Ranting About The Fire...

Today's harvest includes 6 Yellow Perfection, 4 Snow White(1), 3 Snow White(2), 3 back yard Husky Cherry Red, 2 Turkish Striped Monastery, 2 Black Cherry, 2 White Currant, 2 Babywine, 2 Jaune Flamme, 2 Red Grape, Silvery Fir Tree, Plum Tigris and Garden Peach(1) for a total of 31 tomatoes.

We haven't harvested from the Garden Peach(1) plant in nearly a month.

I've decided that Berkeley Tie Dye and the front yard Speckled Roman are ready to be pulled out of the ground. When I get around to it remains to be seen.

My wife watered more of the front yard yesterday.

Last night both my wife and I slept deeply, something we hadn't done in about a week. As mentioned in yesterday's update, there was some moisture in the air in the morning. Later in the day I heard there was a lot of ash falling for people living near the fire, and I think the two are related.

By the way, there has been some concern about the fire from people living outside Los Angeles. Thanks for your concern! But we're 20 miles away from the fire lines, no threat there.

After the fires are out in a few weeks, however, the problems aren't over. Even most people living in Los Angeles do not realize that there is a place in the city limits that's over 5000 feet in elevation (Mt. Lukens) and places in the county of Los Angeles that are nearly 10,000 feet high. Highway 2, the Angeles Crest Highway, gets to an elevation of over 7900 feet high.

The hills and mountains of the Angeles National Forest will be bare. A cool and cloudy day in December for the city of Los Angeles will at the same time have serious snowstorms in the mountains north of us.

Think about the next big rainstorm to hit Los Angeles. Think about in, oh say, March and April, 2010, when the snow melts in the Angeles National Forest. This may be a dramatic thing to write, but it's probable that Los Angeles will lose more houses to spring mudslides than to this fire.

There needs to be some serious planning and preparedness for those northern Los Angeles communities next to the Angeles National Forest. There will be tremendous debris (think mudslides and rockslides) coming down from the rivers and streams fed by this runoff. We have huge debris basins but I think there's no debris basin big enough to handle what will be coming down these mountains. Roads and trails will be washed out. The roads will get swept but who will fix the trails?

We'll be hearing about the effects of this fire for months and years to come.