This has been a summer of intense persistent heat and
parching drought. This is not news to anyone who lives in the Ontario
countryside. Withered cornfields, dry stream beds and wells, grass like straw
doormats, dead shrubs and trees all attest to it. Some herds are being culled with
the cost of hay soaring.
And yet, this autumn has been so late in arriving, with no
frost still at Thanksgiving, the wild flowers along the road sides and field
edges flamboyant. The woods in our horizon are glowing with vibrant colour like
in no other year that I have witnessed since moving here almost 23 years ago.
These October days are warm with glistening sunshine. The
mornings are cool with fog rising from the valleys and obscuring the usual
vistas from our hilltop home. It seems as if we are on an island out in the
middle of an ancient sea.
This visual beauty no doubt hides the practical hardship
that so many are experiencing. We need rain so desperately here, even as I am hearing
news of a hurricane now ravaging many parts of the world to the south of us
with heavy rains and ferocious winds. One wonders if these extremes are the new
reality. One hopes not.
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