{"id":1401,"date":"2007-05-28T03:52:36","date_gmt":"2007-05-28T07:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/?p=1401"},"modified":"2012-09-28T20:01:29","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T00:01:29","slug":"wow-thats-black-okefenokee-soot-all-over-the-windowsill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/1401\/wow-thats-black-okefenokee-soot-all-over-the-windowsill\/","title":{"rendered":"Wow! That's black Okefenokee soot all over the windowsill!"},"content":{"rendered":"

T Rex at Fire Dog Lake<\/a> describes what it’s been like here in Georgia with these out-of-control wild fires. Incredible that they’re causing problems up here in Atlanta. Playing hell with my allergies, sinuses and lungs all week. Though we’ve no current air alert, I can swear I smell a hint of acrid smoke. Some times it’s just suddenly there. H.o.p. will be doing something and stop, perplexed, and say, “I smell smoke!”<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week it was very bad. So bad that on Tuesday evening there was black soot on the windowsill under the air conditioner.<\/p>\n

Coming inside, I glanced at the windowsill, which I’d just dusted a few days beforehand. There was black?? Indeed, black gritty soot all over it in front of the window unit.<\/p>\n

Wild fires 250 miles away, down in South Georgia, caused by drought, are leaving soot on our windowsills all the way up here.<\/p>\n

No, the black, gritty soot covering the windowsill on Tuesday wasn’t my imagination, nor am I exaggerating. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

By 6 a.m., soot levels in metro Atlanta had set another record, making 2007 a year to remember in the 20-year history of poor air quality. In Henry County, the soot clogged the filter of an air quality monitor after recording off-the-chart levels, shutting it down for four hours. The haze was so thick across much of the region the sky looked like a dark gray, winter day. Occasionally sunlight would streak through like a bullet.<\/p>\n

On an ajc.com blog, KB joked “I might as well have brought a sleeping bag and tent to work, it smells like a campfire in the office in Midtown. I think we may make s’mores in the break room at lunch …”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This apartment isn’t very airtight. We’re talking a real old building with old windows. On Tuesday, though I’d just dusted my Wacom tablet a couple of days before, the bottom of my mouse was suddenly covered with gunk so thick that it stopped working. A byproduct of the smoke?<\/p>\n

There is more soot today on the windowsill, but not as bad as earlier this week. Pockets of soot must collect in here. Dust intensifies. I dusted three times this week (at least) and you couldn’t tell it. I vacuumed several times. Friday evening I shook out a blanket that had been resting in front of the window in the bedroom. Immediately, I started coughing and sneezing, nose running, eyes burning and itchy. At first I couldn’t imagine what had caused the reaction, then realized soot must have settled on the blanket.<\/p>\n

We cleaned the AC filters last week. We should clean them again. Need to clean the air filters as well, just occurred to me.<\/p>\n

I can just imagine what it’s like in South Georgia.<\/p>\n

The weather forecast presently reads, “Partly cloudy with areas of smoke…” Memorial Day will be “Mostly sunny. Haze and areas of smoke.”<\/p>\n

They forecast this could continue all summer, until we get some nice tropical storms.<\/p>\n

For a while the smoke smell went away. Now it’s back. Just a bit of it, and my sinuses slightly burning again. It smells like someone’s having a cook-out, only it’s a heavier, more acrid, almost greasier smell. Marty, asleep, starts coughing. Several seconds later harshness enters my nose and hits the back of my throat, and I start coughing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

T Rex at Fire Dog Lake describes what it’s been like here in Georgia with these out-of-control wild fires. Incredible that they’re causing problems up here in Atlanta. Playing hell with my allergies, sinuses and lungs all week. Though we’ve no current air alert, I can swear I smell a hint of acrid smoke. Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[424,46],"class_list":["post-1401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyday-stories","tag-a","tag-my-browser-window"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}