Waterworld is a Beach Bummer!

FROM WHERE I SIT   Waterworld is a Beach Bummer  June 21, 2014    P.D. Spilseth

When you think of summer, you envision sunny skies, swimming and water skiing, backyard barbeques, parades and fireworks.  I’m still hoping, but June’s  consistently rainy days, lightening and thunder have brought a conundrum of spoiled beach days, soggy barbecues, cancelled golf and tennis dates, flooded basements and ruined crops.  Day after day, dark, threatening skies pour rain on our spoiled summer.  2014 has been a beach bummer that has rocked the boat for too many folks looking forward to relaxing in the sun by the water on their one annual vacation.  In MInnesota we count on those three months of summer sunshine!

The Summer Solistice arrived with sunny but wet conditions around the lakes of Minnesota.  July means that summer is half over!   Already celebrations on the water have had to be cancelled because of flooding conditions.  Taste of Minnesota has scrambled to find a new location, basements are flooded, and fewer boats are floating on Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes.  At my house, we have an extra lake on the lower lawn, no beach, and our docks are submerged in high water.  Everything is soaked!

Rain, rain, go away...come again another day.  We’ve had over eleven or twelve inches of rain in June.  The forecast is gloomy, depressing for farmers, resorters, golf courses, anyone living near water and those who planned a summer vacation on the water.  We can’t waterski, jet ski, even swim in some lakes.   The water table is at record highs.  Sewage has been pumped into several lakes to avoid flooding home basements of homes with sewage.  People I meet on my neighborhood walks with Buddy my Beagle are wearing frowns, lamenting the lack of summer, dreary dark rainy days and ruined gardens.  Summer swimsuits, rafts and camping gear are already at a 50% clearance sale.  School supplies are already in the stores!  

This is NOT the summer Minnesotans are entitled to have!  After our eternally long, freezing winter, we expected a glorious summer of sunshine and beach time.   The guys got our dock in early, the boats on lifts and covered, the screened porch and deck cleaned, lawn chairs out... we were ready to barbeque in May.  Then the rains came.   

I’ve seriously consided building an ark.    However, unlike Noah, I will NOT bring along 2 mosquitoes.  We already have too many biting critters on the standing water appearing on lawns and in new locations everywhere.  

However, I have to admit, today is a serene day on the dock.  The sun is out!  The sky is clear with fluffy clouds in the endless blue above me.  No rain is forecast, though the weekend will be brutal with heavy storms.  There’s a No Wake zone enforced on our lake so boats can only speed up to 5 mph.  Huge megacruisers drift along, crawling at speeds no faster than kayaks and canoes.  Sailboats are the fastest vehicle on the water today.  

Quiet and peaceful...  today feels perfectly serene as I relax with my coffee and newspaper on the deck early this morning.  As I read letters to the editor, several are recommending that June be a yearly NO WAKE zone holiday time every year.  The only noises in my neighborhood are barking dogs and construction workers building new homes nearby, their vehicles swamped in mud and puddles.

Golf courses have been forced to close in order that their greens will, hopefully, be preserved for sunnier days.  Resort owers and restaurants on the water must be hurt with loss of business this year.  Farmers are in dire straits.  Many can’t plant crops because the fields are drenched with rain: tractors would get stuck in the muddy furrows.  Prices will surely rise.  How are we supposed to eat healthy veggies and fruit if growers can’t produce crops?  

Walking the dog through the neighborhood, I see rolled up, stinky wet carpets waiting for the trash trucks to pick up and carry to some landfill.  In some instances, dry wall has been soaked and removed from basements.  Landscape companies are busier than ever.  Gardens and hanging baskets are soaked with rain.  No tomatoes will be growing in my neighborhood this summer unless they’re in individual pots sunning on a deck high above the lake.  Weeds are flowering wildly in my untended gardens, but I do see blooming yellow and orange lilies, white and yellow daisies, unidentified purple flowers and a takeover weed that looks just like white lace.  Even the weeds are blooming in purples, whites and yellow flowers with an invasive, trailing vine.

Since there is a No Wake zone in force, boaters are cruising our lake at 5 mph to avoid lakeshore erosion.  This year it will take hours to get anywhere, but slow cruises can be relaxing.  Maybe people will begin meditating on the water this summer rather than partying with loud, rollicking music blasting from giant speakers.  More and more fishermen are appearing in our Bay every day, hoping to catch the BIG ONE under our dock, which is filling up with lake weeds.  Finally fishermen don’t have to worry about getting their lines tangled with water skiiers or jet skis.  Recent news tell us that it may be late July or August before the lake is low enough to speed through the waves.  Until that time, Waterworld residents are enjoying peace and quiet.

Surely 2014 will be the summer we won’t forget.  May and June have had an overabundance of rain causing flooding, limiting summer celebrations.  I’m hoping July, August and September will bring Minnesotans the summer we’ve been dreaming about all winter long.   How will we entertain summer guests when they arrive expecting to have fun on the lake?  Come on, Mother Nature, get with the program!  We want; we need one of those fabulous Minnesota summers on the lake for at least a month!  981