It started out a perfectly clear day. Mama, this is like a summer day out of storybook. Everyone is smiling … She correctly used the word “dappled” to describe the light through the oak trees.

The man dug a trench and laid cinderblocks, chicken coop finally happening. It’s a good thing, since The Girls are really too big for their box and yesterday I heard a bona fide cluck.

Meantime, a spark flew. An ember got loose. Over 300 acres are burning just a few miles outside of town, and neighborhoods are evacuated. A plume rose in the distance, a dark purple column billowing above our junipers. The sun was a red circle, everything bathed in pinkish orange light. Sunset light at two o’clock in the afternoon.

The children ran free in the backyard, hooking elbows to spin in circles and sing. I drank four or five glasses of really great wine with my sister-in-law. We watched Chris Hadfield singing in a tin can and the dog lazed, chewing on clumps of grass.

And all the while, shadows were too high in contrast, everything tinged in sepia. I thought about The Road. The city turned off the surface water supply. Just a precaution.