Posts Tagged ‘air quality’
Ugly Air
I’ve lost track of how many days in a row we’ve been suffering under a “poor” and “low” quality air alert due to wildfire smoke. This morning, it shows up as “Moderate,” but the cumulative impact is lingering to the degree that we aren’t feeling much better. The lethargy I have been experiencing has helped me to avoid doing anything that requires heavy breathing, but we haven’t stayed indoors or worn masks while outside.
The horses and Asher appear to be responding to the nasty air in much the same way as we are. 
They are moving pretty slowly. I watched as Light stepped away from her bucket this morning and turned around toward Swings’ station. She then stood there for a minute or two, as if contemplating whether it was worth the effort to walk over there. When she eventually did, Light slid her nose into the bucket without asking, so Swings lifted her head up out of the way and chewed with her mouth open directly above Light’s head. Light ended up with a little crown of grains on top of her mane, where it covers her slowly healing head wound.
Horses are masters of taking things in stride.
Asher seemed to be looking for better air underground.
One complaint we don’t have during the bout of bad air quality is high humidity. It’s really sad that the dryer air that would otherwise feel so refreshing is being tainted by the smelly smoke particles.
When Asher was taking pauses between digging toward the center of the earth, he plopped down on the cool soil in hopes it would give him a little of that refreshing feeling that we are all longing for.
We are feeling a new level of appreciation for clean air and fresh breezes. If only they would arrive in a more gentle form than the hurricane-wind thunderstorms that seem to be joining wildfires as the new normal on the planet.
I’m afraid my lethargy has me feeling a little more gloomy about the state of things in the world this morning. Luckily, we have a lunch date planned today with friends, Rich and Jill. That will do oodles to bring me to my happy place of love and laughter again.
May you all find a way to spend some time in your happy place today, despite any of the gloom that may be crimping your styles!
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Visible Air
Between Canadian wildfires and tree pollen, our air quality is visibly contaminated of late. Cyndie took this picture yesterday:
The difference in clarity of the closest trees compared to the fainter color of the more distant ones makes it pretty obvious.
Yesterday was one of those days that makes me feel guilty for driving our car when signs over the freeway are posting alerts and suggesting people make fewer trips. I’m afraid smoky air in the summer is becoming a regular thing.
I got 80% of the mowing done, and we were able to make a brief appearance at my grand-nephew, Drew’s, high school graduation party yesterday. Today we are hosting two couples whom we know from Cyndie’s time working with the Eden Prairie schools. We are looking forward to sharing the beauty of our place with the couple who’ve not been here before.
In the time I just spent on Wisconsin State Trails and in DNR campsites, I noticed how the properties are tended, yet also what I consider to be a little neglected. It showed me what a difference we make by tending to our land with such constant effort. As I was mowing yesterday, I kept spotting areas where I wanted to use a string trimmer to clean up or where I needed to use the hedge trimmer.
At least we only have 20 acres to manage, and my time isn’t money. It doesn’t cost any more if I take one or two days to finish a task.
I can spend all of my energy tending to the growth around here, but I’m not able to control the quality of the air that moves in.
Last night, there were a couple of really loud frogs croaking away their musical trills just outside our windows. They can go on endlessly, it seems. One of them seemed to start losing its steam. The staccato chirps began to drop off toward the end in a humorous way, almost like he was running out of air. I wondered if the pollution was getting to him, too.
Cyndie got her phone to record it because it was making both of us laugh. Of course, in doing so, she fixed it. The frog upped his game and went back to producing a perfect repeating pattern of prridit.prrrridit.prrridit.prrrridit chirps as soon as she touched the button.
Show off.
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Really Happening
It’s happening right before our eyes. The changes currently playing out on our planet are no longer just scientific theories. They are actual events. Record high temperatures. Droughts. Wildfires. Floods. Thawing permafrost. Rising sea levels. Shrinking glaciers.
