Monday, May 28, 2012

Lake Weather


        Weather at the lake changes so rapidly one can’t assume how it will be from one hour to the next. On Saturday, it was warm and sunny. Luckily, I got in a swim at 11:00. My husband decided he’d wait till it warmed up, but before noon it began to drizzle and within an hour the drizzle grew to a downpour which continued till evening.
               
        “If it’s like this tomorrow,” said my spouse, “we might as well go home.”

        But Sunday—in spite of dire predictions of “possible thundershowers” –remained lovely till twilight. True, overnight there were thundershowers, but those did not put a damper on gardening, swimming, or canoeing.

        So this morning, Memorial Day, fog obscures most of the mountain across the lake. Campers on the Appalachian Trail that passes over that mountain will have to wait to see the vast vistas for which the trail is famous.  But mountain weather is changeable. It’s likely the fog will burn off in a couple of hours. I hope so. It would be nice to swim under a sunny sky again.

        At least the cycle of nature here is predictable, though a bit early by the calendar. The resident swan couple sails regally about, reminding us of their ownership of the south end of the lake.  The lily pads have begun to make an appearance, as have some very few dragonflies and the foliage—including weeds—is lush.

        Ah! The sky is lightening. There are patches of blue. It will be another lovely day—or at least, a lovely morning.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Deep into Spring


I had forgotten how beautiful the lake is. We had stayed away from the lake for almost a month to nurse our cat, MishMish, following her surgery. The lake flashed its smile, almost laughed in the brilliant sunlight. The water was almost warm. The foliage, last time so sparse, was now filled out in many shades of green.  

And the weeds!  Our parking area was embarrassingly over-grown with them. I hate to think what the neighbors say over our neglectful landscaping.  So my husband got out the lawnmower and I put on my gloves and attacked the weeds. Two and a half hours and five buckets-full of weeds later we quit for the day at eight o’clock. The grass is trimmed, but there are still more weeds to remove from the parking area.

“There’s always tomorrow,” I told myself, thinking I’d finish weeding in the morning and clean off with a swim in the lake.

Wrong. We woke up to a drizzle. I pulled two plants of lettuce look-alikes from the garden, added from my compost pile, and planted new seeds—lettuce, zucchini, bush and soy beans. Then the rain came in earnest.  It will, no doubt, help the weeds I hadn’t gotten to to grow taller. More work to look forward to for our next visit.

Monday, May 14, 2012

April Flowers/May Showers


April flowers bring May showers. At least that seems to be what happened this year. I, for one, celebrated the perfusion of blooms this April, and I also celebrate the May rain. 

April had left my newly overturned garden plot bone dry. I was certainly not looking forward to having to continually irrigate in order to plant and nurture my vegetables. And I found myself wondering about the volume of water in our reservoirs. Most winters lay down a blanket of white which slowly melts with spring to fill the streams, rivers, and the reservoirs. But the only real snow came not in winter, but last fall—in October—with a vengeance. Everyone predicted an impossibly brutal winter, but their crystal balls were faulty. And we mercifully, had the mildest winter ever.

But what about the water? With no snow melt to fill the rivers I feared, in April, that we’d have a drought by July. But it seems my crystal ball, too, is faulty. Thank goodness!

Let it rain!