27 September 2020

The kids finished their third week of school and Becky finished her first week of school.  The kids' school schedules are ridiculously complicated.  We made a poster with everyone's schedule to put on the fridge so we know who is supposed to be in a zoom class at any given time.  The schedule changed a bit the first two weeks of school, but we think it's settled now. 

Gibson gets his own separate schedule on the fridge since his schedule doesn't summarize neatly in a weekly chart. The middle school schedule is extraordinarily complex, with A days and B days and alternating weeks.  Gibson is also taking a math class at the high school which has a completely different structure for classes and adds extra convolutions.  Depending on the day, Gib spends between 100-150 minutes a day in class.  Before Covid, he spent 300 minutes a day in class.  In summary, online school is a mess.

Here's a bright spot in the mess.  Our school district heard about our microschool shop class and asked if we would be willing to be a test case for a partnership between students and Craterworks, our local maker space.  Carterworks wants to offer their space for small groups of students to use during the quarantine. They're using our group to work out the details of how social distancing will work and how much support the students will need.  This week we went for a tour.  We loved the interactive way the boys were introduced to the shop.  Ross, in the yellow shirt, is the shop manager.  Nathan, in the red shirt, is a teacher whose purpose is to tie activities to learning benchmarks and standards.  Ross gave the boys a block of wood and asked them to design a car.

Then for the shop tour, the boys made their cars.  First stop was the drill press.  Ross showed the boys how the drill press worked and then they each drilled holes for their car axles.

Next they learned about the band saw and used it to cut out the body of their cars.  All of the tools at Craterworks are very high quality.  The large space is well ventilated and brightly lit.

The next stop on the tour was the belt sander which they used to shape and smooth their cars.

Finally they used a laser cutter to cut wooden wheels from a sheet of plywood.

Here are Jason, Gibson and Eddy with their completed cars.  Next week the boys will get to choose their own projects to work on.  We think this is a fabulous opportunity for the boys to get personalized attention and use top notch equipment. 

Brandan took Gibson shopping for materials for his Eagle project this week.  He showed Gibson how to select straight 2x4s.

The material is now sorted and stacked in our garage, waiting for construction.

20 September 2020

After the first week of school was canceled due to the fires, we started out our week attempting to do online school again.  We've begun a new tradition, the Monday Morning Muffin Meeting.  We talked about the week ahead, anticipated assignments, made a shopping list of needed supplies and found solutions to some problems that cropped up.  Hopefully coordinating together will help us all manage school better.

When the kids were settled into their first zoom classes for the day, Becky walked over to the Incident Command Post for the local fires.  Since students and most teachers are working from home, the firefighters are using the middle school as their home base.  The football field is covered in tents.

The post was mostly empty as everyone was out fighting fires.  Becky spoke to a man who gave her a map from the morning's briefing and explained the fire situation to her.  On Monday, our local news was still very spotty and this was the clearest, most reliable information she received since the fires started last Tuesday.  She learned the Almeda fire to the south of us was out and the Obenchain fire to the north was still spreading east, but much slower than the week before.  We finally felt comfortable enough to unpack our van.

On Wednesday afternoon Jason and Eddy came over and continued working on their shop projects with Gibson.  They got all the pieces cut out for the desk organizers they are building.  The boys used a jig saw, a band saw, a chop saw and a drill press.

We stayed inside the garage the entire time because the air quality outside was unhealthy.  Gibson set up a camp chair to rest in while he waited his turn to use a saw.

Becky used her time inside to finish up another quilt top.

School is very portable right now.  Gibson and Jason alternated houses for school, one day at our house, the next at Jason's.

Helen's friend, Aunika, came over to work on Friday.  School is more fun with a friend!

We all took a deep breath on Friday when we could finally see blue sky.

The missionaries came to dinner Saturday night and one of the elders brought a cello so he could jam out with Gibson.  They sounded pretty good!  We currently have 4 elders serving in our area, the result of being reassigned due to Covid-19

Here's one more new tradition we've started for this school year.  It's super easy to find fault with the current state of school.  It's generous to call it a mess.  But it's unhelpful to only see the failures.  We're ending each week with a "Celebration of Success" where each person writes down a win for the week.  Hopefully, we can think more about the positive aspects and the progress the kids are making.

13 September 2020

Monday was Labor Day and we met some friends at Lake of the Woods to spend the last day before school started.

