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After the unpleasant invasion of Canadian wildfire smoke last month, I had to double-check, but yes, that was plain old fog coming on little cat feet in early August, and there it was again on Wednesday. I did some quick calculations both times.
Back when I was a tadpole, or a cub reporter, or insert your own descriptor for a young’un, one of the fun things about working at a radio station in the middle of a cornfield was the regular callers. There were several farmers and other characters who would ring us up just to shoot the breeze for a couple of minutes. You quickly learned to recognize their voices.
I think it was Ed Kastenschmidt who had the fog theory. Ed insisted that any morning a dense fog settles in, you can count on a snowstorm striking in 90 days. And three months later, he would call to remind us about the fog from 90 days earlier.
And so when those early August visitors lay over the land, I made plans to make sure the snowblower is primed and ready to go on or about November 6 and November 12.
It is easy to forget, with the day lilies and coneflowers and black-eyed Susans and cup plants and compass plants all bursting with midsummer color, that this land is regularly barren and white. It’s only a matter of time.
But enough of that for now. I plan to enjoy this fine summer’s day and raise a cup of coffee to the memory of good old Ed.
