A great deal of North America and the world at large has been on fire this summer. Many areas have suffered terrible air quality as a result. Sheltered as we are by land and sea, we have had pretty good conditions – until this week. The smokey smog has finally found us. And my lungs don’t like it at all.

I have spent the last two nights sleeping sitting up so I could breathe. Not my favourite. A friend with a 5 month old baby saw him break out in a full-body rash.

It’s also been foggy at night and in the mornings. Fog this time of year isn’t uncommon, but I wonder if it has been thickened by the smog. Husband drove right past his workplace this morning without seeing it. It’s pretty thick. Usually takes until 10 or so to burn off.

Today, it is also smokey IN the house. Being as thr morning was super cold, I lit the fire. But it was sluggish and smouldery and took a good hour to actually burn well. So we smell like a campfire this morning. I don’t mind. I find that smell homey and comforting.

This year’s wood is to be delivered today. It was supposed to be yesterday, but something came up and they had to postpone. It’s fine. Either way, the wood will be here. We’ll be that much closer to ready for the winter.

We’ve had a few frosts, so I harvested out most of the garden yesterday. The tomatoes are still out there. I’m hoping they ripen before it frosts too hard for me to save them. The corn, unfortunately, all molded on the cob because of the humidity we’ve had. I MIGHT have one cob that I can source seed from. The sunflowers have done relatively well. There is one good-sized head that has matured. Certainly enough to harvest fresh seed.

I harvested out the carrots – all but for a few of each colour I left to go to seed next year. I dont often have success with carrots, so I am quite pleased. The red and yellow did considerably better than the black

I’ll get those canned up this weekend, if I can. It’ll only be a couple jars, but it’s something more than I have now. I also have about 8 smallish parsnips to do up. We ate the salsify yesterday. It was an experiment. I only planted a few, to try them.

I finally got the Pawpaws and the last of the honeylocust trees in the ground yesterday, too. That’s the last of my trees. The milkweed went in, too, in the bog. I still have two kiwis, the Japanese quince, the heather, and quite a few herbs and perennial flowers to put in the ground yet. There are also mom’s plants – the hawthornes, the grapevines, the gooseberry. Many holes to dig yet.