Here’s What’s Going On

One can taste the air outside this morning in Gunnison, a chewy, smoky flavor that while we seek it on our barbecue is just not all that palatable when taken straight.

This is not the burnt air of Canada, or California, or Arizona or even points west in Colorado — this is local smoke. The ridge between Mill and Squirrel Creeks has caught fire, a place about equidistant between Gunnison and Crested Butte.

After a wet, wet spring (which we really needed), so wet that we managed to find the “astounding” amount of water we required to re-fill Blue Mesa Reservoir after the Bureau of Reclamation’s well-intentioned but sadly misguided effort to move water to Lakes Powell and Meade downriver, we lurched into a super-dry, hot summer that immediately put us in red-flag territory, fire-wise.

And then Tuesday evening, finally, it rained up Ohio Creek, which I could see as I drove home from work. Good news, but also bad: it brought lightning to the Lowline Trail that wends between Mill and Squirrel, both feeder creeks for Ohio, which lets into the Gunnison not too far from Riverwalk. Lightning + heat + no rain for 2 months = problem.

Now, let’s just be candid: the county has done an appallingly bad job of keeping the public informed. The last update, as of this writing, on a fire that was 0 percent contained, was yesterday morning

It was 720 acres on fire then, with a mandatory evacuation area drawn along the two creeks and a very large pre-evacuation area set, surprisingly to me, to the south, within about six miles of Gunnison. I am surprised because our prevailing winds almost always blow west to east, but maybe the south is where the most people are, and they want them to be prepared — even if they aren’t going to issue updated information more than one a day.

By the time Lynn got to her afternoon shift at the Post Office, word on the street was that winds were shifting and now the evacuation area included Antelope Hills, west of Gunnison and near my sister’s mother-in-law. But when Sharon called dispatch to find out how worried she should be, they told her there had been no update because the fire hadn’t increased. Well, don’t you think we might like to know that, too?

Mill Creek does feature households I am acquainted with. Cheryl, who graduated a couple years ahead of me at Gunnison High School and who was a co-worker of Lynn’s until she retired, reported to the P.O. that she, her husband and their cats were all safe in their RV, which they drove out of danger. They are caretakers for a giant house (owned by the Container Store people, maybe?) that’s always struck me as quite the eyesore up one of the prettiest drainages in a spectacular part of the world (if I may say so immodestly), and the guest cabins above that may have already caught fire before Cheryl got out.

It’s hard to feel too sorry for people who will rebuild without blinking an eye, probably making their fourth, fifth or sixth estate larger and more garish to suit the current financial mores of god’s country, but Cheryl and Greg, whose retirement home in Florida was in Hurricane Ian’s path last year, may lose the house they have occupied for years. Down the road from them is my friend Sandy, who runs a cattle operation with her husband Burt. Hopefully they were able to get their livestock as well as themselves out of harm’s way.

It did rain yesterday (with enough thunder to scare Bear into talking his way back to work with me in the afternoon), off and on in town, enough out here to fill up half my rain barrel (really a 27-gallon trash can), and hopefully enough up Ohio Creek to dampen things down.

The smoke plume was substantially lower on my drive home last evening, but then again, the air tasted foul all night and into this morning, although it doesn’t currently seem as hazy as it did when I started typing.

Which, I’m aware that I’m sliding into the bi-monthly realm with this blog. (As opposed to semi-monthly, which I was kind of managing.) It’s just been a rough patch, less for me than dear friends who have sustained tragic losses. Two friends dating way back to our childhoods have lost 20-something relatives, one to suicide and one to an autoimmune disease; another long-time friend’s husband had a stroke while home alone. That one is doubly terrifying because he is my age, seemed in about the same sort of health I am, is five years away from Medicare and his future permanent residence is uncertain so far. Hopefully it will be at home with his wife, but we just don’t know.

At our house, Lynn’s hip appears to be healing quite nicely, and she just got cleared to work up to 40 hours per week, although she’s still limited in how much she can lift and she’s doing her hours in shifts in order to rest in between. But there have been doctor and other appointments, and a schedule that’s been all over the map, leading to a complete lack of routine that has probably bothered me far more than her. Not to mention the whole fun of dealing with workers’ comp during a whirlwind of changing personnel at the P.O.

Gunnison hasn’t had a postmaster since Lynn’s boss quit last November. A very nice woman was coming over from Salida, but they are short-handed there too, so she got called home. The new carrier supervisor in Gunnison then took over, and here’s how it works (or doesn’t) at the P.O.: he was doing his job, and the postmaster’s, and delivering mail when carriers were short-handed (they’re down at least two, and one other is limited in how many hours she works) and working the counter when clerks were in short supply (also down two, with two others, including Lynn, limited in hours) — and employees were filing grievances against him for doing work that supervisors aren’t supposed to do.

So he has quit, months into his job, and the woman from Salida is back. When she’s not in Salida. Two men — Lynn is very excited about the introduction of gender diversity — have applied for clerk positions, and they are being “fast-tracked” so that they can start only a whole month after applying. Even though Crested Butte is finally fully staffed and Gunnison sent numerous clerks up to assist when they weren’t, the higher-ups are not allowing anyone from CB to come down and help out.

It’s a wonder anyone’s mail gets delivered with a system like this.

But it appears UPS will avoid its planned strike, which is good news for Lynn’s work, already overrun with packages, and mine. Pat’s would be completely crippled if UPS went on strike, and Bear would be very sad not to get his daily head scratches from Blake, our friendly, kind driver.

So that’s where I’m at. It’s hot and my time management skills have completely evaporated. In a house full of open windows (although I currently have them closed due to air quality issues), the only one Marrakesh has wanted to be in lately is the one directly above my head while I’m sleeping — why is it any of us have cats? — so I am tired, cranky, worried about friends both near and far. And now the air tastes bad, and it’s too much trouble for the county to tell us what’s going on. [Update, at last: the fire is now 730 acres, so only an increase of 10, still 0 percent containment.]

I hope you all are well.

At the dual memorial service last week for my friend Cindy Yale (62, eight years after the advent of a brain tumor) and her dad Hal — the family decided he’d gone ahead of her by seven weeks to be there for her — they played several show tunes, ending with this one, from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical I’ve never heard of.