This is a picture of the lead air attack aircraft my brother pilots for a wild land firefighting contractor in Arizona. The active season starts about May through September. However, he was called back to fight the fires in southern California this week. I talked to him this morning after the briefing and he reported that they were "smoked in" and couldn't fly today until the smoke dissipates.

Lead air attack leads the fire bombers into the drop zones and orbits the zone while the bombers drop loads of fire retardant. Mid-air collisions are a very real danger in low visibility at a fire scene. My brother said they were fighting four separate fires, but the Santana winds had quit so they expected to wrap the fires up in about a week. He's based out of an old Air Force base in San Bernadino and reports that there's devastation everywhere--huge homes reduced to ashes, people living in stadiums and other locations.

Let's hold dear in our hearts the safety of all on the ground and in the air in
California.

Mmmmmmmmelinda

October has long been my favorite month of the year. Rather than slowing down like the signs of autumn, my life seems to get energized and speed up. I'm not complaining, for I like it that way. Especially when the grey is closing in and it's dark when you get up and way too early in the late afternoon.

On the weekend the DH and I journeyed over the Cascade mountains and through the woods to Leavenworth, Washington state's Bavarian-themed town for Octoberfest oompahpah fun. Yes, that is Mmmmmm and the DH wearing beer stein glasses in the Fest Hall on Friday night. We chicken danced, sat-swayed and sang along with some lederhosen-wearing band from Canada, while sloshing 12 ounce plastic cups of beer. Connie and Peter ate wurst and kraut on rolls, a pacing good thing. I did not and mid swill the party ended abruptly for Mmmmmmmm. Not one more anything would pass my lips the rest of the night for fear of starting the chain reaction upchuck. I didn't drink that much because I only like top beer, the upper couple of inches of cold. Further down in the glass, bottom beer gets warm and tastes like an excretory substance sometimes mistaken for beer.

Octoberfesting isn't all beer and oompahpah--well, most of it is. Lot of it is yodeling or trying to. When I was a little girl my dad thought the singer Brenda Lee was one fine yodeler, which was a good thing that I wanted to be able to do because Dad admired that particular talent. If practice truly does make perfect, I was screwed from the get go as I couldn't stand the sound of my own yodel. Needless to say, I did not enter the yodeling competition at the Fest Hall. Perhaps I had a shot because those guys who did enter couldn't yodel either. But they got enthusiastic support from the Octoberfestered audience who was laughing like I was and thinking--better him than me on stage among the lederhosen-sporting tuba tooting accordian squeezers.

Ich bin Octoberfested!
mmmmmmmmmmelinda

Southern Tier Authors of Romance (STAR) and I have settled on a date for my writing workshop, Crafting Paranormal Themes: Exploring The Dark Heart and Bright Soul of Romance. We'll be doing that fun workshop online the month of February 2008. I'll have a registration link later on the Schedule page, and more information will follow in the weeks to come before the workshop begins.

I've spent the weekend with endless website thrills courtesy of my website host, Digital Space. They're updating, which is very cool, but didn't tell me, which is very bad. Thank goodness they have 24/7 online support. I tried to log in as I was getting a huge dump of the worst sort of SPAM from my website email addys I'd forgotten were still active. The webbots found 'em though and I received hundreds of emails from kind folk who were interested in increasing the size of my, well, you know . . . or giving me a great opportunity to buy drugs and Viagra online. Wowow, do those ads actually work? I mean, do people really send that guy in Africa $500. to get in on a sure thing investment? Evidently, because out of the millions of SPAMs he/they send, if only one incredibly stupid lout clicks through, well, that's easy money, if very small easy money.

The sissy-in-law of Mmmmmmmmmm sent the following autumn in Kansas piece that I loved and wished I was there instead of here in gray, wet, gray Seattle . . .

Ah, the joys of autumn in Kansas. It was 90 today and will probably be again tomorrow. The only thing good about the hot dry weather is that it makes it easier for to extract honey - the honey stays more liquid with the warmth and comes out of the uncapped comb in the centrifuge more readily. Other than than, the weather could go far, far away. I am so ready for the terrible wonderful sight of a red leaf on the ubiquitous poison ivy. Laughingly referred to as the state flower, which it is not, it grows everywhere, fostered by seeds and runners. If you discount the allergic reaction many have to it, the darned plant is really pretty, sort of graceful and definitely hardy. It is the first thing to turn color in the fall giving great swatches of brilliant reds. Very nice. The fact that we don't have allergic reactions to the stuff does soften my attitude for certain.

We have wild asters blooming with great masses of small white blooms, golden rod and some late sunflowers. There are a few grapes left to ripen but the birds keep beating us to them as they turn purple. Once again, we are having our nightly fall visitor to the garden. A deer keeps raiding our tomatoes, preferring the large yellow ones, and eating our cantaloupe and honeydews. I don't think it has a taste for acorn squash (yet). Wish it liked weeds!

The hummingbirds seem to be gone and the great turkey vultures have been flocking up for their migration south. It is awesome to watch 25 or 30 of the great birds circle on a thermal. A few years ago when we spent part of the fall in Branson we watched literally thousands of the vultures gathering, really pretty creepy. Then one day they were all gone - even more creepy! They do bring out the oogies in a person. Earlier that same fall we had been in south eastern Colorado for a week as the great sand hill cranes were gathering for their migration. Thousands of raucous birds taking off, swirling about and landing over and over again. And then one morning total silence. They had left with the full moon. Amazing. Breath taking! What a joy they were to watch.

Anyway, with any luck we will have some lovely true fall weather one of these days before the snow flies. You could send us some of that rainy weather you have had up your way. We'd be really appreciative!

And I'd really like to send you some!
Mmmmmmmmmmelinda