JOLIET, Ill. (CBS) Its pretty much back to normal life for one COVID-19 patient from Joliet.

Joseph Ciarlette was among the first to receive a breakthrough therapy. As CBS 2s Steven Graves reported Saturday evening, it is a treatment hospitals continue to lean upon as cases rise.

I feel really good. Got great energy, Ciarlette said. Very grateful that I made it.

Seven months ago, Ciarlette, 54, was confined to a wheelchair. He left Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn after surviving COVID using an ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, machine.

It is what saved my life, Ciarlette said. The ECMO gave my lungs a chance to rest.

Back at the time he was diagnosed, the machine which acts as an outside heart to circulate an oxygenate blood was new in the COVID fight. It is an invasive last resort for people who have failed on a ventilator.

For survivors, side effects after such treatment and even recovery time were unknown.

I was extremely weak even sleeping. You know, if you could think about feeling like a bag of bones, thats what it felt like, Ciarlette said. There was just no muscle.

Ciarlette also said he had a low iron count in his blood, but feels back to normal now.

ECMO treatment has evolved as Chicago-area hospitals continue to use it during another spike in hospitalizations.

Rush University Medical Center on average uses the treatment on about half a dozen patients. Northwestern Medicine also uses ECMO to keep those fighting COVID alive as they wait on lung transplants.

Ciarlette, a success story, got to celebrate another birthday. He now gets check-up calls from the hospital to track his progress.

She said, Actually, I have about 18 others call after you, he said. So, thankfully others are recovering, too.

Meanwhile, Ciarlette also got to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Very thankful for my life this year, he said.

Not every hospital has ECMO machines. And unlike ventilators, staff do not usually track the numbers of available devices.

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Jose Garcia, 68, who has been sedated and intubated for COVID-19 since Nov. 13, is visited by his daughter, Carolina Garcia, a nurse at Memorial Medical Center on Monday, Nov. 30, 2020, in Las Cruces. Carolina says she wipes away tears that form after she whispers in his ear.(Photo: Nathan J Fish/Sun-News)

LAS CRUCES Some family members dropto their knees on the lawn outside of Memorial Medical Center while others stand before a window into the intensive care unit.

About 25people in all, spread out, sayprayers in English and Spanish, asking God to use His power to heal their father, Jose Garcia.

The 68-year-old farmworker, intubated and sedated, lie inside the hospital, separated from most of his family since a COVID-19 diagnosis last month.

Since Jose was admitted on Nov. 6, only one family member has been able to have physical contact with him his daughter Carolina Garcia, the fourth oldest of his nine children.She has been anurse at MMCfor 12 years.

Carolinatalks to Jose every day and says she knows hecan hear her voice, even if he is sedated. She's seen tears fall from his eyes as she reassures himthat thefamily is outside, as physically close to him as they can be.

Genoveva Garcia looks through a Memorial Medical Center window at her husband, Jose Garcia, 68, who is being treated for COVID-19 on Monday, Nov. 30, 2020, in Las Cruces.(Photo: Nathan J Fish/Sun-News)

Outside, Jose's wife of 47 years, Genoveva Garcia, is bundled up in several blankets. Her hands are pressed to the glass looking at herhusband lie motionless.

Connie Dominguez,Jose's second oldest child, comforts her mom. She says her father's diagnosis has brought the large family together.

"Not having my dad has been the hardest thing. He's our anchor," Connie said.

MORE: Las Cruces community hero: ICU nurse holds COVID-19 patients' hands when family members can't

Through Carolina, they have a conduit inside. Carolina is not in the nursing unit assigned to care for her father but still dresses in personal protective equipment to visit him daily.

"It's a blessing to have her there," Conniesaid. "My mom thanks her every day."

Jose hasworked for Cervantes Enterprises Inc. since he was17 years old andhe's still employed for the chile processing enterprise more than 40 yearslater.

Carolina said her father has always been a very clean man who showers every morning, brushes his hair and puts on cologne.

Genoveva gave Carolina her father's Polo cologne to put on him while he's in the hospital. Carolina also trims his hair.

"I had to shave his mustache I am so sorry dad," Carolina said. "That gives mehappiness if I do the things that he would still be doing at home."

Carolina Garcia said that being a nurse at Memorial Medical Center has always kept her very aware of the dangers of the virus, but when her father was admitted to the ICU, sedated and intubated for COVID-19, it became much more real for her and her family.(Photo: Miranda Cyr/Sun-News)

Carolina's eyes wateras she talks about seeing her father like this.

