It wasn't too bad this morning, around 7:30. I had to go out and drag the empty garbage bin back from the curb, and went as soon as I was dressed to avoid the heat we've been enduring but still be respectable. The neighbors are very close, after all, and some wake up as early as we do.
Turns out I was also still able to breathe... nearly healthfully. I'd had plans for very light gardening, mostly just plucking dead blooms for the compost pile and marking plants with string to denote bloom color not making them something I wanted to keep. Next good morning I'll be out, tracing marked flower stalks down to the ground to see what needed to be dug out, then dig and bag those for new homes in other peoples' yards, per recent discussions. Most of those new locations belong to various staff in the doctor's office. (Who else do I see often enough?) I decided to boot the "strawberry candy" daylilies. The color was represented as red and pink. It's more salmon and red, and like so many other people, it's not what I had in mind. Yep, I'm fussy. If I can make other people happy with free hardy bloomers, and the rest of what I have will fill in quickly, as daylilies do, where's the harm in being fussy? I plucked one new day's blossom, pulled individual petals to press in the fridge so folks can see actual color later, and will take those along on tomorrow's PT visit.
But I had to drive Steve to his surgeon for his "how ya doing"check-in plus hip X-ray visit this afternoon. As soon as the car pulled out of its parking spot, we glanced at the lake, out of habit. I'm still convinced we could see a shadow of the opposite shore but Steve expressed doubts. A look at the county road in the other direction looked like a heavy morning fog. I suppose you could call it a "dry fog" the way Arizonans refer to a"dry heat". We had good enough visibility to drive safely. I'm not so sure about breatheability however. I was in no way tempted to go for the camera the way I often am for standard morning fog photos, even if we hadn't been on a deadline.
It was so thick that even I could almost smell the air. What I could detect instead was an almost metallic tang to it in my mouth. We set the car AC on recycle going both directions, both for keeping cooler and so we'd take in as little smoke as possible. One car-full each way seemed generous enough.
All of this was smoke from fires, primarily for us smoke blowing south from multiple wildfires in the BWCA, which has been closed to all except fire crews for a couple days now. One of Steve's sons had been planning a fishing trip there along with his wife, but it got canceled the night before they were to leave. Nobody knows whether it will reopen this season, and if so, who might have precedence for any remaining limited permits. They believe the cause is lightning, combined with very low rainfall for months. Those whose permits were cancelled will have refunds. Hardly a tradeoff for a vacation in our northern natural beauty. No telling what will be left of it by the time the fires are over. No refunds or other remuneration are available for those who live near the area who make their livings off the tourist season, not to mention the loss of the area and habitat itself to them.We can only hope they have the protections they need for their lungs and overall health through the time it takes to finally quell all the fires.
On our way back home, the air was thicker, nearly every car had its lights on just as they had on our earlier trip as if there were actual heavy fog, and the lakes we passed on our return showed only their near shores. It seemed to bring out the rudeness in fellow drivers, especially those seeming to hope we'd make an illegal move to speed ourselves along so they could follow at warp speed themselves. It wouldn't have helped any. I know those roads, their stop lights, speed limits and lane changes, and even the recent addition of cops monitoring speeders through town who seemed bound to contribute extra to the local coffers while sitting in their vehicles enjoying our local atmosphere - and not just the kind we were all being forced to breathe today. Bless them all for their ambitions to keep road taxes down for the rest of us who live here through their unnecessary and unexpected contributions.
And Steve wonders why I don't get annoyed at all those obnoxious other drivers out there. It's not just that my annoyance or lack thereof never has any effect on them. As somebody once not just a professional driver who learned a bad attitude became expensive, but a representative of a small community wrangling every cent out of small budgets, I'm always willing to let somebody else pay our tax bills. And of course there was the oft repeated tale of a reckless idiot who passed me barely safely at the start of the local hiway on our way home, and visibly kept passing car after truck after car with narrow escapes from oncoming vehicles each time. What I knew and he learned was that by the time we both got 18 miles down the road to where coincidentally we both turned off, he was still just the car immediately ahead of me at the corner. All the drivers he "bested" had turned off on other roads along the way. Whether you count on frazzled and lucky, or relaxed and smart, he was just 3 seconds ahead... and now I knew where he lived! We were neighbors, and I had no impulse whatsoever to make his personal acquaintance for the years he lived just a couple blocks away.
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Addendum: Next morning
Yep, we're overachievers here. With a pollution rating where 100 is is high enough that people with asthma or other issues are told to stay inside, don't exercise even indoors, wear a heavy duty mask rated 95 if you must go outside, this morning's news tells us we in most of the state are rating 300! It's the highest it has registered in MN and covers most of the state, including here, as well as the Twin Cities metro and beyond. If you like colors for your graphics, deep burgundy is the worst, and we're living in it... "living" being the operative word.
Did I mention we're still having our heat wave? Wheeeee hack hack cough gasp! There's a bottle of water in my purse, plenty of ice in the fridge.
At least my scheduled PT for today is mostly stretches, extending range of motion, gently working only just to the point of hints of pain. And I'm sure it's nowhere near what I should have in a mask like a "95", since I'm not making the extra trip to go find/buy one, but I will be wearing one from my supply of regular surgical masks purchased for avoiding covid and keeping airborn powdered used kiln paper out of my lungs from my days doing glass fusion. And yep, car AC on recirculate for the two mile trip each way.
Steve will be staying home, period.
I'm expecting a plant delivery today, I'm told. I hope the Fed Ex driver has a good mask. At least it will come straight to our main door porch. I can likely hold my breath long enough to step out and grab it. Planting can wait.
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