August 9, 2008 

  few weeks ago, a friend send me some goodies from LUSH as a gift. LUSH is a really awesome natural body shop. I have been to the shop in Vancouver many years ago and it was nice to receive some more products from there in the mail.

I think there were a few samples in there as well as the things ordered, and 'Happy Hippy Patchouli Pits' deodorant is one of the samples sent. The stuff works, but it was amazing how many guys (not women) noted the smell of it. The first guy said "I smell something hippy".. which I just had to stifle my laughter over and the other one noted it was Patchouli right away which I was most impressed over as I do not think I would have been able to ID the scent.

The Dream Cream is well named as I never dreamed my hands would be so soft again for a long long time as I have not been devoting much time to myself for months. The Volcano Foot Mask I thought was ill-named until it started to heat up.. and heat up.. and heat up!! Egads!

I like LUSH as it has little or no preservatives in their products and their store smells really yummy. It is a good alternative to use when I do not have time to make my own care products.

Last night I went to a prominent town citizen's 70th birthday bash and dinner. It was very nice to be invited by the guest of honor personally last week when he invited me out to lunch. He is a very interesting man and gives alot back to our community. I am honored to have met him. At lunch the other day we chatted about farming and how he used to hay with horse teams back east when he was growing up. At his birthday party last night, I talked to a couple politicians who have farming/ranching backgrounds. I cannot vote in Canada yet, so I have no political party I lean towards, so I am pretty neutral and will ask them all sorts of questions. I have known one guy for some time now and he is something equivalent to  a state congressman. I see him at many events and we talk often and I enjoy talking with him. The new guy Bruce, I just met last night, but I am sure I will plague him about our farming issues in the future!

Thunderstorms all day yesterday and last night. In the two hour span in the early evening when I was not at home, it looked like a hurricane had gone through the area when I returned. Tree debris was all across the roads and there were washouts where gravel was pushed out from the side of the road into the center from all the heavy rains. I am glad I missed driving in that somehow. I talked to mom later in the evening and she said that two days ago there were over 1,000  lightening strikes which hit the east side of the Cascade Mountains. I don't know how many strikes we had last night yet. 

The stats for Oregon are pretty good this year actually:

January 1, 2008, through August 9th, 2008:

Lightning-caused fires: 145 fires have burned approximately 632 acres
Human-caused fires: 401 fires have burned approximately 783 acres
Total: 546 fires have burned approximately 1,415 acres

Compared to:

January 1, 2007, through August 9th, 2007:

Lightning-caused fires: 205 fires burned approximately 14,788 acres
Human-caused fires: 410 fires burned approximately 3,075 acres
Total fires: 615 fires burned approximately 17,863 acres

The US States currently reporting large fire are:
Arkansas (1), California (12), Colorado (1), Idaho (2), Montana (4),Nevada (1),New Mexico (1), North Carolina (2), Texas (4), Utah (1),Washington (1) and Wyoming (3). There has been a total of 56,424 fires in the States this year so far, for a total of 3,971,076 acres scorched.