"I'm used to the 12 years that I've been a nurse thatpatients come in, and they're sick, we treat them, we give them what we have, and they get better, and they go home," Carolina said."Now, nurses areseeingthat with COVID,it's not that way. Our nursing has changed to where we don't get that feeling ofwe're doing our joband we're helping people.Because they're doing everything that they can but they're really sick."

The sickest patients areintubated, meaning ventilators help control their breathing. Hospital officials in New Mexico say fewer patients are having to be intubated as treatment for the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus improves.

MORE: Families wait outside hospital windows to be near loved ones with COVID-19

But 60 percent of patients now intubated don't survive, according to Dr. David Scrase, the state's health and human services secretary, who provided the statistic Monday during a state press conference.

For the first few days after Jose was intubated on Nov. 13, Carolina saidshe spenta lot of time staring at the monitors in his room, knowing all too well what each statistic meant.

She no longer does thisafter encouragement from her fellow nurses to go home and take care of herself and her two children because that's what her dad would want.

"I saw my dad go through this from being home to being (in the hospital), going to the ICU, seeing my dad getintubated," Carolina said. "I know my dad was really scared. When I (told) him what the doctor said about intubation . He looked at me, and I know Dad was scared. He said in Spanish, he told me: 'Hay que hacer la lucha'meaning let's go on with the fight."

Doctors and nurses working in hospitals across the country are sharing the realities of COVID-19. USA TODAY

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the majority of the Garcia family has tested positive forCOVID-19. Carolina had the virus in September. As a healthcare professional, she stepped up to be the caretaker for her large family, dropping off medication and oxygen and taking people's temperatures.

"I felt like I was doing home health visits with my family to makesure that theyhad what they needed," Carolina said.

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New Mexico and Doa Ana County, which neighbors hard-hit El Paso, Texas,have seen large spikes of COVID-19 since October. To combat the rise, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has enacted some of the most stringent restrictions in the country. In most of the state, nonessential businesses are closed, big box stores canhave only up to 75 people inside at a time and restaurants are limited to outdoor dining, at 25 percent capacity.

MORE: 'We're always together:' Family of COVID-19 patients spend Thanksgiving outside hospital

The state also does not permit groups of five ormore people to gather. Still, a large crowd of Jose's family meets on the hospital lawn,awaiting word from Carolina.

The family is asking the community to pray for Jose.

Late Sunday evening,Genoveva and Connie were the only family members who remained outside as the sun began to set. Connie pulled her car around for her mom so they could escape the cold for a bit. They were parked across the street, but in view of Jose's hospital room.

Nearly 30 family members gather in front of Jose Garcia's ICU window on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2020, for a vigil and prayer. They prayed in English and Spanish that Garcia could heal and find peace through God's will and power.(Photo: Miranda Cyr/Sun-News)

Inside, they watchedCarolina carefor Joseas the sun set behind the hospital. By 6 p.m., the blinds were drawn. Family members will be back at 9 a.m. when nurses inside again raise the blinds allowing the Garcia family to see their loved one and do what they can to let Jose know they are watching.

Veronica Martinezand Algernon D'Ammassa contributed to this reporting.

Miranda Cyr, a Report for America corps member, can be reached atmcyr@lcsun-news.comor@mirandabcyron Twitter. Show your support for the Report for America program athttps://bit.ly/LCSNRFA

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Welcome news for post Lockdown number two will be the grand opening, finally, ofThe LodgeKitchen & Bar at Brockenhurst's friendly local family owned and run four star Balmer Lawn Hotel.For those who once hoped to be skiing over the next few weeks an aprs-ski theme is some compensation!

On Friday December 4, winter Olympic legend, Eddie The Eagle Edwards will officially open the new aprs-ski style venue, The Lodge Kitchen & Bar at the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst, kicking off the start of a much needed festive season of a kind.

(That in itself will bring back memories - see notes below!)

The Lodge Kitchen & Bar will be open every evening throughout the season and at weekends playing host to Christmas-Fest themed evenings. Tables of up to six people will be able to celebrate with festive street food and party tunes.

The first night of festive fun will begin on Friday December 4 at 6.30pm as Eddie The Eagle joins the team in welcoming guests through the door of the indoor/outdoor alpine lodge experience.

