Smoked Out

On July 27th of this year the largest fire in California history got started roughly 20 plus miles to the east of us. The Mendocino Complex Fires is made up of two fires that are close together. The River Fire and the Ranch Fire. To date they have burned 378,720 acres. The River fire is now 100 percent contained and the Ranch Fire is 76 percent contained. The Ranch fire is burning North and West and is burning through the Snow Mountain Wilderness at the moment. The smoke from these devastating fires is gray and thick and it blocks the sun sometimes. Luckily for us and not the people of the Central Valley most of the smoke blows to the east due to the prevailing coastal breezes. Here are some views of the Little Lake Valley and one of the Ranch Fire I created at night from our bedroom window last week. God's blessings and safety to those firefighters fighting these fire here and else where, chris #TeamCanon

Hope

Today I visited one of our family friends in the Coffey Park area of Santa Rosa, CA. The last time I was in this area I felt like an intruder and I kept my camera locked away in the car. This time I was invited and she was excited to show me her house. She was happy yet she had a touch of sadness as we looked around. For there were burned homes all around almost as far as you could see. Her home was one of nine homes that survived on her street. The first thing I noticed when I parked in front of her house were the toy soldier Christmas decorations across the street from her home. It was a sign of hope for future. God's blessings and comfort to all of the victims of the fire, chrisCanon T1i camera and Canon EF-S17-85mm lens. #TeamCanon

Steaming It Up

There wasn't a sunrise to be seen yesterday morning due to the heavy smoke from the devastating fire to the east of us in Lake County. Please hold them in your prayers as so many people have lost their homes in this fire. Willits was a buzz of activity yesterday. They had Airport Day at the Willits Airport and Howard Hospital had an open house with tours of the brand new hospital. Wow, is it fabulous! What an incredible facility. Last but not least Roots of Motive Power had its big fall steam up. They had stationary steam engines, steam donkeys,a steam shovel and a steam crane as well rides on the steam locomotive and train. The Roots volunteers were on hand demonstrating the equipment and explaining how things worked.What an incredible collection of train and logging equipment.

One for Fun

Last night we had a great time creating an image. These kinds of images are pretty common and if you look you can find many of them on the web. They are just so cool looking and fun to do! It was raining out and there was no danger of fire in the forest so we spun some burning steel wool to make a pretty cool effect. The sparks were flying far and wide so it was pretty awesome. We did three of them but this one was my favorite.It was created using a Canon 7D and a Canon 10-22 lens at an ISO 800 with an exposure of 30 seconds at F 5.6. Have a great weekend and God bless, chris

Thank You!

Living in the forest isn't without its risks. Trees and limbs can fall but the biggest danger especially from late spring to late fall is fire. Currently there are quite a few fires burning in the state of California. One of them many miles to the north of where I live is being fought by Calfire. I wasn't even aware there was a fire until the air tankers from the Ukiah Air Attack Base began flying over my house to drop fire suppressant on the fire. I wasn't sure where the fire was but I knew it had to be a ways north of me because it took them quite a while to drop their loads and return. Yesterday afternoon we did a little shopping in Ukiah which gave me a great opportunity to drop by the airport and watch the air tankers approach, land, reload and take off again. It was over 100 degrees out with barely a breeze rippling the American flag at the airport. I can't image how hot it must have been to be working the fire lines. My hat is off to all of the fire fighters out there. Thank you for all the dangerous work that you do. God's love and protection to you, chris Gruman ST-2 Air Tanker Photographed with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400 IS lens. AV mode, ISO 400 exposures varied.

Fiery Sunrise

Every morning for the past week the morning sky has been filled with smoke from the forest fires in Oregon. The smoke has been streaming southward down to us blocking up the skies each day. This was yesterday's view of sunrise over the Mendocino Mountain Ranges east of Willits, Ca. God bless , chris

Sunrise on a Wet, Gray Day

This morning we were greeted by a bright, glowing sunrise. It was quickly replaced by a wet, dull gray sky.Now it is spitting snow. Not enough to make it interesting either. It stops and starts.Not exactly the best day for outdoor photography pursuits. I think I'll sit by the fire. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Chasing the Sun

We awoke to smoky skies before dawn this morning. The Mill Fire in Colusa County California east of us was putting out a lot of smoke. I knew it would make for an interesting sunrise so I quickly ran to the computer to check out the when and where the sunrise would be. Living in a forest has its disadvantages in that trees often block our views of some of the celestial events. A check of the Photographer's Ephemeris showed the sunrise to be at 60.1 degrees at 5:56 a.m. Looking east I could see that the trees in my backyard were going to block my view of the sun. I looked at the clock on my computer and saw that it was about five minutes until sunrise. I grabbed my tripod and ran out to my pickup and drove to the only place close by that I knew of with an eastern view. The sunrise started about two minutes after I arrived. A couple of planes flew through to make it even more interesting.

God's precious love,

chris