The clock rings loudly in the darkened room. The sun has been up since five and all the curtains are drawn tightly, lest any sunlight enter the room prematurely, awakening this grumpy old man by mistake. Yes, summer is approaching quickly and so is the longest day of the year. The temperature forecasts are abnormally high and a violent thunderstorm is forecast. Meanwhile, busy mosquitoes flit about looking for warm blood. Seemingly anxious and frantic, they swarm, spurred on by all the positive ions in the atmosphere and the panting hot breathe of mammals leading the little buggers to their prey.
Two hours later, children struggle with their shoelaces and clump noisily off to school, which has been empty for the last three weeks waiting for the sound of children to fill its silent halls. Spring goose break is now officially over, and for some hunters, so is the prospect of a bountiful hunting season. Apparently the geese have been sighted everywhere except for where it counts, in the sights of a hunter at his goose blind. Yes, it seems, the hallowed goose break may need a new name – just call it a “Break”.
It seems nature now has to come to grips with the fact that the snowfall was pitiful this past winter. Local ponds are already drying up and it isn’t even June yet. Thankfully, frogs are already out in full, and I hope that they do a good job eating mosquito and black fly larvae, while feeding the local birds at the same time. It’s funny, I never thought I would care about the lowly frog and all the life stages it goes through before it reaches adulthood, a phase where it actually comes in handy for humans and other beasts.
Take the bee for instance. Without the bee to fly around and help with the sex lives of local plants, we wouldn’t have flowers or fruits of the earth, like blueberries and strawberries to harvest come late summer. In fact, the bee is fast disappearing around the world and the fruit industry is suffering terribly. Apparently some minute mite –so small that thousands of them could fit on the tip of a needle without falling off – is to blame for the demise of the bee. This parasitic bug is killing off the bees at a phenomenal rate and not much can be done about it.
Since this summer may be a dry one, forest fires may roar back to life with a vengeance and river water levels will go down, perhaps enough to make some governments realize that using water to produce electricity may not be enough to meet demands to cool down the south with air conditioners.
One thing for sure, tempers will flare this summer proportionately to the humidity factor. The more dank and sticky it gets, the more the grumpy factor goes up, the more the need for a cold one. Aaahhhh, cold beer, cold ice tea, cold anything will do this summer. Just as long as I don’t have to dust off the speedos and thongs, life will be okay for the rest of the world. Also, just as long as I don’t have to hear the word “awesomer” every time I pass by a Tim Horton, I’ll be okay.
As long as the ice tea flows and cold mugs stay frosty, as long as the waters don’t get tepid and brown, as long as the sun stays high in the sky, I will wish you a good summer. As a good friend on TV says, “Stay thirsty my friends, ‘cause this summer will be a scorcher”.
