Wildfire Smoke

Just about all of this summer, thus far, has been nothing but rain showers, thunderstorms and flooding.  In between rain showers we get some sun trying to shine but, if the sun isn't obscured by clouds, the sun is mostly obscured by wildfire smoke from the Canadian wildfires.  For the most part, the skies have been far too consistently either cloudy or white due to wildfire smoke.  

This wildfire smoke does not help my breathing issues at all.  I've been managing to get through each day without any major catastrophes (unlike earlier this year) but this calendar year, as a whole so far, has been filled with health problems and the leading and most consistently nagging problem has been difficulty breathing.  I'm pretty sure that even without the wildfire smoke, I would be struggling with breathing problems.  These breathing problems started with one of my bouts with COVID and it has not let up after my last bout with the virus.  The wildfire smoke is just not helping in the least.

The day before we went on the cruise with the grandchildren, we had to go pick up Lukey and Kenzie because they wanted to stay with us for a couple of nights.  This way, if Liza couldn't make it for the cruise for whatever reason, Lukey and Kenzie would already be with us so they wouldn't miss it.  They like having a few nights in our backyard every now and then too.  

The day after we picked them up, the weather was supposed to be dry for a change which is why we chose that particular day for the cruise.  It turns out that it was beautiful out...  sunny skies, warm but not hot, clear, and no wildfire smoke!  The previous evening when we picked up Lukey and Kenzie to stay with us, however, was a bit smoky...

Considering how much rain we've had, we didn't care much about the smoky conditions as long as it stayed dry for our cruise... calm seas and no precipitation is all we hoped for...  It turns out that the day we chose happened to be an unusually beautiful day.  

Due to the weather and smoky skies, needless to say, I haven't done much astronomy this year either.  I've worked on a few astronomy projects but I have not had much of an opportunity to see the sky well enough for actually getting out with a telescope.  This weather had better clear up soon otherwise I will have forgotten all I learned in my few astronomy projects in recent months!  

I truly believe that Waterbury has more annual rain-days than Seattle!