It is a beautiful early fall day. As is typical in this city, there is some burning of yard waste. It was one hell of a smoky night. If you don't love wood smoke so heavy it makes you sick, you will not like living in North St. Paul.
3:23 PM: Faint to light grass smoke coming in the windows. Somebody is burning grass clippings. Why not? People burn so much wood in this nightmare city, you might as well burn whatever you can get your hands on. Burning encourages more burning. One person has a smoky bonfire, the next day a neighbor burns yard waste. The next evening someone else burns wood. That's why this city is as polluted as it is. The grass smoke did not last more than a few minutes, thankfully. It is windy at this time.
4:55 PM: Very faint grass and wood smoke coming in the windows. Breezy at this time. The burner is not near us.
5:15 PM: Very faint to faint wood smoke in the air. I wonder if someone may be grilling with wood. There is no cooking odor in the smoke. Someone could be burning tree branches. There is a lot of that in this city, too. 71 degrees, breezy, and beautiful except for the wood smoke in the air.
I expect this evening to be an incredibly smoky hell. In other words, it will be a normal evening in North St. Paul. Do you want to live in a city like this?
5:30 PM: Faint to light wood smoke. It smells like wood smoke in the house now like it would if somebody smoked a cigarette inside. Time to close up the windows for the night and hope the air is clear by morning. North St. Paul sucks! If we wanted smoky air inside the house we would buy some cigarettes and smoke them inside!
6:00 PM: Faint to light wood smoke continues in this horrible city. The air stinks. What a nightmare. The smoke is not from the grilling of food. Somebody in the distance is burning wood and letting it smolder. We encountered an area of wood smoke earlier when we were out shopping. I do not think that the smoke is from the same source. It isn't just our area that is smoky. It is smoky in many spots of the city regularly.
7:00 PM: Faint to light wood smoke continues. Two hours of smoky air already and we haven't even reached nightfall. It is going to be a long smoky hell of a night. No bonfires on Friday means there will be a lot of pent up pyromania tonight. The weather is beautiful. It would be a nice evening to sit outside if the air wasn't smoky! 70 degrees and sunny at this time.
7:15 PM: Light wood smoke at this time. It's getting smokier! Thanks a lot, city council. I first complained about the wood smoke TWO AND A HALF F****** YEARS AGO AND NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE ABOUT IT!
7:50 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke. It's getting smokier outside.
8:45 PM: Moderately strong wood smoke. It is very smoky outside. You cannot smell anything other than wood smoke. You do not want to be outside in air this smoky. Breathing the air is uncomfortable and your clothes will reek of smoke.
9:40 PM: Moderate wood smoke continues. The air continues to be very smoky.
10:30 PM: Moderate to strong wood smoke. It is extremely smoky outside! To give you an idea of how heavy the wood smoke is, we can smell wood smoke coming in around the windows. Even with all the windows closed up tight, air smoke infiltration is occurring. You cannot stop the air pollution from entering your home.
11:00 PM: Moderate to strong wood smoke continues. We are going to bed and dream of a city that is not controlled by idiots who make people breathe heavy air pollution!
Heavy wood smoke continued well after midnight.
North St. Paul, MN, is the shittiest, worst place to live in the world! Never in my life would I have imagined air pollution so heavy as it is in this town. I look forward to winter when there is less wood smoke in the air! Spring, summer, and fall are much smokier than winter in this city. You would think winter would be the smokiest. But it is the least smoky season around here. And the colder it gets, the less wood smoke there is in the air. That's how screwed up this city is.