Burn Scar

Our natural world has been much affected by fire. Two fires, the Nun's in 2017 and the Glass in 2020. Fires, by the way, are usually named for a road or landmark near where they started. The Glass Fire started Napa County and burned over this ridge into our Sonoma/Rincon Valley area Valley area, ultimately consuming 67,000 acres and destroying 1,500 structures. Many of the structures, including the houses on either side of us, have been rebuilt, but the hill has not repaired itself as successfully.  

Some of the trees are showing signs of regeneration, but those  bare skeletons probably never will. The cause of this fire was investigated for ten months but Cal Fire never found enough evidence to determine the cause. I can't help wondering if all that dead timber isn't providing fuel for another fire....

I had my penultimate visit to the orthopedic clinic for my knee replacement today. I had yet another set of x-rays and saw yet another nurse practitioner, a nice young woman named Amelia. She confirmed that the leg of my unrepaired knee is in fact now shorter than the other one, and said it could be due to the fact that the new knee is straighter and has more 'cartilage' than it did, or to the visible scoliosis which has been developing for years and was probably hastened by the knee surgery. Or by a combination of both. I told her that a heel lift had helped alleviate back and hip pain and I'm hoping that everything will balance out eventually. The x-rays looked exactly the same as the ones taken at my first post op visit which is as it should be. One more visit a year from the date of surgery.

In less than an hour I was on my way home again, another hour's round trip drive. I listened, among other things, to a report on Thailand's rigid laws and a fifteen year prison sentence against saying anything negative about the king and queen. Are we headed in that direction. I'm sure Trump is capable of trying to enact such a law....

Kamala Harris announced her running mate yesterday,  Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and a salt of the earth midwesterner.  The rounds of looking into and discussing his history...education, military service, net worth and family have begun, as have the attempts on the part of Republicans to dig up dirt on him. They haven't found much, and what they have found pales in comparison to what Trump has been indicted and tried for, but somehow the comparison escapes the MAGA faithful who will not be swayed by anything....the 'undecided' vote however, has swung toward Harris, driven mostly by women. How could any self respecting woman even look at trump, much less vote for him?