This is a pot-pourri of exerpts from emails.  We don’t get much local news here, and it’s fine with us, at this point.  Facebook and email are informing us.

Susan Harris wrote: “Good news, PG & E expect to have power back to the Lodge by Monday night.  Pat called earlier and left a message, a Lodge resident sneaked in with some type of crew to the property and reported no damage. He said The Lodge looked great, all things considered, and it barely smelled of smoke.  This sounds encouraging!

Taura Anderson got a report from our grounds people and “Mike says the chicken coop and chickens survived.  He thinks someone fed them and that they’ve been taken elsewhere. He has been walking the property and putting out hotspots that had appeared. So, we can be grateful to the firefighters on the first day Monday morning…AND to Mike who, for the next couple days, kept the hot spots down. He is headed to Albany today I think to help out with our folks from The Terraces. He watered our resident gardens before he left. He says those gardens are intact. WHAT A GUY! Thank you…Thank You.”

Kyle Nyholm, our Head Groundskeeper posted: “Nothing burned in the garden. Fruit Trees are the same, same amount of peppers and tomatoes, some of the tomatoes fell over. Chickens are fine, have food and water. Pulled up the squash and zukes 2 weeks ago. Compost burned, which the 2 to the right were not great compost materials anyway. Easy to fix. Rest of the property is easy to fix, not much damaged with landscaping. Little damage to the building if at all. Faint smell of smoke inside but nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Scott contributed “the following well-written link, which you may want to include in your blog if you think anyone might find it useful. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/fleeing-the-fires-in-sonoma-county”  He was right.

Val and Dave Lasker and Ruth Berggren went up to their Highland villas on Stone Mountain, yesterday.  Dave wrote:  “ Fortunately it is still standing, as are the adjacent houses, so if you don’t look too hard from our front door, everything looks normal. However, if you go 3 doors away, it looks like a war zone. 33 of the 111 homes in our development burnt to the ground.

A closer look at the exterior of our house revealed some fire damage to the structure under the master bathroom.  It looks like the firemen spotted the structure burning, broke through the exterior wall, and put out the fire very quickly, saving our house in the process. Unfortunately it was not quick enough to keep from damaging the master bath above:

After seeing the bathroom, we think it is a miracle that our house is still standing, and we feel very fortunate. Valerie had always wanted to renovate the bathroom, so it looks like her wish may be granted.”

Both of Ruth’s houses are still standing, and Third Ave. is in escrow.  The amazing thing is that the buyers have not backed away.

Alexis Handelman (ABC Bakery) wrote on Facebook: ” It’s been a long week. So long in fact that whole lives have been lived and whole lives have been lost. We learned how resilient we are and how fragile life is. We learned that being a First Responder is what we all aspire to. Show up first. Protect our fellow humans and animals from harm. Provide solace not judgment. Respond with listening and immediate action. Make safety the priority. If we thought we had no effect on our environment we learned the opposite was true. If …we thought we weren’t our brother’s or our sister’s keepers we found out that’s just what we should be. We have lungs full of smoke and hearts full of gratitude. It’s a new day and the beginning of a new week. There’s hope in there and reflection and work but also the newly learned lessons from our First Responder protectors. We are going to show up to our lives. We are going to listen and be compassionate and we are going to help and take care of each other. Let’s all move forward with those values tucked safely in our tired but grateful souls.”

The Scalbergs have them in spades.  All’s well here.  We settled in and got clean.  Tonight they fed us rib steak, corn, Caesar salad, and double chocolate gelato, with Lula’s toffee brittle.  All of this was paired with Night Heron Chard and Viader 2007. We can rough it like this for a while. We love you, Candy and Ernie.  PS: This is the view from our temporary home at sunset.  This fireball is far enough away for me.