Fire in the sky…
Anyone remember that Deep Purple song?
It’s not as much fun when you’re living it.
We’ve had forest fires in the area. This was the sky outside my house on the worst day last week:
Note: It’s about 10:30 a.m. NONE of that is cloud cover. It’s all smoke! Behind it sat blue sky, mocking me.
My flowers weren’t impressed. I call this one Ashy Petunia, and it doesn’t look that bad, actually:
There was a big fire in the town next to us, but this smoke and the ash on the petunias was from a fire near a huge lake in our town. People were evacuated, and my parents couldn’t get to their lake cottage for a couple of days. Now, forest fires aren’t uncommon in my neck of the woods, but usually they don’t hit close enough that we need to evacuate. They’re always in the next town, or a nearby community, or another town. So far we’ve been lucky. Considering we live within walking distance of a huge provincial park…I shudder to think what would happen if someone dropped a match or a cigarette butt in that park, or if lightning strikes went crazy. Okay, let’s NOT think about that.
A couple of days after this smoke-filled-sky day, we experienced what I fondly call a Torrential Downpour. You know, the type of rain Oregonians might consider normal. We get about 4 Torrential Downpours a year, and it doesn’t seem to matter how often you clean the gutters, the TDs only happen when the gutters are leaf-clogged! So the gutters can’t handle all the rain, which feels like a see-through shower curtain falling from the sky. Hey, I don’t live in the rain forest. I live in semi-arid country. I’m always surprised by the intensity of these rains.
I’m pleased to report that the blue skies are back. The Torrential Downpour flattened my lobelia, but it seems to be making a comeback.
Ain’t nature grand?