First we hung curtains in a couple of the cabins for a service project.

Then we had lunch and visited while the kids played in the lake.  From the left are Eddy, Helen, Abe, Abigail and Gib.  They tied several kayaks and a floatie together to make a train.

Helen is working hard to get the required driving hours before she can get a driver's license so she drove us to the lake and home again.  She is developing excellent driving skills.

Tuesday was the first day of school.  We had our traditional back to school breakfast, then the kids each separately joined their online classes.  This fall we are trying something new-- a dedicated work space for each person.  We put a folding table in the boys' bedroom for Gibson to use as a desk.

Helen is working at a desk in her bedroom.

Abe is working at another folding table in the library.  Abe and Helen were both finished with school before 10 am.  Gib had a longer day.  He left our house after lunch and did half of his school day at a friend's house.  It was an unusual first day of school, focused on how to log in and how to ask for help.  Helen and Abe didn't even meet their teachers.

The paucity of schoolwork is going to leave Abe with plenty of time to work at his part time job at Chick-fil-A.  He went to work at 2 pm on Tuesday and everyone there was watching the thick smoke coming from the south end of our valley.  A fire that started in Ashland around 11:30 am was quickly spreading north through the towns of Talent and Phoenix.  Thousands of homes were either evacuated or on alert to prepare to evacuate.  Abe took this photo across the parking lot at Chick-fil-A.  At 5 pm, the managers decided to close and send everyone home.

Brandan arrived home shortly after Abe.  It was hard for us to find good information about the fire.  Earlier we had signed up for text alerts from the county emergency response team.  We got one message to stay home if possible to clear the roads for those evacuating and fire crews.  Brandan learned our stake center would be used as an emergency shelter and went to the church to help prepare for evacuees.  It still seemed like the fire was on the south end of the valley and not a concern for us.  Between Brandan talking to people at the church and Becky scouring the internet, we learned that our home was actually in an area under a level 1 evacuation order.  We didn't know about the evacuation levels before this event, but they were easy to learn.  Level 1 means get ready to evacuate, level 2 means get set (ready to leave at a moment's notice) and level 3 means go.  Brandan's cousins, Dave and Christine, live nearby in Grants Pass and offered their home if we needed a place to go.  Having a plan relieved so much stress.  While Brandan was at the church, Becky packed up the things we would need to evacuate and asked each of the kids to pack a suitcase.  Abe helped her load up the van with the items in the photo, plus our 72 hour kits.  There were plenty of volunteers at the church so Brandan came home around 10 pm.  He then answered a call for help for medical personnel at the main emergency shelter at the county fairgrounds (also called the Expo).  Since our family ready to go, he felt comfortable leaving us for the night.   

Our kids were wired from the tension and unusual activity.  They went to Sophie's house about 10:30 pm to watch the movie Hamilton.  It was a great distraction and they were ready to go to bed when they got home after 1 am. 

Brandan arrived to a chaotic scene at the Expo.  We live in an area that is popular for retirees and many senior citizens were displaced by the fire.  With 40 mph winds fueling the fire, some people only had 5 minutes notice to leave their homes and many got out with only the clothes on their back.  The Expo had three buildings set up for the evacuees.  One had cots for people who were relatively healthy.  Another was for residents of nursing homes who evacuated with their own caregiver staff.  Brandan mainly helped out in the third building reserved for people with acute medical needs.  The Expo had set up curtained cubicles so each person could have their own space with a cot and an electrical outlet.  These people were the most vulnerable, many of them with limited mobility.

Through the night, Brandan and the other volunteer medical staff handled the most urgent needs.  A few people fell while trying to get through the bathroom so the volunteers spent a lot of time helping people get to the bathroom and back safely.  Some people had walkers.  The volunteers found a chair with wheels that they could use as a makeshift wheelchair.  Many people had evacuated without their prescribed medicines.  The only medicine available to the evacuees was Tylenol.  This is a photo of Brandan with Garrett, a volunteer nurse.  Garrett was headed home, but got stuck in traffic when the freeway closed.  He pulled off at the Expo to wait until the roads reopened and saw the great need so he jumped in to help.

A big win for the volunteers was collecting enough oxygen canisters to make it through the night.  Eight of the evacuees needed oxygen and they arrived with about 6 hours of oxygen between them.  Another nurse drove around to the hospitals and the Rogue Valley Manor (a retirement community), picking up oxygen tanks and concentrators.  

