Hoooooly smokes (east coast fires)

[underpants]

So we made a 564 mile drive on Wednesday for Thanksgiving in Northwest Georgia.
I-81 40 & 75 through the mountains of Virginia Tennessee and into Georgia.

Fires everywhere. Smoke from Blacksburg (Va Tech) to Chattanooga. So much so that it affected visibility and the electronic signs advised to shorten outside activity.

Three separate fires. One due west of Richmond in Amherst county which basically filled the Shenandoah Valley with smoke. One near Bristol VA/TN - it looked and smelled like we were sitting at a campfire. One in North Georgia that covered where we were in Calhoun to Chattanooga.

I don't think we saw any green grass and it was ridiculously dry. I took a bottle of water with me when I went outside to smoke and while my brother in law bushhogged part of his property my father in law had to stand watch with water in case there was a spark.

[suffragette]

1. Yikes! Be safe.

What is "bushhogged"?

[underpants]

3. It's like a big lawn mower attached to a tractor to cut down high grass

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/files/new-holland-owning-operating/264489d1336581973-2030-bush-hog-sq160-dscn1865-jpg

He actually did it because someone was hunting near his property and he wanted to screw up the guy's hunt (noise) plus it needed to be done.

My brother-in-law is a remarkable hunter himself. His trophy room (large deer) looks like a still life petting zoo.

[suffragette]

6. Thanks for the explanation. My brothers used to hunt and I remember the trips to

the mountains and the venison dinners when they got deer or elk. And the jerky and the bone buttons my oldest brother had made - nothing went to waste.

[Solly Mack]

4. The machinery in the back is a brush hog

and people also call it a bush-hog. (hence, bush-hogging)

It's a rotary blade you attach to tractors to mow down thick brush, and heavy scrub and vegetation.

[suffragette]

7. Thanks Solly. Pictures are always helpful.

[greymattermom]

2. In Atlanta we've been having

smoke alerts in our weather reports for weeks now.

[underpants]

5. Yep dark red drought maps

They get the Atlanta stations and the weather reports continually featured the drought maps and warnings about burning ANYTHING. We were deep in the woods and we regularly went outside to check for signs of fire.