The Sky is On Fire

When you live in the middle of the worlds largest Ponderosa pine forest, forest fires or preventing forest fires are a fact of life. We’re in the middle of a giant forest restoration project which is intended to prevent forest fires by returning the forest to the conditions that existed in the late 1800s when the first European settlers arrived. Controlled burns are part of the project and today was one of those days when the sky was filled with smoke as a result. This was the view when I left work.

I Almost Forgot… Winter is coming!

It’s hard to believe that I haven’t written anything since April! Working 8-5 every day certainly makes each day go quickly, and we’ve been busy with a lot of other things as well. Someone recently said, “Where did January go?”

So here it is November already. The Fall has been so mild, that it was a bit of a shock when a cold front moved in this past weekend. On Saturday we walked a couple of miles to the grocery store. The temperature was a balmy 35F, with winds that made it feel like 20-25F. It made for a pretty invigorating walk. By the time we got done at the store, the sun was setting and this was the view across the parking lot.

 

With the wind and the cold, just about all the trees have lost their leaves. At the hospital we’ve got one holdout that has been keeping its leaves through it all. I see it every time I walk across the “sky bridge” that joins the east and west campuses. I wonder how long it can hold on.