I am going to house sit. Today we went for the grand tour. Instead, we got to help protect the house from a desert wildfire. The wind picked up. The columns of smoke poured into the painted sky as the clouds overhead teased with rain and the sun went down. The whole northwestern horizon was shrouded with grey smoke. A scouting helicopter flew over the vast, empty desert to assess. Empty except us and the scattered neighbors, with houses to protect in this vast, dry desert. We watered down the trees closest to the buildings and the grass as far away as our hose would reach, and the power poles, not that we thought it would do a whole lot of good, but it was better than leaving dry timber growing from the ground begging to combust. I took many, many pictures of the developing fire, and I hoped to see firehoppers and slurry planes, but I didn't.
The tour will commence tomorrow. We watched the sun go down on the other side of the smoke curtain, rays fractured through the mesh, from the top of the house. I think the fire is out by now. I don't really know. We won't stop watching though.
I took this picture because I saw it as my husband walked by. I did ask him to repeat his course in order to actually get the shot because he had kept walking and I wasn't precognicent enough to be ready the first time.
Tomorrow's word: square
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