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Lately, it seems as though we’re living in a tropical rain forest, with the only (literally) bright spot being that the potted plants didn’t die while I was on vacation – if anything they are too wet – and the lawn isn’t brown. I have to say this is unusual for August! I just read a New York Times op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman who has been observing the effects of climate change on the Greenland ice sheet. Greenlanders report that they can no longer dogsled in winter to a certain island off the coast, that it rained in December (unprecedented in a town above the Arctic Circle), that the reindeer did not show up as usual in August. According to Friedman, we will all soon be learning to “speak climate,” using phrases such as “I’ve never seen that before” or “Just a few years ago.”

In the middle of our vacation week, we drove over to visit my sister at her cottage on a small lake. There had been some sun that afternoon, and we were sitting on the deck chatting, when the darkening sky and rumbles of thunder sent us indoors. It then proceeded to rain heavily for several hours. Boats filled with water and docks began to float. Soon there was a brown river cascading down the mountain and boiling past the cottage and into the lake, carrying sand, rocks and branches into the water. One of our group ventured out in the rain and came back to report that the road was gone. “What do you mean, ‘the road is gone?’ we asked, not quite able to take it in. But, yes, the road was gone, in its place was a waterfall pummeling through a 20-foot gap exposing the useless culvert. So, now our car is stranded at the end of a dirt road. I’ve never seen that before!