Velcro's twin

Last night we walked up  the 2 blocks to the Britt Festival just as Joan Jett* was getting started.

*best know for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL5spALs-eA

Anyway, on the neighborhood walk, we came across a decrepit, one eyed black cat who walked right up for some pats....... I didn't know Velcro (our Maine matriarchal kitty) had a twin... A neighbor walked by and said he called her the hobo cat. She's just more of a slow-go cat.

Weather forecast this week: Hot with patchy smoke

So many fires in so many acres around us that the very close mountains are obscured by smoke.  This weekend we tried to get out of the valley and drove 3 hours to the northern coast. (More late on that). Some of the worst, evacuation level-3 l fires are on the closest coast to us so those roads are closed.  Judd and I reside in that bowl of white smoke just to the east of the big red Chetco Bar Fire on the coast below (just north of the blue arrow where the smoke almost obscures the town of "Medford" just north of the California border on the NASA today map of Oregon/Washington.  I'm told Oregon used to "manage" their forests but now they don't  so they have grown up into big, dry acres of tinder with the 90-100 degree weather we have.  The cause of the fires is generally lightening strikes which have been unusually prevalent this summer.  Because the geography of being surrounded by all those beautiful in-April mountains, the smoke comes and sits in the bowl of Jacksonville/Medford/ *I wonder why they call it:* Ashland.  We hear it only gets this bad every 3-4 years.  And just when we start to be grumpy about it (and we are, because we have headaches and itchy eyes and the school kids have to have inside recess) then I hear today about one of the doc's whose home is 5 miles from the fire.  And I chose not to watch local news so I don't even realize how many people have been incovenienced by evacuation or worry for their homes.

And below the map is the 10 day forecast..... Contrast that to Kelcy's 10 day forecast in Alaska.  He's done the 14th there and on his way here.  Hope we can warm that guy up without setting him on fire.

What's up pussy cat?

Solar eclipse on first day of work  WAS auspicious.  We were allowed to take our morning break  by dashing outside for about 15 min on either side of "totality."  We were about  4 hours south of actual totality, but it was impressively about 94% of totality and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees over 30 min.  I loaned my special eclipse viewing glasses to some dude on the street outside my VA orientation building.  It turns out he's a supervisor in HR and he's been super helpful and friendly every since.  (Maybe he is also repentant since he assumed that, of the two of new hires starting that day, Zach and Melanie, that Zach was the doc and I was the pharmacist.)  Surprise!

Judd was home that day awaiting internet installation man.  Also auspicious!

Judd and I  checked in with our landlord for a couple minor things that were not optimal: dimmer lights that don't work, washing machines that don't spin. AND, back in July, the landlord had leaked to us that he loved his Moxie when he lived back east, so we stashed a couple cases for him in the U-haul. He came by for delivery. We commented about all the deer and turkey in our yard every night and he mentioned that Jackson county has the highest density of cougars in the US. I tried to do some fact-finding: While it appears the west-of-Medford area is pretty red for cougar population, it doesn't seem like the highest density....

But found a beautiful website about cougars and their loss of habitat.... maybe Oregon is greener than some of the west coast.
http://mountainlion.org/us/-us-population.asp

image from the Bend Bulletin 

State of Jefferson

Judd and I starting hearing about Jefferson on Day 1 (seven days ago.)  I thought maybe it was the county name until we looked it up.  Some cars had a license plate frame that said State of Jefferson and we ignored it.  Then a work mate of Judd gave him the low down: back in 1941, it was proposed that part of northern California and Southern Oregon merge to become the 49th state called Jefferson.  Then Pearl Harbor happened and spoiled their plans.  But to this day, some folks in this area still wish they were part of this mythical state. I'm going to reserve my decision until I've met some Jeffersonians. Learn more here:

https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/state_of_jefferson/#.WZnEh5OGOT8

U-haul came through in the nick of time and we picked up our U-box yesterday in Medford (15 minutes away.)  That means work clothes and shoes in time for tomorrow's start date. We spent only 2 hours emptying the crate after a 30 minute scavenger hunt looking for someone in town with a crescent wrench so we could open it.  We had pad locked it in China and had our key, but someone at the Augusta U-haul had bolted it shut for good measure.  Our tool box, packed in Maine, was safe inside the U-box. But Jamie at the gas station loaned us her wrench and we calmed down. The real chore was unpacking the 'OPEN FIRST' boxes and finding a new home for each item. This 1880 house has unusual cupboards and makeshift closets but we do have an extra room upstairs, although about 50% is unusable because it is mostly under the eaves. Good for hobbits or house elves, bad for Judd and me. We also did some furniture shopping so we'd have somewhere to put our TV and school books.  Our house went from sparse to replete in just 24 hours. Thank goodness for thrift stores and Fred Meyer.

Neighborhood pics

 <----- Oh, look at that tiny neighborhood library! It's adorable.  

Lots of animal buildings here

Old car rally today at Ray's grocery store

Black Bird (local sports/hardware store)

Pre-work nesting frenzy....

