Love, Life and Puppy Dog Tales

This is a different kind of snow. It is not the nice fluffy, cool, moist snow that you might think of... No... It is fire snow. Most people call it ash. But the sky was as black as any snow storm might make it and the outside, at least through the kitchen window, made you think that when you walked outside it would be cold. It was a cool, crisp 80 degrees at 7 am. This is Ashy Splashy! Yes, those are ashes on his head and near his eye. He just had to get involved. This is the ash on my TBird's windshield at 7 am. By 7 pm, it has doubled in quantity. If you stare outside, you would swear it was indeed snowing, the particles that are coming down are that big and noticeable. I feel like pig pen when I walk as my pant legs create enough wind to fluff up the ash as I walk. There are tens of thousands of acres burning all around us. The heat has been turned up and we're running in the 100's to 110's and the fires are just loving it, eating up more and more land...

Picture from the local news paper... that isn't the moon... it is the sun! I awoke this morning and discovered our house was socked in with fog. Except it wasn't fog... It was smoke, thick enough to taste it. I have worked fires and been exposed to less smoke! I am beginning to redefine the meaning of 'trial by fire' in my life. I just got home from evacuations for fires for the 2nd time in 2 days, with more expected as the week goes on. Not my evacuations mind you, but other peoples. My area, for now, thankfully, is safe. So here I sit 2 weeks after a fire that started on a Tues and caused me to give out evacuation advisories to others, only to find myself being told to evacuate days later. Now, with the new fires, I have found myself traveling to ends of the county waiting to be told the next road that needs to be notified. This time it seems a little scarier. No my house isn't in jeopardy. But the whole north state is on fire, so resources are thin. ...