So I’m on the telephone with my friend Ian Robson.
He says: “Welcome to Aug-tober! Did you enjoy July-tember?” It certainly has felt like September this past month. And with the exception of Sunday, the first couple of days of this new month seemed to fit Ian’s claim.
That has been the talk, everywhere I go, about what a lousy summer we’ve been having. Or non-summer. I had to wait in a clinic for my annual eye check-up appointment. I overheard two senior gentlemen commenting on how rotten it had been out at their camps. I inserted myself by asking about the height of the water in the various inland lakes where they have their summer places.
“It’s high,” they both intoned.
I asked about water temperature and they both commented it wasn’t too bad at the beginning of July with morning highs of plus 15 or 20. But then the thermometer dipped down to plus five or eight several mornings in a row and thus, the water temperature didn’t get above 70 degrees Fahrenheit – not much fun for a dip unless you are a card-carrying member of the Polar Bear Club or wearing a wet suit.
I’m reminded of a song by that wonderful British song writing duo, the late Michael Flanders and the equally late Donald Swann, a song all about British weather. Every month is lousy. “June just rains and never stops, 30 days and spoils the crops. In July the sun is hot, is it shining, no it’s not. August is cold, dank and wet, brings more rain than any yet.” Well, our experience of those months wasn’t quite as severe as sung by Messers Flanders and Swann, but June was wet and cool, July, for the most part, was also cold and wet with skies that made me think of September, and August? Perhaps too early to tell.
I was at my local plumbing shop to buy more algaecide for our swimming pool. Sue, the owner, was testing my pool water and I remarked we hadn’t been able to swim despite having four solar panels that are supposed to receive cold water and send it back into the pool all warmed up. Hah!
“Can’t get the temperature above 75 Fahrenheit,” I lamented. Sue responded with a scowl and an empathetic agreement. “When the morning temperature is plus five or eight, it is very difficult to get the pool to a comfortable swimming temperature.” I remarked I’ve actually lit a fire in the fire place on one or two of those cold mornings. “I’ve had one on every morning,” she replied.
And Sue is not alone. While discussing (read: grousing) about what a rotten summer we’ve been having with a couple of other rural dwellers, I’ve learned those who have fireplaces or wood stoves have also resorted to a fire to ward off the morning chill. Usually, in our case, I don’t set match to paper in the fire place until mid-September at the earliest.
But this is not the first time in my tenure as a resident of Northwestern Ontario summer forgot to swing by. I recall one summer back in the ’90s before our first-born was born (she’s now 18), when summer skipped this part of the province. This time summer seems to have skipped many parts of the province. My cousins have a summer cottage in the Kawartha Lakes and they’ve reported similar lousy conditions, even wetter than what we’ve experienced in this neck of the woods. And being an old canoe tripper, I’ve wondered how those intrepid voyagers have fared in weather continuously providing blowing winds and rain. Not fun at all.
Camping in those conditions becomes an endurance test instead of fun.
My very good friend, who has lived in Moosonee as a teacher for the past eight years and with whom I talk at least once-a-week, echoes my laments about this lack of summer. What we hath received, so hath he, sometimes only a day later.
But, trying ever to be an optimist, I have hopes for this month of August praying that it does not become Aug-tober as foretold by my friend, Ian.
He ended our conversation by saying: “We move into this month with a vision of hope.” Indeed, we do.
You can contact Rural Roots by e-mail: fbljones @hotmail.com or write to Rural Roots, P.O. Bo 402, South Gillies, Ont. P0T 2V0
