How about this weather?
Summers on the prairies usually tend to be a bit dry, but the amount of water pulverizing our Friendly City certainly seems to be a rather excessive this year. As I went for my morning jog on Thursday, I could not avoid the pools of water collected every few steps.
I do not want to be one to complain about summer weather. Basically, we should all be of the opinion that if it’s not below zero degrees Celsius, then we’re pretty lucky to get what we get in this country. After all, I’d take rain over snow any day — typically.
Fish, however, could swim through the streets of Moose Jaw this week. It’s ridiculous. The only other time I’ve seen weather like this was the year I lived in South Korea and the rain basically transformed East Asia into a sweaty mass of humidity during the wet season.
Saskatchewan isn’t supposed to be like this. It’s supposed to be dry, with some awesome thunderstorms maybe, but not the continuous prairie monsoon turning many parts of the province into the northern bayou. I’m ready for a few weeks of dryness already!
Exactly how the ground manages to absorb all this moisture is a complete mystery to me. Garden fairies must have thirsty appetites, or else there are a lot of wet basements. At some point the ground must just say “enough.”
Likely, a lack of ground vacancy would explain the interesting slough formations I’ve noticed while driving on my occasional adventures. I’m guessing hay bails aren’t typically placed in the middle of large ponds, so the soughs must have grown up around them.
Yes, we are living in interesting times. It seems as if I can’t even remember what summer is like without gushes of fat water drops falling from the sky. My memory is pretty short, apparently, when it comes to remembering what even the previous year’s summer was like.
Memory — it seems so short sighted at times. A few weeks of extended rain and I’m already wishing this summer and all its ill-got rain would make way for a dry and brisk autumn. I’m tired of everything being moist all the time. I haven’t even had to apply Blistex since the snow melted.
Oh, how I yearn for a long and blissful period of extreme heat and not a cloud in the sky. If this summer has taught me anything, it’s that there must be some appeal to living in the desert. However, I’m sure I’d quickly learn to hate that too.
Living in this country, I guess I’ve learned how to complain about the weather and never be satisfied with the climate, regardless of what it might be. While I’m sitting here, typing a column about how much I hate all the rain, next year at this time, I could be writing about my discontent of an oppressive and agonizing drought.
Lake Moose Jaw is becoming a bit tedious though, anyone would have to admit. I am certainly getting worried, considering I don’t know how to swim. I suppose it’s important to remember this weather won’t last forever and soon enough there will be new weather about which I can complain.
Every season seems to bring its own problems and total lack of satisfying conditions. There must be something in our genetic makeup that forces us to dislike whatever nature is dishing out. Maybe that’s why human beings seem inclined to build shelters and escape the uncontrollable weather.
However, I would rather just enjoy never-ending pleasant outdoors than constantly clinging to the protective artificial conditions of the modern home. Maybe it’s that access to perfected shelter that makes us so thin-skinned to anything but outdoor perfection. I wonder if wild animals ever complain about the weather.
