Ah, The Rain...

Environment Canada had a questionable little gift for us, retracting their previous long-range assurances that July and August would be hotter than normal. But is that so bad? What has occurred, evidently, is that a high-pressure (or is it a low-pressure) system has stalled over the area, showering us unceasingly with weather uncertainty in the form of thunderstorms and pop-up showers. We're thoroughly drenched, and keep getting more of the same. The odd thing is that we don't really mind it.

Because we've learned to prefer the cool-and-wet over the dry-and-hot. The one perturbing thing about it, however, is that we can anticipate, as a result, that soft berries won't ripen as they should; they will be too water-logged and insufficiently sweetened by the lack of sun. Much as occurred last year. Even the tomatoes from our garden had scant taste. But the trees in the area just love all the rain, and other growing things don't appear to be suffering, our garden is still ardently colourful, full of texture, fragrance and beauty.

We had all-night rain again, and when we woke this morning, it was to heavily overcast skies, darkened interiors, and drizzle. Cozy beyond words. After breakfast I baked vanilla cupcakes, later drenched their tops in raspberry jam, and swirled them afterward through toasted coconut, an excellent dessert concoction with fresh raspberries. And prepared a bread dough for tomorrow evening's pizza. Put lots of wheat bran and also wheat germ in the dough to compensate for the white flour (unbleached). And put a chicken soup on to cook.

And then we all dressed in rain gear, including Button and Riley, and set out for a shortened jaunt in the ravine. It was only drizzling. But the rain picked up measurably as we entered the ravine, and even more so, thanks to the wind, dislodging raindrops from the soaked canopy overhead. The trail was utterly sodden, and as a result, roots were slippery and so were those areas bereft of a covering of detritus, so we needed to watch where we placed our boots. Heard no birds singing today.

The ravine was fast-running with muddy water, splurging its way to eventually reach the Ottawa River. No damsel-flies, no dragonflies. And no mosquitoes, but that might well have been more a function of our having been completely covered. It was sufficiently cool that we did not feel over-dressed in light rain jackets. Yesterday when we'd been out on another shortened, half-hour ravine trek, we had come across a middle-aged man running on the trail, in shorts and short-sleeved shirt and at that time the mosquitoes had been out.

He carried a camera in one hand, a cellphone in the other, and he looked decidedly unhappy as the rain began to increase in tempo, as we passed one another. By the time we completed the short loop that would take us back to the foot of the long hill we ascend to street level, we saw with a bit of a shock that he was still there, where we had last seen him, attempting to out-wait the rain, rather than proceed and just get out of the ravine, and head back to his home, wherever that was.

He was on his cellphone, leaving a message for someone, stating, we overheard, that he was caught in the rain. Caught, one might say, by his incaution and his obvious inability to understand that rain happens and it is no threat to one's well-being, merely uncomfortable at times, and you shrug and get on with life.