"Rain is Good"

Country folk often affix decals on their pick-up truck windshields. Some are obviously for business advertising purposes, but others are just for fun. For example, one flat-black beat-up pick-up truck that I often see around town proudly announces that "Ladies Love Country Boys". I've noticed various ones, such as "The General" and "Bad Group" (yes...), but the one I love the most is "Rain is Good!".

When I lived in the city, I reveled in a good hard rain. If I was at home, I'd hurriedly put on a raincoat and call my dog for a trip to the dog park. It meant that I'd finally have a moment alone outside of my apartment. It made the exhaust fumes and garbage smells disappear for a while. Torrential downpours made everything seem so "quiet", with the sound of the falling rain silencing all of that dreaded noise pollution. Suddenly, there would be just me and my thoughts, my poor wet dog, the feel of my rain boots sinking in the mud and the tapping of the raindrops on my head.

Most of the time however, the city rain will catch you on your way to a job interview dressed in your fanciest clothes, or happily enjoying a brew and burger on a pub terrace, or worse - painfully riding your bike home from the grocery store with way too many bags hanging on your handle bars. Then you've got to either run and hide and wait for it to be over or get absolutely drenched. Damn rain! It will be like a spoke in your wheel and wreak havoc with all your best-laid plans. Yes, it might be good for the garden, but you can also water it yourself with your garden hose - after all, it only takes a minute.

There are only a few good reasons to complain about the rain in the country:  when your baseball game gets canceled because of rain, your 150-year-old foundation is caving in, or there are holes in your ancient tin roof. Another good reason to complain is when it rains during the winter and the water has nowhere to go because the ground is frozen. Most of the complaining however, gets done when there is no rain. When we encounter a dry spell and are forced to perform rain dances in desperation. Aside from that, "Rain is Good!".

Rain gives us a bit of rest from the sweltering sun (believe it or not, the sun is stronger out here in the country). It replenishes and cleans our well water. It refreshes our lakes, rivers and ponds. It increases crop yields for farmers. It feeds our vegetable gardens. It reduces the risk of forest fires. It cleans off all that dust that accumulates on our trucks from driving on dry dirt roads. It makes our lawns green again. It cools down our panting chickens and amuses our ducks. It allows us to sing in the rain. It provides us with puddles to clean our bare feet before coming into the house. And it gives us a bit of time to update our blogs.

"RAIN IS GOOD!"

Be careful what you wish for

The biggest mistake I've made since moving to the country was making a plea to the weather gods for "lots of snow this winter".

I was raised in Montreal, Quebec, where weekly 30 cm snowfalls are a common occurrence. I even spent a part of my early childhood near Quebec city, where I can remember lovely winters with snowbanks towering over houses. The joys of winter... skying, snowshoeing, building forts and making friendly snowmen, slipping and sliding, tobogganing, examining the magical intricacies of snowflakes, getting your tongue stuck on the chain link fence, losing your boots in the snow to joyfully find them in the spring when the snow melted...

Ever since moving to Ontario I've missed the good old snowy winters of my youth. Back in Toronto, on occasions where I voiced my delight about the few and far between snow "storms" that would blanket the city, my happiness was met with bewildered frowns of disapprovement by my fellow Torontonians, who absolutely abhor the white stuff.

Snowy winters in the country... beautiful and magical, right? An absolute winter wonderland...

Let me tell you that I will never wish for snow again (except for a few flakes on Christmas Day - maybe.)

This winter brought us a fair amount of snow. Nothing like what I was used to back in Quebec, but enough to turn me into one of those people who have a deep-founded hatred for the stuff. Sure, it looks pretty for a minute. But it also makes your duck pen cave in onto your ducks. It leaves you stranded at home for fear of ending up in the ditch (see earlier post). It makes your piles of firewood wet and difficult to burn (unless you spread two layers of tarp over your stacks, which you then have to manoeuvre under like an idiot to collect armfuls of wood). It prevents you from going for walks in the forest because you can't afford snowshoes. It fills the ditches and covers the shoulders so that you can't walk safely down the roads. It makes your barn doors difficult to open and close. The horrid stuff covers your roof and then falls on your head in a big sheet of ice when you decide to finally venture out on a sunny day. You have to plow 100-feet of driveway over and over again. It also provides a wonderful cover for mice, moles and rats, allowing them to multiply happily and readily while they run amok in little snow tunnels, safe from hawks and other predators. Your small Jack Russell terrier doesn't even want to perform his ratting duties anymore because going outside means being swallowed in snow as though it was a big blob of quicksand. Shall I go on?


Okay, I will. The worst is when spring thaw is on its way and you breathe a sigh of relief, imagining how it'll soon be all gone. Then, 20+ acres of snow melts from the neighboring fields and heads straight for your old house in the form of lakes and giant spring rivers. This means you have to spend days digging trenches in the rain to re-direct the nasty stuff away and dig holes in your dirt-floor basement to collect the water that's seeping in through your 150-year old stone foundation. All your boots are so wet that your wood stove can't dry them in time for tomorrow's efforts. Your toes get that crinkly look like when you spend too much time in the bath except they're numb from being in freezing water. When the awful stuff melts, it also heads straight for your chicken coop and floods it, so that when you happily go feed your critters one morning, you find them walking in a stew of chicken poop and floating straw. All you can do at this point is add some more straw to the mess to soak it all up. Then, when it's all gone and some blades of grass are eagerly starting to turn green and you tentatively put a smile on your face, you wake up one morning to an ugly, cold, bland and bleary white landscape.




It was a hard winter in the country. This week is the first week of Spring and I should be overjoyed but I still can't find it in my heart. Maybe it's post-traumatic stress.

From now on, I shall be careful what I wish for.