Smoke is in the air from lots of fires. There are no fires close to my location, but numerous small fires are or have been within 50 miles. Farther, greater than 125 miles, there are fires producing smoke that can be seen in satellite images.
The above image is from Friday morning about 9:30 [7/17/26] My location is the red star. State boundaries are red lines. The bright white areas are clouds. The hazy areas are smoke, mostly from grass and short brushy plants. The central part of Oregon received many lighting strikes. The lower right sector of the blue Latitude and Longitude lines shows the north part of the region.
Eastern North America has a large smoke event beginning in northern Minnesota and adjacent Canada. The plume goes from the Lake Superior region, southeast across Michigan and the north half of Ohio. Sister Peggy is in the direct path, with an air quality alert, and her power was off for an hour; cause unknown. The smoke goes across PA, MD, DE, and NJ — then exiting to the Atlantic Ocean. I notice many commenters, including Pres. Trump, being clueless about the fires and why the Canadians don’t put them out. There are many reasons, but the simple answer is no one can.
Another visitor took advantage of the shade under the trees 
near my front door. The temperature was 95°F. As the shade shifted he got up and moved 15 feet. I didn’t notice when he left.
Friday, I took the truck to the Ford dealer for its 5,000 mile oil change and other stuff. Their service lot was full so I parked in front of a row of new mini-vans. The window sticker price was about $70,000 but I didn’t look to see if there were additional fees. State tax would add about $7,000 and license and insurance might add another $1,500. The total would be about double the cost of the house we bought in 1972 in Iowa. Another thing: houses appreciate and vehicles depreciate. In any case, I’m glad I don’t need one.
A waxing crescent moon (getting more illuminated) was visible in the smoke-colored sky from the Pétanque court Thursday evening. Because of trees I can’t see to the west from my house. By next Wednesday, the 22nd, it will be almost half lit in day 7 of its blossoming.
On the email page, Saturday AM I received a “Fraud alert” as shown below.
I was given two options: “Yes, I recognize it” and “No, something’s wrong”. I didn’t click on either although the answer is #2. I opened my account and searched for a phone number and quickly got to a lady that brought up my account. The next-to-last use was for the truck service mentioned above. Then there was the $100 billing from an English site to a “Health Care” facility. She asked two questions. One: Was that legitimate? No. Two: do I have my card? Yes. Bingo — she cancelled the card and ordered me a new one — expected to arrive Monday.
I use auto-pay for many of my regular expenses, such as the local newspaper, so I have the joy of converting those to a new number.
This has reminded me of a story my mother told. She always wrote checks to pay such bills and someone in the family would deliver the local ones in person. Brother Richard carried a check into the water or electric office, gave the check to the clerk, visited with her, and asked for a date. She agreed, and they eventually married.
The modern version: I talked with a very nice and competent lady with a plesent voice. I don’t know her name, where she is, nor if she wants to go on a date. Still, all is well.
Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John
activity of a large black spider along the back of the house near a faucet. She constructs egg sacs. The first one I saw disappeared. Then she built two more. In the photo she is hanging on the lower-right side, about 3 inches over gravel. 
a fire started just after midnight {Fri/Sat}. It is burning up a rugged hillside in mostly grass and small brush. The few people living there have been told to evacuate. The wind in that area is “not much” compared to me. There: single digits. Here: 30mph sustained, gusts to 40; decreasing through the night.
The June solstice is on Sunday. For my time zone this will be at 1:24 AM so I’ll not be celebrating. However, when Sunday’s noon sun does arrive at my place it will be 66.5° above my southern horizon. This is represented by the blue dotted line in the drawing. If you were on a cruise and 21 miles north of Havana {aka La Habana} you would be on the Tropic of Cancer, and the Noon sun would be directly overhead. That is represented by the orange dots. Your shadow would be just around your feet. My shadow, at Noon, will be just shy of 3 feet, or a bit more than half of my height. The forecast is for mostly sunny and a temperature of about 72°F. The wind, as I write, is about 28 mph. That should decrease to 5 mph by Noon. A nice first day of Summer.
However there is an abundance of fuel in the zone beyond 35 feet and I am slowly removing some of that.
The trees are not large so my small battery-electric chainsaw makes that part easy. Cleaning up after that is the tedious part. The pieces in this photo are of a length to make 4 chunks of firewood for the stove. I’ll take them over to the shed and do that part with a plug-in chainsaw. Most of the pieces won’t need to be split, but I will do that to the larger pieces so they dry faster. 
The pine cone on the left provides scale. I see these along roadsides and only ocassionaly on my property — where the soil has been distrubed. 
My friends were impressed {Yeah Right?} that I knew something about this. Mostly grass and sage on the mounds, but otherwise flowers were everywhere. Along with a dozen types, the Bitterroots Roots were plentiful and in full bloom. The flowers are about 2.5 to 3 inches across. {Note to self: next time use something for scale.} The Wiki page is informative.