Balmer Lawn Hotel General Manager, Michael Clitheroe, said, Christmas is 100% on at Balmer Lawn Hotel and we want to make sure that each and every one of our guests has an experience to remember. The new stretch tent has been transformed into an alpine wonderland complete with festoon lights, cosy blankets and a Gozney pizza oven.

The clear weatherproof walls provide amazing views of the New Forest whilst ensuring everyone is kept snug inside. Christmas-Fest is going to have an amazing party atmosphere albeit a socially distanced one!

Guests wishing to join in the fun should book a table now via http://www.balmerlawnhotel.co.uk.

Tables are getting booked up in advance by people wanting to secure a Christmas experience to share with family and friends. I would recommend securing your table now to avoid disappointment, Michael adds.

For more information about The Lodge Kitchen & Bar and Christmas at Balmer Lawn visit http://www.balmerlawnhotel.com/events/christmas-2020/.

The Balmer Lawn Hotel is the only privately owned hotel in the New Forest and has been owned by the Wilson family for 23 years. It's a fabulous, iconic building with 54 rooms and it's all surrounded by landscaped gardens, rivers and native wildlife. With wonderful welcoming atmosphere as soon as you set foot through the front door (past the wellies available for guests to borrow!) thanks to the Lodge it also nowboasts two dining venues with different menus and atmospheres, an award winning spa and a heated outdoor swimming pool.

This time last year the Balmer Lawn was the winner of the highly coveted New Forest Brilliance in Business overall Business of the Year Award. Seehttps://www.lymington.com/87-business/1545-balmer-lawn-brilliance-in-business-2019for the details!

Note about Eddie the Eagle as promised! The mention of his name brings a smile to the faces of those who remember him. Born in 1963, in 1988 he became the first Olympic ski-jump competitor since 1928 to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping. He finished last in the 70 m and 90 m events. He also however held the British ski jumping record from 1988 to 2001.

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CRYSTAL LAKE, IL North America, including Illinois, is in for a treat Monday morning when the moon turns full: a penumbral lunar eclipse.

It won't be as dramatic as a full lunar eclipse, but a penumbral lunar eclipse is still worth an investment of your time. It's best viewed at 3:42 a.m. in Crystal Lake.

The National Weather Service forecasts cloudy skies in Crystal Lake when the eclipse peaks Monday morning.

Monday's full moon is also known as a beaver moon, so dubbed by Native Americans for whom the full moons were a sort of calendar. The names given to moons correspond with things going on in nature, hence the beaver moon in November, when beavers create their winter lodges. By this time of year, beavers have also put on the thick heavy coats prized by hunters, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Before we get to the three different types of lunar eclipses, it's important to know that Earth's moon was formed about 4.5 billion years ago and has since been moving away from our planet ever so slowly about 1.6 inches a year. In billions of years, lunar eclipses won't occur at all.

It's also important to know the moon has no light of its own but shines when sunlight is reflected from its surface. As NASA explains it, the extent to which the moon is illuminated depends on its changing position relative to the sun as it orbits Earth, a cycle that repeats every 29 days.

Lunar eclipses can only occur when the moon is full, and only if the moon passes through some portion of Earth's shadow. There are three types of lunar eclipses:

In a total lunar eclipse, the entire moon passes through Earth's umbra, or inner shadow. The moon takes on a vibrant red hue during totality and is often called the "blood moon." The next total lunar eclipse visible from the Americas will occur May 26, 2021, according to Space.com.

In a partial lunar eclipse, part of the moon passes through Earth's umbral shadow. It's easy to see without a telescope or binoculars. It will look like a bite has been taken out of the moon.

Viewing a penumbral lunar eclipse the type that will occur Monday morning is a bit trickier. It won't appear as if a bite has been taken out of the moon, and it's far more subtle than the other types of eclipses. Only the outer shadow the penumbra of Earth falls on the face of the moon. Some may see it; others may not. If you can, watch the eclipse through a small telescope or binoculars.

What's Ahead For The Rest Of 2020

As November ends, look ahead to December and the best meteor shower of the year. You were thinking that honor goes to the Perseid meteor shower in August? Well, the Perseids are great, and it helps that the weather is warm during the peak. But the Geminid meteor shower, which runs Dec. 7-17 every year, is something special, producing up to 120 multicolored meteors at their peak Dec. 13-14 peak.

