Yesterday, we had our first wildfire of the season. Called the Grade fire, because it was located along the Laureles Grade, the road that connects Carmel Valley to Monterey. This fire burned right up to the road. It began during rush-hour for maximum impact, but was quite small, only ten acres. It occurred only three miles away, but I was not too worried, because there were millions of dollars of other people’s homes between us and the fire. One of these people is a realtor that we are speaking with and she was trapped at the time on Laureles. She said that she had a dozen Cal-Fire vehicles stopped on the road ahead of her and another dozen behind her. It is heartening to see a turnout like that. I am glad that their enthusiasm level is so high.

We are planning on selling the house, but I did not plan on having a fire sale. This year’s LA fire weighs heavily on everyone’s mind out here. It is important to have insurance, which we do and have already paid for next year. Chris works daily beating back the chaparral that surrounds us. Chaparral is native vegetation that grows to about four feet in height, is impenetrably dense and in a matter of weeks will be tinder dry. Making it all worse it is heavily laced with poison oak. Chris has looked into hiring a guy with a tractor sized mower, but I think that goats are the way to go. We saw a herd at nearby Fort Ord National Monument. Supposedly, such a herd can devour an acre-and-a-half of chaparral per day. Plus, they ought to be able handle the house’s 40° hillside incline just fine.