Winter is coming and I have to say that given the volume of rainfall we experienced over the summer, I’m a bit nervous. What are we getting ourselves into here?

To say last summer was a washout is to belittle the term. The summer of ’23 was way beyond washout. They say 65 percent of statistics are made up on the spot but I’m saying that we’ve had 54 percent more rain this year than in any year since they began tracking it. Fifty-four percent more rain around here is like getting a little over half an extra order of fries tossed in your Five Guys bag down on Ulster Avenue. There’s already so many fries in there. How do they do that and stay in business? Now imagine another half order! It’s chaos.

I know that all these numbers are difficult to follow — hard science is confusing, after all — but look at it this way. Even if my completely made-up number is 50 percent wrong, that’s still a huge amount of rain. And what are the odds that I’m more than 50 percent wrong? Probably like three to one, which is like 33 percent, so that basically proves my point mathematically.

Now we Hudson Valley types are a hardy bunch. It’s going to take a lot more than extra rain to keep us down, but there were some real-world ramifications from all the wetness this summer. For one, everything was moist all the time, which meant we were using the word “moist” a lot more. Obviously, that is to be avoided. It’s an awful word that feels like it is extruded from your mouth rather than spoken. You just said it to yourself, didn’t you? And I’m right, aren’t I? It’s just gross. Another super-gross word is “slaw.” You have to cough up a little phlegm just to get it out. Slaw is also moist, which makes that just about the worst sentence I’ve ever typed. And you only eat slaw in the summer so … full circle.

Another problem with all of us being at Summer Damp 2023 is that with rain pretty much every day since April, nobody could cut their lawns. You don’t need a degree in Computational Physics to know that wet grass don’t mow. Your mower clogs. Your clippings clump up. Your grass ends up uneven or worse, your wheels start spinning in the mud, flinging your precious fescue and Kentucky Bluegrass blends all over the place. Also, once your riding mower is bogged down in a soupy mess, there is no way you’re getting it out without being peppered with muddy globules. The collective noun for mud is mire but I don’t think anyone has coined one for mud globules.

How about a “frustration”? So when your mower gets mired and you convince your 12-year-old to press the accelerator while you push from the back, you’re going to end up with a frustration of globules on your clothes and face. (See Exhibit A, the second photo accompanying this piece.)

On the plus side, those of us with gardens didn’t have to water much this year, although in my case I forgot that the watering system my wife spent days installing was set to automatic. Had I remembered then I would have turned it off back in April. Instead, for about three months at 6 a.m. each morning the sprinkler would turn on for an hour. Quite often just pouring more water onto the already sodden beds, resulting in a soupy, composty mess. Actually “sodden” is a pretty terrible word too. Sodden. It’s awful but also deftly appropriate.

Needless to say, I’m glad to be past the Summer of Sodden, a moist, slaw-filled hellscape that ruined my lawn, my gardening khakis, and half my planting beds. I’m now in the Autumn of Contemplation and Reflection where I prepare myself mentally and physically for what will undoubtedly be the Winter of Our Discontent. They say indigenous people had over 100 different words for snow, but if we get as much precipitation this season as we did last summer … well, those might all be curse words.