This is Not A Fire

For a couple of days last week, during that time of the government shut-down, I saw plumes of what looked like smoke wafting through the sky from the direction of the cement plant. I took these shots on October 14 around 3:15 p.m.

At first I thought someone was burning brush, but if so it was an odd fire. The white clouds would rise and fall, rise and fall. After my husband and I drove down Catawba Road, we saw that the local industry appeared to be preparing a section of land for blasting. They even had a sign up that said "Caution: Blasting 10-17-2013 1 p.m. - 2 p.m." We thought that was a pretty good indicator of what they might be doing.

My better half surmised that the smoke was actually dust created by machines cutting into rocks. Some kind of rock drilling.

That made sense since the white stuff would magically die away come quitting time. A fire would have smoldered, wouldn't it?

I spent Thursday evening going over my furniture to rid my house of the fine gray film of dust that - along with extra hits on my asthma inhaler - often indicates to me that the local industry has been busy.

It's the reason we run two air purifiers in the house and my light bill is $100 a month higher than it should be.

I waited until Thursday to clean because that was the date on the blasting sign, and I hoped the dust would settle after that.

Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. Who cares what goes on in between, right?