Columbus Day in the Tiny White Box in New Hampshire’s Great North Woods, a few miles from Canada, is, to my mind, supposed to be cold, windy and clear, visibility increased because most of the leaves have been blown off.  Not that more evidence was needed, but apparently my mind doesn’t work right.  Today is just-below-balmy at 70 degrees, the air is still and the trees still hold all their foliage.  Also, it’s raining.

Although I’ve been living here for six weeks now, today is the first day I’ve had to live with rain as a factor in the flavor of the day.  It began when Sam (is a dog) and I went for our morning walk, me wearing the North Face raincoat that got me through a week at Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.  The raincoat was very effective at keeping my head, shoulders and torso dry, but also efficiently transported all the water my upper body would have felt down to my pants and hiking boots.  Thus my shirt was kept dry from the outside, the heat made me sweat much more than Columbus Day should allow, soaking it from body outward.  Meanwhile, my pants were as soaked as if I’d swum away from an Alabama jailbreak, and my boots, waterproofing and all, had puddles in them by the time we got back.  (For the curious, I don’t know what percentage of the moisture was rain and what was foot sweat.  I didn’t want to spoil my appetite for breakfast by tasting the goo.)

Sam (is a dog) had it even worse, of course.  While he is a brave and noble creature, he appears to fear rain to begin with.  Since he’s a good-sized boxer-lab mix, there is humor to be found in his dainty dislike of rain.  I mean, I find humor there; Sam can get sullen if I make jokes about it.  After a 45-minute walk with water dripping off him most of the time, Sam’s coat was soaked.  Unfortunately, he can’t change into dry clothes the way I can, so, even after being toweled off, he carried the odor of wet dog for the rest of the day.

There are people staying at Warriors@45North, this being the second week of Cast and Blast, so called because of the overlap of fishing and hunting seasons here, so Sam and I spent a little time in the main cabin.  Unfortunately, Chief’s dog, Charlie, a 10-yea-old cocker has ruled this roost since he was a pup, and he finds Sam to be a usurper, and a particularly annoying one.  Given that Chief owns the property and Charlie owns wherever his eyes fall, Sam and I don’t typically spend more than a bit of time inside.

Still, the sun’ll come out tomorrow and someday soon I’ll curse yself for complaining about summer extending way into fall.