Pellet heads!! What's up today?

Never forget.

 

We are hanging in there....holding our own.
Fires all around us....but the wind has shifted back to the West with marine air coming in.
Rain by Monday.......

We have smoke so thick you need an axe to chop through it and a sieve so you can breathe it.....

Here are some pix around the ranch here.....

So dry an unsupervised fart will start a fire....

We HAVE NEVER HAD 60 mph winds with 80 mph gusts from the North...EVER.

I have lived here 68 years and my folks were here on the property from 1947

Spooky stuff......

THE PICS

A short distance off the paved road we are into timbered areas....Power lines are vulnerable.

Closer to the ranch....up the hill to the ranch drive way.

Then down through what us old timers here call "The canyon" steep slopes on both sides...We lose power in most snow events of any amount due to the lines in this corridor getting knocked down.

This area held.....basically because it was sheltered from the North wind

The first piccy is close to where a 2" diameter limb blew across the road and landed on a line and caused it to burn through.

Getting the big gen set back into fighting shape.

We installed this bad boy back in 1999 before the Y2K crisis hit....and never happened.

20KW diesel unit.

I am pretty sure we are safe for now.....but winter is nearing.....and having the big gen set up and running will be a blessing.

For the tech guru's

The transfer switch is a 400 amp 240 volt single phase unit

We have a manufactured home on a full daylight basement and the downstairs living quarters has its own 200 amp service.....

 

WW
That is the current story.
There have been news reports both ways, and the media does not do a great job of getting stuff right.
The fire bug stories have been popping up here and there, but some have been confirmed by locals that have witnessed LE action......
Looters have also surfaced their ugly heads and some have been caught.

The current weather forecast is still narrowing in on much needed rain by late Sunday and on into the week.
Anything that gets some dampness back into the area will help immensely.

The very low RH values and the wind back on Monday really sucked the moisture outta here..

Even in Summer we should see RH values above 50%

The changes are already here. RH this morning is at 96% with the morning marine air influx.

Far better than the 15% we had on Tuesday morning....

At that time even snapping your fingers wrong could almost ignite a fire.


The 96% RH will not put a fire out, but will certainly stop the explosive action we saw a few days ago.

We are still on HIGH ALERT around here.

The truck is buckled up to the horse trailer and stands by.

The kids hooked up their big Dodge last night and took our Avalanche home.....

I have been wrenching on the big gen set trying to get it ready to roll.

Way too late for this gig, but this entire scenario really brought reality right up and dumped it at our feet.

We need to be more prepared for things like this.

Our well is fed power off the old ranch house that has been abandoned for 26 years.

Gotta dig a trench and get an underground feed from the gen shack/main house power connected to the well shack.....

Then we can power the well off the gen set.......

We almost got caught with our pants down on this one.

The last time was 2008 when we got 2 weeks of bitter cold and 4 feet of snow in here.

At any rate.....things are settling down a lot from what it was a couple days ago....

 

Indeed.

Prayers for all those folks who have lost homes and in some cases family members.
Some folks close by here lost barns, but no lives (People or animals) were lost.

Barns can be rebuilt, homes and a lifetime of living is tougher....most certainly lives can not be brought back...

 

Yesterday afternoon, I got the P43 unpacked from its summer nap. This morning the house smells like hot metal. At least it doesn't smell like from letting the propane boiler run as it did yesterday morning. The P61a is still packed up tight since this time of year the basement stays warmer than the main floor.

 

We had a heavy DEW last night.....everything is damp outside.

House was about 63 F BRRRRRRRR...Last week the AC was on this time of the day.

Fired off the little stove a bit ago....get the shack up to 70 F or so then shut it off...

Already feeling a lot more cozy inside.
Rain coming....

 

Please stay safe Snowy Rivers

 

We are getting back closer to our normal routine around here now...
Fire danger is still high, but getting a bit better.

WE still have the Truck and big horse trailer hooked up and all loaded and ready to toss the ponies in if need be.... and GTHOD

Yesterday the kids came up and got a very big start on cleaning up after the blow.

We have the burn pile so big that sucker is gonna be rated as a CONFLAG

With the Son in law on the skid steer and me on the little tractor we got a lot done....

Daughter was cleaning up around the horse barn getting vines and other debris policed up.....

S I L got on the roof of the barn and swept off the huge pile of debris and then cleaned the gutters out getting ready for the rains.

I still have a huge amount of limbs and stuff all over the yard out front to haul to the burn pile.

But unless something really wild pops up we should be out of the woods as far as fires and such.

BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT...Until we get at least 1/2" of rain to dampen things a bit.....anything is possible

 

The high winds have brought smoke over to the Northeast. Hazy so it looks like we have a high-level cloud cover. Not affecting air quality though.

 

Did you see this satellite photo? Pacific cyclone sucking up smoke.

 

https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/a...914120318-desktop-smoke-forecast-20200914.mp4

 

39* here this AM. It motivated me to give the stove it's End of Year/Beginning of Year cleaning. The stove is done but I still need to pull and clean the ESP.

 

I have lived here for 68 years and never seen anything like this.

A perfect storm.....caused the terrific North wind that made such a mess and spread the fires all over.

We are getting back to some bit of normal...

 

We got rain last night....and some T boomers too.

This rain will definitely help the fire danger a lot....

 

Good news right there.

 

First frost this am.....vermonts in da hoppah