Birthday Month

No not mine.  That was last month.  June has always been the birthday month in my family.  My two younger siblings are 3 days apart on the calendar plus a year.  Then I have a good 5 or 6 cousins all born in June and four of my friends.  Add in Father's Day and Hallmark makes a bundle off me in June.  Or at least they used to.  Until I began making my own cards with pictures I take. 

Smoke is in the air again with the fire they never got control on from earlier this week.  It's weird here because the only 'mountain' is the garbage dump anything can and does take to the wind on any given day.  Currently it's the smoke and ash.  Usually it's the pollens and allergens.  And every now and then the dust from Africa blows across the Atlantic and there is an ocher shade to the air.  Without mountains and valleys to trap the stuff it just blows back and forth across the state. 

My mind being as convoluted as it is then thinks of the Great Depression and how the lack of rain coupled with horrific winds blew dust and dirt across states destroying the bread basket of America in less than two years.  The pictures I've seen are stunning in their starkness and desolate conditions.  I ache seeing what happened.  Then I think of today and how the economy is in the toilet with weather conditions damaging entire towns and cities and wonder how far have we really come?

from Library of Congress