A little fall of rain

What a summer we've had!  Day after day of beautiful sunny days.  We've hardly seen a mosquito in Carlisle for about a month now (with the exception of the one that gets delivered on Fridays).  Incredible.

The photo above is from a point close to the summit of Mt. Albany (1930') looking towards the Caribou-Speckled wilderness. We hiked it last week while staying at the pet-friendly Paws Inn (see left) in Bethel at the end of our Maine vacation.  Since the hike wasn't too strenuous we added another two mile out-and-back to a beautiful pond called Round Pond (see below, right) near the Crocker Pond campground.  Pixie (aka Madison) was an incredibly active hiker on this day: always leading the way, sometimes taking a detour but never tiring or lagging behind.  What a difference we've made to that dog!

While we were up there, we also visited with Kim's cousin Kristin.  That was really nice to get to know them all better.  What a wonderful place Bethel is!  The air really is different up there.

Last night, we had a little fall of rain ("... can hardly hurt me now", as Eponine sings) and it prompted me to check how many rainless days we've had recently.  We were rain-free between July 23rd and Aug 5th.  Then the 7-9th, then the 12-15th.  And the rain we've had has generally been in drops: the total rainfall for August so far has been 0.15" and for July was 2.37", of which about 2/3 fell on just three days (10, 11 and 23).

And temperatures have been high too.  100F was the max for July, 93F so far in August.  But our weather has been nothing compared to that of Europe and, especially, Russia.  Indeed, the period January 2010 through July 2010 is officially the warmest such period ever, when global temperatures are considered.  July itself was either the warmest July ever, or the fifth warmest, according to who you believe.  Here in the U.S., July was only the 17th warmest (of 116 previous Julys).  February, March, April, May and June have all been the warmest, globally, on record.

But you mustn't jump to any conclusions about global warming.  These are just anomalies whose significance has been overblown by the liberal scientists we put in charge of our meteorological agencies.  Right, and the tooth fairy really exists.

Trouble is of course the ground is parched.  Wildlife must be having a hard time of it.  But our tomatoes are doing extremely well (left).  Indeed, we are very much enjoying having BLTs, open-faced sandwiches (kind of like a Caprese), and anything else tomato based (yes, we also have Basil).