Canada is NOT the 'Great White North'

Without trying to offend anyone I gotta tell you, Canada is not the cold snowy tundra that a lot of people on this big blue marble thinks it is. In my area of this great land we have three seasons; winter, summer, and ridiculously stinking hot. But if you are anything like me, there IS a plus to the horror.

I live in what is essentially a pit created by either a meteor, or the lumbering, scraping, remnants of some gigantic icebergs from millions of years ago. I live in the bottom of that massive pit. Why am I telling you this? Because this pit, and more specifically, the actions that created it, did some pretty amazing things to the land.

First off, we have the Great Lakes. Really, 'nuff said. Cause how amazing are they?

Now for the good part, southern Ontario has some of the best soil in the world for agriculture, and more importantly to me, for grape growing. Rivaling the mucky mucks in France, California, Italy, and Australia we CAN grow pinot grapes and do quite well at it thank you very much. We truly do have some of the best wine in the world.

But because of this, Mother Nature has had to balance the scales between the good, and the bad. Why? She's Mother-Freaking-Nature I guess, I don't know why.

It is her sense of fairness, but not necessarily equity, that her wicked sense of humour has commanded "You will live in 7 to 9 months of cold every year, but in those precious few warm months I will make it so that some of the most wonderful wine can be extracted from grapes you shall grow. Grapes that other regions would die to have so readily grown'.

Thanks Mother Nature, but, now we gotta get to the humidity part of the program. 'Cause for me, the humidity is what drives me insane every summer.

Back to the bottom of the pit. And yes, I know I jump, but seriously, you gotta keep up with me 'cause if you think you are having problems with my writing, try talking to me for a while. So the pit...because of my geographic placement in Southern Ontario (the aforementioned pit bottom) that humidity is such a great concern. It's like the fricken rain forest in my backyard, and worse of all, my HOUSE. I think I may have even seen geckos running across my ceiling last night. Trust me, we have some wicked moisture issues in my home.

I have no central air. Just a bunch of ceiling fans. To coin a euphemism used quite often by my ex-husband; I am sweating my bag off in there. Figuratively, and I suppose literally, if we want to be cutesy about it. It's a hundred year old home, CA is not an option right now. Sweating rivers apparently is. Anyway...

I live in a humid, central-airless house, at the bottom of a pit with nothing but a few sad ceiling fans to move around the hot air. Is there any good to this blog at all Tina?

Damn straight! I get through the horror quite fine with some of the juiciest, chewiest, yummiest, red wines straight from my own area. Snowy Great White North? Yeah, trust me, only in my dreams.

~tm