From the Smokey NW coast of America

Ellen Easton

Was Ellen E. on Wet Canvas
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187
Hello. My real name is Ellen E. from Wet Canvas. Grizabella is my usual online ID so I decided to use that here. I'll be 75 years old on November 26th and I find that kind of comical. There's an old woman living in my mirrors and DMV had the hutzpah to put an old lady's picture on my ID card, but actually I'm not 75 at all. I'm just me, as I've always been, except for wiser and with much more free time than I've ever had to spend doing just whatever I choose to with my time.

I live in Oregon up in the mountains in the midst of almost 2 million acres of the Willamette National Forest in the Cascade Mountains. I live in a very small RV park where a creek runs by and the hiking trails pass right by my kitchen window. All sorts of animals including cougars and bears are our very close neighbors. The last two or three days we've finally been able to see the sky again after a horrible amount of smoke from forest fires around the area that blocked our view of anything more than ten feet ahead. Although this particular forest does get forest fires at times, this year the fires didn't come to this area. Instead they've wiped out beloved forests and towns from the McKenzie and Mohawk areas, nearly taking my youngest son and grandson's homes. That particular fire is only 25% contained but I think they're safe for now. They had to evacuate suddenly, though.

Well, that's who I am in a nutshell. I hear we have others from Wet Canvas here and I'm looking forward to discovering them and to making other new acquaintances here, too.
 
Welcome Ellen. You'll find many of us WCers here. We've been hearing on the news about the horrific fires there and CA, such a shame to see the beautiful pristine forests decimated.
 
Welcome Ellen, great to have you here.

I am a former WCer also as are many others here.

I can understand the concern with losing the forest enviornment but to me of transcendent concern is what is happening in Portland with the Brown Shirts. Glad your family is safe for now.
 
Hi Ellen, I am also new here. Glad to know that you and you family are safe and the skies are finally clearing up. It must have been terrifying.
I have been contemplating living on the west coast too, on Vancouver Island. I have too much stuff at the moment but I am working on it.
Welcome, I am an old girl too and just me.
 
Hi Grizabella, I have wandered over from WetCanvas too. Will be looking to see what you post. I'm glad the air has cleared a little for you out there. Those fires are dreadful!
 
I've not been here for awhile but I discovered this thread again. I thought I'd update.

I got covid in June and covid caused a blood clot in my left foot. Up where I live, the ambulance service policy for people with covid symptoms is "don't call us because we don't have enough responders to lose any to covid" so I just stayed home and toughed it out. It's so scary not to be able to breathe. Fortunately, though, I take prednisone daily and covid is treated with steroids so I think that helped me to get through it. Then once I started to come out of the worst of it and feel normal again, I discovered my foot was a funny color and that progressed to my little toe and part of my sole of my foot turning black as well as the rest of the sole of my foot and the rest of my toes going dark purple, too. My daughter took me to ER and the doctor there said "worst case scenario you may lose a toe". I've been staying off that foot and it's finally getting better. It's nearly a normal color now and isn't as painful to walk on but the one toe that was black is now kind of shriveled up so I'll keep an eye on it in case it gets infected or something.

I got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine on August 5th and I need a booster next month, I think, since I have a compromised immune system. I stayed indoors for about a year to try to avoid getting covid and got it anyway. I hope I don't get it again. I hear folks who haven't had it say it's "just a flu" or "just like the flu". No----wrong----it's nothing like the flu at all. It's a really vicious, unpredictable and strange illness and I really don't understand the people who refuse masks and vaccines. If it were only themselves they had to worry about, that would be one thing, but they risk the lives of so many others---their elders and their children especially. Incidentally, the clot in my foot happened weeks before my vaccine, so it wasn't the vaccine. Covid causes clots and there have been people who have lost both arms and both legs to covid clots. Also, the clots can move to lungs, heart, and brain. So far mine has stayed put and I'm in hopes it will continue to stay put.

In the midst of my covid "journey", we had forest fires up in our area this year. We spent a few weeks on evacuation alert. I didn't enjoy that at all. I packed up all my precious art supplies along with paperwork and a few clothes and then we just had to wait and wonder if we were going to suddenly have to leave. It was advised that people who were elderly and had any medical issues should just leave the area altogether to wait it out but I just couldn't do that. Two of my grandchildren came to try to haul me away but I wouldn't go.

I'm so thankful for my art supplies. They've kept me occupied and pretty content all this past year. I painted Christmas cards for all the residents of this park over the holidays and I'm going to do it again this year. I started 2 weeks before Christmas last year, but I'm going to have a much earlier start this year.

So there's an update for me in case anyone wondered.
 
