Okay, enough already!

Oh my goodness, we have had how many weeks of nearly solid sun? Two and a half? Three?

Temperatures have been into the very high 70s to as much as high 80s at my place the entire time. Some mornings, I didn't even have any dew either. As I mentioned before, this has meant nearly nonstop effort to keep everything watered at home-lawn (tractor sprinkler and lots of hoses), baskets and bowls at the house (20 minutes morning and night), vegetable garden (oscillating sprinkler for a good hour, at least every day or every other day), greenhouse (keeping water barrels filled, using watering can-2 gallon size, at least 20 a day of those) and of course there are the stock tanks which need attention about every three days or so.

On top of that, we have over 70 wildfires going right now.....which means we also have smoke and haze from up north around Nenana-or drifting up from the Kenai Peninsula if the winds are right. Some days it has been so thick I have not been able to even make out Pioneer Peak from my office, and others there has been the acrid taste of wildfire on the tongue, bitter and nasty.

So this morning when it looked just plain hazy out, with skies a flat grey, I didn't think much of it-more smoke I thought. But nope, along about 6:15 when I was laying out the hoses for the tractor sprinkler, I saw what could only have been fog drifting through the trees. Sure enough, it was lifting up and down, wafting around and I thought:

Hooray! Its cloudy! We might get some rain!

Not. Not a sign of anything on radar at all, zero, zip, nada, nothing. It was nothing more than saturated air, which has now lifted to a low lying scud layer. It may burn off this afternoon, but likely not as it is still very humid.

I can't believe I was excited about the prospect of rain........but I was. A good soaking would lessen fire danger danger all over the state, help firefighters get a handle on the bigger ones, and wash the particulates suspended (prompting air quality alerts of course) out as well. And give me a break in the perpetual watering rounds I have been on for several weeks too.