Rain, rain go away (pretty please?)
Let me start by saying that I have it great. Yes, the pump house that sluices water to my home is flooded, which means that (ironically) I don’t have water in my taps.
And yes, I have two leaks in my roof…that I know of. And yes, I spent two soggy weekend days gardening in a shower of rain that sometimes blew sideways.
And yes, all this precipitation is piled on top of a long, cold, trying winter. Is May the new November? I sure hope not.
The sad part is that many of our neighbors have it much, much worse.
The Montreal Gazette is reporting that farmers along the Richelieu River are wrestling with carp that have taken up residence in their flooded fields. You know it’s bad when you need a scarefish more than a scarecrow.
From the St. Lawrence Valley to the Champlain Valley, hundreds of farmers are in much the same predicament. There is water and mud everywhere.
And then there are the homeowners, from Moriah to Keene Valley, who are literally watching their homes slide away as soggy, rainswollen hillsides turn into yogurt.
Perhaps the most trying thing of all is the sheer duration of this mess. The first flash floods came the last week of April. We’re halfway through May and there’s no end in sight.
Once good weather returns, Lake Champlain will require weeks to disgorge all that water.
I like to think that we Northerners are tough and hardy. Now we also have to be patient (not my forte) and keep whatever shreds of humor that are still intact.
So here’s my consolation prize. It was so darn soggy this weekend that I didn’t have to mow the lawn. That’s not much of a victory, but I’ll take it.
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I had a friend who spent some time in the coastal Pacific Northwest. She said that eventually you get used to it…mowing in the rain, washing the car in the rain, walking the dog in the rain, etc.. Who knows what global climate will bring? The only thing certain, is weather uncertainty.
Farmers make their living (and our food) in a thin margin of what’s possible between the seasons, the weather, the soil, and the pests, and it’s not an easy process. They try and rely on certain things learned from experience. and when something changes, the profits (and the food) disappear.
Around the world this is playing out…disastrously in some places.
Thanks for the reminder that the four leaks in my roof are small potatoes compared to what others are dealing with…
This uncommonly wet, cool weather, dates back to Labor Day 2010, by my recollection. I sure hope last week’s pleasant weather wasn’t Spring and Summer, wrapped into one week!
At least the forest won’t burn down. Those few days when it didn’t rain had me waiting for the DEC to issue a forest fire danger warning.
Hey Brian,
I’ve got the leaks down to one, yeah! At least the garage/gallery roof is almost done and the portion that had a leak is finished.
Hang in there, our July drought is right around the corner! Aaah, life in the Adirondacks, ya gotta love it.
Small potatoes compared with what the people in Louisiana are facing.
I could stand for some global warming now!
At least we don’t have to worry about the Army Corps of Engineers blowing levees and destroying good farm land to save “Sin City”. The place is built in a swamp, let is be destroyed and move out. Enough!