Places — Andy Arthur.org

Farm Life

Andy | August 22, 2026

A few years back on the beach I overheard a conversation between a couple about farming. The wife had a romantic notion of owning a farm, which the husband quickly responded back noting that people who farm for a living their whole life resolves around the farm, making sure animals get fed, crops get maintained and harvested, necessary jobs get done. Farmers even when they do take vacations rarely get far from home often traveling back to take care of their livestock.

On the other hand, farmers own a lot of land and are control and management of their land. Maybe they don’t get to go on vacation or travel as much, but they live a life where escape doesn’t have to be such a big part of their life. They have land they can hunt, they serve as their own boss, they can ride four wheelers, burn trash and have bonfires. They can see the progress they’ve made each day, see directly the impacts of their quality of work. It’s a hard life, but one of such fortune for the two percent.

Wildfire smoke kills tens of thousands of people a year. Here’s how it attacks the body – OPB

Andy | July 28, 2026

Wildfire smoke kills tens of thousands of people a year. Here’s how it attacks the body – OPB

Smoke causes inflammation by triggering the body’s immune system to go into overtime to fight the irritant. Scientists have found it can harm the brain, the skin and men’s sperm, with almost no system of the body spared, Johnson said. People over 60 become more prone to stroke in wildfire smoke, she said.

“Wildfire smoke is the toxic product of combustion of whatever burned,” which could include houses and cars, said Dr. Courtney Howard, an emergency room physician, chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association.

“So really it’s a big giant toxic soup of particles and gases.”

Scientists have counted at least 1,000 toxins in wildfire smoke, according to Colorado State University environmental toxicologist Luke Montrose.

“If I gave you a list, you would recognize some of these as being very bad, oftentimes associated with the burning of diesel fuel or cigarette smoke, things like formaldehyde or volatile organic compounds,” Montrose said. “So just the smoke itself can be bad.”