Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Some of you may have heard news reports mentioning wildfires in California and also near Reno. When I went back into Reno yesterday to buy that new cable modem, I could see the plume of smoke of what is known as the Davis Fire from far away when I was coming through the Truckee River canyon, and while I was coming and going, it was clear that the fire had flared up and was generating an immense amount of smoke. However, it was difficult to get a picture of it from any of the parking lots around town, as the buildings blocked the view.

( Davis Fire )

The smoke is less bad in Fernley today, and I think there is a chance of rain in a few days; unfortunately, between now and then it will remain dry and sometimes windy, which means that a Red Flag Fire Warning is up, and fighting that fire (which as of now is still 0% contained) will remain quite challenging.

We had a run of nice spring-like weather this week, but as expected, it turned colder and started raining last night. Lisa and I got out for a walk just before the rain started falling in earnest. There was no snow here overnight, but it got close.

( A Light Dusting )

It was cold enough here to need to get the fireplace going again.

Yesterday it got sufficiently warm that I let the fire go out overnight, and this morning, I dug ashes and cleaned the glass. However, by this afternoon, it was cold enough that it was time to restart the fire.

( Coaxing the Stove Back to Life )

Of course, it will take hours before the stove gets back up to full heat.

This morning I had an errand to run that took me by the first station.

( 9/11 Event )

I could see that there were a lot of children at the event, none of whom were even born in 2001.

Lisa and I continued to work on reducing the pile of pallets over the weekend. By the time we finished, there were only about 1 1/4 pallets left, and the wood box was nearly completely full of both Pres-to-Logs and pieces of pallet. The weather got warmer and more spring-like, so I let the fire go out so that I could dig out ash, and also nails, as when you burn these old pallets, you end up with old nails in the ashes, of course.

( Then the Snow Came Back )

The pallets burn well — a little too well sometimes. They burn relatively fast and I need to keep loading more wood into the fireplace much more often than with the Pres-to-logs. But of course this is wood that did not cost us anything extra, and it also means we are clearing out the junk pallets.

On Saturday evening, while we were sitting on the porch watching the birds, we spotted a fire in the distance.

( Fire on Fremont Street )

This afternoon, on my way back from Grocery Outlet, I went down Fremont Street, and to my surprise I could see no obvious signs of the fire such as a burned-out house or something like that. I don't know anything else about this fire. Possibly it only was trees and brush that caught fire, and for the sake of the people living there, I hope that nothing else was damaged.

And on the flip side of yesterday's sign at the fire department...

( No offense intended to any vegetarian readers )

I wonder who comes up with these signs for them.

( By the Fire Department )

Sounds like good advice to me.

Our residential burn permit, which can be used only for burning yard waste, expires at the end of May. (The burn season is October through May. A seasonal burn permit costs $15 from the North Lyon County Fire Protection District.) While we've periodically trimmed brush since last summer, we never had gotten around to actually burning it, and time had run out. We'd planned on doing it several of the past few weekends, but rain (and earlier in the year, snow) put paid to those plans. I had today off (mostly), so after doing a small bit of Day Jobbe from 4-5 AM, we set out to deal with the accumulated brush just after daylight. It was pleasant enough weather for the job.

( Fire Works )

With the brush burned, we put away most of the tools, but left the hose and nozzle out in case a hot spot appeared despite our efforts. We'll put those away this evening. While we waited for this morning's California Zephyr (now restored to daily service, hooray!) to come by, we sat on the porch and admired our work. I then spied a visitor on the porch.

( Porch Lizard )

That's a pretty good day's work done, in our opinion, and I'm glad we did it first thing in the morning before it got hot, because burning brush is hot work even in cold weather. I was sweating it up in my coveralls by the time we got done, and I picked up some mild sunburn on my face and neck even from just a couple of hours of morning exposure.

The North Lyon County Fire Department laments the lack of good writing skills.

( Sign Me Up )

I don't know who writes these things, but I do like them.