August 13, 2019 - Delilah Lookout

Title: August 13, 2019 - Delilah Lookout
Hike Info : Description :  Menu : Animals 

Trail head: Delilah Lookout

Hike Info:

Type: Lookout

Description:

When there is the spectacular available to you, but it does not show, are you disappointed? Or just glad for the ordinary beauty? The Pleiades Meteor Shower should have been at its height last night. But the moon washed out the fireworks. Second year in a row-last year the Ferguson Fire smoked out the event from the lookout. But was I disappointed? I did see a few meteors, but nothing more than ordinary, even at 0400. But what I did see was a near full moon, and a plethora of stars coming out just for me to see. How glorious!

Is not God in the heights of heaven?

And see how lofty are his highest stars?

Job 22:12

A hummer in flight

I did manage to get out of my sleeping bag on the catwalk at 0600. A cool wind is blowing, but it is warmer in the cabin. I read for a little while and just enjoy the morning. Sherri wakes up at 0630. After relaxing for a little while, we have breakfast.

It is a bit more hazy than yesterday. Our good visibility is about 15 miles in most directions. We go in service at 0929 with Porterville. But because of battery issues-needing to change out three batteries, we go in service at 0932 with Sierra. Also the handheld radio is staticy, so we switch to adding them on our base radio, along with all of the other channels we scan.

After that, things quieted down. Except at 1100. Sierra does a lookout check in. Mostly because as a group, we are a pretty silent bunch. That is except when we see a smoke, which hopefully is not too often. So Sierra has us check in to make sure we are all OK. They skipped right over us. Evidently they did not hear us on the weakened batteries. We thought they had we radio’d in to them and they put us in service.

Then Kathy calls and we discuss the radio situation. She says that a part for the charger has been delivered to HLRD. Now to figure out a way to get it up to Delilah. She will check with the duty officer and see if there is a way to bring it up to Delilah. A few minutes later, she said that it would be today or tomorrow.

Faulty item and repair part

A little after 1300, Sherri sees a truck coming. It has a PT-32 on it, but PT-32 is out of service. Who is it? When he gets out of the truck, it is the engineer for E32. He has the part for the battery charger. We talk for a few minutes and then he is off to make his next delivery-to Buck Rock who has the same issue as us. Now to figure out how to install this piece. It turns out to be quite simple-only a screw holds in the sleeve. It takes less than ten minutes to change out. Now to start charging the battery. The initial results looks promising-the red charging light is on.

Birds and Bees Delilah Style

Now back to the mundane. Actually, I take a nap and leave Sherri on duty. This nap is short by comparison to yesterday’s. It is only about half an hour, but I feel refreshed. We are back to our usual routine, no excitement. At the 1600 Sierra check-in, I use the half charged battery on the handheld radio. It works! After that, I continue to charge it, out of the handheld, until the 1800 lookout checkout. This battery took about three-plus hours to charge. Will see how the other ones do.

Sunset

But we are out of service now. I go down and the doe is hanging around the lookout. After doing my business, it is back up to the cabin, 80’ up. Sherri informs me that we do not have a wine bottle opener up here. I am wondering what my knife has on it, so down 80’ to our vehicle to look in my emergency bag. No cork opener there. So we will not be enjoying the wine with our garlic chicken noodles. Life can be rough in the tower.

Fading light

 After cleaning up, we read for awhile, then go back down the stairs. We lock up and come back up to the cabin. By now the city lights have come out. We start to play the game-can we identify places in Fresno. We think we have the airport nailed-how can you miss an airport? And the Save Mart Center. Highway 180 is obvious along with Shaw. By 2100, we are tired enough to go to bed. Tonight, I will sleep inside the cab.

Menu

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Oatmeal and add-ins, such as dried peaches, strawberries, nuts, granola. Tang.	Ritz Crackers, Peanut Butter, Nutella	garlic chicken noodles	Jerky, cheese sticks, nuts

Animals

Hummers

Bees

Deer

Deer