When my three-year-old woke me up yesterday from a deep sleep it was pitch black in my room and I thought it was the middle of the night. I looked at the clock and was shocked to see it was 6:30 in the morning. I went out to the living room, opened the blinds, and saw an orange, apocalyptic haze. I walked outside and looked for the sun, a pinkish-orange orb barely visible through the smoky haze. Then it started raining ash and I ran back inside. Welcome to wildfire season in California.

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I see dragonflies darting around constantly in the summer. They are always so active that I can never catch a picture of them. But yesterday was different. It might be a coincidence, but I can’t help but wonder if the smoke made them a bit lethargic. I was able to photograph not one, but two, dragonflies yesterday! So, of course, I wanted to share these hard-to-come-by pictures.