Tag Archives: smoke

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Talk

Today I will interview people in clinic, but yesterday I hiked alone. Well, no, not really alone. I spot movement and freeze. A silent interview of this rabbit, with the help of my zoom camera. There was a very young bunny further on, about 6 inches long, who hid behind a bush a year from me. I did not want to scare her, so did not get a photograph.

Lizards and crows, too. Chipmunks and a squirrel who was noisy until she realizes that I have spotted her in the small tree, barely taller than me.

I climbed the Serpent’s Trail which is an old road. It goes up and up but is never terribly steep. At the top, I can see the haze: smoke from forest fires in the Pacific Northwest and Canada is coming down. When I got home I closed up the house to keep the air cleaner. It is smokey today with lots of small particulates, not good. We will see more asthma, allergies, eye problems, emphysema and the smoke makes people headachey and irritable. I hope it doesn’t sit in the Grand Valley for a long time.

Meanwhile, the bunnies and the crows and the lizards and the squirrels, can’t go inside, can they?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: interview.

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Yes, but no cigar

The photograph is from one of my hikes in Palisade in the last few weeks. The rocks are gorgeous.

The title is from an old joke.

I climbed at the gym again yesterday after work. I really like the immediacy of the walls. I do not like the auto-belays. The ones at this gym let you down pretty quickly. I climbed up one wall and then down. I tried the easiest boulder route for the second time and made it! I am a bit stiff this morning but not too bad.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cigar.

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Particles

Oh, dear. My not so cheerful take on “micro” today is the tiny particles in the air from the fires. The sky held this front yesterday and the weather changed. The air was brownish by afternoon. Yesterday at 5 the Air Quality Index was 36, not too awful. This am it is 78 here, though a map of Washington State AQI shows that it is really severe in Eastern Washington. Fire season.

The screen shot is from here.

I set up my home air filter: a box fan and four filters. I had my windows open last night and woke with a headache from the air. It also makes me irritable. When I really smell the smoke, my brain keeps sounding an alarm: “Fire! fire!” I have to reassure it: yes, there is a fire, but it is not here right now. Cross your fingers. Now I’ve closed the house and have the fan running. Inelegant but very effective at filtering the tiny particles and cleaning up the air.

Consider wearing an N95 if you have to be out. We do not want those tiny micro particles in our lungs. I am holed up in the house today. We may have rain tomorrow which will quiet it down.

When the air gets really bad, the cats even refuse to go out.

Be careful out there.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: micro.

Filter instructions: https://encycla.com/Corsi-Rosenthal_Cube.

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Air purist

This is a sunset, not smoke. Right now the east coast of the US has spectacularly bad air quality from forest fire smoke. My son is going to work out indoors today, since he is in the DC metro area.

When I moved here, I was delighted by the air quality. That was 23 years ago. In the last five years, we have had smoke blowing in from forest fires to the east or south or north four of the five. Last year I built a home air purifier because the smoke was bothering my lungs even inside the house. It helped very much. I stayed inside for 8 days. The cats did not want to go out either.

“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.” Ironic if it is smoke that takes us out.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: purist.

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Hammock and filter

I am preparing the cats to travel a bit. I acquired this foldable framed container. The cats are getting used to it. Elwha has decided it makes a nice hammock platform from which to watch me in the kitchen.

We still have smoke from the fires. Seattle is worse than here. The cats are not out for their daily walks until this clears. I am getting lots of knitting and continuing medical education done.

Yesterday I built a Corsi-Rosenthal cube. I bought a box fan and four MERV-13 filters and duct tape. Tape it all into a cube with the filters facing in and the fan facing out and voila! An air filter for my house. Even though I’ve kept the house closed up, the air has been bad for a week. My house is from 1930 and not tight so there is seepage.

Here are the instructions for the cube: https://encycla.com/Corsi-Rosenthal_Cube.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: platform.

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Red maple

Our native maples are Big Leaf Maple and Vine Maples. There are Red Maples all over town now and they are exquisite and spectacular. Rain is supposed to start this Friday and since we still have bad air quality from the fires in Eastern Washington, I think we will all be glad for rain.

I took this yesterday at Chetzemoka Park. I went to see if the air was ok to beach walk. It was not ok.

The panoramic photograph shows the smoke obscuring the Seattle area and the hazy sun. It is worse there than here but it is not good here either.

I wonder if the trees have trouble breathing too? I am wearing a N95 mask any time I step outside. The cats don’t want to go out right now. They don’t like the smoke.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: exquisite and for Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Chetzemoka Park.

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Mundane Monday #173: skies

For Mundane Monday #173, my theme is skies: not blue skies. Skies that worry me. This is a fire sky, the sun setting through smoke that we can smell. There are no big fires near us, so I don’t know if this is California, Oregon, Washington, or Idaho smoke…

Add a message with your post or a pingback and I will list them next week. There might be a delay, because I have some travel soon.

For the Mundane Monday #172 prompt: windy:

KL Allendoerfer joins in: https://klallendoerfer.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/mundane-monday-windy/