Mild Smoke
The birds are still flitting from bush to bush, tree to tree. They land, and go "Tweet! Tweet!
" You take your dog for a walk and when you get back you BOTH have to blow your noses.
The sun is slightly obscured and shows a blurry outline, kind of like a lemon pudding.
Objects, trees and landmarks in the distance have artistic "fog" or "steam" around them, like graveyards in horror movies. The whole landscape is softer looking.
Every once in a while you get a whiff of burning wood.
Your truck window is a little dirtier than usual.
Thicker Smoke
The birds don't flit, and don't sing. In fact, you wonder where they all went. You can't see any and it's ominously quiet outside.
You and your dog start to go for a walk, and you both have streaming eyes that feel like they've been sandpapered before you go fifty feet. As you head back to the cabin, you both have a coughing fit.
The sun is a flat, orange disk. You can look straight at it. When you see it through the upper blue part of your windshield, it looks purple!
Large objects in the distance are a lot closer, because the farthest away objects are invisible behind a curtain of smoke. Moose are hanging around clearings and roadsides, looking for a breath of air.
Every time you open your cabin door, the smell of burning trees is intense. Everything you wear outside starts to smell like smoke.
There's a definite layer of ashes on your windshield every morning. Never mind the coughing dog, now your truck is coughing.
Extreme Smoke
The birds are in little piles, motionless around the bottoms of the tree trunks. The squirrels are running around wearing little gas masks.
You don't go for a walk because you open the door and the dog refuses to go outside. Your dog starts to use the toilet.
What sun?
Your world is restricted to the ten feet in front of you. Wait, where are your feet?
The whole world stinks. You are so used to it that when you go into an air conditioned building it smells weird.
It's snowing ashes and burned leaves. Somehow you find your truck and dig it out. Driving down the road you see moose hitchhiking south. When you get to town you can't see the stoplights, but the ravens are directing traffic.
