!Emergency Smokey Weather Warning! - A warning about the smoke rolling in, and what we can do to keep our birds and us safe!

Sorry, no birdy pictures on this computer, so put up one of a wooden model ship I built some time ago. Depending on where you live, you might be having trouble with the smokey air that has been rolling in. Out here in Abbotsford it us undeniably bad today, a thick choking pall that is billowing in across the fields. Open a window or door here and you can actually see it flow in. Obviously this is not good for us or our birdie friends, and I fear that this could be another die-off event in some areas.

There are things you can do to minimize the smoke in your house and keep everyone healthy, this is what I have been doing.....

1. Close and windows and doors! This can be hard to do for those with no A/C, and a balance of risk and comfort must be determined. As long as indoor temps do not go over 36C the birdies will be fine, and having them in a sealed room will be safer. Make sure to tape over any cracks in A/C window mounts or panels, and you can put wet towels down to seal off door gaps. Go around the room, looking for and sealing off anywhere that air from outside can come in.

2. Air Filtration! The bigger the better here, might be hard to find units in the stores but plenty are online. Make sure to turn them on before you need them, and have them running all the time while the smoke is present. I picked up several in-line air filters, the type used in industrial cannabis growing facilities, and they work great. They are big, noisy, but inexpensive and very very effective. You can go onto amazon and just do a search for "in-line air filter kit". The 6 and 8 inch models will be enough for a small to medium sized room. I also did a post on them some months ago.

3. Mask up! Face masks will help us a great deal, especially those with filters in them! I have been wearing one all day for a while now, and really notice the difference when I take it off for a bit.

4. Have a safe room. It is a good idea to have one room in the house that is a safe room. Here it is the nursery with all the baby birds, and has the best of everything with backups. A small 15 by 15ft room, with an A/C unit, a big air filtration unit, big exhaust fan in the window all sealed in and a generator outside ready to go just in case. Everything is always set up, just waiting to be turned on. A good safe room should always be ready to go, for hot or cold or smoke or anything else, and be big enough for all family members, human and animal.

Hope this helps, and hope everything turns out well and we get some relief from all the weather events going on this summer, here and everywhere else.