Waiting..

 I’m awaiting the change in weather, the appearance of north winds and the drop in temperature and humidity. I will have to wait another day, until Saturday, for that to happen.  The year’s strongest slam of summer is underway, gripping my mountain in heat and humidity.  But I can wait it out.  I can last another day or so to wait for more pleasant weather, for a day when the hawks will fly and the songbirds will start to move south again.  For 24 or perhaps as long as 30 hours, I can wait.

Until then I am confined within the false fall of air conditioning, trying to avoid the humidity that turns everything and everyone to dripping water-logged shadows of our regular selves.  It will only last another day.

Summer view

Ah, humidity! Soupy air obscures all the views today. The mountains just a few miles away look blue instead of green. The distant mountains, some 10 miles across the valley, are invisible. It’s summer.

The vegetation has that mid-summer green look to it, a deep and rich shade with not yet even a hint of the dullness that will set in during August. That month is usually the year’s driest in this area, and for many years I attributed that dull brown-edged green to the usual lack of rain. But since then I have lived through a few Augusts where rain was surprisingly plentiful, and the dullness still appeared. So now I call that dullness a sign of pre-autumn.

But today the trees are breathing nicely, exhaling oxygen and offsetting all that carbon dioxide that we humans are exhaling. Water vapor is returning to the sky, and a storm will probably result later. It’s summer in Pennsylvania, and this is just another normal day. 

Air thicker than water

The dewpoint (and humidity) continue so high that I may as well be a fish. Relief is promised for the weekend, but before that occurs thunderstorms, possible flooding and more humidity must be gotten through. This kind of weather is the reason I dislike summer. Heat without humidity isn’t bad but even a moderate temperature with this kind of humidity makes me feel like a wash cloth that needs to be wrung out.

Around the cabin the gloomy fog doesn’t appear to affect the animals. I see deer and turkeys regularly—no fawns or poults yet. The forest is dense and wet—raingear is needed even when it’s not raining unless I want to be soaked by leaves brushing against me. Several pairs of footwear haven’t been dry in days. I will be glad when the weather breaks as long as the breaking storms aren’t severe. It will be nice to see the sky again, instead of just clouds.

In this part of the world, while the west deals with drought, rainfall is now more than seven inches above normal. More than once I’ve wondered if climate change will push this area into some kind of temperate rain forest habitat. The pattern over the last several years has been for very high humidity and more rainfall than average. Years ago I heard that climate change would make this area feel more like Georgia, but I’ve been to Georgia in the summer and it’s not at all like this. I’ll let you know if I start finding redwoods or Doug firs on the mountain. I still have a ways to go before that happens.

Dewpoint Dilemma

Although the temperature has not yet reached the summery temperature of 90 degrees, the humidity and haze of hot summer days has arrived. Even a moderate 80 degree temperature feels uncomfortable when the dewpoint is nearly 70. Still, I have so far resisted putting the air conditioner in the kitchen window. I am starting to falter, though. I suspect I will have to get it going sometime this weekend. Once I put the thing in the window, it will stay there until at least mid-September, when I’m pretty sure the temperature and humidity won’t skyrocket again one final time.

I dislike the air conditioner for several reasons, not the least of which is what it does to my electricity bill. But I also dislike the sound of it and how it muffles the noises outside in the forest. When the air conditioner is running I can’t hear the birds outside or determine if the chickens are involved in some squabble, either real or imagined. Part of that is that I need to close up the other windows in the cabin when the air conditioner is running, but part is just the sound of the thing. I can’t hear people pulling into my driveway, sometimes not until the dogs set up an outcry.

The air conditioner in the kitchen window—the only window where one will fit at all—also blocks much of my view to the southwest. This time of year the dense greenery already hampers much of my viewing and the air conditioner only makes it worse. Plus, I can’t see that end of my deck at all.

Really, the only thing I do like about the air conditioner is that it takes the moisture out of the air. I don’t need to have it particularly cool in the cabin. In fact, I don’t like a dramatic change from terribly hot outside to icebox on the inside, so I keep the temperature inside pretty warm. I do like the lowered humidity that it creates, and I’ve just about reached the point where I want to make that happen.