Breathing is so Nice! (5-minute freewrite Sunday prompt: the sky is clear)
The sky is clear today, wonderfully clear. I sometimes take clear skies and fresh air for granted, but most of August we breathed smoke-filled air from wildfires. Sometimes the smoke came south from Canada. Sometimes it drifted all the way north from California and southeast Oregon. And there were some smaller local fires, plus a larger one in eastern Washington. It has been a dry summer, but that's normal around here. It's too bad the tree-hugger environmentalists have given logging such a bad name, and have succeeded in preventing educated foresters from appropriately managing our country's forests. Without proper forest management, nature takes over and fires do the managing instead. There are other factors involved, of course, including people building homes in increasingly-remote locations and then expecting to be safe from the hazard of a forest fire. It puts the lives of many fire fighters in danger when uninformed people make poor choices, whether it's where to build a home or how to manage a forest.
Anyway, I am really happy that the air has cleared up, and I can leave the windows open again, and come and go from the house without choking and coughing. I don't like feeling trapped in the house for the month of August. I hope the worst of it is over for this season.
I guess it's in our nature to want to put fires out as soon as possible. There was a time when wildfires would simply consume the underbrush and burn out quickly without igniting the trees. Then we interfered to save the underbrush, which has grown beyond what nature intended, and is why the fires are so big today.
When I was in college we were shown a documentary featuring the aboriginal people of Australia. Every year they would deliberately set controlled fires to the brush in order to prevent larger fires from becoming an issue. Unfortunately, people today seem to have little respect for and knowledge of, the past.
Oh that's interesting. Yes with everyone up in arms about saving trees, I never looked at it from this angle.
Today, I am little more informed... thank you 😊
There was quite a large fire in the Columbia River Gorge last summer, on the Oregon side of the river. My brother, an avid hiker, lives just across the river in Washington. He was dismayed by the devastation, but this spring he was able to volunteer with others to help restore the hiking trails. He sent me some links to videos of the area, with experts explaining how that fire was actually a good thing for the forest, when looked at from a forestry perspective. If I can find the links, I will add them.
Here's one of them! https://www.facebook.com/greenoregonforall/videos/141039236667268/
Here is another link: https://www.facebook.com/craglaw/videos/10155269766416853/
The fires are in our neighbouring country, and the wind carries the haze here
Possibly not as bad as yours, but I understand The Clear Skies :)
It rained over the weekend, but this morning I still see haze in the horizon
We used to be up in arms with the situation, but after years of it, we have become accustomed and the some just wear a face mask
Yay, to open windows 😊
Oh, I'm sorry to hear you deal with smoky air, too!
It isn't so bad this year 😊
in 2015, that was really bad
I hope the sky stays clear for all of you there!
Anyway, here is the new prompt:
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-319-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-successful
Sorry you've had to deal with that! Its interesting. Here in south GA we have had the WETTEST summer I can remember! It has rained several times a week pretty much all summer. The heat index has been awful with the humidity... but Id rather deal with that than breathing smoke! Hope it stays clear for you!
I lived in MN for 15 years, and that was more humidity than I like. I can't imagine Georgia!
I grew up in Ohio, so for me this is just the worst, haha!
My husband is from Florida, so its not so bad for him.