Photo Story

Critters

 A brand new Mini Rex baby rabbit. Only one in the litter of two made it, Baby is 24 hours old here.

Mallard drakes fighting at the park this morning. That guy had to say one more thing!

I have been seeing this a lot, the boys fighting.

 

 Red shouldered hawk this morning, calling to its mate across the park.

Eying a ground squirrel too I think...

Hidden picture time! See the owl flying at you?

 Pidgin taking off, had enough of the disgruntled drakes.

Uh, not sure whats going on here...

You will never guess what was at the park today..

Not a bird

Not a duck

A minstrel...

After the fires are out.

Today my friend Claire and I drove down through some of the burn area. Here are a few pictures.

 burned right down to the back yard fences.

 California Edison is shoring up and replacing the power poles along the road that were also burned in the fire.

Mom's weekend at Oregon State University.

This past weekend was Mom's weekend at Oregon State University. I love visiting Kathy, it's a two for the price of one kind of thing, as I get to visit my Alma matter too! Yep Kathy is a third generation Beaver.

This was the first time I had to stand in line at the car rental place at Portland airport, 30 min wait. I asked the fella at the counter what was up, he said Moms weekend. It's a big deal you see. I had to get my Hotel reservation Months in advance. I didn't do that last year, the closest I could get was 30 min away, until luckily, well I think luckily, I found a place in Corvallis but it was rather... colorful. So this year I was on it and found a place a bit nicer. Two weeks prior to my visit, the hotel called me to make sure I was coming. That has never happened to me before. They had people on waiting list, didn't want to have an empty room I guess.

 I spent the first 24 years of my life in Oregon, I forget how green it is.

 And how tall the trees are, I feel almost claustrophobic...I was surprised about that. We were heading for the street fair in the tents.

A herd of Beavers or is it Beavi ? 

 The Memorial Union, I have three favorite buildings on campus , this is one of them.

 Inside the Union.

 Fave Number 2.

The Women's building. As a Physical education /Health major I spent a lot of my time here, swimming, dance, gymnastics.

 Fave number 3. In my day ( yes I am annoying old person now) this was the ultimate man cave..building. Now it is fixed up nicely with a sandwich shoppe down stairs. Progress

 Speaking of progress, Kathy says they are building a new business building here, ( old person alert) sadly on the field behind the women's building, where I played field hockey, soccer, softball, and shot arrows in Archery class.  Building means things are going well for the University and that is great. (sniff)

Azaleas, rhododendrons and camellias were blooming all over campus.

We went back to Kathy's apartment and look who came to visit.

He is looking in Kathy's dinning area window, "what you doing in there?"

Kathy says they come through every evening. Last fall she had 8 come through at one time.

We had a great time together!

Fireside chat with the coffee ladies.

We woke to warm temperatures and winds up to 41 mph here in So Cal.  Anyone who has lived in this area knows that is a bad combination. by 6:30 a.m we had a fire burning on the Conejo Grade along side the 101 freeway. I went for my morning walk at the park, but left early as the wind was blowing dust in my eyes and my hat of my head. On the way home I saw this.

 Not good. The cell phone rang and it was my friend Ann, one of the coffee ladies. She had a birds eye view of the fire so, over I went.

plane spotter Ann

 Now this fire is about 5 or so miles away, some of my pictures may be fuzzy, just shooting with my point and shoot. Some I zoomed in to show the flames, some with no zoom, so you could see the height of the smoke.

 The white building lower left of the photo...that's where Lycra man works. One by one Ann and I were joined by other coffee ladies, Martha, Katie and Lianca. Two of them had to leave to pick up their kids as the Newbury Park High was being evacuated.

 We heard on the news that Dos Vientos housing area was being evacuated, another coffee lady lives there, Clair got 2 text and 1 call all from us. She was packing to leave,but had not been instructed to go yet. She sent me this text ( me green, her not green) and then pictures of what was happening in her neighborhood.

this is one of the water dropping helicopters flying over Claire.

Claire's house, by the fire plug, see her car backed in and ready to go?

This area is as steep as a cows face as my granny would have said. The fire guys do structure protection, on the ground in the neighborhoods and in the air , with the water dropping helicopters and the fixed wing tankers like this.

 

 See the tanker dropping the Phos-Chek

see the chopper lower left hand corner

 See the dragon in the smoke cloud

water dropping chopper

more Phos-chek

zoomed in this time

Paco, Ann's dog watching the fire

 At the time I made this post the fire had burned 6,500 acres , form 6:30 in the morning to noon. The wind was blowing so hard the tankers were grounded. The fire had left coffee lady Clair's area and moved down into the agricultural area. the fire fighters thing it will burn all the way to the Pacific ocean, to the left of Paco up there.

So fa,r no one has been hurt and no homes have been lost. Thank goodness for the Ventura County firefighters!