Being Prepared

Thank you so much, my dear blog friends, for your prayers and concerns for us and all the people of Southern California. MamaMia and her hubby are packed ready to leave if they get the evacuation order as the voluntary evac line is just a few blocks from their place now. Their best friends and their pastor's family evacuated from Chula Vista last night.


Update at 6:45pm: The evacuation line seems to have moved closer to MamaMia. We are monitoring it online.

Do you have your evacuation plan in place? FlyLady from http://www.flylady.net/ has a good list to plan for an emergency.

1. PEOPLE- food, water and snacks.

2. PETS- carriers, leashes, food.

3. PICTURES- negatives, cds, albums.

4. PAPERS-keep them all in one place. Thanks for the reminder, ArtGirlATL, to get my tax returns into the grey metal box.

5. PRESCRIPTIONS

6. PURSES- I included location of keys and wallets as well as purses.

7. PROPER CLOTHES AND COMFORT ITEMS- this is where my knitting bag is listed!

8. PLANNER/CALENDER/CONTROL JOURNAL- I have our emergency contacts listed there. I taped Dr, Dentist, Attorney, Insurance cards on a sheet of paper.

9. PERSONAL ITEMS- toothbrush, etc.

10. PHONES AND RADIOS- Last year, The Professor and I invested in a cell phone charger that plugs in to the car's cigarette lighter. Our home owners association published a booklet with the frequencies for area radio stations.

11. PATIENCE- Stay calm!

The wind is blowing HARD and it's HOT, HOT, HOT. We are seeing some blue sky, which means the smoke is moving away from us.

The Professor heard this evening that the neighborhood his family lived in for 3 years in the 1960s burned in the Santa Clarita fire.

At 6:15pm the temperature in our carport was 87 degrees.

Would you like to see some pictures of an archeological dig?

We were invited to accompany Mike on an archeological survey dig. The purpose of the dig was to determine if the new owner of this land on the famous Mulholland Highwy that runs between San Fernando Valley and the Pacific Ocean (yes, the road ends at Pacific Coast Highway just north of Malibu) was ever a major encampment area for the Chumash Indians. The results of the survey determine if the owner may build a home there or not.

Level 1- looking on the surface for artifacts such as arrowheads, spear heads or beads, that would indicate the presence of native peoples on the land. The group found a few items. We did not arrive in time to do Level 1 searching.

Levels 2 and 3- holes are dug and the dirt is examined to see how many years the Chumash Indians had occupied the area.

The dirt is screened and interesting bits of rock, glass, bone, whatever, are collected for review by the leading archeologist.

Nothing of interest was found by our group so we dug in two other areas, one down by the creek. We slid down the bank, under the California Live Oak trees, through the poison oak and brush, to the creek bed.

We dug our hole, screened some very hard dirt and clay and found nothing of archeological interest.

The archeologist must determine if the site needs a more extensive search for artifacts. Fortunately for this owner, the decision was that while this area may have seen habitation by the Chumash it wasn'thabited by very many people or for long periods of time. He can now move forward to build his dream home.

We did discover some interesting non-archeological items.

A very large nest in the upper branches of the oak tree.

A large (3 inches long!) potato bug. He didn't much want to be discovered and headed for the dirt as fast as he could.

Many, many yellow acorns and dried leaves.

There were euchalyptus trees along the creek bed, too. The Professor calls them wild fire torches because in dry weather the bark and branches get so dry and all that wonderful oil is just waiting to burn.

Maybe the Chumash Indians didn't stay around the wild fire areas a long time. They, like us, loved the Southern California coastal mountains and beaches, but they periodically got burned out, too.