Greenfield Ranch Fire Brigade

Here are a couple of photos of some of the folks who turned out to fight the fires in our area of Mendocino County, California, when the local firefighters were too overwhelmed with the number of fires started in the county by dry lightning last week. We've always been a do it yourself community, and that includes fighting our own wildfires. Cal Fire is now on the job, and some of the fires are coming under partial control. It's still very smoky, though, and I've got a bad headache from breathing it. It seeps in through the cracks in the walls and floor of my cabin, so it's even smoky inside.


I went up to my homestead on Friday to stand watch because of a weather report that predicted more dry lightning. Fortunately that didn't happen, but I did have to prepare for a mandatory evacuation. Then, once the mandatory was lifted, there were all kinds of other jobs to do, like trying to make sure my water system would have enough pressure if needed. This was hampered by a wood rat who has been hanging around my cabin stashing acorns and old nectarine pits. Seems he found an opening in the top of my water tank and has been dropping the acorns in there. When I turned on the tank nothing came out because it was all plugged up with acorns. Took me about a half hour to clear them all out. My house would have burned down by that time if I'd needed the water to put out a fire!

Maybe now that things have calmed down a bit, some hats may happen this week!

No hats today

My home in Mendocino County is threatened by wildfires, and I've been busy cutting weeds and preparing to evacuate for the past few days. The fires were started by dry lightning strikes all over northern California last Friday night. We are safe for now, but things can change in a minute when winds shift.

From Saturday till late Monday our neighbors who are at 'ground zero' and able to see flames from their kitchen window had no help fighting the fires other than our local community fire brigade. The CDF is currently understaffed, and the resources they have were stretched too thin to respond to all of the over 100 fires started by the lightning strikes. They are also extremely restricted in using their "fire bombers" that spray fire retardant to stop fires. This has always been the most effective way to protect homes and stop the fires. They are now using only fire breaks cut by bulldozers around threatened structures and are just letting the fires burn.


We are now officially classified as a "disaster area" so help is being sent in from other states, and I'm hoping our homes will be saved. The National Guard has been called in also. Unfortunately most of the National Guard is in Iraq, however, along with many of the men and women who might otherwise be available to be working with Cal Fire.


People who are very close to the two fires have described seeing "a 50' wall of flame coming over the ridge." Ash from the fires is now blowing onto houses that are several miles away.

This is an unprecedented event. The last time we saw fires started by dry lightning was over 20 years ago, when 70 fires flared up overnight all over the county. This is twice as big and with drastically cut resources to fight it.

I've posted some photos. They don't really show the extent of what's going on, but it's all I have right now. The cloud looking stuff is smoke plumes. The valleys are so filled with smoke that they are advising people to stay indoors. I had to bring my son back to the Bay Area because he has asthma, but I will be going back to prepare for evacuation.

So, not much hat making going on right now!

Allie's first hat

My daughter, Alexis, learned to spin about a year ago, but hasn't wanted to learn to make anything with the yarn until recently. I got her a pegged knitter, which seemed like an easy way to get started. She's now graduated to round knitting needles, but her first hat was made entirely on the pegged knitter, with a little help from me with the funky not quite pompom bit on top. I think it turned out very well. She's going to give it to a friend as a graduation present.

She went on to make another two and is working on a third. She used the pegged knitter to get the second one started then transferred the stitches to a round knitting needle. That one went to her husband Marshall, who grabbed it in a hurry! I don't have a photo of hat number three yet, but am encouraging her to start selling these hats on my website. I think they look fantastic!

Been making scarves

I've been recovering from a bad back brought on by the December rush. I always work too hard, then have to spend the next three months recovering!

Now I'm getting ready to head up to the hills to spend most of the spring and summer at my funky little cabin, which badly needs a good cleaning. I'll be spinning more extra lumpy art yarn with my daughter, who will be spending the month of April with me. She loves to spin and dye the fiber but still hasn't learned to knit, crochet or weave, so I guess we make a good team. I've promised to show her how to make art yarn, and she's going to have another go at the small "knitter's loom" that I bought awhile back. Hopefully we won't freeze to death. It stays really cold up there until some time in May or June.

