Weather a hot topic in Duluth

You could not have been in Duluth these past few weeks and not talked about the weather. Not the normal stuff, but talk of floods and unrelenting heat and cool waters of Lake Superior rising to abnormal temperatures.

Everyone has a weather-related story, but none as gripping as mine, and yet this is the first time I will share it. It all revolves around our deck. You may not see the connection, but you will.

Every other year, the even ones, we water-seal the deck.

We hate this job. Often we argue whether it is the odd or even years we do this work. It is a clever plan to never get it done.

Anyway, as we are now seniors, we find that lifting the heavy deck furniture to the ground is daunting so this year we decided to just shift it from one side to the other and do half the deck one day and half another. Are you beginning to see what might be a weather connection?

We are ready, but notice there is rain predicted. We need a two-day window of dry weather to do this. Also, we always put on too much "stuff" so what should dry in 12 hours takes more time (in truth, often a year, before the tackiness is gone).

Here come the floods. We were unscathed in the storm and as we listened to the very heart-wrenching stories of others, we felt our deck issue should be kept to ourselves.

Finally, we have a day of dry weather. I go the hardware store to buy a new paint pad. The hardware man asked what I was doing and said, "Do you really think one day will dry out the wood from this storm?"

"Well, of course not!" I replied, and went home to ask my husband Alan, "Do you really think one day will dry out the wood on the deck?" Not wanting to do this under any circumstances, he was quick to say no, he did not.

Our window came and we accomplished Deck, Day One. Now, for the perfect two days for Phase 2. I have one thing to say. Never trust the weatherman.

We watched the weather reports as though it were our new religion. "Not today, 70 percent chance of rain." Sometime that day, a tiny little cloud tinkled on our deck. "Today would be a good day, only 20 percent chance of storms." We gathered our tools and moved the furniture and watched the sky darken as the rain poured down on us. This pattern continued for days.

Finally, we decided to just do it when the sky looked blue (a new method of predicting the weather.) It worked. We sweated some dark moments but had no rain. We waited the two days to move the furniture back and admired our efforts.

Our deck is ready. However, it has been way too hot to use it.

When you can grill food directly on the deck floor and the breeze off the lake is hot and the mosquitoes are fat and happy from the rain and the heat, the deck is not alluring.

We might use it this weekend, as the weatherman says it will be cold. Therefore, we know it will be perfect Duluth weather because we have learned to reverse what he says.

Yep, the deck is ready. That is our weather story!

Anne Scherer is the author of "When Lilacs Bloom" and has an opinion on everything. Just ask her.