Summers are short on the prairies, and this year it seems even shorter because there’s been enough rain to put Noah back in business building a big boat. A state of emergency was declared in several communities in central and southeastern Saskatchewan because of flooding.
In Manitoba, it’s been the worst summer in recent memory in the popular cottage area known as the Whiteshell. Just like farmers, too much rain is no laughing matter for people whose entire year depends on those few weeks in the summer when people long to drop most of their clothes and enjoy the warm sun.
When it’s not raining, it has been generally been too cold or windy to kill mosquitoes with fogging trucks. Dragonflies are a great natural solution to the problem, but we never seem to have enough of them.
Did I tell you about Gimli, the Icelandic fishing community on the shore of Lake Winnipeg? Aside from a fabulous cultural history that should be better known in the larger world, Gimli made the news around the world this week for – wait for it – fish flies!
They smell like rotting fish, and this summer, there are so many of them that they’ve been known to cause highway collisions when vehicles slip and slide on them. Yuck! By the time we hit August, the fish flies will be gone, and next year we are promised that there won’t be nearly as many.
Back to Saskatchewan, the moose are having a good year. Not far from the legislature, there was one of them swimming in Wascana Lake recently. Rumour has it he had a message for Brad Wall, but the Premier was not in his office.
He was either driving west to get to Eastend, or maybe north to get to Southey?
Don’t get me going about Love and Climax.
Hope you’re having a great summer and not wearing socks.
I’m Roger Currie.
