Late Saturday

This is actually Saturday's post. My computer has been so sluggish (the spirit of Sluggo!) that I missed the window of opportunity and midnight passed. It was partly cloudy today, and the humidity must be up because some of my wooden doors are sticking. They only do that in humid weather. While I was sitting on the back porch after sunset I thought I saw a couple of brief flashes of light, which might have been lightning, but I heard no thunder. It might have been heat lighting from flashes in the mountains, too distant for the sound of thunder to carry.

There have been thunderstorms in the coast range over the last couple of days, and they started a lot of fires, but most of the fires haven't gotten very big and several have already been controlled. The fire 40 miles southeast of here is now about 80% contained, and hasn't spread much. We still aren't smelling the smoke from it, or from any other fires. I guess we were lucky to have only one smoky day from it. If there are storms in the mountains tonight there could be more fires, and we'd be more likely to get smoke from them than from the fires across the valley.

Tonight one cricket nearby is chirping so loudly that I can barely hear the more distant crickets. The chirp is so relaxing that it would probably be putting me to sleep if I hadn't had a three hour nap late this afternoon. That's the other reason I didn't get this entry posted on Saturday. I got a very late start on my very slow computer. I still haven't had dinner, either, thanks to a very late lunch. I should probably go fix something now, lest I end up having to eat Sunday breakfast early instead of Saturday dinner late.

Windows open, air conditioner off, cool breeze coming in. Delightful.

Flashed

Last night was supposed to be cool, but clouds dragged themselves over the region like a blanket and I was unable to get the house to cool below 74 degrees all night. It wasn't much cooler outside. The faint flashes I saw not long after disk did turn out to be lightning, and after about two o'clock in the morning the flashes became brighter and more frequent, and distant thunder became audible. The lightning seemed to be reflecting from a great distance itself, as it was never less than twenty seconds after a flash that the thunder began.

Later, I lay awake for hours, watching the lightning ripple across the clouds and listening to the distant rumbling. The heat kept me awake. About four o'clock I went outside to get a bit cooler and there was a brief sprinkle. There might have been others, but I wasn't outside to see them. There was nothing that could be called rain, though.

Anyone familiar with California will not be surprised that the thunderstorm started a number of fires. Five were small and accessible and quickly contained, but the others are in more remote and rugged areas, so they are apt to be burning for quite some time. They made the air quite hazy today, though there was little small of burning here. The electrical storm was local, so other regions of the state didn't get hit this time. The worst fires currently burning in the state continue to be those in the coast ranges.

The fire incident information section of the web site of the California Department of Forestry keeps giving me error pages, and when it finally loads it is very slow, so it must be getting clogged up. When I finally got to see it I found that none of the new local fires rated a place on the map, so I'm guessing there's not much to worry about.

The good news is that the clouds have thinned out considerably, and the evening is cooling rapidly. If the clouds continue to cooperate, we should finally be getting one of those cool nights we've been promised. I'm hoping to have the air conditioner turned off by nine o'clock and get the windows open. So far there's no smell of smoke this evening, though there could be by morning. I can put up with the smoke as long as it gets cooler. Last night I managed only about four hours of sleep. I'm about as sick of heat as I've ever been, and will be so glad to be rid of it, even if only for a while.


( Sunday Verse )