Produced by debris left behind by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, this shower is best viewed after midnight. A nearly new moon will make for excellent viewing conditions. The meteors radiate from the constellation Gemini but are visible anywhere in the sky.

The Ursids, a minor meteor shower, runs Dec. 17-25 and produces around five to 10 meteors at the peak. Viewing conditions are best after midnight. The first-quarter moon sets just after midnight, so dark skies will enhance meteor viewing. The meteors come from the constellation Ursa Minor but can be seen anywhere in the sky.

The Ursids' peak is timed this year with the winter solstice on Dec. 21. The winter solstice occurs when Earth's sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. It's the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

A rare conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn also occurs on the first day of winter. The two planets appear perfectly aligned, something that hasn't happened since 2000. They will be so close to one another that they'll appear as one bright planet. To see it, look at the western sky just after sunset.

The last full moon of the year is on Dec. 30. Native Americans called it the full cold moon for reasons that are obvious, but it's also been called the moon before yule and the full long nights moon.

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The difference between a so-so stretch of grassand a truly beautiful lawn both now and next spring is two fall feedings. Fertilizing in early fall helps your lawn begin rebuilding grassroots that were damaged during the hot, dry summer. Since fall is also a great time to kill several types of lawn weeds, including clover and dandelion, you can do two jobs at once (boom!) by applying a weed and feed likeScotts Turf Builder WinterGuard Fall Weed & Feed3. If you live in the South and have a St. Augustine, zoysia, or centipedegrass lawn, use Scotts Turf Builder Southern Triple Action instead. It not only kills weeds and nourishes the lawn, but also kills and prevents fire ants. (Because, as the name implies, fire ants are never a good thing.)

Follow-up with a second fall feeding 6-8 weeks after your first fall fertilization. Scotts Turf Builder WinterGuard Fall Lawn Food gives your fall grass the nutrients it needs to store up energy for a healthy spring push, plus helps to break down mulched-up leaves.

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Get out the lawn chair, because it's time to enjoysome fresh cut 'grass.

Enigmatic songsmith Sturgill Simpson releases a 20-song collection of bluegrass recordings this Friday, according to a post on the singer's Instagram page.

Called "Cuttin' Grass Vol. 1: The Butcher Shoppe Sessions," Simpson tracked the album with an ace bluegrass band after the ongoing global health crisis derailed his arena tour with fellow Kentucky songwriter Tyler Childers.

"Welp," Simpson wrote on Instagram, "was hoping to surprise everybody on Thursday but somebody somewhere (Germany) got all excited and just couldnt hold their horses."

The collection features 20 Simpson songsin a reimagined bluegrass flavor. Staple Simpson songs such as "Turtles All The Way Down," "Life of Sin" and "Long White White" get the 'grass cuttin' treatment.

Sturgill Simpson performs for his fans at Bonnaroo on June 13, 2015, in Manchester, Tenn.(Photo: John Partipilo / The Tennessean)

Simpson enlisted a handful of primetime Nashville players for his studio band. The lineup, per his Instagram, includedMark Howard onbanjo, Scott Vestal onbanjo, Mike Bub onbass, Sierra Hull onvocals mandolin, Tim OBrien on vocals and guitar,Miles Miller onvocals and snare and Stuart Duncan onfiddle.

David Ferguson produced the album, which Simpson and company recorded at the Butcher Shoppe in Nashville.

The project follows Simpson's promise to record an album if fans raised money forNashville tornado relief, the Special Forces Foundation, the Equity Alliance and MusiCares' COVID-19 fund.

During a livestream bluegrass concert at the Ryman Auditorium earlier this year, Simpson confirmed his listeners rallied for nearly $250,000 in a week. Fans raised an additional $150,00 during the livestream event, Simpson said at the time.

In return, Simpson said he'drelease two bluegrass collections.

"These are how these songs were originally written and Idecided after climbing the ropes ofcountry music stardom and completely destroyingthat career to make a rock 'n' roll record I have great ambitions of a life ofgravel lots and Porta Potties. I'mgonna be a bluegrass musician," he said during the Ryman livestream in early June.

He continued, "That's the music in my heart and soul. That's the music I was raised on."

More: Music returns to the Ryman with a bluegrass show from Sturgill Simpson: Watch

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Fall is a time when we spend a lot of time cleaning up our yards, raking up leaves, washing the car, and getting ready for winter. As you do these things, there are lots of ways you can help keep the Cannon River cleaner as well.

