Goodby June

Looks like the have got the fire more than 40% contained.  Still a lot of smoke down here, but they kept the borate on the top of the mountain so it didn't come over the top down into Prescott ao over our way.
That A-hole who had the drone up there will be in a world of hurts if they find out who it was.  The helicopters were dropping water on the firefighter areas and the damn drone kept buzzing around.  It endangered a lot of lives.  Makes a person wonder if it was the fire bugs drone.  Maybe checking on all the damage he did.  Damn fool.

Phillip picked the first squash this morning. Finally.  Something kept eating all the others he planted.  He had to put a curtain over the cukes to keep the critters out of them. Never could see what kept eating them as soon as they came thru the ground.
Peaches and necturines didn't get any size to them because of the heat, and are starting to get ripe too soon.

Phillip just brought me in some strawberry shortcake.  Gotta go,

Love ya'll. Granny

Todays news

The fire hasn't spread too much farther. They now have about 1000
fire fighters. Damn polititians afraid they might spend a bit of the
monay destined for their wallets. They had 2 BIG borate bombers that
came in but polititans wouldn't let them use the air port. Had
helicopters dropping water on hot spots then some damn fool was flying
a drone up there and helico[ters had to stop. Can't figure people
out. Towns are mostly still out. Smoke still blowing away from us so
maybe we won't be evacuated due to smoke after all

Fire update

Yesterday the fire was around 1800 acres.  This morning it had grown to over 20,000 acres. The worst fire in AZ since 1974.
The Bradshaw mountains run slightly SE to NW.  All of the town that have been evacuated are on the Northerly side of the mountain.  Wind blowing out of the SW, so the smoke is now going away from us. So far the fire is still on the Northerly side and hasn't crossed over the top of the mountains to the Southerly side where we are. It has crossed over some of the ridges to the southerly side at lower elevations. So far 7 towns, 4 campgrounds, 3 lake (ponds) have been evacuated.  Some highways closed due to smoke.  All forest roads are closed.  Very heavy timber up where the fire is burning now. Hard to get an Idea of how many structures lost because of the heavy smoke.
They figure it was set at Pine flats along side a forest service road on the way to Mayer, about 5 miles east of there.

All I can say, if they ever catch that fire bug they will have to keep him under heavy guard or somebody will kill him.

As the crow flies, the fire is about 10 miles away from us.   Phillip and I have been gathering stuff of ours together and packing a bag in case we have to evacuate. You never know what that bastard will light on fire next.

Still in doubt?

Hey! Was there ever any doubt.

Country still burning up. The Bradshaw mountains are on fire,  They have evacuated 4 small towns up in the mountains. Fire now coming down the side toward Prescott.  Lots of very expensive homes up there.  Seem like all the muckity mucks want to live on the mountain tops so they can look down on the lowly peons.  Lots of rich people from Phoenix have summer homes up there. Some developers bought up some of those old mining claims and made housing developments out of them.
This crap is just over the mountain from us. Getting smoky as all get out now.  So far it hasn't came up to the top on the far side, on Prescott side yet. Their are 3 big recreation areas up there. I can't remember how many youth summer camps and Forest service campgrounds in jeopardy.3 lakes (ponds). And the river where Phillip prospects.  Pits.

Been working on my story.  Will have another segment in a few days.

Glad to clear up the bit about the bears.

Love ya'll. Granny

Cookin here in AZ.

We went up to Emida.  Up to where the blister rust camp was by the old Whitehorse ranch.  I can't figure out where Bob is, he must be in the car or parked somewhere in the shade.  This was after I came back up from Utah.  Crazy to look at all these old pictures. This must have been about 1952.

Still hot as all get out down here.  Seems like the whole state is burning up.  Fires everywhere.  I was reading where they had set up emergency facilities down in Mayer.  That is a town not too far from where the firebug had set 2 fires not too long ago.  We could even smell the smoke from that fire on Saturday when we went to town.  So much smoke around, you don't really know where it is all coming from.  Makes a person a bit jumpy.

This is the first year Phillip said he has had to put up the shade in the garden in May.  Also in all the years we have lived here, this is the first year we have had to turn on the air conditioner.

Just couldn't get in the mood to drag out the painting stuff to paint.  Phillip just said," paint might dry on the brush as fast as I could try to paint'.  True that.

Maybe I will writ a bit on my story, who knows?

Carry on , love ya'll, Granny

Fwd:

I know I told you I had written a story and sent it to Bob who was
going to put it on the blog a bit at a time since I didn't know how to
from Microsoft works. Anyway this is a different one I will put on
the blog a bit ay a time. Wouldn't want to overwhelm anyone.

Now this is purely fiction .Any resemblence to persons living or dead
is purely coincidental. (if the spelling id off a bit,there is no
spell check on gmail)



SO YOU WANNA BE A PROSPECTOR?




