Finally! A cloudy day! A few errant raindrops even found their way down far enough to mar the dust on my windshield while I was driving to work this morning. At around 11 am, the wind picked up too, which can be a scary thing if you're underneath a bunch of trees bone-dry from lack of rain. Sure enough, we could hear loud cracking and snapping underneath the roar of the wind. Up the hill, I could see large branches plummeting down. I think one of them knocked over a small Tan Oak tree as it fell. I was too busy to look closely. The kids, mostly 7 year olds, were all looking around them in wonder at the sudden snowfall of leaves, making it harder to get them out of the forest quickly. Get them out quickly I did though. Later, I found out that another group had actually been struck a glancing blow from a large branch. Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt.

It never really did get hot today. I took the three older kids and one of their friends on a hike after dinner, leaving poor Willow behind. It's just too hard to watch both The Dickens and Willow around Poison Oak and other wilderness pitfalls. The other kids had fun though, although I had to carry The Dickens for a large portion of the hike. The boys spent a lot of time pretending to see various animals in the bushes. All we actually saw were a few rodents, some lizards, and a large piece of Rattlesnake skin. Nice hike though. The smell of sage is quite strong up there - much more than it is at work. I love it.