Williams fire perimeter

This is my second time walking the perimeter since the April 3 fire. This time I convinced Susan to join me, as she hadn't walked thru the burn area yet.

We met at 0815 at the Lehner kill site and walked south. I brought Hansel and Gretchen.  It was a pleasant 77F and breezy along the river.

My first impression was how green the burned fields already are. Quite a bit of grass is already regrowing.  The barren brown moonscape is slowly disappearing already.

We stopped at the usual spot along the river for the dogs to refresh themselves.  Here is where I missed having Allie on our walks, but according to Susan, she can no longer walk far nor fast and now just does laps around her property..  

I had no idea how far Susan wanted to walk, but we ended up walking toward the Boucher house along the river.  The banks near the Boucher house had always been mangled with thickets of pokey brush, but today the walk was fairly easy with nothing to step over or around.  It will all grow back during the monsoon.  

We spotted one deep hole by the base of a cottonwood that seemed to still be smouldering underground.  Parts of the ground were still soft from deep ash.

She was interested in seeing the burned-out home.  She once knew the owner and helped him plant some of the palm trees that are now standing burned.  She said he allowed her to come on his property. I followed her to the ruins.  I wouldn't have done this without her

I had never been this close to the home before.  The Mediterranean design was surely high class in its heyday.  Now only broken ceramic tiles litter the place.  No sign of any furniture.  The water pump to the pond was still working, but there was no other sign of life.  We came across the carapace of a blanched box turtle off the trail south of the buildings.

We didn't linger.  It was a quick walk-through before returning to our route.  We took the wash back to our cars. It was now time to finish and get in the shade again

Up to this point, both dogs stayed close, but again in the same place as before, Gretchen took off chasing a deer near the end of our walk.  Hansel came back, but Gretchen kept us waiting for 30 minutes and came running back to us as we both walked the route a second time, calling her name.  Luckily we only walked a half-mile extra.

It was warm by then.  Gretchen panted all the way home and then some, staying under the RV in the shade for most of the day.  It warmed up to 90F; our first hot day of the year.