Yesterday we had a frightening incident near our property. A
cypress tree that had grown too tall hit an uninsulated wire on a power line
and caught on fire. There was a loud noise as the tree ignited, and within
seconds flames were leaping way up in the air from the whole top of the tree. I
should have taken a photo, but was too busy calling the power company and 911. However,
the flames coming off the trees in this photo of a forest fire in Yellowstone
Park are a pretty good approximation of how it looked. Fortunately the dry
season is just at its beginning, so the tree must have still had enough water
content to extinguish the fire by itself, so we could cancel the call to the
fire department. The local electric company came and turned off the power to
those wires, putting everybody on some other circuit. They will send a crew
sometime soon to do whatever they need to do to keep the trees from burning
again. This must be a fairly common occurrence because when I phoned them, the
first item on their robo-message was “if you have a tree burning, press 1”. Why
don’t they just insulate the wires?
That was the weekend’s big excitement. The Monday giveaway
is much more mundane. In the course of
doing business with various supply companies I acquire a lot of offbeat
samples, often unsolicited. I have a big collection of everything from
essential oil mixes to synthetic fragrance oils to Indian perfumes and attars.
This week’s prize will be a big selection of these commercial samples.
Winners of last weeks giveaway will be announced tomorrow.
[Forest fire photo from Wikimedia; power lines painting by Henri Rousseau, 1898]
Posts
I am glad you and your family are ok and the fire did not spread to the homes in your area, that sounds really scary. I live in the city, so trees rarely fall probably becasue their aren't that many of them but limbs do fall sometimes, but luckily never catch fire.
ReplyDeleteNelle, the tree didn't fall, it just touched the metal wire and caught fire. It is indeed scary that this seems to happen on a regular basis in this part of the world. You're in the drawing.
DeleteThat sounds frightening. I'm glad everything is OK and you were there to call 911 so responders could get there before things got out of control. As to your fragrance question, I enjoy purchasing Indian/Arabian attars every now and then for a relatively cheap thrill. Our Whole (paycheck) Foods carries some Kuumba Made oils which are quite nice.
ReplyDeleteAnne, it was frightening to see flames shooting up from the tree. It didn't get to the point of needing the fire department, but if things had been drier as they are later in the summer, we could have had a real disaster. It's possible that your Whole Paycheck (now Amazon?) oils are from the same source as my samples, bought in bulk and re-packaged. You're in the drawing.
DeleteWhile fire horrifies me (the neighbors have set fire to our property twice now) I find it humorous that there is a phone tree entry for 'if you have a tree burning' I should suggest that for our power company since we get very dry in summer here and there are always trees landing on the wires!
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not turn up my nose at any fragrance options, out of those my preference would be for the Indian/Arabian attars and blends, just because they so frequently are based on resins. Designer dupes are fun, but it REALLY depends on what they are trying to duplicate- many modern fragrances leave me unimpressed.
Laurie, how did your neighbors set fire to your property? I'm curious. You're in the drawing.
ReplyDeleteThree years ago we had a lightning strike during a summer storm which took out a huge branch on a big oak tree about 30 feet from our house. Fortunately, the main part of the branch missed our house but the top took out the gutter on the second floor. The sound of the lightning and subsequent crack scared the bejesus out of me. I tend to like attars and oils too. They tend to be more complex and interesting than a lot of "mall" fragrances.
ReplyDeleteTriniti, A couple of years we also had a tree come down next to the house in a hurricane-strength winter windstorm. It took out a light on the side of the house. I still find pieces of broken glass from time to time. It's scary!
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