Here we go again?

A view of Mount Shasta on a clear day devoid of snow.

It will come as no news to anyone that we are again facing the dangers of Covid-19 and are back to wearing masks indoors. Social distancing, except among the vaccinated really never went away and, in my personal experience, most of us have started to default to standing farther apart when talking than we used to. The frustration of this is bad, especially among the vaccinated who thought there was finally going to be some normality returning (I’m amongst those). For those who get sick because they aren’t vaccinated or because of the Delta variant, frustration is just a small part of their suffering.

On top of the virus, we are breathing in smoke from the Dixie fire, which has burned for over a month and is only 31% contained; it has burned just over a half a million acres. That is an amount that boggles my mind - I can’t fathom it. A smaller fire is still burning in the north County but it is 50% contained and was at 50 acres as of this writing.

Last weekend we went to Lake Siskyou for the annual family gathering of my husband’s family. We had one beautiful day and then the smoke came in. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t pretty either. The thing that shocked me the most was the total lack of snow on Mount Shasta. I have never seen it without snow - which isn’t saying too much as I have only seen it a dozen times or so - and it made me wonder about the local water supply. Lake Shasta was also the lowest I’ve ever seen it - in places it looked like a river, not a lake.

A view of Mount Shasta taken on the mountain on a smokey day.

The heat is insufferable, though it certainly could be worse. I have been thankful that it has been cooling down some at night, making it possible to sleep at least. If what the scientists are saying will happen happens, we will be in for a lot more of the heat and the fires; not something to look forward to.

I hope that we can work together as a species to take the enormous steps required to put a stop to the damage we have done and continue to do. I go back and forth between optimism and pessimism. Generally, I feel optimistic, but all the news lately has been fairly bleak. I’ll continue to do what I can and I hope you do too. Sometimes I feel that is fruitless, but at the same time, if we all did it, we might have an impact.

Stay safe out there - be kind to yourself and others. It’s a stressful time and we really only have each other. A good time to follow the “golden rule” if there ever was one.