When you live in the woods....

...you get all the lovely things to see and be inspired by.  You also get the scary things like large carnivores and fires.  The past few days have been a bit nerve wracking and I'm glad that we don't live close to the 36 Pit fire.  We are about three or four ravines away, as the crow flies.  However, as the wind has changed direction in the last hour we are now in the smoke zone.  Here are a couple of pictures I just took.  That small red object in the sky is the sun.  It looks about the size of the moon in real life.

It's these kinds of disasters that keep us all aware that every household should be prepared.  I finally got my old tool box cleaned, painted and filled so we now have a better first aid kit.  I gathered together all the different first aid stuff from around the house and put it all in one specialized kit for us.  I keep this in the basement, as it is cooler the sprays, pills and ointments will last longer. 

 

The toolbox affords more room to add more items for a better first aid kit than you can find at stores.  I even have the American Red Cross First Aid book in the bottom of the box.  It's rugged, it's portable and if we have to evacuate I can grab it quickly.

 

September is National Preparedness month....are you prepared for a disaster?  Don't wait until something happens, start today!

 

On a brighter note....to keep my mind and hands busy yesterday, I played around with some acrylic ink and paints and came up with this lovely Nebula.

 

I had so much fun pouring and dripping the paints and inks and watching how they ran together.  This is a little 5"x 5" canvas board, so I didn't feel pressured if I messed up because there wasn't a great amount of material I would have wasted.  As in all things...it looks much better in person.  I'm off to create another one! If it turns out well, I'll post it here later in the week.