follies

We visited St. Pierre Jolys, a francophone community in a string of similar francophone communities about an hour from Winnipeg, this past weekend.
We missed the annual Frog Follies, where people can rent frogs pulled from nearby ponds and creeks and race them across a specially built enclosure for prizes.

We pulled into town just as the band was tuning up for Sunday night's social and, after that, avoided the lure of the sign on the local gift shoppe: "All frog merchandise 30% off!"

Instead, we vied with the white cabbage moths and wasps that have appeared in such profusion this year for space among the greenery, driving from community to community and cowering from the dump trucks full of gravel that pounded down the road that led from our B&B to the highway.



Once safely on the highway, we could rubberneck the swathers and combines (insectoid in their own way) that worked the fields, leaving behind stubble and warm round bales.

One night, the summer gasped and gave way, so much so that we reached for covers even while asleep, but during the day it was hot and bright, blowing out the details on many of the mid-day photos I wanted to take.

The image I'll take with me out of this summer, however, is from one of the few days it thunderstormed, when the man in the beat up pick up truck in front of me tranferred his home made cigarette to his other hand, rolled down the window and raised his rough hand, palm up, to the rain.