Chat
06-28-2018, 01:23 PM
Last night was a full moon, so Phil and I decided to take Finn and Sputnik for a moonlight walk. We drove down to an area between Rye and Colorado City where dirt bikers created a really neat maze of trails through a section of hilly scrub oak and meadow. Clouds floated fitfully across the sky, threatening to obscure the large, orange moon as it came up. Phil and I smelled smoke in the air as we left home before dusk and it was hard to tell where the clouds ended and smoke began. The moon changed various hues from neon red to burnt orange throughout the evening as the smoke gave it an eerie glow.
The evening was warm and I'm quite sure I heard something slither away under the bushes as we passed, so I began to worry a little about rattle snakes as I walked along in my sandals. I had no problem letting the goats walk ahead after that. Better they should discover the rattlesnakes than me! But we never encountered one.
As the evening deepened and the sky turned black, Phil noticed a red glow on the southwestern horizon. He thought it was a late reflection from the long-gone sunset, but I thought it must be from the wildfire that was causing the smoke. As we continued our walk, the glow never faded, so we concluded that it must indeed be a new wildfire. We learned later that it started just a few hours earlier and had already grown to 1200 acres by the time we saw the glow. It's burning in the hills between La Veta and Fort Garland, which is only about 50 miles south of us as the crow flies. The fire is 4000 acres today, and hot winds are swirling thick smoke into our valley. The firefighters have their work cut out for them, and I only hope that nothing else catches fire right now.
The evening was warm and I'm quite sure I heard something slither away under the bushes as we passed, so I began to worry a little about rattle snakes as I walked along in my sandals. I had no problem letting the goats walk ahead after that. Better they should discover the rattlesnakes than me! But we never encountered one.
As the evening deepened and the sky turned black, Phil noticed a red glow on the southwestern horizon. He thought it was a late reflection from the long-gone sunset, but I thought it must be from the wildfire that was causing the smoke. As we continued our walk, the glow never faded, so we concluded that it must indeed be a new wildfire. We learned later that it started just a few hours earlier and had already grown to 1200 acres by the time we saw the glow. It's burning in the hills between La Veta and Fort Garland, which is only about 50 miles south of us as the crow flies. The fire is 4000 acres today, and hot winds are swirling thick smoke into our valley. The firefighters have their work cut out for them, and I only hope that nothing else catches fire right now.