I’m working on the ending of this book.
I need a clear head.
Pul-eeze. Air. Air would be good.
Yesterday I got some work done with a Benedryl and 2 Sudafed.
I think I am going to have to do the same today. I hate to do it. My stomach hates it.
But breathing brings oxygen to the brain.
I am sooooo allergic to wood smoke.
Well, yes of course. Aside from the particulates, one can just about guarantee there’s a bit of urushiol from burning wild poison oak mixed in. Bad stuff to breathe. Every once in a while someone will set off a burnpile liberally laced with poison oak, with consequences anybody else would have predicted. 😉
BTW, does this new thing have a name? Or is it bad luck to speak of it?
Tracker is the current book.
Ooo, that does sound interesting! 🙂
I thought the name of the new book was Unknown.
And yes, unforgettable, the day the novice campers decided the way to dispose of the poison ivy growing in the Council Ring [Campfire Girls] was to build a bonfire and burn it. Camp lay downwind.
Woodcraft 101. Don’t do that.
One of the things we learned really early: those are plants that you bury, not burn. Preferably burial done while wearing disposable coveralls and shoe covers, and at least dust masks.
My mother got poison oak once from playing with a kitten that had walked through some. Didn’t bother the kitten at all. (I know what poison oak looks like. It’s very pretty, especially in spring when it blooms.)
One year I took a chainsaw to an old, diseased, 3 years dead filbert/hazelnut “shrub” (they’re not “trees”, though the farmers try) that once had a “branch” of poison oak up through the middle of it (dead also). I deny predictability, but some of the chips got down my collar and collected around the waistband of my jeans. And it’s “briefs, not boxers” so I’m sure you can figure out I was a pretty “unhappy camper” for a couple weeks. 🙁
One would have appeared like a wraith, lugging a five gallon bucket of water, and dumped it over the offending bonfire, then lectured the campers about burning poison ivy and/or oak, possibly by suggesting they try standing downwind of it for a while! Profound itchiness lay thataway.
Unfortunately CJ, there’s a fire SW of Cheney, do you’re probably gonna have more smoke. Husband left this morning for the Pine Creek complex in north central Oregon. For those back in the Midwest, you’re probably gonna get smoke from Canada — Saskatchewan had about 70,000 acres burn in one day and the Territories are still burning. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming haven’t even started yet. On the plus side, we’re well under the 10 year average even as bad as it is in Oregon and Washington.
I heard about that. They were directing people with livestock which way to move them. Oregon has caught it the worst.
We got a notice from the National Weather Service Office in Wilmington, OH (the one that serves my area and to whom I report severe weather events) earlier last week about high, thin haze in the upper atmosphere. The NWS said it was not cirrus clouds, but rather smoke from the wildfires in Alberta. This is not the first time we’ve gotten this kind of smoke, and probably will get more of it with the new fires in the PNW.
I wish people would use what little brain power they have whenever they go out into the woods to camp, to hunt, fish, whatever. If it hasn’t rained for several weeks, months, etc., then it’s obvious that you really do NOT want a campfire anywhere near that dry stuff. I remember the big fire in San Diego County a few years ago, caused by a hunter who got lost, so he promptly set three signal fires. Fine, except he didn’t put them where they wouldn’t catch the rest of the forest on fire, or he didn’t tend them properly. For crying out loud, my Boy Scout Handbook told us exactly how to set campfires in the woods. If you have to build a fire in a dry area, make sure there’s no dry fuel anywhere around the fire site. Dig a hole big enough to hold the fire, keep the dirt from the hole next to the fire pit so you can cover it quickly if you need to. Don’t walk away from a fire, EVER! If you can’t do this, then you shouldn’t be out in the woods anyway.
I know that a lot of these wildfires are caused by lightning, which is beyond our control, but the ones that are set by humans are well within our control. I do not understand the mindset of someone who would purposely set a forest fire. Do they think firefighters have fun going in trying to battle a big blaze? When they get caught, what is their excuse? “We were bored…” Well, here’s a little something to interest you…..it’s called a stake, and along with it, a cat-o-nine-tails…….public flogging????
Bless your heart. You still have one of those Oreck air purifiers, don’t you?. (I’m so glad I decided to get one — I love it!) — can you not reposition it so it will blow purified air in your face? It should help with the particulate matter.
Yep.
We have 3, one in the living room, one in each bedroom. They’re tough little things, and the Truman Cell filter [electrostatic] is still the best thing going for really fine stuff.
So might the very old fashioned method of stretching muslin across each opening and wetting it down. Though it can be lots of work, it should both cool and filter. If you have a local Joann, I know they have some printed stuff in red tag at $3 a yard which should do. Then all you need is thumbtacks and a spray bottle.
Instant swamp cooler!
Reminds me of reading about what my father’s family did during the Dust Bowl: putting wet cloth around the doors and windows, to stop the dust. (My most-senior aunt is still around to tell stories about growing up in Oklahoma.)
We used the wet sheet method of cooling when we were living down in Sherman Tx without central air. Drips on the floors, but hey, it gets a waft of coolth going.
In my childhood, I recall stuffing the windows and doors when we got a bad one, and a couple of times when we were caught driving in a red-out of dust, but I don’t remember the real Dust Bowl—before my time. I do recall when I was in a bookstore in OKC having a dusty day outside, and all of a sudden rain hit—one of the customers howled “My windows are down!” and ran outside to tend to his car.
Now in Oklahoma, sometimes the first volley of rain is huge drops, making a big spatter on the pavement, nearly the size of your palm. In this case—they were mudballs. The guy came back in, in his white shirt, looking as if he’d been machine-gunned: about 8-10 huge red mud splotches.
Then the downpour started, a real torrential rain that laid the dust in a hurry and washed the mud down the gutters, but the guy still had a what-to-do about the muddy shirt and his clean car.
My lungs are sensitive to smoke, too.
We’re in Wisconsin, and many friends here and in Minnesota have complained about headaches and breathing problems the last few days. Wonder if some of the smoke from the western fires has started to reach us.
Our place has a whole-house air cleaner. We run the furnace fan constantly when the AC is on, so the air cleaner works very effectively.
Kafryn, most of what you are probably getting in Minnesota is smoke from fires up in Canada. I know you can get winds from that direction. The fires in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories are much closer to you. Two days ago over 100,000 acres burned in one day in the Territories. So far this summer over 2.75 million acres have burned in those two provinces and one territory alone. What’s burned in Oregon and Washington is a less than 550,000 acres. So far the US is under the 10 year average with only 1.6 million acres burned –we usually have about 3.5 million burned by now. But it ain’t over yet. You could be getting some upper level haze from the fires in the Northwest, but Canada is more likely.
Ryanrick – I think you are correct, because we’ve had winds from the north recently (blessedly cool air for July!).
Do you know how much acreage in Canada typically burns each season?
A friend of mine posted information about fires in Alaska a few weeks ago, but I haven’t heard anything more about them recently. Work and life have kept me quite busy and focused on nearby tasks.
Our fire reporting doesn’t track Canada beyond the current year, but I would guess it’s pretty similar to how much burns in the US — on average about 9 million acres. But Canada is also huge; it’s number 2 in size behind Russia and a bit bigger than that US. I remember about 20 years ago 11 million acres burned in the Northwest Territories, and area that was the size of India [they’ve since split the Northwest Territories in two, with the eastern half being Nunavut].