Later this month, my favorite musician will be playing in my favorite place-- John Prine in Juneau, Fairbanks, Homer and Anchorage.  We'll get to come up for the Anchorage concert and are SOOOOO Excited.  Just wondering, are there any other Prine fans out there who are planning on catching the show???   My family was fortunate enough to have met John and had him sign my 30 year old blue jean skirt that only my FAVORITE musicians are asked to sign.  When he went to sign the skirt, he told me that he had read about the skirt on his website.  Hoping to get him to sign it again, with 'Anchorage, Alaska' !

California Summertime

While the rest of the country battles rain, snow, floods, etc.  Here we sit in SoCal on Easter Sunday with the mercury hitting about 97 in my neck of the woods.  Yesterday, my husband and I hiked up to the Diamond Valley Dam to get some shots of the wildflowers in bloom.  (He took out the insert in the flyer about the rattlesnakes in the area- cause he knew the trip would be off if I got wind of THAT).  It's rare for us to see wildflowers to this degree in this area, but we've had an abudance of rain this year and it is reaping a bountiful harvest!

Welcome to Sunny Southern California....miles and miles from Alaska. Last Sunday afternoon, the winds began to blow and thanks to all the developers (see previous post) the sand and dirt covered everything.  The pictures on Monday's paper showed cars buried up to their roofs in sand.  A window open about 1/2 an inch left dirt and sand all over the dresser, floor and windowsill.  A kitchen window not open at all, left the tile and the blinds covered in silt.  Then, as you know, the fires began.  I could look to the south and see the Ramona/ San Diego Fires, to the southeast, fires from Fallbrook/Temecula, to the west The Santiago Fire, and to the Northwest and see the Arrowhead fire.  Yesterday, while attending a meeting in Wildomar, flames were on the mountain right behind where we were meeting, thankfully quickly extinquished.  This afternoon, the smoke from many fires, crept into the San Jacinto Valley.  Tonite it is so thick my eyes sting and I get a headache within the first minute that I am out in it. 

This has been a wild week, at the mercy of the winds, flame and smoke and of course the arsonists.  I feel like we're some weird Star Trek outpost.  Not a bad time to consider, SoCal or AK??? 

 Looking for work in the field of Alzheimer's Care at the management Anyone know anything about who the main providers are in AK?  It appears that they are all state run, I see no large private sector providers.  Information would be so welcomed!

In the meantime, we'll just be hanging out here, trying not to breathe or go outside.

About three years ago, we moved to a largely agricultural area of soCal, the San Jacinto Valley.  Dairy farms and flies everywhere.  That was just fine with us.  I grew up in Iowa, so I'm used to those big orange triangles on slow moving tractors.  There were lots of dairy farms and horse ranches.  Wide open spaces and room to run.  An old brick mansion in the middle of San Jacinto that the city held old fashioned 4th of July celebrations at.  Plenty of churches and hard working people.

We've watched all that change all too rapidly.  Developers are buying up property right and left.  Cows  slowly disappeared ( the flies are still around) and the housing tracts came to town.  Not too far from town they're advertising 9 and 11 bedroom homes.  But in this valley, the foreclosure rates have risen to astronomical record levels.  We rent a home in a two year old neighborhood at the edge of town.  In this tract, I'd say about 50% are renters, 20% are homeowners and 30% are empty, hollow and in foreclosure.  They're easy to spot, notices tacked to the doors, grass overgrown or completely dead, weekly penny savers yellowed in the driveways.  It's bad news and good news I suppose.  Bad news for the homeowners who have lost their piece of the American Dream, good news because it seems to have held the developers just a little at bay, they've slowed or stopped building of homes.  Now they're focusing on commercial building. The beautiful thoroughbred horse ranches have became the latest casualty.  You'll notice in  my pictures one black cow.  He lives alone in the pen of a local farmer who I understand has had enough and will be moving to central california. 

Nonetheless, I attended a meeting this week where the city planner spoke about the proposed city plan.  The projection is yet another freeway to cut through the valley and a whole megaplex of warehouse shopping where the cows and horses used to graze.  There aren't as many hawks around and I've seen so many coyotes killed by cars that I can't stomach it any more.  I've watched them pace in an empty field bordered on all sides by busy streets, too narrow to accomodate the growth the region has seen.Afterwards, I asked the city planner, where is the agriculture on this map of yours?  He talked about the historic downtown area and told me of two more farmers who were selling out. 

John Prine, sings ...and they chalk it all up to the progress of man."