SMOKING HOT SUMMER

​(No snow on even the highest mountains, which usually have snow all year around.)

Last week it sprinkled lightly for two days and I got such a rush! I felt energized for the first time this summer and ready to take on the world, blog it up like mad, write entire chapters in my book, put new logs in my float, re-build the dam....

(Katya dozing in the shade earlier this summer before the sun wore out its welcome)

​And then, just like in that horrible Terminator-type song "Here Comes the Sun" it all went south again.  

Yep. More sun. Non-stop sun. Sun even where the sun doesn't shine sun. It's been everywhere this summer, and it refuses to go away for more than a few moments at a time--and only then with a Teutonic, threatening "I'll be back" promise--and the oppression is wearing me down.

This is a rainforest! Or it's supposed to be. I grew up loving the sound of rain drumming on the roof, of roaming the beaches on a windy, rainy day. I have always loved the rain. And now that I can't drink the water in our dam, I'm reliant on rainwater for my very life. 

("Here comes the sun!" Even the wildflowers have given up smiling about it.)

Yesterday when we crossed the strait to do a grocery, fuel, and bottled water run there were only the barest hints of snow on even the tallest mountains. In the store, one of the employees told me, as he brought out cases of water to put on a barren shelf, that he can't keep the water stocked. My dad was told by a local that they're rationing showers.

In one of the last great rainforests on earth!
​

(Sun setting--in wildfire smoke--off a headland of Prince of Wales Island)

​At least we're not dealing with the fires that some of my friends in California are coping with. One friend, who lives in northern California, has been facing possible evacuation, and so has her sister. Alaskan firefighters have been flown down to help with the blazes.

Meanwhile, back in the "rainforest," in addition to unheard of temperatures every day in the Eighties (F) and higher, we had smoke from fires in British Columbia being funneled down the Inside Passage causing respiratory problems. One evening my dad came home and saw a spectacular sunset due to the smoke. He came and got me to take pictures of the enormous, cherry red sun just hanging there off one of Prince of Wales Island's headlands.

(Photo my dad took as he was coming home on a smoky evening)

​Unfortunately the tablet wasn't able to capture the scene the way the human eye experienced it, as you can see. In person, the sun looked as big as Jupiter hanging above the strait and made me feel like I'd transported onto another planet.

So, yes, the sun is being like the worst guest possible, paying no attention to that scripture that says "Make your foot rare at the home of your friend" and instead is waaaay outstaying its welcome in the rainforest. But at least the sunsets are glorious.

Dedicated to my friends in northern California. Hold fast and be safe.

​​CORRECTION:

While there are a lot of wildfires burning in British Columbia to the east and south of our position, we were puzzled by the fact that the smoke seemed to be coming from the northwest and we've had weeks of northerlies blowing. My brother Robin just shared that the smoke haze we're seeing is actually coming from Siberia, Russia, where vast fires there are creating massive plumes of smoke that have crossed the Pacific to inundate Alaska, Canada, and states in the northwestern U.S.

(Photo: NOAA/NASA Goddard; #GOESEast, July 9-10 2018)