I got up this morning (Sunday, 8/8) at 4:00 a.m., to watch the start of the Rolex Fastnet Race.

Fastnet Rock is the most southerly point of Ireland. The lighthouse on Fastnet Rock is now unmanned and operates automatically. The history is fascinating … any interested may search. A tidbit, though … the first lighthouse was built on the rock in 1853!

Fastnet Rock is a “mark” in several sailing races. But the most well-known race is the Fastnet Race, currently the Rolex Fastnet Race:

Fastnet Rock is used as the midpoint of one of the world’s classic offshore yachting races, the Fastnet Race, a 1,126-kilometre (700 mi) round trip from Cowes on the Isle of Wight, around the rock and back to Plymouth. It is also sometimes used as a mark for yacht races from local sailing centres such as Schull, Baltimore, and Crookhaven.

From Wikipedia

The 2021 race as well as the 2023 race (the race is a bi-annual event) finishes in Cherbourg, France vs Plymouth.

My personal interest in the race stems from following the Vendee Globe which started 11/8/2020. I have become enamored of the IMOCA 60 boats AND the skippers, teams, all things IMOCA! It is an open class, meaning there are rules for certain things, but otherwise there can be customization in the design. So … each boat might have certain features designed to make it go fastest in certain conditions … adhering to the IMOCA open class rules. For me … this is the perfect juxtaposition of similar along with innovative.

Based on my experience watching the 2020 Vendee Globe: around the world, single handed with NO assistance … and the results being spread amongst new/older/foiling/non-foiling boats with various “options” … it is somewhat “luck of the draw” re weather, but also the skipper’s knowledge of their own boat and the skipper’s decisions re weather. My take is that the IMOCA 60 class allows for both experimentation in design as well as sailing expertise. I am hooked!!

Hence, I was up at 4:00 a.m. to watch the start:

It did NOT disappoint!

Even if you do not sail, I encourage watching the first 4 minutes of the video. Some history, some spectacular video … it is worth a look!

I am currently following the YB race tracker. (New tab (rolexfastnetrace.com))

And in addition to the IMOCA 60 class, I am keeping an eye on IRC3 and specifically Dee Caffari, skpper of Gentoo. Dee Caffari is most known for the first woman to circumnavigate the globe BOTH ways :). She was a commentator during the Vendee Globe … a favorite commentator of mine and I have followed her subsequent racing and she has a nice dog :) !

The first finishers … probably the multihulls, might be late Monday UTC/early Tuesday my time. The weather forecast is challenging.

The IMOCA 60’s are sailing double-handed, BUT with an on board reporter (OBR). So, there should be video and still documentation of their progress and experience.

Meanwhile, here in NW Montana … far from any ocean … we are enjoying a cool break which includes some wonderful rain!!

Again, I moved everything off the front porch and out into the yard to allow all to have some REAL rain!

AND, I picked 5 more of the Husky Cherry tomatoes .. YUM!!

In anticipation of a cool Sunday, I started a seedy spelt sourdough loaf and a batch of sourdough cinnamon rolls. Both started Saturday evening and baked this morning.

A very early start to Sunday, but much accomplished as well as much fun to watch the race … what a great week end!!

TGIF and all of that.

It has been a WEEK!

Smoke and Heat and work and the whole financial thing…

Exhausting!

But.

Good news is that the financial stuff resolved. We are home. We have time to regroup and rethink. It is good news!

The weather…

Snow ???

Well, likely NOT for me, but I would welcome snow!!

Still.

It looks like a brief cooling respite … until Thursday.

We will take it!!

Holy Cow, it is Friday!!!

I am writing this post on Monday morning and all is well.

But yesterday was definitely scary – for me! Saturday, the temp rose to 96F as forecast. There was a lot of smoke and Saturday night, a fire blew up 25 miles south of me, along Flathead Lake’s southeastern shore. The fire jumped a fire break and down draft winds drove it towards the lake. There were a lot of evacuations and sadly, a number of homes were destroyed. And … it is a human caused fire … not sure whether accidental or intentional.

***This map added after initial post. The red X is about my location. The site is a national site. I zoomed in to my area. InciWeb the Incident Information System (nwcg.gov)

Sunday was forecast to be 95F with high winds in the afternoon in front of a monsoon moisture/thunderstorm event.

