Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don’t seem the
same
Actin’ funny, but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky
but the song he entitled Purple Haze became the soundtrack inspiration I needed to complete a recent fruit canning project that I decided to also call – Purple Haze.
The project
was initiated when I removed from my basement fossil fuel fired, electrically
powered, chest freezer – a couple gallons of raspberries (with a few assorted
strawberries mixed in), a gallon of elderberries, and a half gallon of rhubarb
and placed the fruit-filled plastic bags in large bowls to unthaw
overnight. I had collected and froze the
homegrown fruit from this summer’s harvests until I gathered enough to further process
and ultimately can, so I could easily eat them during the upcoming winter
months. After combining the semi-thawed
multi-colored purple and red fruits in my mother’s old hand-me-down heavy duty
aluminum cook pot, I added some maple syrup to the mix to sweeten the pot. The contents were then stirred, and placed to
boil on the blue flamed natural gas burner of my stove. Then I went outside to check to see if there
were anymore ripe elderberries on my backyard shrubs that I could add to the foam-covered
purple concoction.
Besides the additional quart or so of freshly ripened elderberries
dangling from the tops of my elderberry bushes, I was also greeted by the smell
of wildfire smoke and its visual component, the particle containing haze that
turned the distant evergreen trees a softer – whiter shade of blurred gray. Smoke from the pristine Minnesota Boundary
Waters wildfires had made its way to my northwestern Wisconsin town, past my
olfactory cells, and into my lungs as well as eyes. Once again, wildfire smoke was becoming a
more common part of my life on planet earth, and I am convinced (despite what I
have been told) that my way of life is indeed linked back to the flames
producing the smokey haze that seems to fill my days, and sometimes nights. My way of life is defined by my dependence on
the use of fossil fuels to stay alive. This is not to say that wild fires have not
always been a part of this planet, at least as far back as the times when green
algae started pumping the combustion source oxygen into our atmosphere a few
billion years ago or so. However, I do
believe that the rate at which the planet is currently burning is reaching a
peak, at least in it’s recent history, for whatever that belief is worth.
Last year I breathed in, and got a lot of smoke in my eyes,
during visits to Colorado, while record setting wildfires burned up hundreds of
thousands of acres of Colorado. This
year’s Minnesota burns are relatively small in comparison with only tens of
thousands of acres burned so far. We
also got some smoke in the area earlier this summer when wildfires in Canada
filled what is often referred to as the “Indianhead” portion of the state, a reference
to the profile formed by highlighting the outer boundary of the counties that
make up this portion of northwest Wisconsin – at least some name-calling folks saw
a stereotypical Indian face in the outline.
Fortunately, later on
that latest day of smoke, I received a text message on my cellphone from the
National Weather Service with the standard government issued “air quality advisory” warning me to avoid exercising and breathing
the smoke filled air as best I could, especially if I had lung or heart
disease. I also came across a story on Wisconsin Public Radio, that included the suggestion from Karen Eagle, a senior
meteorologist with the National Weather Service – "I know a lot of people
in this area don't have air conditioners, but I highly recommend to keep the
windows shut. That way the air won't be able to circulate from the outside in,
and mask up if they can. I know that sounds kind of weird, but I’m actually
sitting in the office right now with a mask on and it's been helpful."
So returning to the song, reminded me that although Karen’s
suggestion was apparently helpful:
that girl put a spell on me
leaving me to believe that shutting myself off from the
outside world, firing up the air conditioner – if I had one, and masking up would
be the ticket to the solution to my latest smoke-filled woes.
But as her spell wore off, I dove further into the latest
smoking, and came across a new weather term related to these latest burns - pyrocumulusclouds.
Mike Lock, the Fire Behavior Analyst for the Gold Team of
the US Forest Service, shared with viewers of his video update, that the latest
record setting burns where resulting in the creation of these crazy hot
clouds. These lightening filled storm
clouds are created when volcanoes or large wildfires heat up lots of air and
spew lots of particles into the sky.
These flaming events create cloud conditions where Jimi Hendrix should
be advised not to be kissing the sky, unless he masks up with some heavy-duty
asbestos lined mask, in order to avoid serious chapped lips, and possibly even third-degree
lip-burns. And the heat and particle
generating lightening could really fry the brains of anyone who might be
foolish enough to practice sky-kissing when pryocumulus clouds are present. These twisted tales of extreme weather leave
me asking the same thing Jimi asked when he sang:
Purple haze all in my eyes, uhh
Don’t know if its day or night
You got me blowin’, blowin’ my mind
Is it tomorrow, or just the end of
time?
Oh well, assuming that it is not the end times Jimi sang about, at
least during the next fire related air alert warning when I shut myself up in
the house, I will be able to enjoy some sweet purple haze fruit cocktail while
I watch the world burn outside my doors.
And if the electricity still works, perhaps crank out some Jimi Hendrix
tunes to dance to. I have a feeling
though, that Jimi’s concluding lyrics to his version of Purple Haze will likely
be echoing through the halls of my enclosure, whether the power is still on or
not
Purple haze, n-no, nooo
Purple haze, no
its painful, baby
1 comment:
I can hear Hendrix now! Thanks Tom
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