Meanwhile, I've been making scarves. The knitter's loom takes forever, so I tried making a lumpy knitted one with a few beads added. It's about five and a half feet long and about five or six inches wide (that varies because of the lumpiness). It's made out of wool, mohair and silk. Some of the yarns have been plied with various types of thin cord. Not sure if I want to make them to sell, but am considering it. I've had a lot of requests.

Something different

This is a hat I just made that features some unusual yarn I bought from an online spinner whose work I admire - see link in my sidebar for Handspun Yarns by Juaquetta. I like to buy interesting yarns from other spinners every now and then, and Juaquetta is one of my favorites. The top part of this hat is made from a natural gray wool that's been plied with black thread. It appears that in the plying process bits of random colored commercial wool yarn were joined in.

The hat came out looking sort of like a yarn garden with colored bits popping up all over. I've also used this yarn in a couple of my lumpy knits, but this hat is crocheted. I wanted to post it before it gets sold at one of the holiday craft fairs that are coming up.

My latest extra fancy hat

Well, the freeform crochet hat got sold last week on Telegraph Ave. I kept telling people it wasn't for sale, then made the mistake of quoting a price I was reasonably sure would be more than anybody would want to pay. Big surprise! I had seller's regret for a while. The woman who got it looked really happy, though, so I guess it all worked out OK.

I don't know if I'll make any more, but in the meantime I spun some yarn that's a crazy mixture of wool, silk, mohair, malamute hair and angelina with beads and some lace spun in. Here's the hat I made with it. The back part has locks of fuchsia mohair swirling about. I really like the big turquoise bead. The gray part is plied with some silvery cord, which makes it look very sparkly.

Holiday Fair Schedule

I'm now signed up for four days in the Telegraph Ave. Holiday Street Fair. If it's not raining or too windy, I will be there on the following days:

Saturday, December 15th (Between Channing and Haste, west side, mid-block)

Sunday, December 16 (Probably on the sidewalk at the corner of Channing and Telegraph)

Friday, December 21 (Between Channing and Haste, west side mid-block)

Saturday, December 22 (Near the corner of Channing and Telegraph, west side)

Sunday, December 23 - Have not yet decided if I'll be there or not. Will wait and see how many hats I have left.

Computer Crash

I've had a bad week. Last Monday my computer crashed, and I had to take it into the shop. There I found out that the crash was a result of Norton System Works having taken over my computer and shut it down. There was no way to get in at all. The very excellent tech guy who was working on it spent two days emailing back and forth with Symantec, which is the company that now owns Norton. These people are evil incarnate. Turns out they actually have a "fix" somewhere on their website for what to do when System Works crashes your computer. So they are very well aware of the fact that their software is destroying people's computers, yet they are still selling it. Makes one wonder how they get away with it. Seems like there might be a class action suit going on by now. There were four other computers in the same shop where I took mine, all with Norton related crashes. Anyhow, the fix didn't work, nor did any of their other suggestions.

Well, long story short, they did finally retrieve most of my data, and I'm now spending this week sorting out the jumble of files I've got all over the place on my computer. I now have a different virus protection program, which I'm told works very much like Norton used to, back when it was a very excellent and well respected program (ie. before Symantec got hold of it). I asked the scummers for a refund, and guess what? - they said their system was not programmed to do that!

Apparently this problem is only happening with Norton, so seems to me that getting anything related to Symantec off one's computer would not be a bad idea. Got to be careful about that, though. A simple uninstall leaves bits and pieces behind which have to be removed manually by a techy who knows what they're doing. Otherwise the new virus program will have conflicts with the old one, and while they are fighting it out on your computer, the hackers will be getting in with no problem.

Before all this happened I had taken some photos of some of the yarn I've been making lately for my lumpy knit hats. I've posted some here so it won't look like I've given up fiber art entirely!