A wall of smoke.

A few weeks ago something strange happened. The wind shifted. I could tell just standing on the front porch, the way our birch tree was blowing. It was coming from the south. It doesn't usually. With it then came a giant wall of smoke, wrapping over the mountains along Mission Ridge toward Wenatchee and the Columbia, blocking out the light.

Then something just as bizarre happened. It stopped. The wall of smoke. The wind shifted again, coming then as it often does from the north. The wall held south of Wenatchee while the evening skies all around cleared. Then the sun lit up the clouds that had gathered. Weird and spectacular.