Am I the Only One that Remembers? It Always Rains in Calgary in August!

This morning when I woke up, I opened the blinds to see the sunny blue skies of Alberta for the first time in a week. Though we live in Calgary, you would have thought we were in Vancouver the way the rain started on Sunday, and I don't think it really ever stopped until now -- Friday morning.

We had a guest visiting from Delta BC, this week, and she felt right at home. But you know, as much as everyone complained about the "unseasonal" weather, I don't believe it was unseasonal at all. In fact, during the first week of August, I always expect it to rain. Quite a bit in fact... and it usually does.

The reason I've come to expect the rain in August, is in 2000, my husband and I got married. In, fact, we planned to have the wedding in our favorite place... our own back yard... quite literally. So, in the spring and summer of 2000, we spent all of our heart, soul, time, energy and money getting the yard ready for the big event. That meant building a fence, landscaping, painting the deck, painting the fence, planting gardens, fertilizing, mowing, and grooming the lawn... and planning where the bar was going to be ;)

When you have that much renovation and yard work to do, you tend to pay very close attention to what the whether is about to do. Because the minute you open a can of paint and dip the brush in the can you can be almost certain a big black storm cloud is about to sneak up where you least expect it.

So here's what I've learned from the summer of 2000 in Calgary...

Number 1. Never try to paint the deck in June. June is when we get most of the rain in Calgary that we'll see all year long.

Then, for ten days in July, there's the Calgary Stampede. This, as you may know, is when business people trade in dress suits and ties for jeans and Cowboy boots so they can kick up their heels, and line up for pancake breakfasts. The first day of Stampede is a bit of a crap shoot... there's always speculation as to whether or not it's going to rain on the Stampede Parade. Then after that, it's usually hot and sunny with an evening thunder storm each and every night just to cool things down, and make the track good and muddy for the Chuckwagon races.

The rest of July is smooth sailing, with wide open blue skies, and beautiful sunsets. Time for drinking fresh lemon-aide, and finding a spot on one of the modest, but very accommodating beaches in one of the Lake Communities in Calgary.

The end of July is the real kicker... in my humble experience, usually the hottest temperatures of the season. Oh go ahead... ask me why I know... Because on July 29^th, my wedding day, it was 34 degrees Celsius! That's 93 degrees in Fahrenheit... Here in Canada, that's Hot! And it was a good thing too... because if it would have rained, we had absolutely NO Plan "B." The wedding went off without a hitch, and so did the wine. All through our 5:30pm ceremony, you could hear the pop, pop, pop, of corks launching like tiny rockets out of the wine bottles that had been set out on the dinner tables just a bit too soon for the heat. It turned out to be a great day though, with good friends, family, and dancing at a lovely hot garden party.

3 Days after our wedding... it started to rain. And rain. And rain. It rained so much in Calgary that week, that when you walked on the perfectly green lawn that we had so lovingly manicured, the water squished under your feet. The "Dinner Plate" Dahlias drooped and eventually began to tip over with the weight of the water. And that is how I've always come to expect rain... in the first week in August.

If you have any questions about living in Calgary Alberta and it's wonderful Lake Communities, or you'd like to view Calgary Homes For Sale, Call Bernice Dubon at 403-607-9117 or visit YourHomeInCalgary.com