Time to leave

Rainy day in November

A week ago I returned to the parklands of central Alberta, left behind – as always with a tinge of sadness- beach and forest, oyster shells and starfish, colourful foliage and colourful meals, putting, ferry by ferry, plane by plane, distance between myself and the island.

We were granted another whole week of decent fall weather, nights colder than they had been, down to -12 or -14, day temperatures hovering around the freezing mark, trees now all bare, grass tan and brown. Yesterday it felt like Chinook weather and got all the way up to +11, which made digging up the leeks a pleasurable task. There have been other years, years when I had to use all my force (and the digging fork’s leverage) to get this work done, hard frost having arrived much earlier, catching me unprepared.

Tonight I woke to the quiet whisper of rain on the metal roof – a nice sound, soothing, putting me right back to sleep. The rain continued, sometimes drizzle, sometimes pattering drops, for most of the morning, let up around noon, and returned in the middle of the afternoon. 

We drove for an hour to attend a going-away party for a German harvest helper, and on the way already the drops on the wind shield suddenly flattened out, clung and slid down reluctantly: this was a different kind of moisture. Fields on the side of the road showed a hint of white, and by the time we reached our destination it was snowing. When we left, sometime after nine o'clock, road conditions were decidedly poor, snow accumulating on the slippery highway, gravel roads softened by the rain and now slick with slush. I was glad to be home after a much longer drive than normal.

Sure enough, Environment Canada had caught on, too, as I found out when I looked at the weather forecast after our return:

Weather warning in effect.

Tonight

Periods of snow ending before morning then cloudy with 30 percent chance of flurries. Amount 5 cm. Wind becoming north 20 km/h after midnight. Low minus 5.

It is time to leave, and it seems we are leaving not a day too soon.

Tomorrow we will embark on another adventure. This time we are going to explore the Mayan ruins in southern Mexico and Guatemala, and the natural beauty of Costa Rica. My musings, then, will once again come from places 'away from the farm', and I will try and update them regularly.

Ever since I started reading adventure stories as a child I dreamed of the jungle and its mysteries. I can hardly believe that this dream is about to come true!