What a day this turned out to be. Went to work as usual and just as
soon as I came in the door, I was met by my cubical mate. He had a
worried look on his face. Now what? I muttered under my breath? Ole
Dan siddled up to me and said,"don't look now, but here comes
trouble". He shifted his eyes over to the left a couple of times. The
boss was standing over by the receptionist's desk. Looked like the
turkey was trying to get a peek down the front of Julie's dress. She
did have a prize pair, that one, Even I could attest to that. But now
she had a box sitting in front of her, kinda blocked his view.
Boss walked over to Dan and I. then he nodded his head off to the
side a couple of times, after he looked at Dan. Dan took is as his
cue to leave, rightly so. "Well Joe", he said, " just the man I
wanted to see. I've got a little confession to make", he mumbled as he
reached up and pulled a bit at his collar, stretching it just a tad.
He began to get a bit pinker in the jowls as he mumbled on. "Joe,you
know how my wife is so busy with all her church doing's? Well now she
has decided to drag me into her do good deeds." He tugged at his
collar once again and said,"She has taken on a refugee family, and I
am supposed to put the husband to work here". "Well I know you have
been a good worker, but you were the last one hired, so I will have to
let you go, since I can't afford to keep you both." Damn! that took
the starch right out of my legs. "So sorry Joe. I have already put the
guy in your old cube. You can pick up your check and belongings at
Julie's desk." Then the jerk just up and walked away. Damn, what a
revolting development this turned out to be.
Well, no use standing here. I was mad as hell and wanted to bawl at
the same time. I went on up to Julies desk. She stood up and wrapped
her arms around me and called the boss a couple of dirty names in my
ear. After a good squeeze she told me just how sorry she was to see me
go. She then pushed the box toward me. I looked in it and said, "
Here's my soft case, where's my laptop"? She said, "this was all
that was in it when the Boss gave it to me". Well by damn I'm not
leaving here without out it and I stomprd back to my old cube.
There was a dude pecking away at my laptop. He looked up at me and
said, " no password". I said, " damn straight no password, get you
grubby mitts off my computer", and started to unplug things. Dude
starts yelling up a storm and grabbing at my hands, so I simply
knocked him flat on his butt. Boss came charging in, all red faced,
Said, " what are you doing?" ." I'm taking my computer, is what I'm
doing" as I continued to unplug stuff and put it in my box. " You
can't take that, he said". "Like hell I can't. It's mine. That
piece of Dell junk you had in here is back over there under the
printer. This baby is mine." I shoved the rest of my stuff in the
box and put my HP in my soft case. Then I shoved the new dude aside
and went out . As I started out the door, I heard the new dude
yelling, he didn't know how to hook up a computer. I just smiled a
nasty smile and said to myself, Good luck old Boss.
Now what in the blazes am I going to do? I wondered as I hoped in my
old truck and headed back to town. Just as I started to pass the
Fairgrounds I see a sign. GOLD SHOW. Well what the heck? Why not
find out what that us all about since I was footloose and fancy free
right now.
I drove on in and parked. Went inside and looked around. Wow! Just
look at all that equipment. Just for grtting GOLD. I never saw so
much gold in one place before I thought as I wandered around. I
wondered if I could possibly get a few things and get some gold too.

To be continued.

Up at Charlie creek where the old blister rust camp was.  It's all grown up with trees now.  This is just up the road a ways from where Lacy creek enters Charlie creek.
Mighty big fish there Weldon.

I think the old dude there was a local.

Brain-echos, you guys.
Carry on, Love ya'll, Granny

The Millers

This is the Millers.  Gene's Mothers grandparents, and Grandma Jensens's parents.
Pretty dour looking couple.
They had a real nice homestead, but they also had a lot of help from their children to make it so. I think Gene's aunt Elnora was the one who contributed the most to making it a very profitable farm.
Carry on, Granny

Another Pic.

This is the Miller Homestead in Walnut, Kansas.  This is where Gene's Grandma Jensen was born.
When we visited there, Olive and Elnora Miller still lived there.  They were Grandma Jensen's Sisters.

Still hot.

Not in the mood to paint.  Thought Id post some old family pics, in case you don't have them.

This is Earl Eugene Hanks Sr.,...Genes's Dad and Pascale Hanks, Gene's Grandfather.  They are working in an auto repair shop in Oklahoma.

More to come.
Granny

Wheew!

No shit!  It's so hot the ants won't even come out.  They will get their tiny feet burned.   Looking at a real heat wave this week.  Expected to break a lot of records.  Can't get enough water on the garden and fruit trees.  I hate the damn monsoons, but now I welcome them.  Wish some rain on us.  No lightning because it is way too dry.

