Weather and Wildlife

Summer Solstice is already long past and much has evolved here on We Are One Farm as I write on this sultry summer night. It is not even mid-summer any longer, only 5 weeks left until the autumnal equinox, but since it seems the season only really began in earnest around the middle of July, maybe it will go on a bit later this year.

What a change this week from June and July....all that rain and fog and mist and drizzle and cloud cover that went on for weeks, not to mention unseasonably cool temperatures several degrees below normal, has passed and the overhead fan now tries to push the warm air around in the bedroom. Hot and steamy.

In the past two months we didn't actually get more rainfall than normal but the continuous cloud and fog held the moisture on the plants, the cool temperatures stalled growth of the veggies we'd transplanted, and the darkness made everyone cranky and listless. The lavender was getting "Septoria Lavandulae," aka, Lavender Leaf Spot, and had the damp and dark continued a week or two longer I fear there would have been some more die-off from wilted leaves. 

And now Edward's words of mid-July echo in my ears, "Just wait, in a few more weeks you'll be wishing it were raining!!"  Well, almost. I can survive for the next two days of our now 5-day heat wave of 30C + temperatures for the rain that is to follow. I think the well will hold out that long for our cooling showers and more importantly, keeping the plants watered.

Although we might get a little more than just rain in a week's time -- the first named hurricane in the Atlantic this season may be headed our way. "Bill" is forecast to track west and north of Bermuda, and depending how it either bounces off the coast of the eastern seabord or gets diverted by the warm Gulf Stream slightly northeasterly, we may be in line for a hit ourselves. I have been following the hurricane season forecasts for a number of years now, after having sailed on some Windjammer cruises in the Caribbean and hearing of disasters affecting the homes of favourite crewmen (not to mention a Windjammer ship that was lost, including the crew, in a hurricane off Honduras). I followed, with apprehension, the approach of Hurricane Juan which was a rare and direct hit on Nova Scotia in 2003.

I remember reading the forecasts from the National Hurricane Centre in the US and going, "Jeez, why aren't they saying anything about this on the radio? It looks like it's going to be a direct hit and all they are forecasting is rain and winds!!" I set about to "batten down the hatches" as it were, although my home at the time was already 20 miles inland from the sea, and in a sheltered hollow, but nevertheless tied down the barbeque and put away potted plants and all outside furniture and garden tools. The forecast landing point was to be Mahone Bay, a town 20 minutes away but as I waited and watched until after midnight in the eerie quiet, the storm had moved northeast, landing squarely on our capital, Halifax, notably wiping out all the trees in lovely Point Pleasant Park at the entrance to Halifax Harbour, and causing much damage elsewhere.

Windy nights on our exposed hilltop farm, far as we may be from the sea, are quite frightening for me as the house shudders and shakes, our large, sharply pitched roof feeling a bit like a big sail. There won't be much sleep for me if Bill gets too close after the weekend.

And now as I type a little later than when I began this piece, it is 3:14 a.m. We have been roused from our sleep rather painfully, not by any pre-hurricane winds, not by the sticky heat, but by my cat Charles ("Charles" as opposed to "Charlie" when I am not happy with him).  Although a very cute and often sweet cat, Charles has made it painfully clear  in the last week that, like it or not, he's going out at night, and he will howl and pick at the door mercilessly until we get the picture. So, out he has been several nights lately. His habit, when he is done mousing around, or just wanting a snack, is to climb up onto the roof of the gallery from the patio fence, and meow at our bedroom window until we unhook the screen and let him in.

Normally I just throw some cat food in a bowl and roll back into bed. Not tonight. At about 2:45, as I woke to let him in, I thought I was having a "scent hallucination" in my grogginess.......sniff sniff, sniff sniff...."what the hell is that??" It was some strange blend of eye-watering onions and gasoline, maybe some rotten onions in that basket  on the counter or something? I noticed as I followed Charles downstairs to the kitchen it got stronger as I approached the counter by which Charles waited for a snack.

I put out his food and sniffed around the room, in the fridge, in the cupboard, the basement stairs...was there an oil leak?? Sniff sniff, sniff sniff,  what could it be? Charles ate his fishy goop and I went back upstairs with a knot in my face wondering if I was losing my mind. I made a stop in the bathroom and then Edward awoke to the sound of Coco the cat barfing nearby. "What  is that smell???" he moaned as he went to clean up the cat barf.

"Oh good, I thought I was losing my marbles," I said, thinking maybe I was having some kind of peri-menopausal hormonal moment with my olfactory nerves in overdrive. Sniff sniff, sniff sniff, we both went around the house, Edward heading toward the basement to check out what might have been that fuel leak. And then, as Charlie was on his heels I grabbed him, thinking, "don't go down there Charlie, " and then it dawned on me....

...maybe it was... Charlie. Yup. We'd been skunked.

So here I sit at 3:29 a.m. Tuesday morning, with Charles thrown back outside as my eyes still water after a quick shower, and Edward off in the car to Bridgewater to the 24-hour grocery to pick up some bottles of 3% hydrogen peroxide, some extra baking soda, and some lemony-fresh dishwashing detergent. We were all out of peroxide, which we usually keep to clean cuts & scrapes, we had a bit of soda, and I feared the "natural" dishwashing liquid we use might not be up to the task to deodorizing Charles.To my relief, I had saved an email from my sister-in-law back when we first got our dog Angus, in which she kindly shared her skunk remedy recipe taken from an article in the newspaper. Apparently this concoction creates a chemical reaction which neutralizes the parts of the skunk smell that make it linger. She says it works. I think "Great...but have you ever tired to bathe a cat ??"

Edward returns with the critical ingredients. "Charlie's way down the lane near the woods now," he says, "I saw him on my way up."  So we decide, "back to bed",  until he hollers to come back in.

It's now late Tuesday morning, another scorcher of a day already, and all de-skunking is complete. Charles appeared about 8:30 and we put our plan into action with military precision, ingredients and towels laid out in the bathroom, Edward got the rubber gloves and we set to work, one holding, the other shampooing. Charlie (my love and sympathy for him gradually returning) was a very good boy, a little howling after a few minutes of being doused and scrubbed, but all in all a good kitty. I wrapped him in a dry towel as he shivered from the bath and eventually he found his way to a sunny window sill to warm up and dry off with much licking of fur. We think it has worked as planned, although a visitor who hasn't been immersed in the odour may beg to differ. I'll have to see how it is after being outside awhile.

The only trouble is, with today's heat we have shut down the house, windows and curtains, after the night's cooling temperatures, trying to keep the day's heat out. So it is stuffy. And possibly slightly skunky. I hope not. It's not easy to sell lavender in a place that smells like skunk.