Talk about smoke! We are socked in! You can see the smoke between us and the next house, and we really are not near any fires. These pictures were taken Monday on my way home from work (yes - in the car, while I was driving!) It has only gotten worse, too. The closest fire to us is probably the Bear Creek Fire. It is just off of Dersch Road, going toward Susanville from here. For those of you that know the area, Bear Creak is the sweeping corner, and a ranch with carved bears at the entrances. Not too far away. The fire is north of the ranch. The other 150+ fires in the County are in the surrounding mountains. All told, I understand there were over 800 fires started by the thunderstorm that came through, with 400 or so in the Shasta/Trinity area (Trinity County is the next county to the west of us) and another one is schedule to come through again this weekend. Lovely!

The only good thing about the fires is it gives me a good excuse not to exercise! Air Quality specialists are advising everyone to not exercise outdoors right now (I know, don't remind me - we have a treadmill inside!) I finally have Koori excited to go for a walk. She isn't as enthusiastic and Jasper - but then again, it would be hard to be more excited than that. If I even reach to pick up my tennis shoes, Jasper is too excited to stand still. Koori waits until I actually sit down to put them on before she starts getting in my face (literally!) I have both dogs trying to lick my face when I am putting my socks on. They are both pretty good to walk. I walk both together, and they very rarely get tangled up in their leads.