Stay cool, Love ya'll, Granny

Happy Fathers Day

Hope you had a nice day.

Love ya'll, Granny

Had a cool spell the other day but back to the heat again.  They are predicting it will hit 120 down in Pheonix in a few days. Glad we live up here on the bench although we may hit a 100 here too.  Records being broken.

Went down to the river today for a while.  Much cooler down there.  We were out in the water after the sun got over the treetops.  You can see across the river where the grass is very dry under the trees,
Go over there and pretty soon your socks and shoes will be full of grass seeds. Spend a lot of time getting them out.  Pays to stay out where the water had washed all the grass away.

Moss is beginning to grow more in the shallow parts of the river.  Hides the crawdads pretty good.  We could see where some body with kids has been there since we were there  last. They were trying to dam up the ford to make it deeper.  It's about knee deep there. Big trucks wash out their dam every time the cross the ford.  Tuff stuff.  Where we sit in the water, it's sandy and about mid calf.  Real nice.  Around 12:30 or so the sun is getting too hot to sit out in it even if you are in the water, so we hit the shade. All in all, it was a very nice day.

Love ya'll, Granny

Sunday coming down.

Went down to the river for a while this morning.  Hotter than blazes.  Got down there to find some dumb jerk camped out there.   He had a bunch of dead limbs and brush stacked up around a big willow tree that has almost fell clear over.  Roots still holding.  Another flood and it will go.  Any way this dude had a small fire built in a hole he had dug.  Fire ban or no.  Not supposed to camp there either.  They were camping under the bridge all the time but this spring the county dug a big hole with a berm to keep cars out from under there.  Phillip told the dude he wasn't supposed to be camping and not to have a fire.  He told Phillip to  eff... off.  So he took pictures of him and his rig to show the cops if his fire got out of hand.  We parked across the river and got our chairs out and enjoyed the cool air.  The breeze started to come up and I told Phillip we should leave.  Too many TALL trees that break off in high winds.  We were packing up to go when a couple of Guys on ATV's came down.  They didn't take any shit from the camper. they covered his fire and made him leave. They wanted to know if we were with him. We had our lunch but didn't stick around.  Wind  blowing like crazy all day. I have the bedroom window open and stuff is getting rearranged  still.  Sure wasn't the day we planned on.

Hope you all had a good day.

Love ya'll, Granny.

Hey! it's wed....again.

Went up to the Doc's office to find out the results of the echo-cardiogram. He asked if I was getting enough exercise.  Since I really don't, I thought I might give this a try.  I got a clean bill of health and was told to come back next year.  Good thing because then maybe the dream I had the other night might come true.
I dreamed  Phillip and I were walking along a long stretch of bedrock at the base of some cliffs.   I looked up and there were some people up there on top that were working a high bar in places.   Phillip was pushing a wheelbarrow that had a metal locator, tire pump, turkey baster, dental picks and some other gadgets.  We went past the cliff area and started to clean off the bedrock to find where the cracks and holes were.  Phillip used the tire pump to blow the fine sand out of the holes and cracks after we cleaned all the rocks off.  Then I took the dental picks and proceeded to pick the nuggets out and put them in vials.  was doing great till some damn fool fell off the cliff and woke me up.  Sheesh!.  Oh well, such are dreams.

Love ya 'll, Granny.

Wow! it's a hot one today.

You know, I'll bet that is just what would go through a cats mind too.  Very independent animals.

Speaking of cats, the noise I thought might be ghosts in the house, turned out to be a couple of cats under the house fighting.  Phillip said he can't find where they are getting under there.  He might have to crawl under the deck and see if there is a hole under there he can't see from the outside.

He had a bad development in the garden.  All those little peaches and nectarines he had to pick off because there were too many for the tiny trees, well some damn critter carried them all off.  He never should have left them on the ground.  Now the damn thing is climbing up the trees.  He got a rat trap, but so far nothing has been caught.  Something got the rat poison though because he said there was something dead under the shed.  Starting to stink.

Getting hot down here now. All the rain seems to be coming down from the  northwest, but it is going thru Utah and the 4 corners and down through New Mexico.  Right on past us.  Been doing that foe the past 2 weeks.  Was 90 today and might get into the triple digits next week.  Summer weather is about 2 weeks early.  Wonder if the monsoons will be too.

Been too lazy to paint, just haven't got in the mood. Just sitting on my fat butt playing puter games., and don't forget, the happy hour.  Getting so I need that nap or I can't keep my eyes open to play puter games.

 I Told Margaret to get a gmail address so she can get on the blog.

I was writing a story all this past winter.  I was going to post it on the blog a bit at a time, but didn't know just how to go about it.  Bob said he knew how, so I sent it to him after I finished editing it.  He said he would do it

Well another day is almost done,  Carry on, I love ya'll,  Granny..