Taking in Life Around Me: Sunday Stills...Smoky

This #sundaystills challenge is hosted by Terri from Second Wind Leisure. It's a great themed photography challenge that you'll enjoy. I love seeing the other participants interpretation of the theme each week...it causes me to think outside the box. I joined in hopes of it pushing me to get out and take more photos...I have to some degree, but I also like that Terri is okay with us finding photos in our archives, which is also a lot of fun. So check out my photos and then head over to Terri's page to participate or visit other's posts. There are some awesome contributors who always inspire me. 

This weeks theme is "Smoky". I don't know about where you live, but it just seems that every summer the west coast just gets hit hard by wildfires. Where I am located, in the SW region of the state, we don't often have any close by, but we do get our fair share of smoke from all the fires, when the wind shifts. 

Most recently the most devastating one is where Terri lives, well, close to where she lives. My hubby's company, Paul Davis Restoration has dispatched a crew there to help for the next two weeks, mostly with homes affected by smoke or water damage or effects from fire retardant. 

One of our favorite vacation spots is in Central Oregon. We love the Bend, Sisters, Sunriver area. It seems the last several times we've gone in the summer, there have been fires, a few have gotten really close to the towns we love.  

In 2017 there was a pretty bad fire near Sunriver and that was the first time I really kept track of the air quality. We would check every day and depending on what it said, that would determine what we did that day....inside or outside. The skies and moon were crazy. 

Rolling into Bend, this was the sky that greeted us. So wild!

All of the above photos were from two separate trips to Central Oregon, but all of them depict the smoky atmosphere. We did get a chuckle out of the free fresh air sign.

I can't remember what year it was, but several years ago, we did have a fire closer to home, in fact several friends were told to be ready to evacuate. Thankfully fire fighters got it under control. 

My husband works for an amazing restoration company, and for the last few years they've teamed up with the local fire department putting on a demonstration of what a fire looks like in a home without sprinklers and a home with sprinklers. Much of what we have in our homes now is highly flammable, from the furniture, the decor, etc. They even said that while an open floor plan is becoming more and more popular, it is one of the worst layouts to have when it comes to a house fire. 

We've  had some of our own smoke this spring/early summer. We had several trees cut down and did a lot of burning. 

With Joy Unquenchable,

Kirstin