Today's beauty

I spent fifteen minutes outside today, enjoying the falling leaves and the warm-yet-cool temperatures. Just fifteen minutes, focusing my telephoto lens on the bright blue skies, the brown and gold and orange falling from the towering oaks, and breathing in the smoke-free air.

All week we have been praying for friends and strangers in Southern California, sobered by the immensity of the fires in our state. I've had vivid nightmares of trying to evacuate my family, and I have found myself waking up through the night thinking I was smelling smoke. Fire scares me, so I will keep praying. I am deeply grateful for hard-working fire fighters; what a difficult job they do.