Heat has dissipated substantially but smoke continues to be a major issue.
Able last evening to spend about an hour in the garage and labelled all the bases for the denizens of Alkali Wells as well as the bases for the buggies, buckboards, and grain wagons - and a couple of other items to appear at some point. Over 160 bases. Also did the replacement of some of the individual male drivers with couples, a man and a woman, so that two buggies and four buckboards have two folks instead of one. While only minor progress, it does mean as I prep the figures I can glue them to their bases to await priming more quickly and well organized - that last a critical element in so large and diverse a collection.
Closing in on a solid month of smoke filled skies but there is hope in the weather patterns that might help clear - or at least partly clear - our skies. I have seen some bad fire seasons, mostly in very recent years, but nothing that compares to this. The volume of fire related ash in our pool cost me a major chunk of a day just to clean it out to a reasonable degree - won't clean the filter until I see some blue sky! The bag on the pool sweep has been turned black several times after being cleaned - by far the worst this has ever been, worse than ash from a distant volcano many years ago. I 'watered' all the plants in our yard (a Lot!) to rinse the ash off. Climate change doubters need to be required to drive down some of the flaming roads turned dark in daylight despite the illumination of the fires. Nothing like a near scorching to change someone's mind, maybe? Science over politics. From where I sit, the science is crystal clear. I am pretty sure there will be no real, concerted action until after crossing the "tipping point". Our house sits a bit over 100' elevation and about an hours drive to sea level water in the San Francisco Bay area. Maybe in a decade or two we will be a ten minute drive, maybe a three minute drive from salt water? At least there will be lots of new farm land available in Greenland after all the ice melts and raises ocean levels 20 to 30 feet worldwide. I fear that will happen much sooner than expected. But will there be any water for that farmland? Scary times in too many ways. I cannot imagine the psychological burden this must place on the minds of very young adults who are paying close attention. Okay, enough on this - see what all that time under so much smoke has done?
