A Hazing from Canada

 Dateline: Cattaraugus County, western New York State

...and apologies for the long absence, necessitated by the arduous business of packing, travelling and unpacking to come back up north, plus family visits.  We left hot and sunny Florida (small digression - here's the first turtle nest identified on Golden Beach....

 ....., not that you can see anything.) And now we're in foggy western New York. Herewith the view from the Baptist Church car park at the bottom of our lane:

  We were wondering over the last couple of days what was causing the haze and then suddenly last night the news media caught up with the story. It's all being caused by smoke from forest fires in Canada blowing southwards. Today you can certainly smell the smoke. In New York City, apparently, they are digging out their masks again and everyone is being urged to stay indoors. I certainly haven't seen anything like it in all the time I've been here. Plus it's made everything chilly and the temperatures are going down to the 30sF tonight, playing havoc with my gardening plans in the Jungle. We hope for some rain in the next couple of days.

  Strange that the Canadians export their Canadair firefighting planes all over the world but seem powerless to help themselves.

 I have nothing against Canadians but they do cause us a lot of trouble - the lake effect snow in winter being a prime example. Cold Canadian air travelling over the warm waters of Lake Erie causes huge dumps of snow. Thankfully we're not here to see it any more. And now they're hazing us!