Too, too.....

Thank God for Cameron Lake.... without it we would all die of heat stroke. Once again the wind and dry, hot weather is rearing it's ugly head. I hate the cold winter but I really hate living where it is so dry that the grass dies mid-way through the summer and the grass hoppers arrive in droves. My two favorite times of the year are spring and fall not necessarily in that order. Fall is a wonderful time because of the colours and no bugs and it is still warm but not hot and those pesky mosquitoes are dead and so are the hornets and the grasshoppers are dieing too. I love spring too because there is still frost in the mornings and the ground has moisture from the winter snows and the sun is bright but not blaringly so, and there are lambs. Winter is too cold around here, and I tend to hibernate, which is not a bad thing for a spinner because I tend to get a lot of work done. But even winter is tolerable when the sun is out and the air is frozen and there are crystals in the air or the moon is white in the deep blue sky at 4 p.m. However, summer just sucks! Too hot, too dead, too bright, too much dry thunder, too much threat of forest fire, too crunchy, too many complaining needy animals, too many clouds and not enough rain, and too tiring.

Without Cameron Lake I would just want to hibernate in summer too. I mentioned Cameron Lake the other night and told you about our lovely day by and on the Lake. Today was another of those days. Teapot is gone and it was too not-a-day-to-work, so the girls and I headed off for an afternoon of swimming and kayaking. The only problem was that we didn't have a key to the gate to get to the Outdoor Centre.... no problem, I thought, we'll go to the park side of the lake. Yeah! Right! Too busy. So the Daughters and I headed back to the Outdoor Centre. We parked at the gate, which we were able to scale, and took our gear including the heavy (well ok maybe not that heavy) kayak and tramped our way to the beach (gravel) which was a kilometre away.

This worked better than you think. We paddled about, well at least Daughter #1 did and we went swimming and we had another picnic supper, and just as we were about to have another swim, the thunder came with a resounding crash and no warning at all. Ok so swimming and kayaking were now out of the question and then the before-a-thunderstorm mosquitoes hit.... it was a swarm and in no time we felt our best option was to head back to the truck a kilometre away, especially since Jiggs was acting like a proverbial nut (she chewed through her leash twice and wanted to hide in the bush from the thunder).

We high tailed it as fast as our little feet could back to the gate with the marauding mosquitoes chomping on us all of the way.... thunder was crashing behind us and we knew that it was only a matter of time before we were hit with the rain and wind of the oncoming storm....

Suffice it to say that we made it with a little less blood (mosquitoes) and a whole lot more agony (carrying the kayak that far is not easy) and headed home. Not exactly the great day I had hoped for but at least better than roasting in the oven here at home, listening to hungry sheep that have no grass to eat because the grasshoppers have eaten what didn't burn up in this draught (the hay is not what they want).

Basically summer is too too everything bad....

It's cool now at 10 p.m. and the grasshoppers are sleeping, so I am going out on my deck to try that 8 t.p.i. in the near dark..... before I go too crazy!