The past week or so, I've been writing nearly every day.  Now I know what it takes to silence me:  a choking wall of fire and smoke.  No, we didn't have the fire licking right at our door, but it wasn't all that far away either.  Maybe about 6 or 7 miles from here.  We have a wide open area about 1/2 a mile from our property that we keep an eye on any time the fires start to make sure any errant sparks don't send it up in flames.  And it held this time.  The worst we got was the awful smoke and ash falling like light snow.  Yesterday morning, the sky looked like a volcano had erupted:


I found out that no matter how warm it was out side, wearing flip-flops was a bad idea because ash is very dirty:



Although I am not always glad to be living so close to so many people, I guess I am glad I am not living in the foothills.  I really do feel bad for those people.  I can't imagine what they are going through.



It was a day to be grateful for what we have.