This has been an atmospherically peculiar spring and summer.  We started out with extraordinarily hot days quite above normal in temperature, spurring local flora to respond with precipitate alacrity; fruit trees began putting out their blossoms at an unusually early date.  Unfortunately, the heat was followed by a last-of-the-season frost, interrupting the maturing process and killing the blossoms.

The summer months of June and July were without moisture.  The days were extremely hot, even humid, but no rainfall came along to water growing things.  Farmers put out the alarm, and urban gardeners were only too well aware of how parched the soil had become.  Corn failed to mature as it should, refusing, through lack of rain, to advance to the stage of growing the cobs of corn.  They were sterile, stunted and represented an utter crop failure.  Other crops were not far behind.

In the City of Ottawa, which draws its water from the Ottawa River, an unending source of supply, residents were encouraged to water their lawns, their trees, their gardens in favour of restoring them rather than allowing them to dry to the point of loss.  The drought was causing the landscape to become a fire hazard, and wildfires did break out in powder-keg dry areas within the city, sending out fire crews battling them day after day.

And then, August brought rain back to us.  With day after day of sometimes-violent downpours rumbling through the area.  Some of which were violent enough to knock out power to substantial residential areas which in some instances took days to restore.

It was only on the week-end, driving along the Queensway, heading west, and deliberately scanning the views on either side of the highway, that we could finally see the long-term effect of the drought on the urban landscape.  The grass had returned to its green, from its dormant state, but many trees had failed to survive.  Those were, without doubt, trees that had already been impacted by a poor state of health which the drought built upon, passing the final blow to their existence.

The stark, black leafless limbs of dead trees among the green and thriving, a sombre reminder of how dependent we and all living things on our immediate environment.