As if the cheatgrass, tumbleweeds and tamarisk weren’t sufficient annoyances from the steppes we now have smoke from Siberian wildfires fires causing mysterious headaches and diminishing our viewshed…or did, from the 18th and onwards;

Friday started out perfectly clear, pretty much, but evidence began creeping in by the weekend during days spent painting interior walls…

Cinnamon teal visited only once but clarity returned the first couple of afternoons…

…not so the mornings, however;

Despite the headaches the painting and other projects, including marking the gate, which had been virtually invisible at night, went well…

Siberia continued to burn, flattening the light unflatteringly all around the sculpture park…

Tuesday brought the end of the painting project, dust and big winds, but the bad air returned until storms moved through Wednesday evening, bringing relief and a colorful sunset;

Admittedly complaints about relative air quality are pretty much a first-world problem compared to what the Siberian peasantry must be going through, all the more mysterious given the dearth of actual news [beyond “red sunsets over the Pacific”, “haze in Reno” etc.] about the situation itself, though Mr. Putin’s minions are blaming terrorist separatists and vowing to scapegoat, well, somebody for an ecological disaster of enormous proportions.  But not Lefty…

With the smokes mostly gone an unexpectedly eventful Thursday ensued, with lots of action on  road and in sky even before breakfast…

Around noon Michael Revak showed up to clear out the last of his stuff, bringing to a close a most successful and pleasant [unusual, I’m told, but having only done my own up to this point and endured the various frustrations THAT way, I can’t judge] building project with as far as can be discerned everybody happy so, hey, kudos to KASM C.C. of Fernley, NV., and thanks…we got a great building, retail admittedly [but reasonable retail, and worth it], and are ready for the next daunting phase…moving work, inventory, etc.  Arg.

After Breakfast I’d gone down by the burnpile to collect bricks of willowroot for another little dam on the south ditch [not shown];

Then the day got away in picking up, packing up, the usual watercolorations, sewing, ‘gardening’, last lookings, closing, ending on the porch awaiting meat from the barby with the view returned to drought-time normalcy.

The night brought rain, making for mud…and, down the desert, rain again crossing the railroad past Sand Pass;

No one around, not even sheep, until Doyle; then Hallelujah Junction and over the hill [with a slight pause for the speedtrap near Baxter] by lunch…

Later, a celebration as Linda’s year-long exploration of the Granites in graphite has finally reached fruition…

M