I’ve tried to mentally prepare for the possibility of any of the first four catastrophes directly impacting our property, but the thing we are dealing with currently is only peripherally related to the wildfires burning in Canada just to our north. Our air quality is so bad the Pollution Control Agency is advising we avoid being outside and breathing the smoke particulate matter.
Measurements are reaching record levels for Minnesota.
We should probably hold more meetings to discuss how we can reduce our carbon emissions to net-zero by some future date. [sarcasm]
I asked Cyndie if we have any idea what to do in the case of a wildfire suddenly bearing down on our location. She said we should paint our phone number on the horses.
I’m sure they would be fine with that if we were able to find any paint and get them to stand still during the highly emotional panic that would be occurring as a fire threat is bearing down on our property.
Even though the dramatic stories of lost lives and property in the recent floods in Germany and China and the ongoing Bootleg fire in Oregon depict the trauma at the epicenter of such events, life at home feels strangely distanced.
Our horses are calm. Their grass is dryer than optimum, the flies are a constant nuisance, the temperatures are getting too hot again, and the smoky air makes breathing less fun, but they aren’t ones to complain. I sense they may still be contemplating whether the situation they now find themselves in –living out their days in comfort and safety with us– is for real, or not.
Based on my assessment of the reality of global climate calamities playing out in plain view right now, I can understand any hesitations they might have about the comfort and safety part.
There should be no denying anymore that the ramifications of human activity causing increased concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are already playing out.
It really is already happening, whether people collectively acknowledge it, or not.
Every day that I don’t have to drive my fossil-fueled car anywhere is a tiny victory in my effort to reconcile still living with a carbon footprint that reflects how we got into this climate predicament in the first place.
May we all keep looking for individual ways to do something helpful, or simply stop doing things that are hurtful, long before governments and greater society finally get around to enacting more broadly effective changes.
I look forward to that really happening.
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Really Enjoying
Despite the unhealthy air quality associated with our current weather pattern, I am really enjoying the visuals all this fog creates.
Once again, Cyndie comes through with some wonderful shots…
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She said the horses looked like they had been sprinkled with powdered sugar. Their backs and even their tails were flocked with frozen crystals from the fog, but she wasn’t close enough for it to show in the pictures.
Who knows what today will bring. There have been predictions the sun will shine later and the temperatures will climb above freezing. I won’t complain about that, but this freezing fog sure has been fun for the spectacular visuals it creates.
Canadian Smoke
Could this cloud edge pass for a lightning bolt? I was thinking I should use the photo for a “Words on Images” creation, but my muse has totally vanished. I think my brain is in shock over being back in the day-job mode. I was taking pictures of the sun a few days ago because the smoke of Canadian forest fires polluting our air lately has created such amazing naked-eye views of the glowing star.
Yesterday, when I walked out of work, not only was the atmosphere near the ground thick with a smoky haze, but the smell of wood smoke was very noticeable. I expected it must be coming from some incident nearby, until I drove for a while and noticed it was like this all over.
From Plymouth, MN in the west, all the way to our house in Wisconsin, the smoke was visible and the aroma recognizable. My favorite weather blog, Updraft, says the smoke we are smelling used to be trees in Canada a few days ago. I’ve copied an image they used from NASA showing how the smoke plume was pushing into Minnesota on June 29th.
It makes the world seem a bit smaller to me to have such a visceral manifestation of something that originated so far away.
By the way, it is a common perception that Canada is north of Minnesota, but have I pointed out that we are currently living north of Minnesota? We are located almost due north of Red Wing, MN. The southeast portion of Minnesota juts out like a foot, because the state border follows the Mississippi River.
Of course, if you travel due north from our place, you eventually get to Minnesota, again. So, I guess it would be fair to say that we also live south of Minnesota, too.
Thank you for playing ‘Fun Geography Facts’ with me today! Now it’s time for me to go to work. I can be happy today that I work indoors where the air quality is buffered from the harsh effects of the smoky haze outside.
Be safe out there!
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Relative Something 