The temperature rose to 97F by mid-afternoon on Sunday with lots of smoke. It unnerved me to the point that I gathered duffle bags for clothes, thermal bags for food and water, an electronics bag and made a list…

The typed list on the left is always on my key rack in my home entry. But, I hand wrote the list on the right to cement in my mind what I would do if necessary. Also, I had no intention of going in the motorhome. The Jeep is more maneuverable and able to go places the motorhome cannot. The fire to the south meant that direction was not available. I am likely making this sound more serious than it was, but I was thinking “worst case, what do I want to do”.

It was so darn hot, dry and smoky … I’m sure it addled my brain a bit.

That is the weather radar about 6:00 p.m. The motion view showed the moisture headed northeast and that cell (red) to pass south of me.

Emmett and I went out just after I looked at this. It was eerily still and quiet … the calm before the storm?

About 5 minutes after we came in the house, the wind started blowing, thunder rumbled and …

Rain!!! Lots of rain, but not so hard as to roll off … It soaked the ground, formed a few puddles and I never saw or heard lightning to ground. From the map, it looked like the area of the fire south of me as well as some other spots with active fires, got rain as well – I hope so.

The temperature dropped 20 degrees F in a little over an hour. And the humidity rose to 100%, but I am NOT complaining!

This morning, it is 67F which is still a warm overnight temperature and the humidity is 99% as 66F is the dewpoint …

So, it is misty, foggy, smoky … but thankfully wet!

I doubt this is a fire season ending event, but we are to get more rain today before 2 days of dry at hot (90F, not upper 90’s) and then more rain followed by cooler than normal temps. While not ending fire danger, if the forecast is correct, it should allow progress on fires and hopefully reduce the smoke.

A slow start to Monday as we (ME!) recover from a seriously scary Sunday.

***A little PSA here … the other thing I did yesterday afternoon, was walk through my entire house and all closets and drawers taking video of my possessions. I also did the garage. The motorhome is mostly empty so skipped that. With the refi I am doing, I have recently adjusted my homeowner’s insurance for current costs of construction and replacement cost for my stuff. I highly recommend. It is easy to do and even if the video is not great, it will be a visual reminder if you ever need to make a claim … a lot easier and less stressful than trying to remember everything. I was too antsy last night, but this morning, I copied the video to my laptop AND to my cloud backup. And while I am lecturing here :) …. all important paperwork can be scanned and similarly backed up to cloud servers. I did all of mine last year with the scan feature on my phone. It went very fast, easy to organize into folders and now I scan docs on receipt. No paper files that you have to keep track of.

Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning … we had a little rain!

Tuesday evening was a teaser of drops here and there … blech!!

And Wednesday morning started the same, but then some drizzle and finally some light, gentle, but steady rain!

For almost 2 hours.

I moved everything off the front porch to catch the rain…

It is incredible what rain will do that watering does not. And especially because I water with untreated well water, i.e. rain water filtered by 200 feet of ground. I don’t understand, but a little time in real rain makes a HUGE difference!

Hee… my first home grown tomato! One of the Husky Cherry tomatoes.

I picked it!!

And also some basil…

And made the world’s smallest Caprese Salad: bite sized, but delicious!

A little rain!

Awareness sharpens joy, don’t you think?

Sharp Joy – that’s what I’m feeling!

From “A Presumption of Death: a new Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mystery” by Jill Paton Walsh and Dorothy Sayers

The above quote is a discussion between Lord and Lady Peter (Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane Wimsey), in the early days of WWII when Peter has just returned from a very dangerous mission for the Foreign Office. Harriet was living with their 2 young sons, Peter’s sister’s three children, a cook, Bunter (Peter’s valet extraordinaire who had returned earlier) and a housemaid … in their country home having closed up their London house. During Peter’s absence, Harriet did not know where he was or what he was doing (Official Secrets Act) and had very limited ability to communicate … some military address and heavily censored. At this time of the war, Germany was running roughshod over everything and things looked VERY grim for England and the United Kingdom. When Peter returned safely from his mission, it was obviously a huge relief … that is the setting for the 2 lines of their conversation.

I have never had that kind of drama or fear in my life, for which I am very grateful!

But for whatever reason, as I was gathering some photos and thinking about a post, I thought: “sharp joy!”, that is what I am feeling today. Maybe it is awareness … awareness of being in circumstances that I love, despite the weather and fire danger. Being aware that I am so very fortunate to live in a beautiful and comfortable spot with dear Emmett for companionship … while still missing Auggie terribly … but grateful for his place in our lives and all he brought Bear, Emmett and me.

