The Endless Summer: Too Much Of A Good Thing?
Remember when you were a kid how your mom wouldn’t let you have ice cream every day even though nothing in the world tasted better on a hot day than a double scoop of butter crunch?
Such a reasonable restriction wasn’t so much because all that sugar and heavy cream was bad for you, or because daily frozen treats would break the family budget, but because she knew a little deprivation helped build character and make you appreciate the occasional cone all the more.
Meteorologically speaking, this summer, now drawing to a close, has been an endless string of ice cream sundaes.
Seriously, when have we had day after day after day of sunny and warm conditions? I occasionally lay out the front page, which includes copying the weather forecast into the Index, and I swear I’ve written the same words over and over: “Today, sunny and pleasant. High 85. Tomorrow, more of the same.”
In fact, just to relieve the tedium a colleague and I would every so often write the forecast as haiku, three lines of traditional Japanese verse in which the first and last line each have five syllables and the middle line has seven:
Sunny and pleasant
today. High temp of 80.
More sun tomorrow.
Anyway, I know this sounds heretical, but I’d like a few good storms to break up the monotony (not to mention better hydrate the garden and tree seedlings), and find myself longing for crisp days that are more conducive to outdoor recreation, stone wall building, wood splitting and other fun activities.
I’ve been toiling much of the summer on a home construction project, and one item I make sure to pack in my tool bag, alongside a circular saw, impact driver, drill bits, jig saw and T-square is a jug of water that I refill three or four times a day. By my rough estimation I’ve chugged enough H2O this season to fill an Olympic-size pool (without the chlorine).
What is more thrilling (unless you’re in a kayak in the middle of Long Island Sound, or hiking above treeline on Mount Washington) than a furious squall, with lashing winds, stroboscope lightning, pounding rain and earth-shattering thunder?
After the storm blows away, all that fresh, dry air pouring in serves as a magical elixir to restore energy sapped away by summer’s relentless heat.
Of course, from my perspective nothing is more energizing than a good snowstorm – and call me crazy but I can’t wait for the flakes to start flying again. I admit last year’s epic frigidity tested our mettle, but I’m ready now for whatever the season throws at us.
Both woodsheds are filled, with a total of 12 cords of seasoned, split oak and birch and another four or five cords are stacked down at the bottom of the driveway, ready to be lugged uphill to the house. That should keep us toasty through the end of the decade, even if I never cut another tree (for the record; I put in more than 200 tree seedlings last spring, more than enough to replace those I harvested).
But, true to form, I’m rushing things.
We still have plenty of time left to enjoy swimming, kayaking or even lounging at the beach with a good book. Eventually, though, we’ll be hunkered down next to the wood stove, or bundled up in our parkas, balaclavas and expedition mitts, and I’ll be in my element again.
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