Boasting retracted

It is raining.

It has been raining all week, and it is expected to continue raining.

There is mud five inches deep in front of my shed—where the gravel was, and where the woodchips were, and where the landscaping fabric was laid down in order to keep things sort of dryish except in the rainiest months.

You might recall me having said, back in February, "neener neener! We have crocuses and you don't!" or words, kinder words, with that same taunting message delivered more gently. I take it back. Any boastful statements about the superiority of my weather over yours I take back, unless you are dealing with tornadoes and floods and terrible droughts. In that case, I'm sorry and I do know I shouldn't complain.

If you are in New Zealand or Australia or South Africa, dear reader, let me clarify one point—this is a summer day, smack dab in the middle of the only two weeks that are usually hot around here. July 5th through July 20th or so . . . that's when we break out our bathing suits here in Wickersham, and that's when we get a little color on our otherwise pallid limbs (except me, Fenway Bartholomule—always short, dark and handsome). We need these weeks. We need them in order to stock up on vitamin D, without which we all might die or at least become irritable and morose. We need them in order to go riding, because there is only so much adventuring a mule and his woman like to do in this eternal downpour.

Sigh. OK, I'm done. I'll stop my whining, and count my blessings, and give thanks for my safety and my health and my green, green grass (so green! You wouldn't believe it!). And then, dear readers, I will stand here, in my shed with my goats, and listen to the rat-a-tat of water on metal.

Ears,

FenBar

P.S. Don't try and tell me this will pass, and that we'll get a proper summer after all. I don't believe it, and in fact I'm so convinced of the coming of Autumn that I've begun to earnestly shed my summer coat. How's that for sad?