It looks like the financial reorganization will resolve as I hoped … in two weeks. The bank seems certain and banks are given to being conservative, so while “not counting my chickens”, I am feeling that I will not need to sell and move into the motorhome. And while a motorhome adventure was/is not undesirable, there is a part of me that does not want to do that right now: heat, fires, general upheaval in routine and some motorhome maintenance needed. So, I am cautiously optimistic that things will resolve to give me some breathing room to stay in this house.

And the Jeep has new tires!!! Minor, but it has been one of those “back of the mind” things that I am so happy is done!

So … awareness that things are on the way to resolution after nearly 2 months of great uncertainty! Probably :)

Meanwhile …

It doesn’t look great and “slight chance of rain” on Wednesday … there was a slight chance 3 days last week and we got nary a drop! It is scary dry and we move to Stage II fire restrictions tomorrow (I think this should have happened weeks ago!!)

You can barely see a mountain shape through the smoke. BUT, it is not as smoky as some mornings … the sun looks like the sun vs an orange-red blob. And don’t be fooled … the woods looks pretty in the photo, but the reality is there is a lot of dead and dying vegetation. The paths are dried hard and dusty.

The fuchsia are not really “cut flower” things, but the baskets have such an abundance of blooms, that I have been doing some thinning. I hate throwing the gorgeous blossoms away, so … a bit of pretty for my kitchen island.

It is exhausting: walks, games of fetch, playing in the hose :)

Despite the fact that they are not aesthetically pleasing and a bit noisy, I am so grateful that the 3 roll around behemoth A/C units keep this little house comfortably cool.

But, I have 2 little fans for helper air. Both are USB powered, one is rechargeable…

Above is the rechargeable fan. It has a reservoir for water and ice cubes, then the fan blows a cool mist. I use it in the bedroom and on my desk. It is quiet compared to my floor fans and big A/C units so is perfect for when I am in a work meeting and also at night, if it feels stuffy-warm but I don’t want the noise of the big unit. There are lots of small fan options which I found via some of the RV YouTubers I follow. And I am a huge fan of rechargeable USB things.

The final contributor to the “awareness that sharpens joy” … the first tomato starting to ripen! There are a LOT of baby tomatoes on all of the plants. And lots of peppers: jalapeno AND bell. The rest of the herbs and flowers are all doing well. I am just thrilled and am having so much fun taking care of things and enjoying all. So far, no critter or deer damage.

Despite the heat and smoke and fire-scary factor, it has been a lovely weekend.

Sharp Joy!!

According to my moon app, the moon is full at 8:38 p.m. this evening. I took the photo, Thursday (last) evening. The conditions were perfect with enough light from the just set sun, very light smoke and the moon risen in a low spot that allowed me to also capture the gold field. AND, Emmett and I headed down the road, in the Jeep, at the perfect time.

The sunset colors were beautiful as well.

I might try to get moon set tomorrow morning as it should be 5:45 a.m. which should be perfect morning light. We’ll see!

Meanwhile, we are enjoying what is forecast to be a short respite from heat and heavy smoke. It was a beautiful 48F at my house this morning. Emmett and I enjoyed it as long as possible.

I have dough rising for a bread bake while it is not so hot AND a beef roast to prepare as well.

At the moment, I am writing from a tire shop where the Jeeper is getting new tires and a minor service. I got lucky again! I was on my way to the grocery … again while it is not so hot … the tire shop looked empty. They had the tires I wanted in stock and could do all right that very second. It is supposed to take an hour. So, some downtime to write this post. There is a very nice setup to wait: comfy chairs and small tables set on the periphery of the showroom. The shop is separate so minimal noise from the work area. I am pretty happy!

All was done in slightly less than an hour and that includes the “shopping”, the work, the payment … holy cow!

A quick grocery trip and then home, lunch and back to work.

Well, that is what I wrote, but now at 4:14 p.m. … not a lick of work done. But all groceries put away, lunch was had, bread(s) baked …

A semolina-durum sandwich loaf.

Seedy spelt boule.

It has been a productive week: work, some chores, the financial stuff and ending with relatively pleasant weather.

Full Moon Friday!