When I think of fall, one of the first things I think about are leaves. The maple trees turn brilliant shades of red, orange, and yellow in my neighborhood. But after the leaves turn color, they also fall into the yard. Since leaves are natural and biodegradable, some folks dont worry if a lot of them go into the street and down the storm drain.

What many people dont realize is that one definition of pollution is the right stuff in the wrong place. While our rives and lakes contain bacteria and insects that can consume some leaves, if too many leaves wash into rivers and lakes, those leaves decompose into the fertilizer phosphorus that feeds lake algae and can turn our rives and lakes green and stinky.

So how many leaves is too many? While youre not in charge of what your neighbors do, you can be in charge of what happens on your property. Rake up leaves as soon as possible and either compost them on your property or take them to a local leaf collection or compost site. Visit your citys website for information about local compost sites.

You may also want to wash your car this fall. But when you do, keep in mind that our storm drains dump directly into local rivers and lakes. So, anything that does down that drain ends up in the rivers where we swim, fish, and canoe. The best car washing solution for clean rivers is to go to a commercial car wash. The soapy wash and rinse water from those businesses goes down wastewater pipes and gets cleaned up at the citys wastewater treatment plant.

That isnt what happens when you wash your car in the driveway. If you wash your car with soap and water on your driveway or street, that soapy water drains to your storm drain and then right into the Cannon River, the Straight River or into a nearby lake. So, what can you do?

You can park your car or truck on the lawn and wash it. Grass lawns filter the soap and keep it out of our waterways.

You can just use plain water to wash your car. That way soapy water doesnt run into our rivers and lakes.

Of course you can go to a commercial car wash.

If we each do a little, we can accomplish a lot. Have a good fall!

Kevin Strauss is the community engagement director for the Cannon River Watershed Partnership.

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Fall cleanups that keep the rivers clean as well - Southernminn.com

Oregon voters will decide this fall whether to approve and regulate psilocybin therapy for certain patients, putting the state at the head of a potentially groundbreaking movement.

The ballot initiative, Measure 109, aims to make Oregon the first state in the country to legalize psilocybin the chemical compound found in magic mushrooms for supervised therapeutic use.

Unlike the 2014 ballot measure that legalized cannabis, Measure 109 would not allow recreational use of psilocybin and would not allow it be sold to the general public. A separate ballot measure this year, Measure 110, would decriminalize possession of small amounts of street drugs, including psilocybin.

Recent studies at prominent universities like Johns Hopkins, Imperial College in London and the University of California, Los Angeles, have shown promising results with psilocybin therapy, revealing it to be an effective treatment against depression, PTSD and addiction.

Tom and Sheri Eckert, the husband and wife chief petitioners behind the measure who both practice therapy in Beaverton, insist that the drugs use must be rooted in science and regulated with the guidance of scientists and health care professionals.

Federally classified as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, psilocybin has only recently been re-legalized for research studies, along with MDMA, also known as ecstasy or molly. In the 1950s and 60s, researchers published thousands of articles on the therapeutic use of another psychedelic drug, LSD, which was used successfully to treat alcoholism and other mental health issues.

Chris Stauffer, a researcher and psychiatry professor who studies psychedelic treatments at Oregon Health and Science University, said psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and MDMA had recently shown overwhelmingly positive results reducing depression and PTSD.

Patients in Stauffers studies which included combat veterans, long-term AIDS survivors and methamphetamine users were also often more able to confront grief and felt a sense of connectedness to themselves, friends and families that had been lost to years of unresolved trauma, Stauffer said.

I dont think its just about making people love rainbows and want to hug trees, Stauffer told The Oregonian/OregonLive in September. "It does things to the mind that are powerful.

But if our motivation changes from wanting to heal to something else, that could be problematic, he said.

The Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association, which says it represents more than 38,000 physicians, opposes the measure. It calls the proposal unsafe and accuses it of making misleading promises to those Oregonians who are struggling with mental illness.

The association, contends that despite the number of promising studies, science does not yet indicate that psilocybin is a safe medical treatment for mental health conditions.

Michael Pollan, a journalist and professor who wrote a 2018 book on psychedelics and their benefits, How to Change Your Mind, has also expressed concerns.

As much as the supporters of legal psilocybin hope to follow the political playbook that has rapidly changed the status of cannabis in recent years, Pollan wrote in the New York Times, they need to bear in mind that psilocybin is a very different drug, and it is not for everyone.

