This was the sun about mid morning on Saturday. I pointed the camera straight at it and clicked. Normally all I can see when I do that is the glare, but this was filtered through a lot of smoke from the fires all around us. The air was filled with a smoky smell and a haze hung over everything.
About 1:00 in the afternoon we caught a break and I got this picture of a helicopter on its way to one of the fires. See how blue the sky was? The smoke smell lifted for this period.
And then in the early evening it all came back. Guess the cool morning and evening air held it closer to the ground. My friend, Wanda, lives over at South Fork which is now under pre-evacuation warning and she said they can not even smell the smoke. It apparently goes straight up and then down to the valley. Lucky her. Well, not really lucky her, because she is still in danger of losing her home. I would not like to be in her shoes at all!
I picked Doug up for church yesterday morning and he said it had rained at his house the night before. He said it was really nice. I would not know since it did not rain at my house. I have not even seen a rain cloud; just smoke clouds. I have been talking to the good Lord about this situation and I am sure he will remedy it soon. Think how fast he could put out those fires, if he had mind to.
But you know how this goes. It is called nature and ever so often the forest fires thin the underbrush and the dead and diseased trees. When we were down on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, they had a practice of going in and cutting down the dead trees and hauling them down to the road for people to use as fire wood. Forest fires there are very rare, but of course the naturalists think that is interfering and a fern may loose it's happy home on the forest floor. I do not know what the answer is. I do know that there has been very little loss of life this fire season, which is indeed a blessing.
But I have been thinking, if I could get all my friends to pray for rain, maybe it would happen. If you don't do the praying thing, try the karma and send good thoughts this way. Just picture a nice soft rain falling all over Colorado. Not a heavy downpour, because we have lots of areas that are now without vegetation. That would cause flooding. Just a little soft rain.
I would very much appreciate it!