Wow Grizabella! You have been through a lot. I am SO sorry to hear that you had Covid and about your "journey." Your foot sounds awful. Please do be careful with that. Are you sure you want to stay in the midst of a possible fire? Your life is much more important than your art supplies. If there is a fire, the life you might think you're holding on to will no longer be there (nor might you) if you "stay put." Maybe your family has a different wisdom in this. Just saying. I was wondering about you and I do care. ♥️

I also had no idea the Willamette/Cascade mountains had fires like we had down here. You live in such a beautiful place. I hope you stay safe.
 
We got an update every day from the forest service and people in charge of the firefighting. The recommendation for the elderly and others to leave early was because of the smoke in the air. I have an air purifier, though, and I was fine in that respect. We got more smoke last year from the fires a lot further away.

Also, every day people who live in this area would drive out a time or two a day to see for themselves where the fire was and which way it was going, etc. There are three levels to evacuation alerts. Level one is "get your important stuff together and be ready." Level 2 is "put your stuff in the car and get out as soon as you can" and then level three is "it's too late now---just get the heck out of here---don't try to take anything." So at level one, I knew it was okay to stay but we had that level 2 hanging over our heads.

As for art supplies, I bought a lot of them with a small amount of money my aunt left me when she passed away and I could never replace those so they're very important to me. I've never been able to afford art supplies because I raised my children without help from my ex and money was so tight. Everything was packed into my daughter's truck so we were ready to jump in the truck and just go if need be. Thank goodness we didn't have to go after all. I wouldn't have stayed here too long just for those art supplies but I sure was determined to try to save them.

Arty, we do have forest fires here but usually they're started by lightning strikes and are put out relatively quickly. The fires here for the past 2 years have also been caused by lightning strikes but we've been in a severe drought for quite a few years so lightning is really awful when it hits the old dead stuff in the woods. In 2018 we had a bunch of snow that took lots and lots of trees down, and now the woods is full of even more downed dry fodder for fires than usual. Add that to record high temperatures and we just didn't stand a chance of escaping fires. One or two days last summer the temperature got to 112 degrees even up here in the forest. It got even hotter in the valley.
 
I forgot to add that I've lost two of my sisters this year. One at Easter and one in August. A third passed away in 2011. I only have 2 sisters left now. I still have my five brothers though. It's been quite a year and I'll be glad if things are really settled and boring for a year or two now.
 
I am so sorry for your losses. I do know what this is like for sure. I have one brother left, no other family, at all. Unfortunately, we are no longer close.
 
Wow, so you've lost a lot, too. I'm sorry.

I find myself thinking "I should ask my sister(s) this or that" and then remember they're not here anymore.
 
Hi Grizabella, I'm so happy to meet you and glad you've come back to the fold! I'm so sorry for what sounds like an incredibly hard year: your experience with Covid, your issues with your toe, and of course the loss of your two sisters. 💕 That's an awful lot to deal with, without even thinking about the fires.

My sister in law has just moved to southern Oregon from Texas, and is over the moon with the beauty of the area. Despite the fires and the heat this year, her area seems intact.

Grizabella is my usual online ID so I decided to use that here. I'll be 75 years old on November 26th and I find that kind of comical. There's an old woman living in my mirrors and DMV had the hutzpah to put an old lady's picture on my ID card, but actually I'm not 75 at all. I'm just me, as I've always been, except for wiser and with much more free time than I've ever had to spend doing just whatever I choose to with my time.

You made my day with this beautiful and strong outlook on life in your first post here! I hope things return to normal for you soon. I'm so happy you were able to save your art supplies that your aunt made possible, no doubt they mean a great deal. :)
 
Wow, so you've lost a lot, too. I'm sorry.

I find myself thinking "I should ask my sister(s) this or that" and then remember they're not here anymore.

I know exactly what you mean. I do the same thing with my parents, my aunt, my cousin, and my two best friends. My brother did adopt my cousin's children when she passed, which was really great, so there's that. They actually have a much better life now. There are some good things that come out of the most horrible things in life sometimes. I hope the same for you. ♥️ Hang in there and make as much art as you can.
 
Gosh, so much has happened. Last year (2022) I did pack up my art supplies and went to stay with a grand-daughter for several days because we got a mandatory order to evacuate due to forest fires coming so close. This year, though, we didn't have such dire conditions. Close but not quite and we've had lots more rain than for many years past so that definitely helps.

One of my five brothers passed of metasticized lung cancer a few weeks ago, so now out of 5 sisters and 5 brothers, I've lost 3 sisters and one brother, all younger than me.
 
My condolences, Ellen. Sometimes seems as we get older, the thing that happens most in our lives is loss.

I hope your journey reaches a nice, calm backwater, and you can play in a quiet stream of consciousness for awhile now.
 
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