A Bit of Helicopter Panic

{Bruce is sick again with whatever that virus thing is he had a few weeks ago (fever, headache, chills).  He's staying home today and hopes to work from here.  As I look at him crashed out in his chair, this seems just a tad optimistic.  I'm thinking that the time for self-diagnoses is past and we need to haul him over to see his doctor about this.  He agrees, so we'll see what happens.  I'd planned to go in to work in my classroom today but will tailor my time there to any doctor's appointments that Bruce may have.}



    Yesterday was a cleaning-out-the-closet sort of day, so I was inside when I finally tuned into the fact that a helicopter had been circling over the house for the past ten minutes.  When you live in California, especially in an area surrounded by miles of dry grass and brush, this generally means that there's a fire nearby -- the term "nearby" meaning  from it being a relatively safe several miles away to a more worrying flame leaping about just across the road and about to start up the driveway.  I rushed outside barefoot and without even my glasses to make sure that Frogpond wasn't on the verge of becoming an inferno.  No fire racing along the hills. No cloud of  ash wafting across the yard.  Not even a hint of smoke.  Nothing but the unnerving sound of a helicopter going whuppa-whuppa-whuppa overhead.  Ok, then.

    My heart calmed down and I went back inside and armed myself with glasses, binoculars and camera.  Back outside, the helicopter was still there, circling in a path from over the house, across the little valley and turning back our way after it reached the top of Gopher Ridge. Whoever was up there no doubt had an interesting view of a lady with binoculars dodging around the trees in the yard as she tried to get a clear view of the sky.  I could see that it definitely wasn't a CDF (California Department of Forestry) helicopter, which meant it wasn't a fire.  So what were those guys up there looking at down here that was so interesting?  And then it became clear. 

    Because the next time the helicopter reached Gopher Ridge in its long lazy circle, it paused and hovered right over --can you guess? -- the tower that's being built up there.  The headless one.  My heart-racing adrenaline overdrive had been caused by a bunch of contractors choppering in to jot things down on their iPads.  Or something.  Sigh.

   



The world's worst picture, but the best I could get

    That blurry, almost invisible smudge above and a bit to the left of the tallest tree is the helicopter (if you can't see it, you're not trying hard enough.  You have to press your nose right up to the screen.  See?).  Shortly after this, it, along with its cargo of satisfied contractors, left.  They probably went to have a nice lunch at a Lake Tulloch restaurant overlooking the water. 

    Everything became very quiet without the chopping of helicopter blades overhead. I stayed outside for a few more minutes but then went back in because, as we all know, that closet wasn't going to finish cleaning itself.