Something in the air

This morning I noticed that some of the azalea bushes in my back yard are staring to wilt. During the month of April, rain hit the ground only twice in Downtown Savannah. The combined total for both instances was 0.43 inches. The Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has mandated an outdoor watering ban that restricts residents from watering their lawns and gardens to certain days a week, and then only between the hours of midnight and 10 a.m. The ban is widely ignored.

By mid morning today, the skies were visibly clouded with smoke from wildfires (click on the Georgia Forestry Commission map above to see which parts of the state were on fire today) . This evening I pedaled to Jones Red and White to pick up some groceries. The setting sun filtering through the smoke cast an odd light on everything. It made the distressed vegetation look even more distressed. We could really use some rain.

It's hard to see many positive angles in current climate around here. Still, the dry weather has coaxed people onto their bikes. I suspect the number of bicycle commuters in my building could climb to 10 by the end of the week. On the way to the store and back I shared the streets with more cyclists than I can remember seeing in quite awhile.