Good morning everyone! And a very happy Tuesday to you all as well! We had some thunderstorms roll through last night, Muffin knew they were coming a whole hour before I heard the first faint rumbles of thunder in the distance. She was sleeping at the time, suddenly woke up and ran to hide under the bed. I figured that meant we might be in for something real bad, but not so, just some smaller thunderstorms. However, perhaps we were on the edge of the storms so didn’t get much. Hard to tell. Not a lot of rain anyway, so that could mean more fires will be started by the lightning strikes. Especially since it’s going to be hot and dry for the next several days.

Very smoky again this morning, so we have that orange/yellow glow on everything again. And it’s quite strong smelling today as well. Some of the fires grew in size a lot yesterday with the stronger wind that came along. One fire grew about 50,000 acres and is now 174,395 acres in size. Another fire grew 30,000 acres and is now 144,792 acres. We now have 3 new fires burning closer to our town, all 3 are small but not under control and are 10 to 12 miles away. This info is from last evening, so perhaps the rain helped to bring those fires under control. We won’t know until the next update this evening.

Slim is king around here now, but he’s finding it’s not so much fun. He really looks bored at times. I went out to have a talk with him. “What’s wrong Slim?” Chip. “Kind of lonely are you? Well, you did chase everyone away, so it’s your fault.” Chip. “They didn’t want to fight, they wanted to share. There is lots of peanuts for all of you.” Loud chip. “No, they don’t all belong to you, they’re for everyone. That reminds me, you are not supposed to chase my chipmunks, they’re too small to fight back.” Chip. “Yes, they take peanuts, but like I said, they’re for everyone.”

Chip. “They’re fast enough to get away? Then how come Coffee has that wound on his leg?” Chip. “No, he didn’t hurt himself, you were fighting with him. NO more of that or I will sweep you right off the deck and you’ll get no more peanuts.” Loud chip. “Yes, I would do that. You stay away from my chipmunks.” Chip. “You better try real hard.” Off he goes. A little while later I hear him chattering out here which means he’s fighting with someone. Sigh. Hopefully he will learn. Thanks for reading today, have a wonderful Tuesday and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2021 Steve McLeod.