Too LAzy

I had to go to LA briefly last week. The condo is just a block out of Santa Monica and usually gets the nice ocean breeze to cool us down, but it was strangely hot there, too. Man, is it good to be back at The Ranch. Unfortunately, it's been so good that I haven't been at all motivated to write.

Meanwhile, the Zaca Fire rages on in Santa Barbara County. At one point, several weeks ago, it was more than 50% contained. I guess it was just rearing up for the Big Spread. Now, it's taken more than 200,000 acres and has become the second largest wildfire in California history.

You see smoke as soon as you get out of Santa Maria.

All the roads from 166 going south are blocked.

Driving past the Fire Camp at New Cuyama. It really is a camp! The firefighters live in tents!

All over the West, there are dozens of wildfires. We need rain bad!! It's cooled down quite a bit this week at the ranch, but the unirrigated pastures and hills are still dry, dry, dry. It makes me wince to walk on the crunchy dead grass. But in this area, the motto is "Just add water… Watch it grow" so I know that as soon as we get some decent rain, it will all come back.

This is what the area looks like in the winter. Ahhhhh, greeeeeen!