Those potential dangers are why the Eckerts are proposing a regulatory system that aims to take care when choosing who to administer psilocybin to and how to do it in a way that ensures a healing experience, rather than a bad trip, they say.

The hope for transformative healing has earned Measure 109 support from several veterans' groups as well as some local healthcare workers and therapists. This years voters' pamphlet publishes dozens of arguments in favor of the measure and only one in opposition.

Proponents of the ballot measure have raised more than $2.1 million, as of Friday, according to the Oregon Secretary of State.

The biggest donation by far was $1.48 million from New Approach PAC, a political action committee based in Washington, D.C that has primarily supported recreational and medical marijuana initiatives around the country.

In 2020, New Approach got the vast majority of its money $4.86 million out of nearly $7 million raised through August from Dr. Bronners soap company, which also gave $1 million directly to the Oregon measures backers this spring to help them gather signatures.

The national PAC also received money from individuals and organizations around the country with ties to the cannabis industry. Among them: California-based venture capital firm Ghost Management Group known for Weedmaps ($250,000), Seattle entrepreneur Brendan Kennedy who until 2018 was the CEO of Leafly ($500,000), and late New York philanthropist Henry van Ameringen ($1 million). The PAC also received $375,000 from The Scotts Company, a multinational lawn and garden corporation that makes Miracle-Gro and Roundup.

Major individual contributors to Measure 109 include three big out-of-state donors: $25,000 from Austin Hearst, grandson of famed newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst; $10,000 from Chicago investor William Sterling; and $10,000 from Adam Wiggins, a tech entrepreneur who founded a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to psychedelics and marijuana.

Oregon already has some of the highest rates of depression, anxiety and addiction in the country, Sheri Eckert pointed out in a news release over the summer, arguing that the current options for treatment just arent enough.

We need better mental health treatment options now more than ever, Eckert said, and this initiative has the right supervision and safeguards in place.

Bryce Dole contributed to this story.

-- Jamie Hale; jhale@oregonian.com; 503-294-4077; @HaleJamesB

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Future of psilocybin therapy will be decided by Oregon voters - OregonLive

Superior Township Authorities are investigating after agunman shota sheriff's deputy, barricade himself in a condo and was found dead after a nine-hour standoff with police Wednesday.

The incident began at 2:11 p.m when deputies from Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office responded to investigate a felonious assault complaint in the 8000 block of Lakeview Court in the Oakbrook neighborhood.

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Michigan State Police's preliminary investigation indicated thatNathan Kurt Hardenburg, 50, who lives in the condominium complex, got into a verbal argument with a lawn maintenance worker. During some point in the argument, the manfired shots at the worker.

Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to the scene and when they arrived, Hardenburg allegedly fired multiple shots at the deputies, striking one of them, state police said.

The deputy has been released from the hospital after treatment for the gunshot injury.

Multiplelaw enforcement agencies responded to the scene as Hardenburg continued to shoot from his residence, police said.

Hardenburg barricaded himself for hours. Police said after they were unable to make contact, law enforcement forced entry into the condo and found Hardenburg dead.

The cause of death remains under investigation, MSP said. Thenames of involved law enforcement officers are not being released at this time.

"We dont know how he was deceased, but its a loss of a human life, and that for us is distressing," Sheriff Jerry Clayton said.

The Detroit News spoke with a lawn maintenance worker who was an eyewitness to the incident. The worker said Hardenburg was staring outside the bedroom window of his condo at the workers as they were cutting the grass. When a worker approached him to see if everything was alright, Hardenburg grabbed his gun.

Federal, state, county and local law enforcement officers investigate an active shooter scene where a Washtenaw Co. deputy was shot and is in stable condition on Lakeview Ct. in Superior Twp., northwest of Willow Run Airport, Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 16, 2020. According to an eye witness, who wants to remain anonymous, the shooter fired at least 30 rounds at police and at a clubhouse in the area of condominiums.(Photo: Todd McInturf, The Detroit News)

When police arrived, the eyewitness said the deputy exited his car, was walking towards them when he was struck twice by the gunman. They took cover while another deputy dragged the officer behind the vehicle. The workers did not want to be named but were seen with police at the time of the incident.

For residents, it was a day that had no parallel in their neighborhood.

Ive lived here for 30 years and nothing like this has ever happened, said Jennifer Roquemore, who lives in a condo on Lakeview Court near the alleged gunman and couldnt get home Wednesday because the street was blocked off.

