Bring Hotdogs AND Marshmellows

The American West is burning. I mean the American West is burning like I've never seen the West burning before ... ever. I've been around for a while now and this is just about as bad as I've ever known. Wake up in the cool of the early morning and the smell of wildfire smoke greets your just waking up lungs and oh mommy ... I need a choke. By noon when our sun is doing it's very best to make sure that should you venture outside, you'll be sorry in about no time at all. I do feel badly for folks that must do their working stuff outdoors and you can be assured that they've got plenty of water with those working to insure no one does the wilting drill and will immediately be in need of rescue personnel attention. When you hit the 110 degree ambient air temperature with 1% humidity mark you almost can stay ahead of the sweltering schtick but just barely. It's hot it's damn hot and that says it all. Add onto that nifty tidbit of news a raging wildfire, well, fighting a wildfire is quite literally hell on earth. Scorched earth. That's exactly how our earth looks if and when a wildfire is extinguished. Scorched black. Everything is burnt black and the silence is maddening. Nothing is moving ... nothing. What was moving prior to the wildfire working it's worst is no longer moving or IF whatever was moving managed to move out of the way of a roaring wildfire ... good on whatever it was. Trust me, the moving won't be back for some while. In our nicely comforting slice of northeast Mojave Desert is currently surrounded by wildfire in Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. After a long day's burning and all the niceties that arise from wildfire ... smoke, embers, heat, have managed to ascend to unimaginable heights and the wildfire creates it's own weather pattern and those clouds seem and look damn ominous. If you've never seen a wildfire weather pattern, count yourself as lucky. Tremendously large luminous darkly angry red/orange and there's plenty of darkly gray/brown/black cloud cover that will produce lightning and more lightning is NOT what firefighters need as their hands are busy with the fires they face at the moment. The wildfire fighting crews are brave, hardy, bold, and sometimes with a subtle shift of wind, there's concern for the fighters and they pick up their tools and head for shelter. Which can be a dang sparse accommodation a way out where desert wildfires are doing their worst. So there's wildfire to the north of us and wildfire to the east of us and wildfire to the southwest of us and thanks California it isn't like we needed any more smoke to slice into nifty little cake size slices that breath ever so ... NOT. If you happen to live in a somewhere that is wildfire free at present ... count your lucky stars and hold on to your butts. Wildfire WILL be coming to the drought stricken part of America near you that once upon a time, had waves of amber grain and quite possibly right where you've pitched your tent to homestead. America is in one damnable ugly drought and prolonged drought is fuel for budding wildfires and those drought induced wildfires spread lightning quick. It does pay to keep a bug out pack ready and at hand. You just might need to grab and go. Urban wildfire is a relative new wildfire phenomenon and dang if'n that don't just suck. Now for Monday machine art.

martha -

four -

love -

kronos -

wooden -

verdant -

jesling -

deceive -

my wife and I live under the flight path of a small yet really busy airport that at present is playing host to a number of small wildfire drop planes. these planes drop water and flame retardant on rapidly growing wildfires. the small drop planes are knows as SEAT planes and I'll skip the acronym for now. The flyers have been at work from dawn until dusk and they're in then out in no time at all. the SEAT planes are converted crop dusting aircraft. the planes are engine tight and if you've never seen one in action ... you're missing one danged unnecessary air show. here's a visual for what, exactly, a SEAT drop plane looks like -