Brandan was able to nap for a couple of hours in his car which he had parked out of the way by the animal arenas.  In the morning, he started to systematically record the name and medical history for each of the people in the shelter, bringing some organization to a confusing scene.  Fresh medical personnel arrived and Brandan left the Expo about 11 am.  He checked in at his clinic.  He didn't have any patients scheduled for the day so he came home around noon to sleep.

Meanwhile, after a restless night at home, Becky woke up early Wednesday morning to a very quiet neighborhood.  There was some haze in the sky, but the air was mostly clear.  She couldn't even smell smoke.

School was canceled for the day.  Because school is entirely online this fall, our school district encouraged families to form microschools, small groups who work together.  The shape and purpose of the microschool entirely depends on the families who arrange them.  We created a shop class with two of Gib's friends, Eddy and Jason.  Although school was canceled, we decided to go ahead with our first shop class meeting.  It was very hot outside so the boys started their projects inside.

While we were working, Abe came inside with the news that a fire had started in Central Point.  Becky wasn't sure what to do so she woke up Brandan.  Once again, it was hard to find reliable news.  On the county website, it looked like we were still a level 1.  The city had us at a level 2, which then changed to level 3.  We decided to keep an eye on the smoke before we evacuated.  Within a couple of hours, the smoke had decreased dramatically so we decided not to leave.  We later learned how fast the fire could have traveled and we should have left when we saw the level 3.  Our city was fortunate that helicopters and air tankers were already in the air because of the other fires and could quickly attack the Central Point fire.

In the meantime, we kept working in our shop class, with several interruptions as the boys left regularly to check on the progress of the fire.  This seems kind of nutty now, but the middle of an emergency is not the time to make your best decisions.

To summarize the rest of the week: the fire to the south of us, the Almeda fire, burned through Talent and Phoenix, besides causing evacuations in Ashland, Medford and Central Point.  So far 1600 homes have been counted as total losses and 4 people have been found dead.  Those numbers will rise.  The Obenchain fire to the east has burned 30,000 acres and has caused evacuations in Eagle Point, Shady Cove, Trail and Butte Falls.  Neither fire has been declared contained.  The Almeda fire is not spreading, but is a dangerous situation because of gas lines and downed power lines.  School was eventually canceled for the entire week.  We have kept our van packed and ready to evacuate.  The Almeda fire was the result of arson so it's hard to relax, knowing a new fire could be set almost as easily.  The hot wind driving the fire has died down.  While it's good not to have fire racing across the landscape, the wind was also blowing the smoke out of our valley.  Now we have hazardous air quality and the thick smoke means the airplanes fighting the fires are grounded until there is better visibility.  The next three photos were copied from a local news website.  We have been staying close to home and have not seen the devastation for ourselves.  This is a photo of the Almeda fire taken Tuesday night. 

This is another photo of the Almeda fire.  The fire burned right through the middle of town, leaving homes in the foothills untouched.

This photo was taken on Saturday.  Entire neighborhoods have burned to the ground.

On Friday, Brandan and Becky went out to lunch at Ruby's, a new local restaurant.  We haven't been out to eat at a restaurant since everything shut down in March.  Maybe having a fire nearby helped us reevaluate the risk.  Tomorrow the kids will try to start school again and our community will continue to grapple with ongoing fires and extensive destruction.

6 September 2020

Many thanks to Charity for sharing her photos this week.  Otherwise, I would have nothing to post since I didn't take any photos at all myself. On Monday, Gibson went hiking with the Webers along the Rogue River.  They made many stops, including at National Creek Falls (which is actually part of National Creek, not the Rogue River.)

This is a photo of the kids crossing the creek on a log.

The Webers took Helen rafting with them on Friday.  Here they are stopping for lunch.  From the left are Helen, Aunika, Abigail, Alena and Elise.

Here's another photo from the rafting trip.

Helen's friends, Sophie and Clara, turned 16 this week and celebrated by getting their drivers' licenses and driving their friends to get pizza and ice cream.  This is a photo of Paige, Helen and Hannah being driven by Sophie.  Clara drove another group of friends in another car.  Since Oregon has a graduated license law and teens can't drive with passengers without supervision for the first 6 months after they receive their license, Sophie and Clara's mom and dad rode in the cars, too.  The girls had a very fun night.  Thanks to Hannah for this photo.