There was a new word invented in California. The word is Hurriquake. It is an amalgamation of two words: Hurricane and Earthquake. While it is not entirely accurate because California was hit by a tropical storm yesterday, it was also struck by a M5.1 earthquake. The tropical storm was Hilary, a hurricane that made landfall in Mexico on the Baja Peninsula, and lost power as it drifted into California as a tropical storm. Still, it dropped a lot of rain on the state, especially in the high desert.
I could not help myself but to think when I found out about it an hour after it happened that that’s California. Go big or go home! There’s no messing about with just having a very rare tropical storm. Why not ice the cake with a quake? But luckily California seems to have weathered both events quite well, and while there is a muddy mess to clean up, there was little affect from the quake, and people were mostly able to just move on. Might have been different if there was something above a M6.0.
The Epicenter was near Ojai, a beautiful town in the mountains above Ventura that I lived in in my early twenties. Meanwhile the rain in Death Valley was equal to a year’s worth in a single day, apparently.
But that was yesterday. I got the mower deck back together today and am ready to put it back on the mower and try it out tomorrow. One of the bolts sheared off and I suspect that is entirely to do with the spindles being of cheap Chinese quality. I am going to just run with it having three of four bolts holding that spindle on. Fingers crossed that it is enough. The other highlights of the day were helping Missus out in the morning and running to get hay with Dylan in tow and stopping in to get street tacos at La Unica for lunch. I unloaded the hay myself this evening.
Tomorrow Missus has a private appointment in town and after it I have an appointment to meet a septic installer here at the house. I have called most of the licensed installers in the county, and some “do not do that anymore,” or “really install a separate product, and need to have an excavator hired separately.” Some don’t answer their phone at all, or never call back when they have been contacted. I was running out of options when this one fella answered his phone and sounded excited about the project and said his schedule opens up in about three weeks. Who knows how much of that is genuine, but I sure do need it to be. The house needs it!
I have a couple of weeks open up in my schedule soon. I will need to fill them with firewood gathering. I am nowhere near ready for the winter yet. I also need to try to build that woodshed I have started lining up pieces for. Even if only a little one, I need to get it framed up and ready to take on some wood, if it is covered with a tarp rather than finished. Whatever.
In addition to firewood, I need some wood to turn on the lathe, and plenty of stock for the shop, too. There is no end to the wood I need in there. Where I am gathering it at the dump, most of what is there is poplar. It is not an ideal wood for everything I want to make, but for learning to make, I think it is alright.