0647/21st July 2021
Morning smoke
0650/12th June 2021
Morning mist
This morning’s view, as compared to our normal view. The distant hill almost obscured.
The weather this summer has been extremely stormy, to say the least. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I constantly watch the sky.
The past few days have been very humid and I wasn’t surprised to see early mist yesterday.
But something didn’t seem right.
The sun shouldn’t look like that.
However, things were a bit discombobulated yesterday morning, so I ran out to take a picture and put it out of my mind.
Until mid-afternoon when Grant suddenly popped up and said “that’s not mist, that’s smoke!”
At which point I began to take notice.
Nothing was on fire locally, because we would have heard sirens, so it could only be one thing. Was it possible?
After 16 years in Seattle, we began to see smoke from wildfires in the summer. I found it intensely disturbing. It was, in fact, one of the reasons I chose to leave.
As far as I am aware, wildfire smoke has never drifted this far before. But when I picked up my phone, there was an air quality alert and it was indeed smoke from the West Coast and Canada.
You may have seen pictures on the news of New York City yesterday where pollution was as bad as it has ever been. But my thoughts, of course are with the people who are fighting the fires and the people threatened by them.
Last night after dark, we had a vicious thunderstorm.
Thunderstorms don’t worry me. As I mentioned recently, I enjoy them. Maybe because my mood was already low, this one felt different.
It felt like Nature was in a rage.
The wind howled around the house, tearing at the trees and hurling torrents of rain against the windows.
Lightning fell repeatedly, like flash bulbs at a red carpet event and thunder crashed overhead, alarming the cats.
As I sat in my bed, attempting to read, my mind kept telling me that there was a voice out there, yelling:
“HOW MUCH LOUDER MUST I SHOUT?”
On Boxing Day 2004, I remember thinking it was a wake-up call. In my lifetime nothing quite as alarming had been sent by Nature. Earthquakes yes, hurricanes and storms. Forest fires even.
But that tsunami, I felt signaled the beginning of Nature’s attempt to draw our attention to the planet and to the need for immediate change.
But some world leaders still deny it.
What is an ordinary citizen to do?
I do hope the fires in Canada gets contained soon … I feel for the people, animals and just nature in general. We see wild fires often during summer months (normally towards the end when everything is already dry) and it’s heartbreaking then to see smoke hanging over Table Mountain … I would much rather prefer misty scenes.
Yes, me too. The smoke is not a problem for us personally. It’s a remider of all those in peril.