The Great Western Smoke-Out
Sep. 17th, 2020 10:38![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillStill coping with smoke. The full week of rain that was forecast never arrived; heavy dews and a few brief showers have had to suffice. We're apparently better off than Willamina proper, though the smoke seems to be in the habit of descending in the afternoon, and even this morning it stung my nose a little. It could be worse: McMinnville and Beaverton have AQI readings in the mid-200s, and Salem is around 350.
I'm going to do a tactical strike on Salem tomorrow, hitting Trader Joe's and possibly Safeway for food, then getting out; I can put my full respirator filters on, the ones that handle particulates as well as VOCs, and try to stay out of the smoke as much as possible. I'll plan a trip to McMinnville in the next week for Harbor Freight, Lowes, and similar errands, when I hope the air quality will be better.
As Jenny pointed out, even though I'm nearly a week overdue for grocery shopping, I'm not going to starve... but if I want any variety, I really do need to get more supplies. She has the luxury of using the kitchen, back hall, Fa's room, and four freezers for her larder, while I have a half a shelf of one freezer, a dorm fridge, and a half-dozen buckets and bins in the garage... it's understandable that she can easily go for three months, while I need to go shopping every couple of weeks.
Laundry is harder. I'm about to do a handful of things in the kitchen sink, and I'll dry them on the clotheshorse in the living room. I really need to either spend a few hours washing outside (I have sheets to do) or use my uncle's machine -- maybe I can drop my wash there when I come into town, hit the grocery stores, come back to finish the laundry, and head out. Every stop adds to my exposure, though, and I don't know how smokeproof the house is.
All of this is moot if we wake up tomorrow and it starts coming down in buckets. I can hope.
Meanwhile, the bay area is experiencing some of the best air quality of the summer. I would head back down, except I still have some major stuff I have to get done here before the snow flies, and I suspect the reprieve down there is temporary. While the weather has shifted to blow all our smoke to New York and Europe (no, I'm not kidding), the fires are still burning, and the wind will shift again.
Come on, PNW, do what you do best. Give us some rain.
I'm going to do a tactical strike on Salem tomorrow, hitting Trader Joe's and possibly Safeway for food, then getting out; I can put my full respirator filters on, the ones that handle particulates as well as VOCs, and try to stay out of the smoke as much as possible. I'll plan a trip to McMinnville in the next week for Harbor Freight, Lowes, and similar errands, when I hope the air quality will be better.
As Jenny pointed out, even though I'm nearly a week overdue for grocery shopping, I'm not going to starve... but if I want any variety, I really do need to get more supplies. She has the luxury of using the kitchen, back hall, Fa's room, and four freezers for her larder, while I have a half a shelf of one freezer, a dorm fridge, and a half-dozen buckets and bins in the garage... it's understandable that she can easily go for three months, while I need to go shopping every couple of weeks.
Laundry is harder. I'm about to do a handful of things in the kitchen sink, and I'll dry them on the clotheshorse in the living room. I really need to either spend a few hours washing outside (I have sheets to do) or use my uncle's machine -- maybe I can drop my wash there when I come into town, hit the grocery stores, come back to finish the laundry, and head out. Every stop adds to my exposure, though, and I don't know how smokeproof the house is.
All of this is moot if we wake up tomorrow and it starts coming down in buckets. I can hope.
Meanwhile, the bay area is experiencing some of the best air quality of the summer. I would head back down, except I still have some major stuff I have to get done here before the snow flies, and I suspect the reprieve down there is temporary. While the weather has shifted to blow all our smoke to New York and Europe (no, I'm not kidding), the fires are still burning, and the wind will shift again.
Come on, PNW, do what you do best. Give us some rain.