Thank you! Some kind person dropped off some beautiful red tomatoes on our porch!! They were delicious, and beat all our tomatoes from ripening by a couple of days!! Who did it is still a mystery, but we are grateful and wanted to thank whoever it was. Zucchini seems much more prevalent now than a month ago, perhaps faster than one would like when things are so busy with the fire situation in our communities!!

Annual Seiad Day!!
There was a pancake breakfast earlier but then there was the Parade! Bill Roberts, our favorite cowboy poet, rode out in the lead of a string of horse and mules. It’s always fun to see them coming down the highway, like the old time packers when packing was the main business in this area. They were the ones that provided all the needs of the prospectors and miners when they rushed here for gold!! Peggy also came along with more horse and mules. Then we got to see them coming back the other way. All the sirens and noise startle and alarm the pack animals sometimes they get the priority and go first. Then along came a “new” engine of the Seiad Valley Fire Department with Tim driving, and bunches of youngsters on the top to throw out the candy to all the younger kids along the sidelines waiting eagerly for candy to come their way!

Jordan McCartney drove a 1983 Howler 250 and Kevin Garcia 2006 Honda CRF 80 Big Wheel and then came Megan Stutz as Molly the Vespa! Jarrett and Izzy described their vehicle as “The party-mobile.”

The Seiad Engine for the Klamath National Forest; USFS KNF E 74 the Seiad Engine with Smokey the Bear and lots of candy!

Dale Green drove a beautiful blue 1936 Low Cab. Barry Mattson drove a 1941 Super Deluxe Coup. Roy’s shiny black 1929 Model A came before Patrick Ayres’s 1956 Willys Jeep. Last of the antique classics was Bryon Heather‘s 1960 white T Bird.

But not quite, as more antique treasures, of the working variety, were coming. Dave Timbrook drove his 1944 Allis Chalmers B pulling a State of Jefferson Trailer with Majesta Markin and LeeAnn Timbrook on the pig, a brown metal one with diagramed body. Dave was followed by West Timbrook on a 3022E John Deere tractor.

Chicken Poop Bingo came along, but the pretty driver was not Bob Humphries. The Chicken poop bingo game had a new operator this year. Ed Smith drove by with his little compact Vacation Home!” Later we saw that the back of the “vacation home” had a sign, “Vacation in the Smokey Siskiyou’s!! “ Smoke wasn’t as bad as it had been previous couple of weeks, so we were grateful for the weather inversion!!

Deputy Garrison concluded the parade in the Siskiyou County Sheriff Department rig. After the end of the parade, all went to the Fire Hall. The booths were doing lively business. There was a Forest Service booth with Fire Information. woodworking, leather, pottery, jewelry and fabric skills exemplified. Horseshoes participants were busy warming up. The kids found the water slide and bounce house popular.

Speaking of the Eclipse Fire Complex, the Highway 96 is sometimes closed south of Happy Camp because of smoke or vehicle traffic as they change shifts working on the fire. At times the heavy smoke has cut down the visibility to 20 feet. You still need to drive with headlights during the day! The difficulty is that we forget to turn them off when we arrive at our destination leaving dead battery next time we expect to go somewhere!! There is a place you can “hang out” if the smoke is bothering you greatly, at the Karuk Senior Nutrition Site on 2nd Avenue and Highway 96, across the street from the Frontier Café, during the hours from 10 to 4 weekdays. Masks are available from the Clinic for a small price.