GCA-Newsletter_12_12.. - Gun Club of America

12
Producer’s
Cut
by Keith Hezmalhalch
AGI/GCA Executive
Video Producer and
New Age Sage
11/29 Three-round Knock-out . . .
As I begin, we are experiencing the first in a round of three
rainstorms. This is good because we’ve been in a drought for
8 years now. In that time we’ve only had one year with a
normal rainfall (60 inches where I live). Our current total is
behind where it should be for this time of year, but these
storms promise to catch us up (hopefully!). In addition, I have
to write in short sessions this month because I put my back
out cutting up a tree on the driveway.
An itch in time . . .
When the tree fell, the landlord hiked the last quarter mile of
driveway to tell me. He said it was no more than 12 inches in
diameter. If that’s true, I would only need 10 minutes to cut it
enough to get by when I went to town later. I arrived at the
tree dressed for town, not for extensive wood cutting! He had
been wrong, the tree was nearly 2 feet in diameter, AND… it
had no less than THREE Poison Oak vines the size of broom
handles wrapped around it! Needless to say, even with
returning to the house to change clothes and wash I got it
bad! Then, when it’s nearly gone, I go to clear the REST of the
tree and…VOILA, there goes my back! I couldn’t help but
wonder whether it was the deer or the cougar I heard chuckling
off in the brush.
11/30 Wow! . . .
Yes storm #1 lived up to its expectations! It delivered 5.7" in
24 hours. This may seem like a lot to you, but before the
drought, we used to get 3 or 4 storms each year that would
deliver 6 to 6.5" inches. However… it has been so long since
we’ve even had 5" in one storm the media and many others
are panicked. They think by round 3 there may be flooding.
This could happen if the storms dump 5 inches in LESS than
12 hours, but I have never seen that happen in 24 years.
Although it is possible, it is not likely due to the storm’s
projected track. We’ll just have to wait and see! At least my
wells are coming back to life and the deer are still noticeably
absent.
12/1 and all is well . . .
As I write this we are in the “calm before the storm.” Run-off
from the last storm subsided within an hour after it passed.
Upon inspection of my environs, I found that some gravel had
washed away during the heaviest period of rain. It looks like
there is work to be done to get my drainage system back to
normal. I’m sure many of you can relate to this frustration.
4:30 pm Uh, oh! . . .
I am in the dark right now, the power just went out. At least
there are a couple of hours of daylight left and one of my
generators is ready. Oops! Gene’s wife just called (Gene is
gone), she is concerned about the predictions of flooding. I
am almost certain it won’t happen but . . . this is CERTAINLY
one of those cases where an ounce of prevention is worth
many pounds of flood-damaged office equipment and
paperwork. I am now in a quandary. Should I watch and wait,
or go NOW and move the firearms to safety?
6:15 pm the light at the end of the tunnel . . .
Wasn’t a train, it WAS three PG&E trucks and a road block!
Light drizzle is falling and the power still out, I chose to go
ahead and make the trip to town to move the guns. I was only
50 yards from the city limits when I hit the road block and
since my car couldn’t fly or swim, I had to go home. A huge
tree was the cause of the outage, it had blocked the entire
road just short of alternate routes. By the time I got home
(6:45pm) the power was restored, Yay! I figured the tree
would be cut up in a couple hours.
8:45 pm If you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you!
At this point I changed my strategy and decided to keep an
ear to the storm during the night and not go to town unless it
started dumping. This isn’t hard to do when you live in the
forest, it’s easy to hear the rain. I called Suzy, “Hey you should
be able to head on up, the tree should be cleared by now!” By
9:15 I was getting worried. She should have been here by
now! What had happened? The phone rang. She was back
home. Not only had the TREE still been there, PG&E, the
phone company and the city’s crew were still there! The road
was still blocked but at least the power was back on.
12/2, 4:30am If the rain falls in the forest . . .
and no power is on, will you hear it? You guessed it! I woke
up and not 30 seconds later… the power had gone out again!
This time I had the honor of being the first person to report it
(Thank God, if I hadn’t woken up right then, no one might
have reported that outage for hours…)!
12/2 8:30am It’s a beautiful morning . . .
I get up, there are blue holes in the clouds. The storm is over
and the rain was only heavy for about 3 hours last night so all
should be well! Never the less, there are 3 messages on my
machine (its running on a backup supply)!? Two are from
Gene’s wife and one from Suzy, the city forecasts the river to
flood at high-tide in 4 hours. I am pretty darn sure this won’t
happen, but even MY faith is wavering at this point so with no
power and no water I simply throw on some clothes and head
for town.