The neighborhood, which featured Movies in the Park on a giant screen at nearby Oakbrook Park on Berkshire in August, is nestled among homes and other condos, where residents go walking or bikingfor exercise.

Its a beautiful place. We live across a large field with deer and its very calm. I have no idea what could have happened, Roquemore said.

srahal@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @SarahRahal_

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Conflict with lawn worker led to 9-hour standoff in Superior Twp. - The Detroit News

A Joshua tree is engulfed in flames near Yucca Valley, Calif. (Nick Ut / AP Photo)

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In Greener Than You Thinka 1947 novel by left-wing science fiction writer Ward Moorea mad woman scientist in Los Angeles, one Josephine Francis, recruits a down-and-out salesman named Albert Weemer, described as having all the instincts of a roach, to help promote her discovery: a compound called Metamorphizer that enhances the growth of grasses and allows them to thrive on barren and rocky soils. She dreams of permanently ending world hunger through a massive expansion of the range of wheat and other grains. Weemer, a scientific ignoramus, thinks only of making a quick buck peddling the stuff door to door as a lawn treatment. Desperately needing cash to continue her research, Francis reluctantly agrees, and Weemer heads out to the yellowed lawns of tired bungalow neighborhoods.Ad Policy

To his surprise the treatment, which alters grass genes, worksonly too well. In the yard of the Dinkman family, crabgrass is converted into a nightmare Devil Grass, resistant to mowing and weedkillers, that begins to spread across the city. It writhed and twisted in nightmarish uneaseinexorably enveloping everything in its path. A crack in the roadway disappeared under it, a shrub was swallowed up, a patch of wall vanished. It continues to eat pavements and houses and finally consumes the city: a monstrous new nature creeping toward Bethlehem.

Greener Than You Think is both hilarious and slightly unnerving. But its absurd premises are being turned into current events by climate change: In reality, Devil Grass is actually Bromus, a tribe of invasive and almost ineradicable grasses bearing appropriately unsavory names such as ripgut brome, cheat grass, and false brome. Originating in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, some species have been around California since the Gold Rush, when overgrazing allowed the bromes and European oat grass to aggressively replace native species. But now fire and exurban sprawl have become their metamorphizers as they colonize and degrade ecosystems throughout the state.

The Eastern Mojave Desert is a grim example. En route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, 20 minutes away from the state line, theres an exit from I-15 to a two-lane blacktop called Cima Road. Its the unassuming portal to one of North Americas most magical forests: countless miles of old-growth Joshua trees mantling a field of small Pleistocene volcanoes known as Cima Dome. The monarchs of this forest are 45 feet high and hundreds of years old. In mid-August an estimated 1.3 million of these astonishing giant yuccas perished in the lightning-ignited Dome Fire.

This is not the first time that the Eastern Mojave has burned. A megafire in 2005 scorched a million acres of desert, but it spared the Dome, the heart of the forest. Over the last generation, an invasion of red brome has created a flammable understory to the Joshuas and transformed the Mojave into a fire ecology. (Invasive cheatgrass has played this role in the Great Basin for decades.)

Desert plants, unlike California oaks and chaparral, are not fire-adapted, so their recovery may be impossible. Debra Hughson, the chief scientist at the Mojave National Preserve, described the fire as an extinction event. The Joshua trees are very flammable. Theyll die, and they wont come back.

Our burning deserts are regional expressions of a global trend. Mediterranean vegetation has coevolved with fire; indeed, oaks and most chaparral plants require episodic fire to reproduce. But routine extreme fire in Greece, Spain, Australia, and California is now overriding Holocene adaptations and producing irreversible changes in the biota.Current Issue

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Although Australia is a close contender, it is California that best illustrates the vicious circle in which extreme heat leads to frequent extreme fires that prevent natural regenerationand with the help of tree diseases accelerate the conversion of iconic landscapes into sparse grasslands and treeless mountain slopes. And with the native plants, of course, go the native fauna.

At the beginning of this century, water planners and fire authorities here were primarily focused on the threat of multiyear droughts caused by intensified La Nia episodes and stubbornly persistent high-pressure domesboth of which could be attributed to anthropogenic warming. Their worst fears were realized in the great drought of the last decade, perhaps the biggest in 500 years, leading to the death of an estimated 150 million bark-beetle-infested treeswhich subsequently provided fuel mass for the firestorms of 2017 and 2018.

