Weather or Not

Weather is an extremely personal and important thing to island dwellers. It occupies much of our thoughts. And our conversations. Good or bad, pleasant or not, we make contact with the elements just by stepping out of the house. Of course, when it comes to work and weather conditions, lobstermen definitely have more skin in the game.

Rain has always been a mixed blessing here. With no freshwater aquifer upon which Deer Isle rests it granite haunches, those of us with wells are reassured by what rain promises in our water table levels. We certainly need it for our gardens and to keep the threat of forest fires down. Still, come May, we're apt to grouse over any persistent rain shower, certain that it’s a harbinger of an impending soggy summer. About rain, you’re unlikely to ever hear that it’s “just enough.”

In recent weeks, it’s hard to imagine an island conversation that doesn’t somehow touch on the weather. Simply put, it’s been glorious. Day after day of abundant sunshine, modest rainfall, warmer than normal temperatures. Trees leafed out early. Some kitchen gardeners got seedlings planted even before the last full moon of May. Already, some lilacs have gone by. More boats are on their moorings. More pickups loaded with stacked lobster traps are making their way to the harbors.

What a difference a year makes. At this time last spring, we were staggering toward summer after a brutal, snow-blizzard-punching winter and an extraordinarily wet April and May. June hauled in more seemingly endless days of rain, fog, wind and cool – okay, cold – temperatures. Amazingly, July held a gun to our heads with more unrelenting fog and rain. Mushrooms ballooned in unlikely places. Mold grew as though on steroids. Slugs thrived. Wet towels never dried. A friend confessed that her summer cottage had gotten so damp that every night she tumbled her sheets in the dryer before getting into bed. Another friend claimed she found her hands straying to her neck, as though checking for the eruption of gills.

Not surprisingly, fewer than the usual number of tourists and cottage renters made their way here. But as each day of their prescribed and dearly paid for vacation time ticked away, those who crossed the bridge and bucked the odds of a grim forecast grumbled a little louder. Their faces grew more dour. At the Periwinkle, one island visitor was overhead to ask: “It can’t rain like this all summer, can it?” not knowing that for him to ask such a question is tantamount to, well, a known traitor stomping on the flag. Because here’s an island truth any outsider needs to understand: the weather we’re having is exactly as we planned.