Why do grey skies make us blue while blue skies make us happy?
Grey skies are the norm these days and along with being depressing, the rain they’ve been dumping on us is raising Cain with everything.
Summers are supposed to be sunny. Not too sunny, mind you. Too hot and dry doesn’t work either, but too much of anything is a bummer, and we have been definitely getting too much rain.
As clever as we human beings think we are, we really don’t know how to cope with an excess of anything.
In our fair city we don’t worry about floods but it wasn’t always thus. According to the Tribune of the day, 1962 was one of the worst years for spring runoff. In March “raging waters” cut through the town in every direction.
Streets and sidewalks were undermined, basements flooded, and great chunks were torn out of Comer Street near the cemetery.
Village commissioners blamed residential subdividers for “de-nuding the well-wooded hillsides which kept the snow melt under control.”
Highways were washed out all over the place and the Chilcotin Road was impassable more than once.
The problems went on into April.
Did you notice those dates — March and April?
This year the floods and road closures are in July. Spring won’t go away and, at the moment, summer is looking iffy.
Grey skies even get the blame for tomatoes not ripening. Sun is required for them to ripen on the vine, but picked tomatoes do ripen in the dark.
Do you suppose covering the green tomatoes on the vine with little coats would work?
My peppers and lettuce are doing well, ditto strawberries and raspberries. Flowers are looking blowzy. There’s always a bright side. I haven’t had to get up at 6 a.m. to turn the sprinklers on too often.
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.