The great die-off of pines and conifers has been accompanied by an exponentially expanding fungal pandemic known as sudden oak death that has killed millions of live oaks and tanoaks in the California and Oregon Coast Ranges. Since the tanoaks, especially, grow in mixed forests with Douglas firs, redwoods, and ponderosa pines, their dead hulks should probably be accounted as million-barrel fuel-oil equivalents in the current firestorms raging in coastal mountains and Sierra foothills.

In addition to ordinary drought, scientists now talk about a new phenomenon, the hot drought. Even in years with average 20th century rainfall, extreme summer heat, our new normal, is producing massive water deficits through evaporation in reservoirs, streams, and rivers. In the case of Southern Californias lifeline, the lower Colorado River, a staggering 20 percent decrease in the current flow has been predicted within a few decades, independent of whether precipitation declines.

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But the most devastating impact of Death Valleylike temperatures (it was 121 degrees in the San Fernando Valley a few weeks ago) is the loss of plant and soil moisture. A wet winter and early spring may mesmerize us with extravagant displays of flowering plantsbut they also produce bumper crops of grasses and herblike plants (forbs) that are then baked in our furnace summers to become fire starter when the devil winds return.

Bromes and other annual exotic grasses are the chief byproducts and facilitators of this new fire regime. Years of research at experimental plots, where the scientists burn different types of vegetation and study their fire behavior, has confirmed their Darwinian edge. They burn at twice the temperature of herbaceous ground cover, vaporizing soil nutrients and thus inhibiting the return of native species. Bromes also thrive on air pollution and are more efficient than most plants in utilizing higher levels of carbon dioxidebig evolutionary advantages in the current struggle between ecosystems. MORE FROM Mike Davis

A research group at Oregon States College of Forestry that is studying grass invasions in West Coast forests, a hitherto neglected subject, warned earlier this year that once the feedback loop with fire is firmly established, it becomes a perfect storm. Like Weemers Devil Grass, the invaders defy human will. Management actions such as thinning and prescribed fire, often designed to alleviate threats to wildfires, may also exacerbate grass invasion and increase fine fuels, with potential landscape scale consequences that are largely under-recognized. Only a constant sustained effort to remove grass biomasssomething that would require a large army of full-time forest workers and the full cooperation of landownerscould theoretically postpone the weed apocalypse.

It would also require a moratorium on new construction, as well as post-fire rebuilding in endangered woodlands. A majority of new housing in California over the last 20 years has been built, profitably but insanely, in high-fire-risk areas. Exurbanization, much of it white flight from Californias human diversity, everywhere promotes the botanical counter-revolution. But residents usually dont see the grass for the forest.

How should we think about what is happening? In the late 1940s the ruins of Berlin became a laboratory where natural scientists studied plant succession in the wake of three years of firebombing. Their expectation was that the original vegetation of the regionoak woodlands and their shrubswould soon reestablish itself. To their horror this was not the case. Instead escaped exotics, some of them rare garden plants, established themselves as the new dominants.

The botanists continued their studies until the last bomb sites were cleared in the 1980s. The persistence of this dead-zone vegetation and the failure of the plants of the Pomeranian woodlands to reestablish themselves prompted a debate about Nature II. The contention was that the extreme heat of incendiaries and the pulverization of brick structures had created a new soil type that invited colonization by rugged plants such as tree of heaven (Ailanthus) that had evolved on the moraines of Pleistocene ice sheets. An all-out nuclear war, they warned, might reproduce these conditions on a vast scale. (For more about this, see my book Dead Cities.)

Fire in the Anthropocene has become the physical equivalent of nuclear war. In the aftermath of Victorias Black Saturday fires in early 2009, Australian scientists calculated that their released energy equaled the explosion of 1,500 Hiroshima-sized bombs. Even greater energy has produced the pyrocumulus plumes that for weeks have towered over Northern California. The toxic orange fog that has shrouded the Bay Area for weeks is our regional version of nuclear winter.

A new, profoundly sinister nature is rapidly emerging from our fire rubble at the expense of landscapes we once considered sacred. Our imaginations can barely encompass the speed or scale of the catastrophe.

A previous version of this article stated that the Joshua trees lost in the Dome Fire in California are 1,000 years old. That may be the case, but researchers say that hundreds of years would be more accurate.

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Californias Desert Fauna Will Never Recover - The Nation