The Grayest Skies You've Ever Seen

I was going to snap a photo of the hazy sunrise this morning, but I couldn't find it.  We are having the worst wildfire season ever in the Pacific Northwest, and experts claim this could be "the new normal".  So instead of the gray skies in Winter and Spring (and many other times of the year) from the overcast and/or rain, we'll have gray skies from smoke.  Joy.

There were air-quality warnings most of last week, but after two days of sitting inside, I got stir-crazy and took the Hounds to the Montlake Fill.

On clear days you can see a bridge in the background and buildings and somewhere out there is Mt. Rainier.

Even the birds, such as this Northern Flicker, looked washed-out.

Whenever the winds arrived from off shore to drive the smoke away, I dashed out to do some sketching.  These are from the Edmonds Marsh a short ways north (the sky was blue!):

And this is from Shoreview Park:

On Saturday morning I got down to the Fill again for the weekly shorebird count.  There were no shorebirds.  However, a Green Heron posed ever so nicely for me:

On Saturday, Nicole and Tina and I visited the Shoreline Community College campus, where we found a small pond by the biology building, and other fun things to sketch:

There were a lot of sunflowers at this spot:

And even some sun that wasn't diffused by smoke.

However, on Sunday the smoke returned, and is predicted to stick around through Wednesday.  It feels unhealthy even from indoors, so my activities will be limited this week.  Yesterday I stocked up on chew toys to keep the Hounds entertained.  Apparently they don't make chew toys for humans, though, so I shall need to get creative about entertaining myself!