What Happens When You Find Delamination On Your Nose

 Nose of the RV that is.

While washing the RV a while back I noticed some delamination above the front window.  Delamination is never a good sign.  So I called my friend Dave who has an RV repair shop and made an appointment to have it repaired.  The kitties and I had to move out of the RV,  but where does one go where she can take her two cats?  My oldest and dearest friend, Diane, who I've known since 1972, said come on up to her house, so off we went.  These kitties are troupers I'll say that for them.  It doesn't matter where we go as long as their beds and food and cat boxes are in the car, then they are home.  We stayed at Diane's for about 10 days before it got really hot, like 102º hot, and she doesn't have air conditioning.  So my cousin, Bob invited us to come bunk in with him in his tiny apartment, but he has air conditioning.  So it was tight but cool.  Stayed there 3 nights and monday morning I called Dave and begged to be allowed to move back into the RV, and he said yes, it was back together just not completely finished.  So the kitties and I stayed 3 nights in the shop, the RV was plugged in so I was able to run the air, as it was still over 100º.  What a heat wave that was.  Here are a few pictures of the window removal and what it looks like now without it.

Old window and curtain and foil heat shield.

Window gone.

What a mess.

All finished and back under the trees at the horse ranch.

What an ordeal, but this was the time and place to have this done.  I am so very thankful that I had a place to go to that was safe for the kitties and me and I got to spend some quality time with my friend.  

Here's a couple pictures of Diane's home.

Kitties checking out the yard.  

Looking to the right.

Looking to the left from veggie garden.  

House in the background.

Getting the window removed and the nose repaired wasn't the only thing I had done to the RV,  but more about that in the next blog.

Fire Season 2020 Continued

 I wasn't going to do another blog about our fires in my area but, remember this picture of old 944 from my last post?

CalFire posted a few pictures of this plane in action.

This video was posted on Facebook by the NorCal Fire and I just had to share it.  

Inside a Super Tanker.   

And this very plane flew right over Jolene's home.

There it goes, west bound.

There he goes back home.

Let's talk about air quality.  As you can see in the two pictures above it got very nasty here.  I was hole up inside the RV with windows closed, for over a week.  A video was posted  on Facebook about making your own air purifier using a box fan and a furnace filter, well I don't have a box fan so I improvised. 

First you go get a filter making sure it will filter out smoke and dust particles. 

Then, I my case, you take the filter apart so I had just the fiber, and then, this is where the improvising comes in.

When plugged into electricity and I can use my air conditioner

 and the suction of the air conditioner fan holds the fiber in place.

When living with an extension cord through a window

 and running the small fan I have, this is what I did. 

Let the fan hold the filter in place

Yes, this works.

My makeshift filters aren't pretty but when you're trying to survive they work.  It got so smoky that eventually I couldn't even breath while inside, and once I started coughing I couldn't stop.  I eventually moved from Willits to the Ukiah fairgrounds where I have full hook-ups and was able to run the air conditioning fan 24/7, and could breath easier as the air quality was better.  The good news is that the wind changed direction and we now have blue skies and clean air, but the fires are still burning and the firefighters are still hard at work.

One problem I have with  moving around the county is,  I'm still waiting for the 'base plate' for the new car.  Which means that I'm unable to tow the car, which means that when I move, then I have to ask someone to take me back to retrieve the car.  It's all a big hassle.  So I'm hoping that while I'm here in Ukiah the base plate will come in and I can get it installed.   

One more note.  The firefighters base camp is here at the fair grounds so it's really busy here.  Firefighters coming and going at all hours of the day and night.  They are even parking 2 helicopters just down the street in a field.  It's all very interesting but I hope I never have to see this again.

One more picture of some of the equipment being used to fight our fires.

 

California Fire Season 2020 Style

I'm back at my friends horse ranch after being gone for a month while the RV was getting some work done.  I might blog about that later, but for now there are more important things to talk about.

First off, the kitties and I are in a safe spot according to a fire person, who came by to look the situation over, because the horses and cows have eaten all the grass.  

Here are some pictures of what's going on in California in general and Willits area specifically.  Some of these pictures are taken from web sites, some from Facebook and some are mine.  I'll make note of which is which.

This big boy flew right over the RV Monday evening

 around 5pm.  It made many drops of

fire retardant, which is colored red

 so they can see it on the ground.  

A 747 air tanker. 

This is what the area around Willits is like and 

some parts have even more trees.

Lighting strikes cause fires. 

 This is why we burn.  

Not my picture.

At 12:16 pm Monday,  Labor Day,  a fire started, 

not by lighting but by man, northwest of Willits.

This was taken from the horse ranch. 

 It's about 10 miles away as the crow flies.

This is the Oak Fire.  

My picture.

Around sunset, 6:00 pm, Labor Day. 

 The Oak Fire. 

 My picture.

Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020, at about 12 noon.

 It's so dark that the barn lights have turned on. 

We are now blanketed in smoke from the 

fire in the Mendocino National Forest 

to the east of us.  

The August Lightning Strike Complex Fire. 

 My picture.

Around 1 pm it looked like this. 

 We felt like we were on the red planet, Mars.

Not my picture.

By 2 it was dark as midnight. 

 I went out to call the kitties in and needed a flashlight.

A picture of the Willits arch downtown.

Not my picture

This is a screenshot from my phone 

showing the planes fighting The Oak Fire.

This app, FlightRadar24, 

is free and it shows planes in the air

and when you touch a plane it shows 

this info below and shows their flight path.

This is the CalFire spotter plane, 

circling the fire telling the other

planes where to go. 

 At one time Monday afternoon

there were 9 planes and helicopters 

fighting the Oak Fire.

A satellite picture of California. 

 All our smoke is coming from a fire

 not labeled but

 it's burning under the O 

in the Oak Fire name.

The Lightning Complex Fire.

If I haven't completely bored you by now here are some web links with more info.

This first link is of a Fire and Smoke map.  This is for the whole country.

Smoke and Fire

This second one shows our county fires.  You might need to zoom out, it loads the map a bit off.

Mendocino County

If you zoom in on this second link, I'm at the southern end of zone 8, and our fire is moving north, away from town.

There's no end in sight for the fires to be out.  The planes couldn't fly around Willits,  for our fire,  because of the smoke.  I hope they were off fighting other fires.  We're supposed to be getting high winds in a day or two and that won't help the fires, it might help with the smoke.  But without winds the ground crews can get in there and work like mad, which they are doing.