I'm with Ray. I wasn't thinking about the show. Shows come and go. People
matter.

Fire is a real danger down here right now. I can't remember a stretch this
dry. Rain? Hah! Lots of lawns are brown, including ours. Watering is limited
to two mornings a week, which is really all you need. But. We are on city
water, but kept the well hookup to our sprinkler system. The well went dry!
Now there is water in the canal (no idea how it got there) and presumably in
the well. But the pump lost its prime and we can't see a way to take the
cover off and prime it. One more little
chore that we don't need.

Thankfully, the ban doesn't apply to things like orchids. Our Vandaceous
stuff would be DOA if it did.

Kathy, how is Joe doing?

Diana

"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
On May 9, 3:11 am, "Ray B" wrote:
To hell with the show! Are they in any imminent danger from the fires?

Zuma Canyon got wiped out many moons ago in a similar situation, didn't
they?

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids -www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Books, Artwork, & Lots of Free Info!


SBOE is on the beach side - well, on a bluff above the beach. So far
the fires have all been in the mountains behind the town with fingers
of fire licking down arroyos and burning homes. The freeway would act
as a firebreak before said fires got to the SBOE. There's a cymbidium
grower that was potentially near last year's fire area. I don't think
he's in danger from this one, and Gallup and Stripling and Orchids
Royale are closer to Carpinteria, again miles away. Last year I went
to the SBOE sale in July a day after the Goleta fires were
'contained' (there were still a few flyovers by planes). There was a
very slight amount of ash on the plants, else you'd never know they
had a problem at all.

Much like Australia's fires in SB the homes encroach into the
foothills and along the ravines. Lets face it - Santa Barbara is a
very desirable community in which to live so every nook and cranny
gets inhabited. Of course the native plants are all fire tolerant and
many need fire in order to survive, so the native species - while very
combustible - will come back as will the people. After the Oakland
Hills fire in 1990 - jeez was it that long ago? - people came back and
built bigger and better. Many of the Australian eucalyptus trees were
cut down and there was a push to replace them with California Natives,
but I'm not sure how well that's progressed. Very few people actually
sold out and moved away. Many just 'traded up', replaced their
burned out old cottages for mega homes. After that fire many insurers
changed the way they wrote 'full replacement cost' policies, *G*.

K Barrett