Several years ago, we moved to Wrightwood, a small mountain town in southern California. It is in an area that I’m sure must be the fire capital of the world. We lived there for 14 years, and I don’t think a summer went by that the town wasn’t threatened by a wildfire coming from one direction or another, sometimes several fires at once.
When we first moved in, we lived just below town in a sparsely populated valley where the houses were rather remote. If you jumped really high, you could see the roof of a neighbor. It was the type of place that you could go stand on your front porch in your underwear, and no one would care. Of course, I guess you could do that in San Francisco or New York too. In our valley it was because there was no one around to see you.
Our first week there, we hit two out of three of the “fire, famine, and pestilence.” Mice got into our pantry and left little droppings in strategic places; I had to throw away a 25 pound bag of flour. Ants infested the same room; there went my sugar and a bottle of corn syrup. I made the mistake of leaving the stroller on the front porch overnight, and awoke to find that all the rubber had been chewed off the wheels; kangaroo rats had turned the stack of wood under the porch into their personal country club and invited every relative within a ten mile radius. But the worst was when I came face-to-face with a rattlesnake.
Plenty of famine and pestilence to go around. Now all we needed was fire. The second week took care of that one. A wildfire came through and the entire valley was evacuated.
We stayed with friends, but still kept tabs on what was going on. We drove to the highway to look across the valley, watching an army of firefighters battling the flames. I made frequent phone calls to the “command post,” the only people allowed to give out information. About 2:00 AM on the third day, I called in, identified myself as a resident, and asked what the status of the fire was. He said, very upbeat, “It’s going great! The only spot where we still have a serious concern is at the junction of Desert Front and Oak Springs Valley Roads.” I paused a moment before replying, “That’s my house!” oops. He backpedaled fast with, “Well, I’m sure everything is fine, because we have all our firefighting power focused right on your house.”
Sure enough, they stopped the fire. (The ironic thing is that five and a half years later, it burn down on its own. Chimney fire.)
The next day, we were able to return home. But once we got back in the place, we had a lot of cleaning to do. The entire house reeked of smoke. Soot was everywhere. I opened all the windows and doors and started scrubbing walls and counters, vacuuming floors and furniture, and washing window coverings. The place stunk, was hot as a toaster oven, and I was sweaty and grumpy. About mid afternoon, a refreshing breeze suddenly whipped through the house, and I heard a loud WHOOSH. I walked onto the deck, and saw flames about thirty feet high that had just exploded about thirty yards from the house. The breeze must have reignited smoldering embers. But I think the heat had cooked my brain, because I just watched. It didn’t even occur to me to leave.
As I stood there, I noticed two fire trucks racing towards our house. The flames had gotten their attention too. A helicopter, that was hauling water to a far plume of smoke, turned around and flew over our house, dumping its load right on the fire. The spray that hit me felt wonderful in the summer heat. So I left the fire in the hands of professionals—and went in and took a shower.
Looking back, I realize that the mind is weird. If I’d seen those flames a week before, I’d have been grabbing kids and high-tailing it out of town. But I’d become used to the idea of fire and had adapted to it. That’s kind of what has happened up here. I find myself saying and doing some pretty outlandish things.
Every day for months after I first arrived, I’d holler, “The sun’s up! Let’s open the blinds!” During the dead of winter, we celebrate whenever the sun peaks over the horizon. We love every moment that it creeps along the skyline before dropping down again. Now, we get to enjoy it most of the day! It’s up before me, and doesn’t set until about 11:30 at night. I love it!
“Have you got your gun?” That’s what I ask whenever Keri heads out the door for any kind of a jaunt (skiing, rabbit traps...). You’d think he was going for a midnight stroll through Central Park or something. But taking a gun if you’re going to be fifty yards from the house is just a really good idea here. Especially in spring when animals are more prone to have babies with them...or in winter when they are probably hungry...or in summer when there’s foliage and you can easily bump into them...or in autumn when they are eating lots getting ready for a long winter... So we take a gun with us wherever we go.
A week or so back, Keri was catching a bush plane to Anchorage, with several stops along the way. Since bush planes aren’t heated at all, we dress up in full winter gear before we hop aboard. He was lacing his boots, and I asked where his hat was. He said, “It’s OK. I don’t need it.” I responded with, “And what if your plane goes down?” (That’s a definite possibility in these parts.) He ran back and got his hat. There aren’t too many places where a major traveling concern is keeping your ears warm if the plane goes down.
A couple days ago, we went out to bring in the rabbit traps. The weather has changed; it now gets warmish during the day, and freezes at night. That means everything is covered with either hard ice or slushy snow, so we didn’t want to ski or walk. The ice makes skiing treacherous for me (I’m not that great when it comes to balancing on a pair of long skinny sticks). And walking was rather difficult because we sink up to our hips in the soft snow. So we took a monstrous snow machine that weighs a ton. Like that makes a lot of sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDr1QnZ-tyo
This is a short video of Taco trying to navigate the snow.
Out of our eight traps, we’d caught—and lost—two rabbits. Something (lynx or wolf—there were no distinctive tracks) took them, and broke the snare in the process. With only two more traps to go, Keri dropped Taco and I off to pull one while he rode down further to grab the other and get the snow machine turned around. Since we were on a narrow trail, in order to turn that beast of a machine around he had to drop down onto the Yukon, make a sweeping turn, and come back up on the slue facing the other direction. I heard him drop down to the river, and then he let out a loud, urgent yell. My head snapped up, and I choked, “Did he break through?” But we could see his head over the bushes, so we knew he was OK. He hadn’t fallen into the river. Maybe he had just lost the machine. Taco and I waded over, struggling through the deep snow. And there was the snow-go, half sunk in white mush. It hadn’t broken through—it was just good and stuck. The three of us tugged and pushed and dug and grumbled. And finally, we got it out.
Keri didn’t want to risk trying to get it back up to the slue, so we took off down the river instead. Taco was between us. I leaned forward and said in his ear, “If we break through, you push off and roll away and don’t stop—no matter what.” He nodded.
Yup—the mind is weird. We’ve adapted to a whole new “normal.” We’ve gotten used to the idea of sunlight extremes (either no sun or constant sun), dicey bush planes, freezing temperatures, wild animals, and ice highways. And the crazy thing is, for the most part it’s not that bad.
