. . . and the Rye Grass Coulee Fire
Growing up, our small town had garbage collectors. Two brothers, neighbors and church members, came with a high-sided dump truck and lifting and over turning the cans into the inner void of the receptive back. Off the stuff went, never to be seen again.
Unless one visited “the dump”. Near the south end of 2nd Avenue (a little less than a mile from our house, there was a wooded beginning of a small stream called Trout Run. That is where the Town’s garbage got upended from the truck. Local kids visited The Dump to watch rats and bears scrounge for scraps of edibles. After using a spotlight to see the critters, there might be a tour of nearby roads looking for deer.
Modern places now have Transfer Stations. The issue is that my County has spent about four years preparing a new site and a new transfer station. Friday was the day for showing it off to the citizens. At the appointed time there was full sun and a temperature of 84 degrees and headed for 88. I planned on going, but skipped. When us aging folks check out, I wonder if some of us — turned to ashes — will pass through a fancy transfer station and get dumped in some unknown site miles away.
For the past week I have been noting the 
activity of a large black spider along the back of the house near a faucet. She constructs egg sacs. The first one I saw disappeared. Then she built two more. In the photo she is hanging on the lower-right side, about 3 inches over gravel.
I got a new visitor on Wednesday morning. I last saw her Friday morning about 11 AM, although at about 6 PM she is gone.
The left photo is through a dirty window when I first saw her. There was a low morning sun and long shadows. I didn’t know if she would stay if a went out. When I realized she was staying I placed a 5 gallon bucket of water close by. I did not want her trying to get through the brush to get a drink from the creek. Within a minute after I poured the water and moved away she got up (from the position in the right photo) and drank from the bucket.
Thursday morning I spoke to her as I was headed toward the west side of the house and to the brush growing in Jay’s Folly – the empty pond-intended hole back there. She followed me there and wandered around nibbling on some of the plants. She apparently didn’t find much to her liking and only stayed about 15 minutes.
Friday morning, I put a sign out at the end of the lane. If she isn’t here Saturday morning I will assume she has moved on, and remove the sign.
Wednesday we bottled wine from 10 to Noon. This is of interest because shortly after I returned home via the Vantage bridge a fire started and closed my route home, burned two houses, utility poles, and nearly a thousand acres of grass and sage brush. The fire started when a vehicle traveling on Vantage Highway had a flat tire, causing the steel rim to scrape the pavement and generate sparks that ignited dry vegetation. This was on the road I was on 3 hours prior to. I missed a potentially long and inconvenient day by just a couple of hours. Whew!
Pictures and information can be found by searching for:
Rye Grass Coulee fire
Using Google Earth Pro (or similar) the location for the start of the fire is about here: 46.949006, -119.998250
With the Columbia River and the pool behind Wanapum Dam, helicopters and planes had ready access to water. The fire was contained by Thursday mid-day and the roads opened.
Saturday, the County Historical is having displays and presentation about the history of irrigation in the area around Ellensburg. That I will go to and hope their air conditioning works.
Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John