowed to burn every year, on a small scale, they not only keep the fuel supply from getting out of hand but cause the seeds of beneficial plants (manzanita? madrone?) to germinate, thus keeping the ecosystem healthy.

The passage of time may have dulled the precision of this memory but I don't think the science has changed since then. Yet 40 summers have gone by with each fire season more catastrophic than the last. This year our friends were fortunate, but what about the future?

What keeps us from using the knowledge we have of wildfires in a pro-active way to keep ecosystems strong, spare the loss of property and life and save the millions of dollars that have been needed so far to fight this year's huge fires?

I suspect part of the reason is that the money for sane fire management is never available, so we end up spending even more when the fires have to be fought. Sort of like cutting the education budget but spending more on prisons.

Smokey the Bear also needs to change his message, and a coalition of tree-huggers and gun totin' rednecks probably wouldn't hurt either.

Foiled

It turned out, more blogging from my trip was not practical. I was busy tending my flock, I was sick for three days, and then when I had time to post, we were in the middle of a no-link zone (the Irish Sea).

I did find magic, though, and I will share it with you soon.

Ireland

Ii am typiinng this on a keyboard thaat was in the desk drawer (in my room at Ashford Castle, Cong, County Mayo, Ireland.)that enables me to us the tv as a commputer. Hhowever thiis keyboard, as you can see, is ultrasensitive so I get a lot of double-strikes and other poor spelling. I also have no idea how to download photos onto this thing.

Ashford Castle really is aa castle and was owned by a Guinnes for many years. It has a lake, a fountain, horses, falcons ( and an owl named Dingle), 3 reestaurants, big shiny bathrooms and a garden.


We have seen bogs, other castles, the ocean, and the tower wheree W.B. Yeats lived. But it's 12:30 an d I still have to pack.

Off I go

Tomorrow I drag 4 heavy bags to San Francisco airport and am on my way to Ireland, Scotland and England for about 2 weeks.

I will be leading a group of assorted mostly-70-year-olds.

I will be the one in black (my Macy's & Starbucks wardrobe) having the most fun.

My feet hurt right now after wearing silly shoes to the Travel/Study Launch party, and I had to drive all the way back to Hollister because I left my passport in the photocopier, but now all is well.

The next signal will come to you from County Mayo, Ireland.

Last Friday I attended my niece Julia's last high school play. She was "Bubbie" in Crossing Delancey. It was eerie, as she channeled my grandmother Rose Gewirtz, in language and attitude, and my mother Margaret Gage in appearance.

That's Julia/Bubbie between her parents, and on the right is Rose's boy, Nathan.

Today I did my day job in two parts, one from 8:30 to 10:30, then back from 5:00 till closing at 9:00.

In between I sat at Starbucks and had coffee from a real cup and read the New York Times. Ah, luxury. Then I went to the library and fooled around on the internet (when I could've been writing my column) then browsed among the books.

This unstructured time made me energetic for the rest of the day. Energetic and loving to the world.

I plan to use this blog to document my upcoming trip.

In a week and one day I will fly away on an adventure. I am the tour manager for a Stanford Travel/Study program to the British Isles. We will start near Shannon, Ireland, then fly to Edinburgh, then Aberdeen where we board the Island Sky and sail counter-clockwise around the top of Scotland, visiting famous remote islands along the way.

I have been making lots of jokes about haggis. One friend told me to ask for the vegetarian version.

I plan to fortify myself with single malt whiskey or maybe just beer, and take a big bite, like the adventurous traveler I am. I read somewhere about a company that is offering Indiana Jones-like adventures, so you can pay to eat live snake (no monkey brains, though). So since I am BEING paid, seems like the least I can do is try haggis.