The only movement outside my window this morning is a fat, furry squirrel in the crepe myrtle bush. He jumps from limb to limb, stops and eats something, then hurries away. Something on that bush is tasty to the squirrel.
This is the kind of still, cold morning when smoke from the chimney rises straight up. 
It would, if I had a wood fire going in the fireplace. One of the best weather indicators is a fireplace. When fair weather is in the forecast, the smoke rises like a hymn to the heavens. If a front is moving in, the smoke heads for the ground. Sometimes, if the wind is just right, the smoke decides it would rather inhabit the living room than the great out-of-doors. And, if the weather appears to be fine but an odor of wet ashes and yesterday’s fire emanates from a cold fire box, that is a good sign that rain is approaching!
I didn’t read that weather lore anywhere but these are things I’ve observed through lo! these many years. And, it probably isn’t important to anybody but to me, it’s interesting. These memories from the past came about because the morning promises a sunny, brisk day, and if I had a fire going, I’m pretty sure the smoke, like my outlook on life, would be rising into a promising day.
You brought back memories of the little English village where I lived. I loved to work in the garden early in the morning with Dad, so many ‘earthy’ odors to make a nose twitch. Before we set to work Dad would always stand and look around at the village chimneys. “Hmm,” he would say, “cousin Beryl must be having a lie in this morning. “Your Aunt Lizzie is up early, must be catching the bus into town. “Tom’s started his fire with paraffin again, all that smoke and soot puffing out of his chimney, he’s going to burn his house to the ground one of these days.”
Chimneys and smoke analyzed, we would set to work, planting, weeding and sowing, with an expectation of sitting on the garden seat with a cup of tea admiring the fruits of our labor, an abundance of summer flowers.
A beautiful comment, Josephine. Thank you. You paint word pictures so clearly. Yes, we can deduce some pretty wonderful things by just using our eyes and nose. This is a cherished memory.