It's feeling apocalyptic around here today ....

We live in southwestern BC, Canada ... a temperate rain forest area ... blessed with large forests of Douglas Fir, Western Cedars, Hemlock and Spruce, fed and sustained by plenty of rain. We see the the occasional snow down below but we always have ski hills full of snow in our beautiful mountains. This year there was hardly any ... our ski hill across the pond which often has record snowfalls had to close half way thru the season due to NO snow! Our rivers, normally fed by melting snow packs into June at least, don't have that extra cushion to see them thru the summer season. I so, so hope this year is an anomaly and not a glimpse into the future. Really, can anyone still be a climate change deny-er? Yes, we can debate the man-made versus natural course of events aspects of it but regardless, it is here and it is more than a little scary.

In an area that normally sees 77 mm (3 in) of precip in May and 68 mm (2.7 in) in June, this year we've only had 12 mm in May and 18 mm in June. The sun has been blazing down for several weeks with no end in sight. We are tinder dry with several forest fires in areas around us. This morning we awoke to this ...

along with ash falling around like a grey snow flurries ...

 ... And this pic of the sun was taken later in the morning .... It's the little orange dot at the top of the photo.  .. It's just plain eerie! I feel like I'm wearing those sunglasses that turn everything yellow!

It is barely July .... we have two and a half months to go before perhaps the Fall season will bring us rain. Not sure what's going to happen with the annual salmon returns (low river, no rain means they won't be able make it up), the forests, the wildlife and our beautiful piece of paradise .... just feeling a little discouraged about it all .... and the mellow yellow sky isn't helping ...