They've been doing controlled burns at the preserve again. The air is toxic. When I look at the black ground and the ashes it's impossible to remember what it used to look like only the day before. The burns are done to protect the houses that are around the preserve.
The contrast is so stark from one side of the path to the other. The morning after the burn I walked along the trail between the two different preserves, one blackened and still smoking and the other green. There was a mockingbird calling from a burned tree stump.
I've been through here after a much larger burn. That one left a haze of smoke for days. It felt like post apocalyptic hell in there. That was in December of last year.
But then, six months later, it looks like this.
And if I didn't have the pictures I wouldn't remember what it looked like before the green.