.....except Judd is already at work daily.  And I start on Monday, Aug 21, the most auspicious day of the total eclipse...... Hope I'm on a potty break to go out and see it.

Our U-haul box, packed in Maine, is no where on site.  The tracking website lists it simply as      "SHIPPED."       All I have from the car camping, now in the spacious closet, is summer/camping clothes. I could pull off about 2 days of work with my existing wardrobe. So in addition to getting my Oregon driver's license, shopping estate sales so we have a desk/dining room table, doing laundry at the laundromat, I'm hitting all 6 thrift stores for furniture, kitchenware and interim wardrobe.  And when I get really sad at the selection, I go to TJ MAX or Macy's bargain basement.

I found a Garden Shoppe and the owner let me know it was near the "end of the season" for most flowers and they'd be starting their pansies soon.  I said, "HUH?  In Maine, we start pansies in April."  Here they plant them in the fall when the zinnias and marigolds go by, and they almost winter over. We're in a Mediterranean climate and we haven't figured it out yet. It's been about 50 degrees each morning, chilly! but by noon is 80 to 95+degrees.  Getting in and out of cars is painfully hot, but every building I've been in is over- air-conditioned (i.e. so cold I want my sweater back-- so I carry it everywhere with me.) The only way the grass is green is that it's on an automatic timer to water it 2-3 times/week.  

The 1890 house must have been renovated in the 70s.  It rocks the shag carpet in the living room and bedrooms and is "modernized" with a garbage disposal and trash compacter--all those things I gave up when I left my San Diegan childhood.  The crick out in the back yard is called Daisy Creek which is also the name of a local winery.  The former renter left her dog pen so I've planted some basil, kale and zinnias, safely away from the every-evening deer. We have some tub tomatoes and nasturtium on the deck for fresh additions to our salads.
There's an organic farm on the way home from our work towns so we can get 

Still dining on camp furniture

fresh peaches, melons, veggies, eggs. We don't even know all the seasons in order yet. It appears to be cherry/ peach season.

The other night we walked down to main street to check out the J'ville Tavern  (where the husband day care can be located.)  We accidentally bumped into live music.  The sign also says free billiards on Sunday afternoon.  I heard from a local (so it must be true) that one of our Jacksonville neighbors is Johnny Depp. We'll be looking for him to be cruising the Main St. taverns too. I'll try to be calm and collected.

Joys of renting

Last classical concert at Britt Festival for the season

Bozo lived here and his largest known still  (1 block from our house--COME! we'll show you.)

For our first breakfast in town, we walked 6 minutes to The Good Bean: free refills.  (“Jude” ate someone’s scrambled eggs because the chef said his name wrong.   Five minutes later Chef called Jude again and someone else ate Judd’s over easy eggs.) People in line seemed to be locals, bikers or musicians who work in Jacksonville for the summer at the Britt Festival.

We felt we needed to “shop for essentials” all day yesterday and managed to avoid cleaning out all the cupboards/cabinets/baseboards and rafters. Today we got to it about 3pm and found more dog hair and dust and spiders and cobwebs than we imagined a new rental should have.

We washed new towels and sheets only to find sopping wet towels at the bottom of the broken washer (no spin cycle.) Found a laundromat 9 minutes away so we could finish the 3 loads of dirty clothes /cleaning stuff. Since the washer wasn’t technically part of the rental agreement but “thrown in to use while it’s here,” the landlord will not be replacing/repairing it.  So we need to decide if it’s worth buying a new one, calling a repair man or just paying the $6 of quarters for a triple load at the laundromat once a week…. We’re still deciding.

A sign for an “estate sale” caught our attention at an intersection going home to Jacksonville. The address was just minutes from our new home so we dropped in on the lady. She said that everything had to go so she could move back to Alaska--we were to walk around and make her an offer on things. We did but the formal estate sale is next weekend so we’re to “check in” with her later in the week.  I’m afraid she’ll get a better offer.  We told her we were on a restricted budget.  Although if things don’t sell for her next weekend, maybe she’ll be desperate to part with things and we’ll get a bargain.  For now, we take our camp chairs and camp “coffee table” on the deck for dinner and in the house at night for the next day’s breakfast, anxiously awaiting our U-haul box with some China amenities.  We heard today, it’s “been shipped.”

After dinner, when strangers started parking in our front and side yard, we realized the Britt festival was about to start.  Tonight we walked the two blocks to see what the concert was about.  We passed two landmarks:  one—the first place gold was discovered in Jacksonville and two- the home of the original Bozo the Clown, which also happened to have a giant still in the yard. We talked to 4-5 Britt volunteers who were running crowd control at the concert.  They were very welcoming, let us get as close as one could come to the concert without a ticket.  If this video doesn't work for you, try Instagram:

Presently, a deer with two fawns graze in the back yard and strains of Gershwin’s American in Paris are oozing in the front yard from the finale of the Britt Classics this summer.  There will be other famous bands through September. Judd is madly trying to get us tickets on his phone since we still have no internet for the computers yet. It’s my mission for tomorrow to procure internet service (or to spend another hour at the coffee shop using theirs.)