Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Midweek---

Don't have any fiber pictures to post,although I have continued to work on the soy wax batiked tulips. I've waxed all the flower parts, front AND back. Now I can mess with the background, and hopefully not have any more escaping dye. We'll see.

I did want to share photos of something I ran across last week while traveling up Provo Canyon to Heber. We've had some wildfires uncomfortably close to home- smokey skies, and the smell of fire on some days. One of them was above Bridal Veil Falls in the canyon. I could see the smoke as I headed up, and the burned trees on the mountainside.

Further up, the canyon narrows considerably. The road runs next to the river, and the mountain shoots steeply up on the other side of the river. I'd noticed an odd looking helicopter as I was driving. The further I went, the lower it seemed to be going, until I watched it drop down in front of me.

Some little voice told me to grab my camera when I left the house that morning, and I was glad I had. I watched while the pilot hovered over the river, dropping his suction hose into the river- I guess to fill a water tank?



I watched for several minutes, then got another shot of him heading back to the fire with a full tank. I could feel the water spray kicked up by the rotors. Maybe six or eight cars stopped to watch the sight, and the skill of the pilot, hovering over the river with a steep mountainside so close.



The fires are out, we are left with the blackened mountainsides. But I'm grateful for the dedication of people like this pilot who help keep the fires from going completely out of control.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I can tell you all about mountain-side fires and smokey skies. California has had over 1600 individual fires- some as close as 60 miles away. Living here in an atmospheric basin a lot of the smoke and particulate settles for long periods of time. Glad to know your neck o' the woods is in the clear.

Rayna said...

Wow, that's scary stuff, Beverly. I can't even imagine.