Monday 4 July 2011

Macro Monday: Dog Days

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Okay, okay… I may have over-watered this plant just a bit…!

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In Sweden, according to old traditions, a period in July/August is called the “month of rot” (rötmånad). Before the days of fridges and freezers it was extra hard to keep food fresh that time of year. In English you call it the Dog Days, an expression which comes from the Romans, who associated the hot weather with Sirius,  the "Dog Star". (Last summer I wrote a post in my Harry Potter blog called Dog Days and Sirius Black. J.K. Rowling chose her names carefully.)

Anyway, this kind of hot, sultry weather is generally associated with strange and evil phenomena; not only causing food to go bad, but also responsible for all kinds of illness and madness among people and animals.

Here, after Midsummer, we first had a few days of heat wave with glaring sun; followed by the kind of weather that just feels kind of generally ominous. Mostly cloudy, but still rather warm, and humid. One keeps expecting thunder and lightning to break out any minute – but it doesn’t. It’s been like that for days now. It causes butterflies to seek out strange places to die (see my two posts on Saturday), tiny toadstools to shoot up in my potted plants, and me to feel like I’m “waiting for Godot”…

* It’s Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos *

7 comments:

  1. here in USA we are about to enter the dog days of summer, which is August and Sept. the heat wave comes and stays and it does make people do crazy things, there are more fights and domestic fights and in general much more mean mischief goes on when it is HOT. we have been for the past 5 days having the thunder and lightning you speak about. it is great to have the rain, it has rained every day for 5 days and we are so happy for it. also dog days are called that here because the hottest part of the summer is when rabies spreads through the animals. July/aug/sept are my least favorite months of the year here in Florida. aug/sept are the months we watch and wait for the hurricanes since that is when they come with their deadly wind and water. hurricanes love the dog days of summer best of all

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  2. You should be grateful for your weather nonetheless. Look up Mostar in your weather search, and you'll see what I have to deal with every day :D South Europe can be so hot these days.

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  3. I just commented (unusually) on Facebook that today had been a rare day in the Hebrides. Sunny and hot (18℃ - I'd be in winter woolies at that temp in NZ but here on Lewis I was wearing shorts in the garden all day) and perfect because, even though there was no wind, there were no midges.

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  4. What an odd little toadstool! Our weather has been like yours, only worse! We had to set off fireworks in the rain all evening long! We couldn't tell the firework booms from the thunder booms!

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  5. Thanks for posting such an interesting, informative blog. I enjoyed it very much.
    Here in Nara, weather is terrible. Nara is a basin surrounded by mountains, so heat can't be released.

    I understand very well July/August is called "the month of rot". In Japan, during midsummer many Shinto festivals have been held since ancient times. In tose days, there was no sewage system or water supply system, so water got rotten. Rotten water caused many diseases. To avoid being sick, people prayed the gods to ask help by holding festivals. Many of these festivals have survived even though the real meaning may be forgotten.

    When I wrote blog “From country of deer”, you left comment “the legend of the white deer because that seems to be world-wide”.I was inspired by your comment. Thanks a lot.
    Similar and familiar ideas in different cultures. How exciting and interesting!!

    Thanks again, have a great day!

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  6. We're into the Dog Days of Summer here for sure: July 3 to August 11. I'm hoping we'll get some rain tonight!

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  7. That look like a mushroom. ^_^ Living here in MI where a 70f is already too hot, it's unbearable when it gets to 90F and some days this week we migh reach this temperature. It would be nice if after a hot day at night it would rain the plants would be happy I guess and so the weeds ^_^

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