The Wisdom of the Country Boy

Sun streamers over the Northumberland Strait, taken from the River Philip bridge

My Nova Scotia Country Boy is full of sayings about the weather -- sayings that predict or forecast what's going to happen. I wrote about this a bit in my book but I didn't refer to everything he says, and I wasn't diligent about collecting them in the early years of our marriage. When I realized the forecast based on his sayings were usually right, I started to pay closer attention.

So Saturday morning, as I zoomed down the road to the Pugwash Farmers Market, I noticed sun streamers flowing down from the clouds.
According to the Nova Scotia Country Boy, "this is the sun drawing water," which means it's going to rain.
Well, there were a lot of streamers coming through the clouds and let me tell you, about seven thirty Saturday night, it poured rain. It's been hot and humid the last few days and we knew there was a thunderstorm-preceded break in the heat coming but we didn't expect the monsoon sideways rain that blew down for twenty minutes.
"Good think you watered the planters," said the boy, straight-faced.
(I did because they needed food. So there.)

He has another phrase, "Rain by seven, fine by eleven," that is always right -- until it wasn't on Canada Day. The statement means that if the rain ends by seven, it will be fine by eleven. On July 1st, it was raining at seven, it was raining at nine, and it was still raining at eleven o'clock!

Just found my little pile of papers on which I jot down his sayings:
"When the clouds make the sun look white, it's going to snow." It's definitely a winter-only saying -- with the humidex reaching 42 degrees yesterday, that is definitely not a "snow sun" in the photo posted above!

I love it when Dwayne talks country. When we're driving along and looking at what I think are simply sunbeams and he says, "The sun is drawing water," my heart contracts than expands like a balloon, filling with love for the transformation of the image in the sky before me and with even more love for this farm-raised, sky-gazing, river-running country boy.