Black Dog Sunday - The Fire Edition

 Yesterday, we headed out for a short mid-day walk with the pups. I casually mentioned that there was a small fire not too far away, and then we forgot about it. 

Then, as we finished the walk, I noticed an odd looking cloud, and I said "Is that smoke?". Within another 5 minutes, it was very clearly a huge smoke plume. This was the view from our house. It looked like it originated just beyond our valley.

The wind was blowing at about 30 mph. Rapidly, the "small fire" ate up thousands of acres. We were very close to the border of the evacuation zone so we spent the afternoon packing at high speed, preparing to flee if needed. As of now, it seems that the wind blew the fire away from us although that meant that many other people and animals were in its path. I am holding them in my thoughts.

This blog post is late because we lost our power for a while.

Throughout the morning before the fire, our Black Dog was on my mind. As Shyla and I did our bike ride, I was talking to him in my heart. I even sang to him as we rode. I was visualizing him being as happy as he was one day high in the mountains about five years ago.

It turned out, so far, that the wind has pushed the fire away from us so we are still at home. The fire exploded to almost 7000 acres in a few hours so not everyone was so lucky. We will watch and wait to see if we need to leave. With R watching over us, I bet that we'll be okay.

He watches over us from a life-sized print of a photo of him galloping through the golden aspens a few years ago. His eyes are so happy and gazing at us from the image.

 

This fire is one more stresser in a long train. I've decided to take a blogging break to get some rest. I've had too many sleepless nights and migraines recently. I promise to update you if anything big happens, and then I'll be back soon.

I miss our Black Dog but I can feel his love. I see his sparkling eyes in my mind every single day. Thinking about his spirit helps me to find the good in every single day.