Weather or Not, Redux

Rain. Rain. And more rain. And when it’s not raining, fog – this morning’s thick soup even obscuring nearby Heart Island.

But, before I overdose on my Vitamin D tablets, or am tempted to throw in the (very damp) towel as I survey my garden blighted with slugs and beginning to succumb to fungus and wilt, or become convinced that this summer’s fare will be a continuous string of roasts and stews, I have to remind myself: the forecast is showing some glimmers of promise. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll soon see the sun again. Maybe, before I need a photograph to remind me of it, the white thick o’fog curtain may well be parted to reveal my much-beloved view of sea, sky, and distant islands. And once again, the blunt-nosed blue-and-white profile of my neighbor’s lobster boat will materialize and connect with the muffled sounds of its thumping diesel, the only assurance I’ve had most mornings that he’s headed out to check his traps.

We are after all making progress in that direction. A friend’s greeting yesterday: “So, at least it’s not raining.”

Rain has always been a mixed blessing here. With no freshwater aquifer upon which Deer Isle rests it granite haunches, those of us with wells – meaning nearly everyone – are reassured by what rain promises in our water table levels. Rain certainly assists in keeping the threat of forest fires low. And, yes, our gardens certainly need it – though, please, might we have fewer drowning downpours? Still, come each May, most of us are likely to grouse over any abundant rainfall that’s come our way, certain it’s a harbinger of an impending soggy summer. About rain, we seldom say it’s “just enough.”

May has long come and gone – a wet May following a wet April. Even June, with its higher than normal levels of rainfall, has now officially and rather unbelievably – I mean, how did that happen so fast? – been ticked off the calendar.

Maybe we can’t help ourselves in comparing this spring to last year’s, with its abundant sunny days and summer-like temperatures that even invited some shedders to make their appearance in warm Bay waters as early as April. Our current weather pattern isn’t, of course, unprecedented. A reminder of that came by way of a lobsterman of many decades who this weekend claimed that one summer not so many years ago, he fished 35 days straight in the fog. A reminder too that once through these seemingly epic conditions, we tend to wear such records like a badge of honor.

Not that we have to reach back so far. Yesterday, checking the weather fare of previous short – always too short – summers, I consulted my summer 2010 blog post, “Weather or Not.” On June 2 of that year, I wrote: “Simply put, it’s been glorious. Day after day of abundant sunshine, modest rainfall, warmer than normal temperatures.” The trees, I reported, had leafed out early. Some kitchen gardeners planted seedlings before the last full moon of May. By the time June arrived, most lilacs had gone by, more boats were on their moorings, and a steady stream of pickups loaded with stacked lobster traps were making their way to the harbors. But in that 2010 blog I also wrote this, and am posting here as a redux, not only to point out the difference a year makes but in the hopes that we’re not poised for a repeat of the July of 2009:

“To think that just a year ago, we were staggering toward summer after a brutal, snow-blizzard-punching winter and an extraordinarily wet April and May. June hauled in more seemingly endless days of rain, fog, wind and cool – okay, cold – temperatures. Then, amazingly, July held a gun to our heads with more unrelenting fog and rain. Mushrooms ballooned in unlikely places. Mold grew as though on steroids. Slugs thrived. Wet towels never dried. A friend confessed that her summer cottage had gotten so damp that every night she tumbled her sheets in the dryer before getting into bed. Another friend claimed she found her hands straying to her neck, as though checking for the eruption of gills.

Not surprisingly, fewer tourists and cottage renters made their way to the island. And those who did, who bucked the odds of a grim forecast and crossed the bridge, they grumbled louder as each day of their time-limited and dearly-paid vacation ticked away.  By the second it seemed, their faces grew more dour. At the Periwinkle, one island visitor was overhead to ask: “It can’t rain like this all summer, can it?” Of course he didn’t know this is a question he’s not supposed to ask. Or, if asked, should not expect an answer. Because, as an old island truth explains it, to an outsider whatever weather we’re having is exactly as we planned.”

Yes, but allow me to ask: It can’t rain like this all summer, can it?