A heady miasma of heat with the drone of summer, settles across the province these mid-August days. It's high summer in Nova Scotia. It's these days we hold close to our memories on the bitter, damp days of late January when the spell of Christmas has long since drifted away.
Cicada's buzz in the trees, the cat's are listless alternating between sun and puddles of shade that offer but only an illusion of coolness. The white sandy beaches crowd, though the people move in a thick soup across the scorching sand to the waiting and ever cool Atlantic ocean.
The air is almost still and the humidity pours through you and out again in rivulets of sweat. These torpid days are golden, just as the setting sun turns the surrounding green a soft yellowish hue. These are high summer days in Nova Scotia and we realize how special summer is, despite the heat we are not used to. The flowers in their fine full plumage, the grass tinged with brown. The ice cream shops will be bursting with giggling and laughing children vying for the most exotic of flavours and the biggest scoop possible please. Then darting their tongues as fast as they can to lap up the quickly melting treat!
Ovens remain shuttered in kitchens while BBQ's surge into life and steaks, hotdogs, hamburgers and chicken sizzle over their grills. Beer bottles pop and soda's for the kids are guzzled down in quenching gulps. A cool, fresh salad full of crisp vegetables from the Annapolis Valley farms or perhaps a chilled muscat chardonnay from Gaspereau Valley Winery to calm the palette?
Perhaps we enjoy these heady, hazy high summer days so much for they are so precious to us in January.
(Photo Credit: laszlofromhalifax)
