Random Excitement
Sep. 22nd, 2006 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayamaiaSo I started to write this post when the firefighters stopped tramping through my backyard this morning, but never finished.
There's a freeway in back of my house. Between the end of our property and the freeway is maybe 50 feet of - what should I call it? Dense undergrowth, a few trees, giant bushes that dwarf the trees, covering the steep slope, land controlled by CalTrans. Well, I heard a wreck this morning just before I was going to go out the door and sure enough... a motorcyclist had crashed her way down the slope. She managed to jump off or fall off about a third of the way down, and the cycle got another third of the way.
I cursed myself for having a skirt and impractical shoes, and the blackberries for making the place almost entirely inaccessible, but there were plenty of people able to help her from the freeway side. One of them also managed to shut off the motorcycle, but not fast enough, apparently. Fortunately it took only a few minutes for a firetruck to arrive on the freeway side, and only a few more for the second one called by my neighbor on my side.
The one on our side was entirely useless. They couldn't get in even though it was a straight shot from the front of our property to the back. The blackberries, burying a cyclone fence and an old wooden one were just that much of a barrier. But the guys on the freeway side snuffed the fire almost as soon as it was visible.
It's actually a fairly common spot for accidents, one way and another. I've been told about at least two cars that landed either at the edge of our yard or actually in it. My mother, when she got home, reminded me of one of them - the car was just on the other side of the fence and starting to burn. My father ran in there and dragged the occupant out of the car. The guy's brains were clearly addled: he dove back, saying "My keys!" Papa pulled him out again - "Forget the keys!"
Apparently, mom had just told that story to someone last night.
So it seems there's a reason we've never REALLY attacked the blackberries on the CalTrans land: they may make it more difficult to fight a fire from our side, but they also provide an effective barrier to people trying to run through. Maybe 20 years ago, they had a real problem with people stopping on the freeway and running through our property in attempts to get away from the cops.
I begin to think that a big reason my dad's got such a record of playing the hero and catching bad guys is due to the city in which we have our home.
In other news, the grapevine I've been told all my life would only produce tiny, sour grapes (because it isn't exactly well tended, or ever tended) is producing edible grapes this year. I wonder what it could be like if we started actually taking care of it. The grapes in question? Pulled off vines hanging all over the plum trees. I wonder what's available from the ones on the pole for the clothesline (it looks like a small telephone pole) in the corner....
Movies I feel like watching: Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, Phantom of the Opera with Claude Rains, Sleeping Beauty.
There's a freeway in back of my house. Between the end of our property and the freeway is maybe 50 feet of - what should I call it? Dense undergrowth, a few trees, giant bushes that dwarf the trees, covering the steep slope, land controlled by CalTrans. Well, I heard a wreck this morning just before I was going to go out the door and sure enough... a motorcyclist had crashed her way down the slope. She managed to jump off or fall off about a third of the way down, and the cycle got another third of the way.
I cursed myself for having a skirt and impractical shoes, and the blackberries for making the place almost entirely inaccessible, but there were plenty of people able to help her from the freeway side. One of them also managed to shut off the motorcycle, but not fast enough, apparently. Fortunately it took only a few minutes for a firetruck to arrive on the freeway side, and only a few more for the second one called by my neighbor on my side.
The one on our side was entirely useless. They couldn't get in even though it was a straight shot from the front of our property to the back. The blackberries, burying a cyclone fence and an old wooden one were just that much of a barrier. But the guys on the freeway side snuffed the fire almost as soon as it was visible.
It's actually a fairly common spot for accidents, one way and another. I've been told about at least two cars that landed either at the edge of our yard or actually in it. My mother, when she got home, reminded me of one of them - the car was just on the other side of the fence and starting to burn. My father ran in there and dragged the occupant out of the car. The guy's brains were clearly addled: he dove back, saying "My keys!" Papa pulled him out again - "Forget the keys!"
Apparently, mom had just told that story to someone last night.
So it seems there's a reason we've never REALLY attacked the blackberries on the CalTrans land: they may make it more difficult to fight a fire from our side, but they also provide an effective barrier to people trying to run through. Maybe 20 years ago, they had a real problem with people stopping on the freeway and running through our property in attempts to get away from the cops.
I begin to think that a big reason my dad's got such a record of playing the hero and catching bad guys is due to the city in which we have our home.
In other news, the grapevine I've been told all my life would only produce tiny, sour grapes (because it isn't exactly well tended, or ever tended) is producing edible grapes this year. I wonder what it could be like if we started actually taking care of it. The grapes in question? Pulled off vines hanging all over the plum trees. I wonder what's available from the ones on the pole for the clothesline (it looks like a small telephone pole) in the corner....
Movies I feel like watching: Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, Phantom of the Opera with Claude Rains, Sleeping Beauty.
