Smoked Out, Part 2

Photo by Pixabay

Here in the Foothills of the Cascade Mountains, this fall had not been fun. Smoke nearly every day, and dry as a bone. 

Then came a fresh twist: The Smell.

In our neighborhood, a new smell drifted in, one that was actually worse than smoke—if that’s possible.

Rotting manure.

Now I don’t mind the smell of fresh livestock manure. We live in an agricultural county, and driving along the country roads, the smell often tinges the air. It may not smell great, but it means farmers are raising food!

Our neighbor, who has a small herd of cattle, occasionally spreads manure on his pasture just down the hill from us. For John and me, it’s not at all bothersome.

As I understand things, even a large amount of manure, properly managed, i.e., regularly turned and aerated, shouldn’t smell that bad.

But this smell was absolutely foul. As if a ginormous amount of animal waste had been stored in a covered pile, with no way to properly decompose, then suddenly bulldozed into the open air.

Since we’d never, ever smelled this before, I had to wonder: where in the heck was this stench coming from? The wind was from the east-northeast, so the source had to be located in the same direction.

Then it came to me. There’s a chicken operation about ¾ of a mile from our house as the crow flies, located to our northeast: a long, low, windowless animal enclosure. On my daily bikerides, the building is only a couple hundred yards from the road.

I’d never caught any unpleasant odors from the place before.

Yet, now, it made sense that this operation was the culprit. I’m guessing the chicken farmer finally shifted months of stored chicken manure out of the shed and piled it outside. Now it wasn’t the smoke that had me keeping the windows closed—it was that horrible smell.

As October wore on, John and I would search the skies for anything resembling a raincloud. Even a little shower would help: moisture that would rinse some of the smoke or stench from the air. We’d get a few clouds here or there, but nature remained stubborn.

With our area’s unusual heat, and not even a drop of rain, the wildfires a hundred miles away were still going strong.

October 15 dawned. The smell of smoke was more pervasive. You could feel the bite of it in your nose, a slight rawness in your throat. The manure smell was stronger than ever, so we knew the dreaded east wind had arrived.

The next morning, thick, gray smoke hung in the air.

John and I checked the forecast, and there was the ominous link in red: Hazardous Weather Conditions.

It wasn’t just in our county. It was up and down the entire western side of the state. Everyone, not just children or elderly, or those with respiratory conditions, but all residents, were advised to stay indoors. An keep windows and doors tightly shut.

Well, I didn’t. We’d been busy with family for a number of days, so with my usual “no guts no glory” attitude, I tended to our hen, then went out on my bike.

The mature woods on both sides of the road looked just like in the photo above: the light shone through the trees in “Buddha rays,” but instead the lovely effect created by sunshine, it was smoke.

As soon as I returned, since I’d been away from my watering routine, my baby strawberries and spinach needed a good drink.

So out I went. Thinking I was being smart, I wore an N-95 mask, and figured all would be well.

It wasn’t.

I started feeling ill. Queasy. And my chest hurt.

I’d really pushed my luck. I went inside and drank lots of water. The queasiness began to ease. But I still had an ache in my chest.

I Googled my symptoms… and it looked like I had mild carbon monoxide poisoning. I realized how stupid I’d been. I’m no spring chicken, and going out in smoke like this, I’d put my health at risk.

The next day the smoke was worse. The foothills surrounding our place had disappeared; visibility was minimal, maybe a few hundred feet at most.

And my chest still ached. So you can believe my windows were shut tighter than a high-security prison.

All the same, I feel I shouldn’t complain, or make a big deal out of it. I truly cannot imagine how bad the smoke must be to the locals who experience wildfires practically in their backyards. Or people in other states, who live in wildfire-prone areas and live in constant fear of fire.

Or worst of all, folks who have lost their loved ones and homes, their pets or livestock to wildfire.

But I was starting to get an inkling. And with this lengthy drought, and the vast amount of growth that creates fire fuel, I knew that wildfires, very rare for our side of the state, could come far closer than they ever had before.

After two days, the ache in my chest eased. The smoky days were still unseasonably warm, but nights were chilly now. The clouds of smoke obscuring the sun meant there was sunshine to warm the house.

John and I couldn’t run the heat—to operate, our heat pump system pulls in outdoor air, and we couldn’t risk bringing more smoke inside. As for running the woodstove, there was not only an outdoor burn ban on, but an indoor one.

Not that John and I wanted to fire up the stove—the last thing we wanted was to allow one more molecule of smoke into the atmosphere. So our place was freezing.

The water heater, with the same general kind of system, was already bringing traces of smoke inside the house. I couldn’t do the laundry either—the dryer vent would expose any items inside the dryer to smoke.

Days passed, and this outdoor/nature girl was feeling like a prisoner inside my own house. Hoping for a breakthrough, I would read the smoke reports online. I discovered our state’s Air Quality Index (AQI), which has a scale from 0-400, generally sits between 0-50.

This week, in our area, the AQI was over 300. Even with all the summertime smoky episodes John and I had seen since 2017, I’d never experienced smoke like this. Or had been shut up indoors this long.

I certainly couldn’t water the garden. I’d learned my lesson; not even my precious strawberry crowns were worth lung damage.

And the smoke just sat there: the air was perfectly still. No trace of life outside; the birds and bees had gone into hiding. No sign of a rabbit or chipmunk, not even the sound of a barking dog. I felt caught in a bad, post-apocalyptic dream.

Would this horrible smoke and stillness never ease?

The fifth day of extreme smoke, three weeks into October, rain was forecast. It was cloudy, but the clouds actually resembled real ones. First a little shower arrived. Slowly, the landscape began to emerge from the pall of smoke. You could start making out the outline of the foothills, then real trees.

We’d gone 11 weeks and two days without any real rain. The forecast for that day had been spot on—the long overdue fall rains had finally arrived.

The blessed rain, washing the smoke away.

Since the rain returned, we’ve had cold days with several inches of precipitation. When the rain clouds dispersed, nighttime temperatures dipped into the 20s.

It’s like we went from summer straight to winter. From wearing shorts to long johns.

As I write this, it’s pouring rain, but I’m loving it. John’s building a fire in the stove. In a few minutes, I'm going to bundle up, get the umbrella, and go for a bracing walk. And just like I do every time I go outside now, I’ll take deep lungfuls of the clean, moist air.

I’ll never again take it for granted.