A time to embrace joys of our Indian summer

Country Living with Francis Farragher

Atime to thank God for small mercies as after a pretty dull and dank summer, we are at last on the receiving end of a little treat from Mother Nature, all the sweeter given that it was quite unexpected as we all started to gently moan about the evenings closing in and the onset of the winter season.

It’s been all brought about by a big area of high pressure that has nudged up from the Azores and taken lodgings over Ireland and the UK for at least a week or so, and we should get this weekend out of it too . . . just about. The secret of these little weather treats is to enjoy them as they happen and not to whinge incessantly that ‘we didn’t get it at the right time’ or that phrase that really captures true pessimism namely that ‘we’ll pay for this later’.

I’m inclined to be of the opinion that it really doesn’t work like that and much and all as we ‘get a bit of craic’ out of debating the virtue of forecasts that look months and seasons ahead, our weather is a kind of a volatile creature, maybe a bit like some high spirited ‘red heads’ we used to chase at carnivals years ago, who occasionally said yes to our amorous advances, but more often than not disappearing into the summer air without trace.

The common expression nowadays for a period of benign autumn weather is an Indian summer, although apparently a few years ago at the very crescendo of political correctness, there was reluctance in some quarters to use the term. That’s a lot of old rubbish for this is nothing derogatory about the term, that seems to be firmly rooted in the life and times of times of the North American Indian (oops, sorry Native Americans) and their farming way of life back the centuries.

Researchers have found references to Indian summers that date back to 1778 but it’s now a broad term referring to a benign spell of weather occurring during the later autumn period of October to November, so its usage for a fine spell in early September is a bit premature. Back in the 1700s and 1800s, its arrival along the seaboard of north-eastern America wasn’t just a little treat to be enjoyed by lying out in the sun, rather it was a critical period, in terms of gathering the autumn crops and storing up food for the bitterly cold winters that were to follow.

This is a region known for its particularly hot and humid summer seasons from June to September when long days in the fields would almost inevitably cause dehydration and quite severe doses of sunstroke leading to severe bouts of illness and even death on occasions.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.