. . . . and I'm Off to the Races

I'm finally getting a chance to start this blog. It's one of those things that has lingered undone short of being an idea, a mere notion at best. I am in my man cave on this rainy Saturday afternoon in October, with summer in the mirror and winter at the door bell. This is my go-to refuge when I have need to become scarce for a few hours. It doubles as my music, TV, sleep-in-the-chair-reading, and profound philosophical thought room. I carved it out of an unused section of the basement back in the winter of 2011, and I can honestly say there is no room in the house that I enjoy more. OK, maybe my workshop, or maybe our bedroom, or maybe the bathroom, or maybe the kitchen should be considered as worthwhile spaces before I avow to hole-up here for the winter. Anyway, you get my drift. My enjoyment of the music room, as I've come to refer to it, is directly proportional to the severity of harsh winter weather or the heat of the summer sun.

Four consecutive days of rain have dampened the fallen leaves nicely. We needed the rain. As the old fellers say, it's best for the wells to go into winter with a healthy water table. The St. John in front of our house has been unusually low for most of this summer, as has been Davidson Lake, where our summer camp is.

This has been a most unusual summer, beginning with a late thaw that saw the last shaded patches of snow hang on until the end of April. May was a bit behind, and June was mostly back on track seasonally. Then came Hurricane Arthur on July 5th. Correctly, it was "Post Tropical Storm" Arthur, but since it ripped a new one right through central New Brunswick like no other storm in my time, the moniker Hurricane Arthur works for me. Power was off here in Douglas for seven days almost to the hour. Davidson Lake was sans juice for nine days. We learned to cope with cold showers, and meals cooked on the bbq. Come to think of it, we had two humungous feeds of wings on the Q that week that we probably wouldn't have had under normal circumstances. Bonus! Yep, urban campers we became.