The nightmare from hell continued well into the morning hours.
12:15 AM: Moderate wood smoke continues. The air is very smoky outside. Our air conditioner will stay on all night. Hey you people at city hall, do you now know why we cannot open our windows at night and must run our air conditioners? Do you think we want to breathe very smoky air in bed?
1:30 AM: Moderate wood smoke continues.
6:15 AM: Very faint smoldering wood smoke remains in the air. Over 13 hours after the wood smoke started yesterday evening wood smoke is still in the air.
Do you want to live in a city like this? Do you want to pay over $2,000 a year in property tax to live under these conditions?
4:10 PM: No smoke. 80 degrees, cloudy.
7:15 PM: No wood smoke yet. I have a feeling the air will be smoky tonight. Our air conditioning is off and our windows are open. The wood burners in this nightmare city could not possibly let us enjoy an evening without smoky air, could they? 80 degrees. The sun came out a couple hours ago. We were supposed to have some rain this evening. But we will not, unfortunately.
8:00 PM: No wood smoke. I sat outside about this time for an hour as the evening air cooled. The air was fresh. There was nothing in it. The only annoyance during this time was the sound of someone in the distance using a table saw or other type of electric saw. It was a beautiful evening, a beautiful evening to be alive. Here in Minnesota, we get only four or five months of fair weather per year. You must enjoy what you can. As I watched the sun fade from the sky, I took several deep breaths of fresh air, savoring every one. The air tends to get smoky at dusk. It could be many hours before I can go outside and take another deep breath of air. You never know in North St. Paul. Wood burners have all the rights. We have none.
9:00 PM: No wood smoke or grass smoke. Fresh air continues! The temperature fell to 73 degrees during this hour. When I was outside, I heard my neighbor's air conditioner running. The air is not humid this evening and is cooling quickly. It seems such a waste to run the air conditioner and bear the expense of the electricity and miss out on the wonderful fresh air. But my neighbor knows all too well how polluted the air is in this city just as we do. You never know when somebody at one of the hundreds of homes around here is going to start burning. All it takes is one smoky bonfire to blanket an entire neighborhood with heavy wood smoke pollution.
10:00 PM: Wonderful fresh air continues.
10:30 PM: Fresh air continues. Off to bed. Close the windows.
I woke up shortly after midnight and the air was still nice and fresh. I did not open the windows. We have experienced late night burning too many times to do that. When your house is flooded with wood smoke in the middle of the night, it is very difficult to sleep. When it gets inside your home, you cannot get rid of it. The air inside is almost as smoky as the air outside. It is misery.
We were very fortunate to enjoy an evening without wood smoke. Especially when last night was smoky as hell.