The Truant Muse

No…not really.

And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o’er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

William Wordsworth

After some casting about, this is the view I’ve chosen. I now understand that the little white piles all over are the ashes of whatever plant stood there. With no wind to speak of in this fire, the ashes fell more or less directly, sometimes with a little stump or the skeleton of the tree left above. Well, my head understands. The less intellectual part of me is still having trouble grasping that all that vibrant life that filled these hills is now reduced to little piles of white debris. Despite the grimness, I admit there’s something pleasing to the smooth roundness of the landscape here…a feature you can’t see as well when the normal plant growth is there.

I think what we’re looking at used to be a hillside of mostly manzanita, toyon and sage. Beyond are scrub oak, and I want to think these might actually make it…they still show some leaves and we all know how fire resistant scrub oak are! Behind me, on the other side of the fire road, are a few more oak going down the hill – one of them in fairly good shape, one not looking too good. We’ll see.

Now here’s a curious thing. You can see the fire burned black right up to the edge of the fire road, here. Yet there’s a narrow row of brown, dead grasses left standing. How on earth does that not burn? I’ve learned a lot about wildfire in this episode, not the least of which is how much I still don’t understand.

The hawks are having a field day. On the edge of the burn area, where vegetation returns in the depth of the arroyo, this red tail played sentinel for a bit before flying off for breakfast.

Next visit and update will be early October, we are visiting Northern Cali and Southern Oregon for a bit.

Just in the nick of time to distract me from this disaster in our mountains, comes the LA County Fair. Never have I needed the gluttony and indulgence more! It did not fail to do the job. Despite the constant overhead traffic of water dropping helicopters, we came, we drank, we conquered. Fair, I salute you!

Right away we fueled up with a couple frosty beers and burritos. Although I almost lost my appetite after passing this. The latest epicurian craze at the fair. Hard pressed to think of anything more disgusting. NO, I didn’t. For sweet pity’s sake, would YOU?

Having fought off starvation, we headed to the “Bark Park”, a relatively new section of the fair. It’s all about dawgs. Obviously, we approve!

Because nothing says “welcome to the fair” like an adorable li’l goggie!

And we checked out the “Splashdog” competition, them dawgs love to jump in the water! Sometimes the owners do too…albeit not intentionally.

To beat the heat we moseyed through some of what I affectionately refer to “Halls of Crap”…things for sale that you never really knew you needed (largely because, uh, well, you DON’T).

It’s an egg! In the shape of a gun! Seriously, who doesn’t need one of these bad boys!

Remember when the fair was the only place you had to see this crap?

Where else can you buy cell phone doodads AND peach cobbler in the same place? I ask you!

Do you think anyone has ever bought a pool table at the fair? I was tempted to say, “I want the one in the middle…”

At length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Pistachio.

Tiring of the halls of crap, we made a quick detour to my personal favorite area, the baked goods competition. The good, the bad, the weird, the ugly, and the rapidly decomposing…

It’s cake! It’s cheese! It’s really flippin awesome!

Have a happy birthday or the monkey will haunt you in your dreams.

Oh, help. And this is on day TWO. This one’s gonna be a goner by Saturday.

I want a door made of chocolate. Stat.

And in the cookie department…oh dear. I said to myself, “self, we’re going to make us some moose turd pie!”

After a brief detour through “Jurassic Land”, featuring the world’s largest collection of animatronic dinosaurs, including THIS attractive diorama:

We decided we were simply famished. Time for some high class fair chow!

A cold refreshing beverage

A couple Pinks chili dawgs

A JUICY jumbo turkey leg

And – of course! – a delicioso FUNNEL CAKE!

Stay tuned for chapter two next week – Barrel Racing and more food decomposition! YUM!

“And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury.”
- Willy

I’m sure much will come from this – some good, some bad, and there’s always something you can learn. You may not like what you learn, but only a fool turns his back on lessons like this.

Dismayed to tears when I saw this sight of one of my husband’s favorite hiking trails. It felt, at first, like an ending, like something was lost that would never be recovered. It certainly has a grimness. And a photo can’t convey the feel of standing there, in unsheltered sun, with ash and dust blowing from the unprotected hillside into your eyes, making you cough. At least the ash in my eyes gave me an excuse as to why they were watering. Wouldn’t be right to admit I was crying over some lost trees and habitat. Over 150,000 acres of lost trees and habitat.

Being the project oriented gal that I am, I figured it would give me some sense of purpose to record the recovery. So I’m going to come back to this place, once a week, and take a photo. I’ve never gotten the chance to watch fire habitat change this up close and personal, and I’m not 100% sure what I expect to see. But what I find, I’ll post here. Who knows what we’ll learn.