I bet you thought I was going to title this one "Smoke!" or "I survived the great smoke-out of '26!"
Nope, I thought I'd try to be a bit unpredictable and *not* talk about the wildfires right away in this post.
*ahem*
It was another one of those weeks which flew by, and I was left a bit perplexed by this when Friday evening rolled around. How? The week was fairly quiet, thanks to it being an off week at work, and staying in the house, mostly, to avoid the smoke from the wild fires that are burning up by the border.
Monday was publishing day, which went smashingly well. Tuesday through Thursday went by in a blink. I did a lot of spinning for Tour de Fleece, and touched my crochet projects a bit. I even recorded a garden journal video ... Wednesday morning, I believe it was.
Can I just say that when I realized Wednesday was the 15th I was shocked. SHOCKED that the month was officially half over.
This summer is speeding by and it's certainly not going the way I thought it would. Nothing bad, I should clarify. It's just that I thought I'd have more time to do things, read books, watch interesting movies ... And here the summer is practically over.
"No it's not," you might be saying. I always feel like summer is on the downslope once Independence Day rolls around. Usually my focus is on the garden and enjoying the fruits of my labors, and think how there is not enough time to do all the things because the garden is producing so much.
I've been a bit brooding about this. If I'm using the word correctly. So I decided to take a break from some things this weekend. Mainly crafting and I cut back on the interwebs.
I tried a new television program, and I read a book.
The television show was Ride or Die, on Amazon. I like it well enough, I suppose. It's one of those programs where I don't know how they could do a second season if they manage to wrap all things up by the end of the first season.
The book I read was "The Wedding People". I enjoyed it. I started it on Saturday and finished it Sunday evening.
On Friday I decided to try and find a map showing the path the smoke was going. A few friends who live in Virginia posted on social media that the smoke had reached their state. I was surprised to read this.
It took me a bit of doing to find a map that showed a broader picture of the country affected.
That same day I pulled up Watch Duty, to see all the current wild fires in the country.
So depressing to see how many wildfires were marked on the map.
And then to see how close the border wildfires are to my area.
Friday evening a storm rolled through and helped with the smoke.
Saturday we made the trek to town, for shopping and I got to see what things look like since the smoke hit the area.
For the most part, the smoke is gone. Thankfully. There's still a bit of something, and you can definitely see it on Saturday when you were headed towards Duluth.
Smoke off in the distance.
On the High Bridge
Overlooking Lake Superior.
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Around midday we went for a bike ride to one of our usual spots. No issues with biking.
There was maybe one boat out on the water.
I picked my first official harvest of raspberries.
Oh, now that I think about it, I should start freezing the berries as they ripen (as long as the birds don't get them first) and when I have enough, make a small batch of raspberry jam. Oh, yum!
I couldn't break away from the crafting totally. I did knit a few rounds on my vanilla sock.
So that was this past week, in a nutshell.
